8GB VRAM not enough (and 10 / 12)

[BFG10K]

8GB

• Dying Light 2, Battlefield 2042, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, Horizon Forbidden West, Alan Wake 2, The Last of Us, Tekken 8, FC 24, Detroit Become Human, Death Stranding, Alone in The Dark, Overwatch 2
  3060 12GB higher 1% low than 4060 8GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIfz57wmywg
• Cyberpunk 2077, Diablo 4, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon Zero Dawn, Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, Witcher 3, Watch Dogs Legion skip to 4K + DLSS for each game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPiaWWd0xGc
• Ratchet & Clank, Plague Tale Requiem, Last Of Us, Jedi Survivor, Far Cry 6, Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Cyberpunk 2077 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr3MckDxMfE&pp=ygUTMTZnYiB2cyA4Z2IgNDA2MCB0aQ==
• Far Cry 6, Godfall, Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Forspoken, Doom Eternal, Watchdogs Legion https://youtu.be/fJc--C01P90?t=268
• Last Of Us, Resident Evil 4, Callisto Protocol, Plague Tale Requiem, Halo Infinite, Forspoken https://youtu.be/2_Y3E631ro8?t=429
• Last Of Us, Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4, Forspoken, Plague Tale Requiem, Callisto Protocol https://youtu.be/Rh7kFgHe21k?t=288
• Hogwarts Legacy, Last Of Us, Spider Man Remastered, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 5 https://youtu.be/R943CbDTq_s?t=1473
• Horizon Forbidden West 4060 has issues @ 1080p + DLSS unless you switch off frame generation and reduce settings to high https://youtu.be/3AyKvI23VGw?t=233
• Horizon Forbidden West 3070 requires reducing textures 2 notches https://youtu.be/xTwEGy6HHKo?t=351
• Deathloop https://youtu.be/lu_XHyO-6zY?t=918
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint https://youtu.be/iUGppQVpXzU?t=529
• Resident Evil 2 https://youtu.be/Aa-gsgRjMII?t=796
• Talos Principle 2 https://youtu.be/K6FATQAuEwI?t=337
• Spider Man Remastered https://youtu.be/vRVR_plVSlc?t=1060
• Witcher 3 https://youtu.be/vRVR_plVSlc?t=1240

Horizon Forbidden West 3060 is faster than the 2080 Super despite the former usually competing with the 2070. Also 3060 has a better 1% low than 4060 and 4060Ti 8GB.

Spoiler

Resident Evil Village 3060TI/3070 tanks at 4K and is slower than the 3060/6700XT when ray tracing:

Spoiler

Company Of Heroes 3060 has a higher minimum than the 3070TI:

Spoiler

10GB / 12GB

• Plague Tale Requiem 3080 10GB tanks if you enable ray tracing, would be fast enough if it had more VRAM because if you stop moving, the framerate stabilizes to >60FPS https://youtu.be/7zjrMww3fAc?t=496
• Hogwarts Legacy 4K + RT, 4060Ti 16GB is faster than 4070 12GB https://youtu.be/X-h_R488Mq8?t=191

Reasons why still shipping 8GB since 2014 isn't NV's fault.

Spoiler

1. It's the player's fault.
2. It's the reviewer's fault.
3. It's the developer's fault.
4. It's AMD's fault.
5. It's the game's fault.
6. It's the driver's fault.
7. It's a system configuration issue.
8. Wrong settings were tested.
9. Wrong area was tested.
10. Wrong games were tested.
11. 4K is irrelevant.
12. Texture quality is irrelevant as long as it matches a console's.
13. Detail levels are irrelevant as long as they match a console's.
14. There's no reason a game should use more than 8GB, because a random forum user said so.
15. It's completely acceptable for the more expensive 3070/3070TI/3080 to turn down settings while the cheaper 3060/6700XT has no issue.
16. It's an anomaly.
17. It's a console port.
18. It's a conspiracy against NV.
19. 8GB cards aren't meant for 4K / 1440p / 1080p / 720p gaming.
20. It's completely acceptable to disable ray tracing on NV while AMD has no issue.
21. Polls, hardware market share, and game title count are evidence 8GB is enough, but are totally ignored when they don't suit the ray tracing agenda.

According to some people here, 8GB is neeeevaaaaah NV's fault and objective evidence "doesn't count" because of reasons(tm). If you have others please let me know and I'll add them to the list. Cheers!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Really? I don't see it listed; the only 8GB 6500 XT's on NE are some sketchy 3rd party seller Peladn ones.

I meant when it was launched. I actually wanted to get it but the price seemed unreasonable and too close to the RX 6600.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

something like the 8GB 6600 you can get for $190 at NE and Amazon and is twice as fast as it.

Which stacks with double the PCIe bandwidth and a much better media engine for extra damage.

The 6500XT served to illustrate the point, I'll give it that. I.E. All else being equal, even a craptastic GPU can benefit from more VRAM. 4060ti 8GB has already secured its place as one of the worst value GPUs in decades. Given the MSRPs, the 4060 an 7600 stink the joint up only slightly less.

 

[DaaQ]

I really need to pull this 3GB 780 and put the block on this OG Titan I picked up second hand and see if Elden Ring will load.

 

[jpiniero]

First generation of GDDR7 graphics cards sticking to 16Gbit (2GB) modules, 3GB on roadmaps - VideoCardz.com

GDDR7 memory to come in 2GB to 8GB capacity The new memory standard is faster and has more capacity options. According to NVIDIA hardware leaker “Kopite7kimi”, the first products using GDDR7 memory will be sticking to the minimum density of 16 Gb (2GB) per module, the same capacity as currently...

videocardz.com

Looks like to start GDDR7 will still be 2 GB per chip. Don't be surprised if you see 6 GB desktop cards from nVidia next year but they may just stick with 8 GDDR6/X instead.

The spec does call for up to 8 GB per chip so more is coming but not right away.

 

[Spjut]

I really need to pull this 3GB 780 and put the block on this OG Titan I picked up second hand and see if Elden Ring will load.

PCgameshardware.de did a recent test with the GTX Titan, 780 Ti and the RX 6400 for comparison. They note that many modern games will not load either due to a too old driver version, or specifically needing unsupported feature levels.

Geforce GTX Titan elf Jahre später: Alte Enthusiast-GPU vs. neue Einsteiger-Grafikkarte

Geforce GTX Titan 2024: Spiele-Benchmarks

www.pcgameshardware.de

It's not pretty, but if they had run it at low or medium instead of max it might have passed the 30 FPS mark in more games.

 

[DaaQ]

PCgameshardware.de did a recent test with the GTX Titan, 780 Ti and the RX 6400 for comparison. They note that many modern games will not load either due to a too old driver version, or specifically needing unsupported feature levels.

Geforce GTX Titan elf Jahre später: Alte Enthusiast-GPU vs. neue Einsteiger-Grafikkarte

Geforce GTX Titan 2024: Spiele-Benchmarks

www.pcgameshardware.de

It's not pretty, but if they had run it at low or medium instead of max it might have passed the 30 FPS mark in more games.

D4 does give a too new or too old driver message, BG3 runs fine so far, of course tuning settings. D4 runs 60-80fps with their ingame scaler set to balanced. Elden Ring just white screens to desktop. Last Epoch runs fine with its own issues though, same with D4, newest patch exiting to desktop provides a crash report. BTW D4 uses 2700 to 2900 MB vram I have never overflowed to system ram, but can potato it if I use unreasonable settings. It does look better than the PS4 version and faster. I can only assume I am close to or just over PS5 version performance wise. Don't have nor will I get a PS5 or buy a second copy of the game to see. My son uses PS4 in living room for my comparisons. I use 3440x1440p also.

 

[MrTeal]

I meant when it was launched. I actually wanted to get it but the price seemed unreasonable and too close to the RX 6600.

Yeah. Do you know of anyone that actually bought one though? I remember when that had been posted and people wanted board shots to see the clamshell, but there was zero information out there on it.

If you even google the Sapphire part number (11314-03-20G), there's one reddit thread about it and then just a ton of listings. Seems like they sampled some to reviewers but I don't even know if vendors got them or if it was just paper launch.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Karta graficzna Sapphire PULSE RX 6500 XT 8GB DDR6

Karta graficzna Sapphire PULSE RX 6500 XT 8GB DDR6

foxkomputer.pl

It's in Polish but I'm able to add it to cart.


I went as far as "Shopping without registration" and it shows UAE as a shipping country. But that's about as much Polish as I can handle. Maybe we have a Polish dude on the forum?

 

[igor_kavinski]

And in Latvia: https://ora.lv/kompyuternaya-tehnik...adeon-rx-6500-xt-pulse-8gb-gddr6-11314-03-20g

Getting added to cart here too.


Price is ridiculous though.

It's like Sapphire sent the first batch out to retailers worldwide and then received a cease and desist order from AMD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Which stacks with double the PCIe bandwidth and a much better media engine for extra damage.

The 6500XT served to illustrate the point, I'll give it that. I.E. All else being equal, even a craptastic GPU can benefit from more VRAM. 4060ti 8GB has already secured its place as one of the worst value GPUs in decades. Given the MSRPs, the 4060 an 7600 stink the joint up only slightly less.

 

[psolord]

That is not the argument being made. The argument is that some cards were under provisioned with VRAM so will see unnecessary performance / IQ issues before other products with similar and sometimes less compute will.

There certainly is a beef towards some specific nvidia models in this thread, for which I am not against either. I am against the generic 8GB not enough argument. As I have said in the past, I am mostly interested in my own 8GB cards, because these are what I bought. At their respective price points, they were great.

The fact a 3060 12GB can offer a better gaming experience than the 3070Ti in certain edge cases right now is direct proof and in the future it won't just be edge cases.

The edge cases that have been presented, show only unplayable results vs even more unplayable results. Sorry I cannot accept those.

I can accept straight orthodox results, that actually show what a user can expect, in a real life usage scenario and not just an academic one. Here is the new UE5 game The Thaumaturge, tested by gamegpu.




I mean where do I start? First of all, keep in mind, this is super heavy on the vram, but still...

These are only 1080p results. The 3060? Laughable. 12GBs ain't gonna help, sorry. The 3060ti and 3070 are destroying it, while they are also borderline un/playable. The despised 4060ti 8GB has a very nice real life playable result. The fact of the matter, is that all these cards, will need to adjust their settings, either people like it or not. You start from 500$ cards and above, to start having 1080p acceptable performance. Make of it what you will.

I am not ignoring them. A stable 30 fps is pretty playable in slow paced games which AW2 is.

It's not about the pace. It's about the screen movement. If there is a lot of movement on the x & y axis, the average framerate needs to be 60 at minimum. In this hyper PCMR thread, where people deem normal to crank everything over 9000 and then complain, saddenly 30fps- is acceptable. This is hypocrisy at its best.

Obviously you can turn settings down if you want more FPS and that may help with a VRAM bottleneck at the moment but it won't be long before even low settings exceeds the 8GB VRAM buffer which is where people will really see an issue.

When the time comes, where low settings will need more than 8GBs, all these cards will be for indies only anyway. I did show you my GTX 970 the other day, running Ratchet and TLOU didn't I? It does give a playable result, with the scope it being a 9.5 yo product with 3.5GB of vram, doesn't it? Is the GTX 970 relevant today? No? Will the 3060ti be relevant when it reaches its age? Probably not either.

The 3060 will be even worse, because the gpu processing power, expand at a higher rate than vram does. You can ignore this all you want. I am not goint to, because I have three 8GB cards and I see the difference every day.

If they upgrade frequently then it probably won't happen before they upgrade but if they hold on to cards and treat a PC in a similar vein to a console and want a similar life span skimping on VRAM is going to bite them.

If they are treating the PC like a console, they are doing it wrong. Even so, I will refer to the GTX 970 once again. It still can play todays games, yes with ding ding ding....correct settings, while these very games, are nowhere to be found on the more powerful more recent console gcn 2.0 hardware.

That is an extreme delta and even then the 12GB 4090 would probably be pretty rubbish at 4K + RT which is one of the main reasons to own a 4090.

Yes it is an extreme delta, but that is what we were discussing in that paragraph. Gpu power is more important. A 4090 12GB could game even at 1080p for years. The 6600 16GB would already be useless (for pcmr settings).

The 4070 is also about $200 more than the 7600XT so you are not really talking about things in the same price range. The 4060 / 4060Ti 8GB are far more reasonable comparisons but you don't seem to like reasonable comparisons do you.

Come on of course it's more expensive because it's worth it. We are discussing gpu power/vram ratio here. And excuse me, I am not the one not liking reasonable comparisons, when you pitch 29fps vs 5fps at me.

Consoles matter because they set the bar for what devs target. That happens not from console launch to console launch but from end of cross generation phase to end of cross generation phase. We have pretty much only just come out of the cross generation phase of development so the ramp is going to happen from now until the end of the cross gen phase for the PS6 generation which is probably 7/8 years away.

They set a very low bar for the vast majority of games though. Only their extreme exclusives that get ported to the PC, tend to have some problems. And after what we have seen with TLOU, I am inclined to believe its more of programming defficiency than a hardware one. Especially vram one.

Even so, the TLOU examples you all seem liking very much to bring into the dispute, uses settings that do not exist on the PS5. The PS5 with its, lets say, 12GBs of vram, uses the high preset for the textures. The ultra preset for the PC, uses extreme high resolution textures, which is utter siliness to use on a 1080p resolution. I did show you an entry level rx6600 being able to run the game fine at high, NNOOOO you will crank everything over 9000 and then we will talk. I don't undestand this logic.

This exact argument was had with PS4 generation and when the 8GB RX480 was released a lot of people said not worth the extra over the 4GB version. Sure if you upgrade every 2/3 years that is probably correct if you purchased in 2016 but by 2018/2019 those 4GB variants were really showing the shortcomings. We are at that stage now with a few examples to show you it will become an issue. In 2/3 years it will be a lot of examples and thsoe with the 7600XT or the 4060Ti 16GB are going to be having a far better time with their hardware than those who with with the 7600 / 4060 / 4060 Ti 8GB / 3070 Ti.

We can continue arguing about how much better, the 7600XT 16GB or 4060ti 16GB will be, until the sun dies out. These cards are already out of steam, with proper playable settings. Pushing settings into unplayable territory, so they can just be faster from their lesser counterparts or other stronger 8GB cards, that would otherwise do a great job at their intended use, does not apply to me friend, sorry.

As for PS4/rx480 4GB, I will refer to you again a piece of hardware that existed back then, the GTX 970 with 3.5GBs of RAM, that can still play PS5 games, while not even the PS4 Pro or XoneX can.

The half console ram was pretty valid when consoles had split memory pools but now they have unified memory pools you need to look at how much is allocated to VRAM. 12GB is about the minimum and for a weaker compute card 16GB is probably required. This is because the consoles have dedicated decompression hardware. For GPUs like the 7600XT where Direct Storage decompression is done by the shaders they don't really have the headroom to do that and render as well as a console does so those weaker cards having more VRAM means less decompression to do on the fly and means more of the compute resources can go to rendering. With the 4070 there is plenty of compute headroom so doing more decompression on the fly is not really going to cause as much pain.

And yet here we are, at the slightest heaviness of a game, consoles go tits up, with framedrops, less than 1080p resolutions or even locked 30fps in some situations.

I mean watch the latest UE5 game in DF.

It's just an indie game, that got remade in UE5. End result? Performance mode at 1080p, reduced settings AND framedrops. Series S has drops at 454p. It's what all UE5 games have shown so far. No decompression block is going to help mate.

I swear to God, with that kind of performance, you are worried for the likes of Ampere or ADA 8GB cards? Lol.

See ratchet and clank.

Super playable settings here for the 4060Ti 16GB and the 7600XT but not so much for the 7600.

These 1% lows just highlight it even better. The 7600 has drops of 25 FPS from a middling 46 fps average. The 7600XT has drops of 10FPS from a really nice 82 fps and easily clears the 60 fps barrier.

With RT on the 4060Ti 16GB is pretty decent.

It is actually pretty close to providing the frame rate the 4060Ti 8GB offers with RT off so here choosing the 16GB variant of a card with the same RT and compute capabilities is the difference between being able to turn RT on and maintain 60+ fps average or needing to keep RT off to maintain 60+ fps average.

This is a good example. It does show some shortcomings on the 8GB cards, however we do see the 4060ti 8GB being way faster than the 7600 8GB, so there's something amiss here. We've talked about this in the past. It's all PS ecosystem games, highly tailored for specific hardware that get ported on the PC with even higher settings, then people crank everything over 9000 and complain.

The Ultra preset does not exist on the PS5, at least in its performance mode, so if you take a non ultra preset PS game, port it to PC, upgrade visuals to ultra preset and try to run it on 8GB cards, then yes, problems can arise. How many games like these are there anyway? And what are the best settings an 8GB card can muster, did anyone care to test.

Moreover, and what I've been saying from the beginning, the VAST majority of games, will NOT go that way. Way better looking games than TLOU and RATCHET already have proven this.

 

[psolord]

After 70+ pages:

US: More VRAM for less money, not more money for less VRAM!

Lone stallion: SETTINGS!

Igor I am all FOR more vram for less money, that is not the discussion here.

I am only saying that this whole 8GB not enough thread is mostly useless, because all cards will die equally quickly. People's take on this issue, is that these edge cases will become the majority, my take is that it's not gonna happen. Games will require more gpu power first and foremost and then more vram. To get more gpu power, you need a new gpu. Vram isn't gonna save you. Also I am always referring to actual playable results. Not unplayable vs unplayable.

And yes, settings are super important. There is tiering that goes from 200$ to 1500$. These are vector graphics that scale from potatoes to lobsters. It's the way things always have been. My freagin GTX 970 did actually run the hyper demanding TLOU and Ratchet, at the settings it could. Not ideal for PC standards but not utter unplayable either (higher than 30fps for sure). And this is a 9.5 yo card with 3.5Gbs of vram ffs.

Also thank you for calling me a stallion. Ok I am not that hung, but I had no complaints! xD

 

[Timorous]

Another example of artificially gimping a GPU, this time from AMD: https://www.techspot.com/article/2815-vram-4gb-vs-8gb/

I am glad they put the video into article format, makes grabbing the charts much easier.

Examples like.

or

or

There are more but it just shows what is going to happen going forward, we see a few cases today. In 2 years it will be fairly expected and in 4 years 8GB cards will require massive compromises that cards with a similar level of compute performance but more VRAM just will not need to make and those with extra VRAM will also get better performance as well as better IQ.

It is also worth noting that the 6500XT has a similar performance level to the RX480/RX580 so this is pretty close to showing you how those older cards would perform in the new titles (outside of cases where they don't have newer feature support). It just shows that those who went with the 4GB model now need to make far more compromises to get a worse experience than those who went with the 8GB model.

If 8GB is cheap or it is a stop gap then sure it can work right now still but if someone is buying for a long period and are on a budget then the 7600XT is probably a better buy than the 4060. The 7700XT is a better buy than the 4060Ti 8GB and the 4060Ti 16GB is probably a contender if you want more RT performance because it does enable playable RT experiences that the 8GB 4060Ti and 7700XT can't always match due to a combo of VRAM shortage or simply a lack of RT grunt.

Personally I still wouldn't buy anything at the low end right now. I think RDNA 4 and maybe Blackwell will offer a better $300 GPU that doe a better job of doing what the RX580 managed. I think 12GB or 16GB would both be fine at this price point and then you will hopefully have a card with a good balance of compute, RT, VRAM and price. The 4060Ti 16GB gives you 3 of those but the price is a bit too high IMO and the 4070 as decent as it is cannot be called a budget card.

@psolord - Again you miss the point entirely. The point is not that 8GB cards won't be able to achieve playable settings in future titles. The point is that hardware at a similar price point with similar current performance but more VRAM (so the 7600xt vs 4060 is probably the best current example but the 4060Ti 16GB is only ~10% more expensive than the 4060Ti 8GB so that also works) is going to sustain higher image quality and higher FPS for a much longer period. People who opt to spend the extra $50 on more VRAM options now will absolutely be able to keep their card longer than those who opt for 8GB variants.

The other issue is that on the one hand you talk about 'correct settings' and on the other hand when the 4060Ti 16GB can crush the 8GB model in a current title or it can match performance with higher IQ you talk about how that is above the current console settings so does not count or you talk about pcmr settings. You also repeatedly miss that in some of the 'academic' settings where everything is set to Ultra and the 3060 12GB can offer a better experience than the 4060 or sometimes 3070/3070Ti there are ways to tune the compute requirements down to make it playable on the 3060 and you could leave textures at the highest setting, you know if you just use the 'correct settings' you can make it a smooth experience, doing the same for the 3070/3070Ti in those scenarios is going to come at a greater IQ cost because you will be required to lower texture settings which are frequently high impact since they affect every surface of the game. So really what I am asking is that you maintain a consistent argument instead of changing it every other bullet point, we do see this happening which is why 'correct settings' is becoming a meme here.

It is almost as though you don't get that the 'correct settings' for an 8GB card are going to be worse than those of a 12/16GB card with similar and sometimes less compute capability and where the price delta is not too great or the use case is going to involve keeping the part for 4+ years that fact is going to matter to the long term enjoyment of the product.

 

[jpiniero]

Personally I still wouldn't buy anything at the low end right now. I think RDNA 4 and maybe Blackwell will offer a better $300 GPU that doe a better job of doing what the RX580 managed. I think 12GB or 16GB would both be fine at this price point and then you will hopefully have a card with a good balance of compute, RT, VRAM and price. The 4060Ti 16GB gives you 3 of those but the price is a bit too high IMO and the 4070 as decent as it is cannot be called a budget card.

I wouldn't get your hopes up... esp with no capacity increase.

 

[mikeymikec]

People's take on this issue, is that these edge cases will become the majority, my take is that it's not gonna happen.

You know what guys, I think he's right, we've been going about this the wrong way.

I suggest that instead of being mindful of the trend that has dominated the tech sector for longer than I've been alive whereby system requirements for software generally go up rather than down, I think dismissing evidence to the contrary might be the way forward here: Through the sheer force of collective belief, I propose that all future AAA titles will run optimally in every sense within 8GB VRAM.

Who's with me? Please indicate that you're putting forth all the belief you have by liking this post. If we get enough likes together, it'll be like the finale from 'The Fifth Element'.

 

[Timorous]

I propose that all future AAA titles will run optimally in every sense within 8GB VRAM.

Only at the Correct Settings (tm).

 

[MrPickins]

I am only saying that this whole 8GB not enough thread is mostly useless, because all cards will die equally quickly.

And this is where we're all beating our heads against a wall trying to get through to you that this is a false presumption.

The RX6500 4GB vs 8GB benchmarks were posted to show just this. If you'd prefer an example that has had time to age, the RX580 4GB is all but worthless these days, but the 8GB is still quite serviceable. Or, how about the 1060 3GB vs 6GB? Why do you keep ignoring these historical data points?

It's very clear based on prior examples that 8GB is not going to age gracefully, any more than those 3 or 4 GB cards did.

There certainly is a beef towards some specific nvidia models in this thread, for which I am not against either. I am against the generic 8GB not enough argument. As I have said in the past, I am mostly interested in my own 8GB cards, because these are what I bought. At their respective price points, they were great.

Look, we get that you're trying to justify your purchases, but just because you pulled the wool over your own eyes doesn't mean the rest of us are blinded.

 

[Ranulf]

Oh, I'd argue that the 4GB cards were fine, even the 3GB ones if they were cheap enough (and marketing didnt omit they were slower chips). They didn't last as long as 8GB though obviously and it depends on your experience. I probably should have gotten a cheap rx 570 8GB instead of a 4GB for resale value etc. but that card was meant as a cheap backup and it was fine for me for about 2 years. That is one of the big problems with these newer cards, the value is horrible. Another crypto/market crash and we don't get more firesaled products like in 2013, 2018 etc.. Well, we get discounts 1 to 1.5 years later I guess.

At their respective price points, they were great.

Emphasis on "were".

These are only 1080p results. The 3060? Laughable. 12GBs ain't gonna help, sorry. The 3060ti and 3070 are destroying it, while they are also borderline un/playable. The despised 4060ti 8GB has a very nice real life playable result. The fact of the matter, is that all these cards, will need to adjust their settings, either people like it or not. You start from 500$ cards and above, to start having 1080p acceptable performance. Make of it what you will.

Yes, that is the problem overall. Price/Perf value. And its not $500, it has been down to $300 for the older cards with 12GB of ram that are 2+ years old now. But it has been obvious since 2020 with the 5600XT's marketing line of "ultimate 1080p card" for $279 or the $350 rtx 2060 before it that the industry is milking the customers dry. Both 6Gb of ram, both overpriced drek for their times too. Especially as you mention below the 970.

My freagin GTX 970 did actually run the hyper demanding TLOU and Ratchet, at the settings it could. Not ideal for PC standards but not utter unplayable either (higher than 30fps for sure). And this is a 9.5 yo card with 3.5Gbs of vram ffs.

The GTX 970 was advertised as a 1440p card for $329 MSRP. $300 if you count the $30 lawsuit checks. Less that if you count the free games I got (witcher3 and BatmanAK). At which point it was about equal to the R9 290 card (with a full 4GB vram) prices around then.

 

[MrPickins]

Oh, I'd argue that the 4GB cards were fine, even the 3GB ones if they were cheap enough (and marketing didnt omit they were slower chips). They didn't last as long as 8GB though obviously and it depends on your experience. I probably should have gotten a cheap rx 570 8GB instead of a 4GB for resale value etc. but that card was meant as a cheap backup and it was fine for me for about 2 years. That is one of the big problems with these newer cards, the value is horrible. Another crypto/market crash and we don't get more firesaled products like in 2013, 2018 etc.. Well, we get discounts 1 to 1.5 years later I guess.

I can agree with this. 8GB mainstream cards wouldn't stick in my craw as much if the price point wasn't so high. But, when you're looking to spend $300 just to get into the "Midrange" you expect more future-proofing out of a card.

 

[jpiniero]

I can agree with this. 8GB mainstream cards wouldn't stick in my craw as much if the price point wasn't so high. But, when you're looking to spend $300 just to get into the "Midrange" you expect more future-proofing out of a card.

$300 isn't midrange anymore.

 

[MrPickins]

$300 isn't midrange anymore.

Not exactly, no, but it's probably a good lower bound (thinking 6700XT as a minimum) for this discussion.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Moreover, and what I've been saying from the beginning, the VAST majority of games, will NOT go that way. Way better looking games than TLOU and RATCHET already have proven this.

So what's a user to do when he REALLY wants to play the game that runs much better on the 7600 XT 16GB or 4060 Ti 16GB? Should he just curse himself for saving money, blow a hole in his budget by going for a 4070 and hope all will be well in the near future? Or just play the game at subpar fps and STILL curse himself for not spending enough the first time around? Giving low VRAM on anything above a budget value gaming card is a very cunning (I would say unethical) marketing strategy to make uninformed gamers part with their precious money and part with even more of it later when they get frustrated with the VRAM limitations in some game.

 

[jpiniero]

Not exactly, no, but it's probably a good lower bound (thinking 6700XT as a minimum) for this discussion.

The 6700 XT's low price is only because AMD bought far too many wafers during Peak Crypto. AIBs were (still are?) building new cards from chips that are a year+ old. Not really a sustainable product. That's going to be a problem assuming no new consoles any time soon - who exactly is going to pay for RDNA4,5,6's R&D?

 

[Timorous]

The 6700 XT's low price is only because AMD bought far too many wafers during Peak Crypto. AIBs were (still are?) building new cards from chips that are a year+ old. Not really a sustainable product. That's going to be a problem assuming no new consoles any time soon - who exactly is going to pay for RDNA4,5,6's R&D?

Sony with PS5 pro is probably contributing to improving RT performance.

 

[reggie_fils_aime]

Igor I am all FOR more vram for less money, that is not the discussion here.

I am only saying that this whole 8GB not enough thread is mostly useless, because all cards will die equally quickly. People's take on this issue, is that these edge cases will become the majority, my take is that it's not gonna happen. Games will require more gpu power first and foremost and then more vram. To get more gpu power, you need a new gpu. Vram isn't gonna save you. Also I am always referring to actual playable results. Not unplayable vs unplayable.

And yes, settings are super important. There is tiering that goes from 200$ to 1500$. These are vector graphics that scale from potatoes to lobsters. It's the way things always have been. My freagin GTX 970 did actually run the hyper demanding TLOU and Ratchet, at the settings it could. Not ideal for PC standards but not utter unplayable either (higher than 30fps for sure). And this is a 9.5 yo card with 3.5Gbs of vram ffs.

In an era where there is universal access to upscaling technology, this sort of opinion is straight out of 2002. We've seen for several generations the benefit of a larger vram buffer in terms of a card's longevity.

Yes, you could say that a 1080ti was made into the eternal and venerable thing it is by dint of the core strength, but the vram buffer has allowed it to remain perfectly relevant in EVERY scenario, not just ones that you cherry pick and massage to fit the point you want to make.

Comparing cards of similar spec, look at how many people are still hanging onto 6GB 1060s vs the 4GB 970. It completely invalidates your point that "all cards die equally quickly". The useful service life of a card is extended by having more vram, this is consistent across every generation of card for the last decade. Even older cards like HD 7990s had a long, succesful service lives.