Just wondering. A budget machine with GTX 960m and 4GB VRAM can be had at relatively "budget" prices, but the moment you try to look higher up the chain, you have to pay through the nose for machines offering 970m and 980m. The 965m tries to balance precariously between the two extremes but often will not come with good specs (Alienware 15r3, for example, only offers 965m with 2GB). Your thoughts?
I'm not sure about the differences between the performance of all the models you have mentioned, but there's really no need for more than 2gb of vram, unless you are running at higher resolution like 4k which may make some differences, and that is if your card is fast enough to handle. Sent from my E5803 using Tapatalk
From the scores that I've seen here: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M vs 970M vs 965M vs 960M vs 860M Specs and Benchmark Comparison | PC4U The jump from 960m to 970m can be pretty significant. And while you have a point about 2GB, but it still feels like a copout that the budget systems can offer 4GB while the higher end ones start at 2GB.
Memory is cheap, but a higher end gpu is not. So manufacturers always use such tactics to attract customers with more memory, but usually there's negligible benefits or even none in most situations. In your link above, it even shows that 2gb is faster than 4gb. So speed is not only determined by memory size. Sent from my E5803 using Tapatalk
Eventually, you'll be the one to decide which one works best for you but if 2GB works, I guess will defeat the purpose of buying one with 4GB memory.