Impressed with RX 460 overall.

[rruff]

And as you both are unable to present any evidence, I don't need to do that either (besides I already did it).

I didn't know it was necessary to show evidence of the obvious. A quick google search: https://www.hardwareunboxed.com/rx-460-4gb-vs-2gb-vram-benchmark-is-more-better/

RX 460 2GB vs 4GB:
"Regardless of the test system used what we can walk away knowing is that for the most part the RX 460 is going to deliver the exact same performance with either 2GB or 4GB of VRAM, in over 90% of the games out there.

Games such as The Witcher 3, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto V, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Far Cry Primal, Batman Arkham Knight and Star Wars Battlefront for example all played exactly the same on both the 2GB and 4GB RX 460 models.

Most of these games were tested with the average frame rate well below 60fps. This means those targeting 60fps with even lower quality visuals certainly won’t find a performance difference between these cards.

Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate are examples of games that do see a slight performance advantage in favor of the larger 4GB card, though both were tested with averages south of 60fps and in neither case was the 2GB model noticeably slower."

 

[Kanan]

I did present you evidence back in post #35 but you misunderstood the graphs as shown by your post #36.

I didn't misunderstand anything. I think you misunderstand many things, though.

You do realize RX 470s 4GB are available for $150? Someone with a very limited budget should get the 2GB but someone ready to spend $15 for so low improvement might as well get the RX 470 for a little more.

Prizes vary all the time, but mostly, double GB variants on low budget cards are only a tad more expensive, so it's still a long shot from the RX 470. Also you're only talking about US probably. What about other countries, you know, those out of US, if you care to know them?

"every time I present more evidence", this is what is laughable, you do realize you posted one single link and a translation of the link? You also don't seam to realize that I'm not "going for more excuses" but I'm actually saying the same thing since the beginning.

Copying what I said and using it against me won't help you. No, it's one link to the graphs and then a translation for the End Word on another page. So that're two links.

@rruff : Sorry I don't care about websites I don't know and therefore don't trust. I'll stick to my informations.

 

[rruff]

@rruff : Sorry I don't care about websites I don't know and therefore don't trust. I'll stick to my informations.

It just happens to be the only site that directly addresses this issue!

 

[Kanan]

It just happens to be the only site that directly addresses this issue!

I don't change my principles just because of one silly discussion.

Edit: I looked at it and didn't find any frame variance proof. That's not even useful. Look at what I provided, it's much more in-depth.

 

[rruff]

Edit: I looked at it and didn't find any frame variance proof. That's not even useful. Look at what I provided, it's much more in-depth.

They did average, 1%, and .1% frame time on every game.

 

[m&m's]

I didn't misunderstand anything. I think you misunderstand many things, though.

I looked at it and didn't find any frame variance proof. That's not even useful.

Another proof that you clearly don't understand the graphs.

Now educate yourself:

Prizes vary all the time, but mostly, double GB variants on low budget cards are only a tad more expensive, so it's still a long shot from the RX 470. Also you're only talking about US probably.

I only used USD because this is what is mostly used (reviews, articles). Here even if the prices aren't the same, the difference between each is pretty much the same. Yes the difference can be greater in some countries, but I still wouldn't recommend the 4GB version over the 2GB unless prices were near identical.

What about other countries, you know, those out of US, if you care to know them?

I myself am not from the US so...

Copying what I said and using it against me won't help you.

Well I'm trying to show you how ridiculous are some of the things you say.
You can't write "every time I present more evidence" when you only have 1 post with so called "evidence". You're lying to yourself here.

 

[Kanan]

Let's make it short and final: I don't care about your statements. You ignore 80-90% of my arguments (like a troll would do), and therefore I'm gonna stay with my opinion at a 100% and end this discussion now for good. Have a nice day, byebye.

 

[MrGenius]

RX 460 2GB vs. RX 460 4GB = Turd vs. Polished turd

 

[Filip Georgievski]

Wow didnt think my thread will cause soo much hostility among fellow TPUers.

As i said, im not that familiar with new hardware, but just by looking at the price vs performance on the Sapphire RX460 4GB Nitro, im preety impressed myself.

To put my 2 cents in this argument, i do think the 2GB version would be slower, since most of the newer AAA titles use more than 2GB VRAM on 1080p or higher resolution.

So to close this out, ill ask and admin to please close this thread, cause i do not wish this fight to continue.

 

[phanbuey]

seriously....

for the money that computer can make a pretty sweet gaming rig. I am glad you're (or your friend is )enjoying it.

 

[hrp32]

Wow didnt think my thread will cause soo much hostility among fellow TPUers.

As i said, im not that familiar with new hardware, but just by looking at the price vs performance on the Sapphire RX460 4GB Nitro, im preety impressed myself.

To put my 2 cents in this argument, i do think the 2GB version would be slower, since most of the newer AAA titles use more than 2GB VRAM on 1080p or higher resolution.

So to close this out, ill ask and admin to please close this thread, cause i do not wish this fight to continue.

I didn't intend to fight really.
All I wanted to say was that it is not a great card but I think getting 2GB cards is a bad choice these days let alone the future.

And I just wanted to share some screenshots with vram usage that's all :

GTAV :

FarCry4 :

Assassin's Creed Syndicate :

 

[Smanci]

I didn't intend to fight really.
All I wanted to say was that it is not a great card but I think getting 2GB cards is a bad choice these days let alone the future.

And I just wanted to share some screenshots with vram usage that's all :

A bit of a rookie mistake there mate. Reserved amount still isn't an accurate representation of how much the game requires. I tested 2GB and 4GB variants of Asus Strix 960 for example in GTA V at 1440p, and the 4GB model happily reserves 3,4GB while 2GB version does with roughly half of that, 1600-1900MB.

2GB is definitely limiting factor in a card at least than twice as fast as the 460. With one 460.. Nah.

 

[Filip Georgievski]

A bit of a rookie mistake there mate. Reserved amount still isn't an accurate representation of how much the game requires. I tested 2GB and 4GB variants of Asus Strix 960 for example in GTA V at 1440p, and the 4GB model happily reserves 3,4GB while 2GB version does with roughly half of that, 1600-1900MB.

2GB is definitely limiting factor in a card at least than twice as fast as the 460. With one 460.. Nah.

I can agree with most of this, however, not having enough VRAM is worse than having more VRAM than the GPU can handle.
This means that even if the chip performance is not up to the task, it will still give its max performance if it has enough VRAM to handle a game.
On the other hand, take a GTX 1080 and slap only 2 GB of VRAM, and it wont be able to run 90% of AAA games on 1080P, not to mention higher, cause of the limitation the low VRAM gives it.
That is why the GTX 1080 has F...ING 8GB GDDR5X VRAM HOLY CRAP. Cause it is meant to handle 4K, which requires HUGE AMOUNT OF VRAM to run properly.
The RX460 4GB is a great budget card for 1080p gaming. As far as I saw, all games that we installed, were set to high or ultra settings on default, and the GPU ran them fine (40 - 60FPS range).
That is not bad for a 100$ card (in my country costs 150$ cause of tax and stuff) with 4GB VRAM.

PS: The GTX 960 was also in a similar situation just like the RX 460.
Gamers bought eather 4GB version or GTX 970, while casual players got the 2GB variant, just for CS:GO, LOL, DOTA2, WOW etc.

 

[EarthDog]

What seems to be missed here by some is that it's more hitching and such than a frame rate drop when it has to swap out. The more it's has to swap the more hitching you are going to see, texture pop, etc...

 

[hrp32]

Reserved amount still isn't an accurate representation of how much the game requires.

There's a VRAM usage bar in the game settings section. You mean even the game engine itself is lying or cannot estimate how much VRAM is going to be needed?

I don't really know how to say this anymore...

 

[vanyots]

What everyone here oversees is that most review sites test with the latest and greatest CPU, MB and RAM. It's not the same to swap between VRAM and RAM on PCIe 3.0(8x at that for RX 460) with DDR4 and on Sandybridge PCIe 2.0 with DDR3-1333.

 

[Smanci]

There's a VRAM usage bar in the game settings section. You mean even the game engine itself is lying or cannot estimate how much VRAM is going to be needed?

I don't exactly know how the game estimates it but common live monitoring programs tell nothing. If it says 2,7 gigs but game runs the same on a 2GB gpu and 4GB gpu it's unable to accurately tell you how much is needed.

 

[Vya Domus]

Although it is possible for game engines to use system memory when there isn't enough VRAM this hardly ever happens , most engines simply swap in and out things like textures more often long before it gets to the point when system memory must be used.

 

[rruff]

What seems to be missed here by some is that it's more hitching and such than a frame rate drop when it has to swap out. The more it's has to swap the more hitching you are going to see, texture pop, etc...

Actually it isn't. I linked a comprehensive test earlier of the RX 460 2GB vs 4GB and they didn't experience *any* frame drop difference in 90% of the games. And in the ones they did, FPS was too low in both cards, ie a semi intelligent person would have naturally made the problem disappear by reducing settings to gain FPS.

Can you *make* frame drops be a problem on a 2GB RX 460? Maybe, in ~10% of games. Does it ever *need* to be a problem? No! You can easily make it go away.

If the extra 2GB was free then of course, why not. But often people pay half way to the next tier for more vram that literally makes no difference at all 90% of the time.

 

[eidairaman1]

Gpu ram is only to prevent having to refer to main system ram, so I'm thinking if games are properly coded they will keep the gpu ram filled, as images are rendered the code from the rest of the system fills the gpu ram. As data is going out data is coming in.

Most people are arguing that 4GB isn't enough now...

The user of the card is happy so who cares.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I think what most people forget is just because a game says for instance that its using 3.5 GB of vram doesn't mean its ACTUALLY using it.

Most modern games will budget VRAM and if their is more available it will cache textures data it needs to the extra frame buffer. In some cases this reduces stutter / hitching or helps mitigate or eliminate texture pop-in etc. However in many situations the extra usage also can contribute fuck all nothing.

Of course its normally better to have a larger VRAM buffer as newer games make better use of the extra space. Example you may have 4GB buffer game might only need 1500 MB but it might utilize 2.2-2.3GB to store extra textures and data. A good example in this regard would be the "Cells" in Bethesda's games those Cells contain a shit ton of data. By being able to keep that extra data in memory your less likely to see mass pop-in. That said actual VRAM usage vs perceived VRAM usage is entirely different.

In the case of the RX460 in terms of its raw performance the 4GB buffer is likely a mixed bag in some cases it will be a benefit in others it will not. The sad fact is its shader count and pure performance doesn't add up to really needing 4GB buffer. At just 896 Shaders its firmly a 2GB card 99% of the time vs say the RX470 at 2048 Shaders. If the RX460 had around 1500 shaders I could see 4GB being a sweet spot and and i could AMD pushing an RX450 as the 896 shader part however they instead did this weird halfassed approach with a 2gb 460 and 4gb 460 that just doesn't add up all that well.

 

[Filip Georgievski]

Card continues to impress me.
At my friends house right now.

Running Witcher 3 and AC Syndicate at High settings with AA off - and again 40 to 60 frames with 50 being the avarage to both games.

 

[Kanan]

Actually it isn't. I linked a comprehensive test earlier of the RX 460 2GB vs 4GB and they didn't experience *any* frame drop difference in 90% of the games. And in the ones they did, FPS was too low in both cards, ie a semi intelligent person would have naturally made the problem disappear by reducing settings to gain FPS.

Can you *make* frame drops be a problem on a 2GB RX 460? Maybe, in ~10% of games. Does it ever *need* to be a problem? No! You can easily make it go away.

If the extra 2GB was free then of course, why not. But often people pay half way to the next tier for more vram that literally makes no difference at all 90% of the time.

Can you see the future? No!

hahaha

Can you give me my money back because the card has way less reselling value, because no - fucking - body wants a 2 GB card in future? No!

I could continue this forever. Whole reason why I dropped this. I bet the truth lies in the middle, in the end the sweet spot could very well be **3 GB** of Vram and not 2 nor 4. That's the big joke. So, what does this mean? Pay the 15 extra bucks (lol) and get the real card. And then unlock the 128 extra shaders to offset any moot arguments that say the card is not strong enough. Essentially another joke, because Texture amount has nothing to do with performance of a freaking GPU. This was stated on this forum a zillion times already, this is also why I didn't say it until now. It bores me to hell to say it again. By now the Team "2 GB" is only discussing this, because they cannot be assed to be wrong, but they are wrong anyway, I'm still 100% sure.

 

[kn00tcn]

ITT: some people that dont use low ram cards & people that think allocation amount means required amount... this very TPU has reviews showing modern call of duty games using high amounts on a titan, proving that if it's available, engines will use it, not that they require it

Why did you bring textures in the equation? It has no link to what I said. Doesn't matter if textures affect or not the performance, the RX 460 chip is too slow to run AAA titles on High-Ultra settings so whether it has 2GB or 4GB doesn't matter at that point so you'd have to lower the settings which would lower the VRAM usage which put the 2GB and the 4GB version even more on par with each other.

you really dont know why i brought up the thing that uses the most vram into the equation about vram usage?

i never said you'd run ultra settings, but if you're going to be on low(ered) settings, you can still enjoy high quality textures because there isnt a massive performance drop... unless you're out of vram, bingo!

this is the problem with reviews & benchmarks, they stick to presets (except for hardocp's 'best playable settings'), but pc gaming & all the options people want mean you have the choice to lower settings or lower resolution or mix settings however you want to hit a performance target you want on the hardware you have

i am reiterating how important it is for the engine to not suck, i played bf1 beta on a 570m, that's 1.5gb vram, at 1080p but render scale reduced to gain fps (native didnt appear to be thrashing though), certainly not at total minimum settings either

if the engine is streaming data intelligently, low vram should only result in awkward fading between texture resolutions... but if the engine is crap that requires too much to be stored at all times, then that's when you're out of vram & you cant enjoy higher textures

i also ran blackops3 beta & siege beta on a 660, aka the uneven memory speed issue before people noticed in 970, i always see games top out at 1.5gb usage, even more interesting is that i ran those betas on 4gb ram, so i was at the limit at all times, starting a video recording in fraps or AB resulted in extreme freezing

 

[hrp32]

I think what most people forget is just because a game says for instance that its using 3.5 GB of vram doesn't mean its ACTUALLY using it.

I don't think it works that way. I tried running different games on higher settings with 2GB cards and the game engine gives a warning or just simply don't allow that. This proves it is not the reserved thing that you and some others say.
You are saying the game itself has no idea how much VRAM is going to be needed or maybe just lying?

Of course you may be able to force the game engine to exceed your card's available amount of VRAM but you get approximately 10-15fps and your GPU usage falls significantly.

To summarize :

First some people said there's no performance difference between 2GB and 4GB cards. That's right because there's no difference between 2GB and 4GB cards when you set the game settings on lowest. You are not even filling 2GB of VRAM on both cards. I prefer 30fps with medium-high settings to 60fps with the lowest possible settings:

Then again some people said monitoring softwares are not accurate and I'm telling the game engine itself estimates the required amount of VRAM.

Then again people said the game is just reserving VRAM! They mean even the game engine's VRAM usage bar indicates the reserved amount of VRAM that never be used!

Again people said the GPU is too slow to use more than 2GB of VRAM. I shared my screenshots proving while games use about 3.5GBs of VRAM I'm getting 30fps and I think it's enough for many people.

Again people said 2GB is just enough for now. What I say is let's pretend they're right but what about the near future?



I think some people just don't want to admit and that's OK.