Radeon 6770M 1GB vs 2GB

HP has finally upgraded the quad core Pavilion d6t to a 1920x1080 display which moved it into my category of notebooks worth considering (before that it was only 1366x768 which is silly for that kind of machine). Together with that upgrade, they also got a few new features including the option to upgrade the GPU from a 6770M with 1GB to a 6770M with 2GB for $50.

Is this a worthwhile upgrade? There have been tests done of cards that differ only in memory and there is a noticeable difference in some games with 2GB (particularly if you crank up the anti-aliasing), but will that be the case with the 6770M? The desktop 5870 in that article has nearly 4 times the processing power and nearly 3 times the memory bandwidth so I'm bit skeptical about the 6770M's potential to even fully use those 2GB.

 

IMO if you're getting the 1080p display might as well get the 2GB just in case since you do have a higher res and newer games like Witcher 2 do make use of whatever vram you may have. If it was just the 1366x768 res then 1GB is fine.

 

Meh, even for 1080p I am not sure it's worth it.

 

I think that oh, about a million or so things is going to bottleneck performance in games like the witcher 2 before the 1gb vram does.

 

Correct me if I wrong but a card like that wouldn't even be able to fully utilize 2GB of VRAM anyways. I'm not even sure the 6970M needs that much. It's like those integrated chips that advertise they can allocate some huge amount of memory if needed, but in actuality it would be impossible/useless due to the fact their architecture just makes them so terribly underpowered.

 

1GB is the "sweet spot" even with a high performance GPU. There are diminishing returns above 1GB unless you're running a resolution greater than 1920x1200. Then that's where SLI or Xfire come in usually to get the greatest benefit.

For mobile GPU's 2GB is overkill. My GTX 485m, which is really the top end mobile GPU at the moment, still can't make use of its full 2GB.

 

Thanks. I also thought the mid-range cards couldn't use the 2GB, but wanted to make sure.

 

The cards tested in the link you provided are 3 or 4 times the speed of the 6770M, and even then, the 2GB only came into play at 2560x1600 w/ 8xAA.

The 6770M would be unplayable by the time you reached settings where the 2GB came into play.

 

There is no chance it will benefit you at all.
These people are marketing geniuses!

 

Dell is doing the same thing, but worse. 1,5gb 555m vs a 3,0gb version (100$ diff), and there's a ton of people choosing the 3gb "just in case", so it is effective & profitable.

 

The majority of the mobile cards can't even use 1gb of vram, let alone any more than that. Most I have ever seen my card use was 858mb on DOW II once, and I play @ 1920x1200 all the time.

As the others have said it is just a marketing ploy.

 

take 2GB, if you will use FHD. 1.5GB MAX!! but if you have to choose between those, take 2GB

 

You recommend 2GB, while providing zero reason to back it up.

But then again, you chose a 3GB card, so maybe you should be ignored anyway.

 

Really? I've got a 5760x1080 setup on my desktop with only 2GB of VRAM, and I can crank pretty much everything to the max.

A mobile 6770 will run out of juice MUCH before it will run out of memory. Anything more than 1GB is a waste of money. The kind of advice you give is why companies put those silly amounts of VRAM on their systems, because they know someone will think it's better. 2GB of VRAM with that chip is just as useful as a spoiler on a Honda Civic. It doesn't actually do anything, it just costs more.

 

This is my opinion, because I was playing many games, and I can see that the new games, with 1GB, not enough.... (for example GTA IV with MAXED settings and FHD...)

 

Any card capable of maxing GTA IV would be capable of using an unusually high amount of VRAM anyways, I don't see how this is related to this specific scenario.

 

And it's my fact, not opinion, that your GT555 can't utilize all of it's 3GB, even if the program wanted to.

 

With the 30% off coupon it's a $35 upgrade. That might be worthwhile just so you can put it in your sig and have people criticize you for wasting money.

 

QFT. It is just a gimmick like that spoiler on a Civic. You won't go any faster with the spoiler than without it.

 

In fact, much like a spoiler on a car raising your fuel consumption, the ram likely wont OC very well.

 

Thank you all. Glad that I went with the 1GB 6770m instead of the 2GB 6770m, and saved $50 in the process (money that would go to an SSD later).

 

I was also thinking of getting the 2 GB 6770M just because of GTA 4 and its other expansion series. I think they use a lot of VRAM with high settings and those shadows on. But I will be playing at 1366 x 768
A bit confused now!

 

To simplify:

Unless you are running higher than 1080p (like triple monitor or 2560x1600 30") any GPU can't utilize more than 1GB VRAM to cause any performance degradation, period. Take into account the comparatively anemic performance of a mid-range mobile GPU, 1GB is even overkill, and you can't really drive that resolution with that card anyhow, unless you want a slide show.

Case in point, the nVidia GTX 570 desktop card has 1.28 GB RAM and it has zero bottlenecks because of it, no need for more.

 

It actually does: Conclusion - AMD 6970/6950 CFX and NVIDIA 580/570 SLI Review | [H]ard|OCP

The 570 is limited on the level of AA that it can do, and it's not limited by the amount of GPU horsepower. It's the same reason the Radeon 6990 can run at higher settings than the Nvidia 590... it's got more RAM.

But back on topic, the 6770M won't run into that, like the rest of your post said. It'll be a slideshow before you can use that much RAM, and the memory controller isn't fast enough to efficiently access that large of a pool of memory usefully anyway.

 

Yeah, its always important to remember that all that matters is the weakest link, thats where you die.

 

Thanks. Everywhere I read on the internet that 1 GB of VRAM is not enough for GTA 4. People supposedly get some 'texture pop-ins' if VRAM is less. The VRAM usage exceeds 1GB with high settings and then rest will be used from RAM (if you force it to). That will make it slow I guess. I really didnt want to compromise on the performance of GTA 4 and its DLC packs. Thats why the doubts!

 

Those people are probably running desktop rigs at high resolution with video cards that are much faster than the laptop card.

 

Indeed.
For gaming at high resolutions (say 1080p), a high end gpu with 1GB VRAM (preferably GDDR5) is more than enough.
2GB is a waste of money as others mentioned because the gpu won't be able to use any more than 768MB in an effective manner.

The manufacturers simply should have improved the existing gpu's bandwidth with better bus or even faster VRAM, but as usual, they find it 'better' to install 2GB of VRAM onto a gpu and call it faster.
It's cost-ineffective and completely stupid.
Morons.

 

That review was discussing SLI at 5760x1200 though. I run a single 1920x1200 display and have never seen a need to run higher than 4xAA at native, usually makes little to no difference in visual acuity to me. All the benchmarks I've been reading the 6970 and 570 tend to run neck and neck, actually 570 faster in many games at 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. I'm considering one of the two for a new desktop build, and so far have been leaning towards the 570. Although I was a bit confused why they didn't make it at least 1.5GB.

 

Stick with 1gb. There are very very few scenarios where more than 1gb yield any benefits and the 6770M won't able to display a decent amount of fps long before you encounter these situations. By the time you find games that can use 2gb in medium settings your Radeon 6770M will long be utter crap anyway.

Anyway you don't wanna waste $50. Furthermore you don't want to encourage manufacturers to put 3gb memory on mainstream mobile GPUs for pure marketing goals when for the same amount of cash they could actually improve performance sticking with 1gb but putting GDDR5 instead of wasting it on more of that crap, bandwidth crippling DDR3.

 

What about something like crysis, that you can turn off streaming and have the whole level preloaded into memory, wouldn't a game run quicker and smoother if the information was taken from the hard drive and sat into vram? Maybe im totally off base.

 

Oh well.

I have returned the previous configuration. And I got the 1080p upgrade plus the 2GB GDDR5 overkill video card for an extra $200. I don't know how that math adds up, but I don't think I'm going to change it.

And if they try to screw me on the difference for the exchange, I'll just show them the chat log and cause a stink. Once again, I must wait for new laptop.

 

Well congrats on spending $50 on a useless feature, you did just what the geniuses in marketing departments expect from you. Nvm that even 4-5 times more powerful high-end desktop GPUs barely use their 1gb memory.

 

In the desktop GPU realm, the 6950 1GB does just as well as the 2GB version at 1920x1080 resolution; only above 1080 resolution does the card see any sort of a performance hit. There is absolutely no reason that you should pay extra for VRAM over 1GB on a mobile GPU that will not see resolutions over 1920x1080. This doesn't even take into account the fact that the 6870 and GTX 560 Ti are both GPUs with "only" 1GB VRAM and kick the crap out of any mobile GPU on the market.

The extra VRAM is a waste of money. Go for the 1GB version.

 

I can see 2GB on an SLI 485M setup or 6970M Xfire making sense but that's about it.

 

This is not about how much the GPU can utilize. That's nonsense. A GPU can utilize it's full memory buffer if needed.

The point is the GPU is not powerful enough to see a performance hit due to lack or memory. The GPU performance of the GPU will suffer way before memory becomes a concern.

Resolution and AA both benefit from the memory but not in the sense they give you more frames but in the sense they don't reduce your performance too much when enabling them.

 

And they couldn't add backlit keyboard? really?...

Also, which Intel wifi cards are being used?

 

Well, if a flagship desktop card such as a GTX 580 only has 1.5GB of RAM, I see no reason for a notebook GPU to have more RAM than that as it is much more likely to run into shader/architectural bottlenecks than the GTX 580. And even the 580 doesn't exactly run into RAM restrictions (ok maybe a few but still, that's minority).

 

Who has 2GB video ram and Oblivion?
Install Quarl's texture pack, then enable console by setting bAllowConsole to 1 in your oblivion.ini
In the console type:
setdebugtext 13
tdt

Take a screenshot, then install more texture packs.

 

Or you could just tell us what you're going for here.

 

I want to see how much vram can be used, whether it will approach 2 gb based on real evidence and not some hearsay.

 

AnandTech - AMD?s GTX 560 Ti Counter-Offensive: Radeon HD 6950 1GB & XFX?s Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition

See how little the 6950 has as an advantage and what settings are needed for it to show. Now consider the 6770M is a lot weaker.

 

Who cares how weak the gpu is. Its resolution and texture size etc that more video memory helps. Doesnt matter what the gpu is, none of them will use more then 1gb at 1080p, because at that res, you don't need it. But like anything else, and why they sell monster cables, people want peace of mind and not think they are missing something.

 

How weak the GPU is matters, first and foremost, because that alone proves that the 2GB will never come into play, regardless of resolution or texture size.

The discussion is dead and done, right there.

 

LOL... peace of mind. Well, I guess it's true, there's a sucker born every minute. You can have a million dollars if you can prove in a blind test that monster cables are definitely better than a "normal" <$5 cable, yet it hasn't been claimed in all the years since it's been out...

 

I saw that the dv6 now had a free blu-ray player, and an option to upgrade to 2GB and 1080p, so I decided to return my dv7 that had mediocre build quality and was probably too big for college use. I upgraded to 2GB (but didn't bother with the 1080p) because I was really hoping ( no matter how unlikely) that it was two 6770s instead of just a memory increase and the coupon was about to expire, so I accepted the $35 risk. It is good to inform others about its uselessness, but many are willing to pay $35 to state that they have 2GB of VRAM. My only suggestion is to 'take it easy' on those that got the essentially useless extra GB;really, aren't many of us guilty of excessive/non-essential purchases? There is not much of a difference between bragging about 2GB and having a stylish design; they are both non-essential and in the 'eyes of the beholder'.

 

Lol. Sorry but you can't expect many people to take you seriously after telling us that you thought you'd get a Radeon 6770M Crossfire in your HP notebook for $35.

I realize however that most of the time it's not the uneducated buyer's fault. It just succeeds in making me and many people angry because most mainstream mobile GPUs still use DDR3 memory instead of GDDR5 and performance suffers because DDR3 essentially cuts the chip's bandwidth in half. Now it's understandable because DDR3 is less expensive, but NOT when you put a completely useless 3gb of that crap like I've seen on some Nvidia chips, when 1gb of fast GDDR5 would improve performance and cost as much if not less.

 

^^^^^ THIS

I never understood that either. Why should laptop makers spend money on something that is utterly useless when it could go towards something to improve overall performance. It's too bad it's preying on consumer's ignorance instead of offering something better.

 

production costs, tdps thresholds, sales revenue, the list goes on....

 

I suspect 1GB of GDDR5 is cheaper than 3GB of DDR3. It will be a bit more power hungry however.

It would affect power circuit design, heatsink size and possibly the power brick if you are riding close to your TDP budget.

It will be interesting with Intel moving to 15W as the standard CPU power consumption if we will get machines of similar size today with the same total TDP but allowing another 10-20W for the GPU.