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What difference will an extra 1GB of ram in a graphics card make in Octane? I'm looking at the new MSI GTX 460 HAWK 1GB (which can be overclocked to GTX 470 performance levels), and the Palit GTX 460 2GB. In the case of the MSI HAWK, will overclocking make up for the ram difference?

The lack of a suitable graphics card (I have a Quadro FX 1500) is the only reason why I don't have Octane right now.

Overclocking the graphics card just means the rendering code will run a little faster.
A 2gb version may not be able to be o/c quite as much as the 1gb card but the performance will be quite similar.
The vram is the memory space that holds Octane's Cuda code, the scene geometry and the textures.
2gb will give you more room/flexibility for larger scenes, with large image resolution, and more complex texturing than 1gb, thats all.
As a rough guide to capacity a 2gb card could hold say a combination of an A3 size image @300dpi (thats very roughly 5000x3500) plus about 4 or 5m polys and quite a few textures. It depends how you trade off the available vram space.
You can do a fair bit with a 1gb space if you have modest needs but if you have a choice and dont mind a just few more $ the 2gb one would be most peoples preference I think.
You should be able to keep the FX1500 for handling the UI display and dedicate the 460 to running cuda.
This combination will give the smoothest Octane navigation and the fastest rendering.
HTH