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Is 512MB enough on a GT 650?

W

Wolfpup

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 7, 2006
2,927
105
Not sure I'm buying a Macbook Pro right now, but I might, and I'm just wondering if you guys think 512MB is enough on a GPU today. That's soooooo little I'm somewhat concerned, but it's over $600 for me to basically just add an extra 512MB of video RAM, which is obscene lol.

I would regularly be running 2 monitors-a 1920x1080 external monitor, plus the built in one. I'd probably be running Windows a lot, and running games a lot.

Just at the desktop my current system frequently gets up around half a GB of video RAM in use (of it's 1GB)...

Yeah I'm kind of talking myself out of this. I haaaaaaaate how Apple keeps differentiating models by including just barely enough on the high end config and half that on the low :-/
 
xShane

xShane

macrumors 6502a
Nov 2, 2012
814
37
United States
Wolfpup said:
Not sure I'm buying a Macbook Pro right now, but I might, and I'm just wondering if you guys think 512MB is enough on a GPU today. That's soooooo little I'm somewhat concerned, but it's over $600 for me to basically just add an extra 512MB of video RAM, which is obscene lol.

I would regularly be running 2 monitors-a 1920x1080 external monitor, plus the built in one. I'd probably be running Windows a lot, and running games a lot.

Just at the desktop my current system frequently gets up around half a GB of video RAM in use (of it's 1GB)...

Yeah I'm kind of talking myself out of this. I haaaaaaaate how Apple keeps differentiating models by including just barely enough on the high end config and half that on the low :-/
Click to expand...

I would definitely recommend getting the 650M w/ 1GB VRAM then. If you're going to be running external monitor(s) AND gaming a lot, then you'll need 1GB VRAM.

The 650M is a great and powerful card. With 1GB VRAM you should get excellent frame rate on high settings for games.
 
W

Wolfpup

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 7, 2006
2,927
105
xShane said:
I would definitely recommend getting the 650M w/ 1GB VRAM then. If you're going to be running external monitor(s) AND gaming a lot, then you'll need 1GB VRAM.

The 650M is a great and powerful card. With 1GB VRAM you should get excellent frame rate on high settings for games.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think you're right. Thanks!
 
dusk007

dusk007

macrumors 68040
Dec 5, 2009
3,411
104
I would say no.
In gaming it limits the settings you can select which the GPU could drive had it just enough VRAM.
In CAD and stuff where you need a fast GPU afaik lots of VRAM is always good.
Normal Desktop stuff like browsers and office needs actually fairly little. 512MB is fine here.

The amount of VRAM is ridiculous given how cheap RAM is. It is all a matter of getting the space on the logic board to fit the RAM.
 
xShane

xShane

macrumors 6502a
Nov 2, 2012
814
37
United States
dusk007 said:
I would say no.
In gaming it limits the settings you can select which the GPU could drive had it just enough VRAM.
In CAD and stuff where you need a fast GPU afaik lots of VRAM is always good.
Normal Desktop stuff like browsers and office needs actually fairly little. 512MB is fine here.

The amount of VRAM is ridiculous given how cheap RAM is. It is all a matter of getting the space on the logic board to fit the RAM.
Click to expand...

I disagree. More likely than not, he will need that extra VRAM. VRAM will be needed most when running high resolution. This is especially true because he plans on running not one, but TWO external monitors at a fairly high resolution AND playing a video game. Don't forget the fact that I'm sure he'd like to play on mid-to-high settings for his games.
 
W

Wolfpup

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 7, 2006
2,927
105
Wow, I just realized something! I'd thought they'd discontinued the higher end config of the "normal" Macbook Pro that had 1GB video RAM, and kinda sorta they did...only now they let you configure the cheaper model. $200 bumps up the CPU from 2.3 to 2.6 (or something like that) AND double the video RAM. With my educational discount, the price bump is a very reasonable $120!

I'd rather have DVD anyway (would really rather have Blu Ray) and I don't know that that crazy high resolution screen would work that well for Windows since it doesn't have the 4 pixels = 1 pixel type mode.

Hmm, wish OS X supported out of the box TRIM on non Apple drives (I've got a spare 512GB Crucial m4 drive I can throw in). And not sure how great keyboard shortcuts work on the Windows side, but hey, that's not too bad...
 
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