G751JT-CH71 970M, Will VRAM Limit Laptop Potential

[PsychoticElemen]

Hey fellow Gamers,

I'm on the market right now for a gaming laptop and, being that the 970M/980M were just released, I'm ready to purchase. I'd like to start off by saying that I personally like ASUS very much, as I have had great luck with their products over the years. I've owned an old G73, so I'm ready to upgrade to the more powerful and more efficient GTX 970M. Max budget is $1500.

So I was searching for a new notebook when, news flash, ASUS just released their new G751 series, which sports the new 900 series. Fortunately, the lowest end model, the G751JT CH71, was $1500, on the dot. It comes with a 1 TB HDD, a GTX 970M with 3GB VRAM, an Intel i7 4710HQ, etc. This, right now, is in my mind the best bang for buck that is not a Sager/Clevo product (I despise them, anyways), which comes at a reasonable price that justifies the actual computer specs.

Now, my problem, or more like "limitation", is as followed: The GTX 970M comes with 3GB VRAM. Now, 3GB is perfectly fine with me, but what scares me is the fact that so many new titles such as Shadow of Morder and Watch Dogs require more than 3GB at the highest settings. However, if I have to sacrifice quality for performance, I gladly will, but with newer titles coming out, VRAM problems occur more and more often.

The main game I'll be playing is Skyrim. I'll play on High settings (Not much difference between High and Ultra quality, lots of added performance), heavily modded (80+ mods, not too demanding ones, though), and I'll run it with DSR and MFAA for that extra texture quality. I expect it to run around 45+ FPS, so everything is looking pretty good. Except for one thing: Like I said, the VRAM can be a problem, and running Skyrim with all of those mods plus the high resolution (DSR) scares me because stuttering can be a problem.

If any of you can reinforce me with knowledge on this, I'd be very appreciative. Please, this is the only thing that's bugging me, the machine itself is amazing, and I'd never give up the machine itself for performance issues, but it's still annoying. Thank you!

[hmscott]

A simple google search provides plenty of feedback, and Skyrim will use all the VRAM is can get, and mods use more, and if there is more than 3GB available, it will be used.

skyrim vram requirements - 33,200 hits
https://www.google.com/search?q=skyrim+vram+requirements&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-U...

How much VRAM will I need for Skyrim mods?
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/352599-33-vram-skyrim-mods
"BigMack70
May 8, 2012 8:16:18 PM

For modded skyrim, get a 4GB 680 if you want Nvidia.

With STEP 2.0 mods on, vanilla ultra settings, and a mod to optimize texture vram use, I sit constantly capped at 3GB vram use at 1080p, and you can tell that there's some stutter from texture load ins (not area load ins).

Heavily modded skyrim will chew up however much vram you can throw at it, even at 1080p. I do not recommend a 2GB 680 for modded skyrim at all.

:edit: Should note that I do not use crossfire in Skyrim, as a single card puts out 60fps pretty much constantly and CF currently has negative scaling at 1080p in Skyrim, so stuttering is not from my CF setup."

It would seem to me that 3GB is not really enough long term for your needs.

[ShadyStan]

Personally, I'm quite surprised why Asus only installs the 3/4 GB Vram graphics cards in their G751 gaming notebooks rather than the 4/8 GB Vram variants. It was the same thing with the G750 series: unlike other brands like MSI Asus only used the 3/4 GB Vram 870/880M.
Anyway, that's currently not of concern to me since I plan on getting a new gaming laptop sometime next year. Hopefully it will be Asus again.

[PsychoticElemen]

Damn. Well, I guess I'll stick through it, like I said, I'll sacrifice a bit of eye candy for performance, I guess 😞 But if I run the game at High settings, or if I'm forced to even run it at Medium settings, will the VRAM usage drop? In Shadow of Morder, 6GB VRAM is required at ultra settings, while when it's on high settings, it drastically decreases to 3GB. Is this the case with Skyrim?

Anyways, I've been searching up mod packages for Skyrim, and I came across one where a guy was running 60+ mods at 30-40 FPS with a 650 Ti and an AMD FX-6300. The part that caught my eye was that the 650 Ti had only 2GB VRAM, but he said it ran just fine. Even at ultra settings, with the game maxed out (AA, Shadows, etc.) and with all mods enabled. Being that I have an extra GB of VRAM, should I be happy?

But, yeah, there won't be any mod that eat up VRAM in my game, just some graphic enhancers and what not. I know it won't last me for a while, but I can live with it 🙂 But I totally agree, I don't know why ASUS would do that. I've heard some people say more VRAM=more power and more heat, but the G750 could easily deal with that, and not to mention that the G751 has upgraded cooling! Shame on you, ASUS. If you were to add the larger VRAM cards and add a bit of customization to your laptops, you'd be the first place everybody would look to buy a notebook for gaming!

[hmscott]

PsychoticElement wrote:
Damn. Well, I guess I'll stick through it,..!

Please come back and let us know how it works out 🙂

[MHaensel]

Look at it this way: moderately expensive ($600ish) desktop graphics cards come with 3-4GB VRAM, and nobody complains about gaming performance from a 980 on a desktop.

Also, the 8GB laptop variants tend to run into heat and throttling problems. On basically all models, the CPU and/or graphics card slow down under heavy load because of temperature constraints. The G750 didn't thermal throttle, and according to early reports, the G751 doesn't either.

I understand the marketing appeal of having more VRAM (!), but I'd rather have a computer that keeps working at full speed when pushed, rather than one that buckles at the exact moment I'm really trying to use it

[ShadyStan]

MHaensel wrote:
Look at it this way: moderately expensive ($600ish) desktop graphics cards come with 3-4GB VRAM, and nobody complains about gaming performance from a 980 on a desktop.

Also, the 8GB laptop variants tend to run into heat and throttling problems. On basically all models, the CPU and/or graphics card slow down under heavy load because of temperature constraints. The G750 didn't thermal throttle, and according to early reports, the G751 doesn't either.

I understand the marketing appeal of having more VRAM (!), but I'd rather have a computer that keeps working at full speed when pushed, rather than one that buckles at the exact moment I'm really trying to use it

To be honest, I didn't know the 8 GB GTX 980M had thermal and throttling issues. Is that really the case because I think we should wait for comprehensive reviews of the Asus and MSI top gaming laptops to be sure of that.
The point is that some games may be limited by the 4 GB Vram on the GTX 980M, i.e. Shadow of Mordor, Watch Dogs and possibly other upcoming titles.

[hmscott]

ShadyStan wrote:
To be honest, I didn't know the 8 GB GTX 980M had thermal and throttling issues....

ShadyStan, 8GB VRAM GPU's don't have any thermal issues. 🙂

[ShadyStan]

hmscott wrote:
ShadyStan, 8GB VRAM GPU's don't have any thermal issues. 🙂

Well, but then why does Asus stick with the 3/4 GB versions of the top gaming GPUs ? Is there any good reason for that ?

[Joystick]

ShadyStan wrote:
Well, but then why does Asus stick with the 3/4 GB versions of the top gaming GPUs ? Is there any good reason for that ?

They are stuck with proprietary graphics module too. My guess is they love customers so much that they want to see them more often. You don't know, but they're crying all the day long.