Dear Sam [3GB GTX 580]

[MiRai]

This was a quick screen shot I took a few nights ago after getting the card while screwing around on my 4 DK's. Their video
settings are almost identical and they are a mix between high and medium settings with the main window at 4x Multisampling.



While the CPU info is slightly irrelevant I didn't feel like loading up a team at the moment just to setup another screen shot.
Prior to taking the shot I had rode around Stormwind numerous times making sure everything was nice and loaded up into the
video memory. I would take a shot in a more intense scene but my characters have just been reactivated and they're all too
low level to do anything exciting. As a reference, I just rolled 5 Mages and while questing with them out in the world the GPU
doesn't break 35% load.

I would say the card is unnecessary for 5 boxing and the 1.5GB model would do just fine but for $100 more I figured "WTF?"
I also picked this card up in order to future proof for the day that I may just end up 10 boxing on a single machine with ease.

EDIT:
I finally setup a video settings macro that dynamically changes when I swap windows and it seems that questing in the low-
level zones keeps me hanging around 1.3GB which is where I'd like to be giving me plenty of unused video memory to add
in another five copies of WoW should I choose to in the future.

[Shodokan]

good info man, i might pick one up.

[Bollwerk]

Am I misunderstanding something, or doesn't GPU-Z say it's using 2.5GB of video ram?
Doesn't that seem to make a case FOR a 3GB card?

[MiRai]

Am I misunderstanding something, or doesn't GPU-Z say it's using 2.5GB of video ram?
Doesn't that seem to make a case FOR a 3GB card?

I'm not using all 3GB.

[AgentSnipps]

Do you think it becomes more worthwile for people who play games other than just 5 boxing wow? Say 5 boxing rift wich looks more graphics intensive than WoW.

[coglistings]

bahh, finish lvl'in your dk's to 85 instead of flying around making screenshots so I can rape you ingame

[MiRai]

Do you think it becomes more worthwile for people who play games other than just 5 boxing wow? Say 5 boxing rift wich looks more graphics intensive than WoW.

I really wish I could give an answer in regard to RIFT. I don't currently have any active RIFT accounts to test this bad boy out on
but, you could always take the same approach that I took meaning that if you're already about to drop $500 on a video card...
what's $100 more for an extra 1.5GB of memory.

If I remember right someone here had 2x 1.5GB 580's in SLI and couldn't max the settings of RIFT and still get 60 FPS, but I
believe this was back in the beta phases and I'm sure Trion has tweaked a little bit since then.

I guess a good test would be for you to start up a single game of RIFT on the settings you'd like to play on with your main
window and see what GPU-Z reports for memory usage. Then turn the video settings down to what a slave would normally be at
and then multiply that by how many you play. Add them all together and I would say that's a good estimate on how much video
memory you would normally use. You may have to shut down the game between tests because just turning down settings
probably won't "clear" the video card's memory and it'll most likely be reporting a higher value.

bahh, finish lvl'in your dk's to 85 instead of flying around making screenshots so I can rape you ingame

I'm making it a point to keep starting new teams so I don't have to hang out with the big kids at level 80+.

[Bollwerk]

I'm not using all 3GB.

Right, but they don't make a 2.5GB card. =)
Seems like only 1.5GB would be a bottleneck, based on your screenshot.

[MiRai]

Right, but they don't make a 2.5GB card. =)
Seems like only 1.5GB would be a bottleneck, based on your screenshot.

As far as I know nVidia does not make a 2.5GB 5xx card and from a quick Newegg search the top dog choices are 1.5GB, 3.0GB,
and 4.0GB for any thing current from ATI or nVidia. I guess what I'm showing in that picture is that even with the main screen
using 4x Multisampling I still have headroom meaning I can continue to crank up my settings if I really wanted to.

[AgentSnipps]

Thanks for the info think I'll pay the extra $100 bucks and upgrade. I've pretty much got all parts ready to order now I just need to finalize monitors and pick a server to play on and I'll be all set.