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]

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 ?

ShadyStan, you would need to ask Asus what technical / marketing reason they used to make the 3GB/4GB Vram choice.

It could be an allocation issue, licensing with Nvidia, a space/density = cost issue. It could simply be the quickest way to release the new GPU's into their new G751 chassis.

Even with 3GB/4GB VRAM, it will be a very popular capacity with the 980m/970m - and most people won't want or need more VRAM.

Just because a few games can use more than 4GB of VRAM doesn't mean the games aren't beautifully playable at 3GB/4GB VRAM - most GPU VRAM on the desktop are in the <=4GB range as well, so support for <=4GB will continue for a long time.

[PsychoticElemen]

Couldn't have said it better myself :D. I see exactly where your coming from, thank you for the information! Oh, and in my previous post, I mentioned how VRAM affects heat/power draw, so we're pretty much on the same page, so that's nice 🙂 And you're right about the 980 argument too, I haven't heard one complaint about VRAM, so I doubt the 970M will encounter any problems.

If I could choose best answer, you'd be my pick, again, couldn't have put it better...

[MHaensel]

hmscott is right, I was thinking of the 880m.

[HulkSmash]

Honestly, Shadow of Mordor has the 6gb vram requirement. But I've seen cards with 3GB VRAM running it on ultra @1080p 60fps... Besides, the difference from ultra to very high on the textures is really barely noticeable on that game (and you have to look very very closely, maybe with a magnifying glass to see it), and I think a bunch of future games will "behave" that way, textures are what most affect VRAM right? (not entirely sure lol). Not to mention the nice amount of effects and eye candy the card will be able to deliver aside from VRAM related things.

[HulkSmash]

BTW, Shadow of Mordor has an average of 51fps on ultra@1080p on the 970m according to notebookcheck: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html

[Sir_Greedy]

HulkSmash wrote:
BTW, Shadow of Mordor has an average of 51fps on ultra@1080p on the 970m according to notebookcheck: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html

yeah...but that particular card has 6gb vram...so that doesnt really have anything to do with what is being talked about here...

[HulkSmash]

Sir Greedy wrote:
yeah...but that particular card has 6gb vram...so that doesnt really have anything to do with what is being talked about here...

Derp, diidn't notice that lol, noob<<<. But I did get a G751 with the 970m 3gb. So far everything is running on utra with 60 fps. Even AC Unity, horribly optmized, runs with a decent 45 fps average (AA set to FXAA). Shadow of Mordor is doing 58-64 fps, no hiccups, with all set to ultra (including textures). I did OC it to 135+ btw.