Question 'Ampere'/Next-gen gaming uarch speculation thread

[Ottonomous]

How much is the Samsung 7nm EUV process expected to provide in terms of gains?
How will the RTX components be scaled/developed?
Any major architectural enhancements expected?
Will VRAM be bumped to 16/12/12 for the top three?
Will there be further fragmentation in the lineup? (Keeping turing at cheaper prices, while offering 'beefed up RTX' options at the top?)
Will the top card be capable of >4K60, at least 90?
Would Nvidia ever consider an HBM implementation in the gaming lineup?
Will Nvidia introduce new proprietary technologies again?

Sorry if imprudent/uncalled for, just interested in the forum member's thoughts.

 

[moonbogg]

The VRAM discussion here is so masterfully done, I can't tell if the VRAM complaints are real or just having fun?

10gigs, they knew, is paltry and rude, but decided to take our money and run.

 

[KompuKare]

Or it could be a slight drop to the resolution of certain reflections or shadows - but the point remains that turning those down a setting or two has a much lesser visual impact than turning down texture quality in many games, and this is why people are so bothered about VRAM capacity.

Or user modded games.
There are plenty of great mods for Skyrim and similar which are mostly visually impressive because of texture mods. Ideally model and shader mods would be even more impressive but far more work.
Texture mods are far easier (relatively speaking: I really appreciate these community mods), but don't stress the raw power of GPUs as much (as model and/or shader mods). However, they love VRAM.
And mods are a major reason for PC gaming, otherwise why not just buy a console for half the price of a similar PC?

 

[tviceman]

Dropping textures easily has the greatest IQ impact out of all settings (excluding resolution).

It used to, but now many games have an indiscernible loss in quality when moving from the highest texture setting to the next highest texture setting.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Dropping textures easily has the greatest IQ impact out of all settings (excluding resolution). People don't want to tone down texture quality because of that. Whereas with other settings, usually just dropping from Ultra to High settings can net you nearly the same visuals with significant performance uplifts in the region of 15-20%.

Then you can of course demonstrate that IQ loss in the "one game" people have been using as evidence: Doom Eternal, between Ultra and Ultra Nightmare...

 

[amenx]

Poor 11gb 1080ti and 16gb R VII owners who thought their high vram cards would keep them ahead of 8gb variants @ 4k.

 

[Karnak]

Poor 11gb 1080ti and 16gb R VII owners who thought their high vram cards would keep them ahead of 8gb variants @ 4k.

Pretty weird comparison. Why not compare the upcoming 3070 with the "old" 2080Ti? Similar performance but 8GB vs 11GB.

Besides that avg. fps (which is the only data TPU is still using, don't know why) are pretty pointless. They dont show if frametimes are suffering from having less memory.

 

[amenx]

Why not compare the upcoming 3070 with the "old" 2080Ti? Similar performance but 8GB vs 11GB.

Er.. because the "upcoming" card does not have sufficient data to be comparable yet? Even if it did, vram capacity in and of itself is not a sufficient indicator of performance.

Besides that avg. fps (which is the only data TPU is still using, don't know why) are pretty pointless. They dont show if frametimes are suffering from having less memory.

Yes I know that its pointless. But I'll bet you 99% of the high vram advocators will (incorrectly) see FPS as the single biggest indicator of vram insufficiency. Bandwidth, compute units, uarch and other differences mean nothing to them. The point of the chart is that is what they relate to still .

 

[undertaker101]

Look up serious sam 4 benchmarks on notebookcheck, the 2080 ti has a massive lead in 1% min fps due to the vram. And who is going to argue that unoptimised console ports are not the future? I hope evga drops their b stock 2080 ti esp the ftw3s in the 6xx range so I can buy one and be done with this for now. Only problem with my zotac 2080 ti was the fans had to be replaced and I did not trust zotac enough to keep it outside of warranty.

 

[PhoBoChai]

It used to, but now many games have an indiscernible loss in quality when moving from the highest texture setting to the next highest texture setting.

Because these games use lossy AA that makes high quality crisp textures look like low quality blurry mess.

 

[PhoBoChai]

Poor 11gb 1080ti and 16gb R VII owners who thought their high vram cards would keep them ahead of 8gb variants @ 4k.

This is silly. We have moved on from just AVG FPS years ago.

The impact of VRAM is 2 fold, when there's not enough of it:

1. Poor frame-time as assets move on and off the vram.

2. If its lacking enough, even AVG FPS tanks badly.

 

[Heartbreaker]

This is silly. We have moved on from just AVG FPS years ago.

The impact of VRAM is 2 fold, when there's not enough of it:

1. Poor frame-time as assets move on and off the vram.

2. If its lacking enough, even AVG FPS tanks badly.

Then it would show up in 1% low behavior that most decent reviewers now report, as would they report any other glitches.

But it isn't happening.

 

[Mopetar]

What most people expressing so much concern over VRAM capacity fail to acknowledge is that you will probably run into more raw performance issues as your card ages, than VRAM issues. So you keep a card for multiple generations you will be turning settings down for acceptable performance. It's just a fact of life.

That's true if the card had enough VRAM that it doesn't become a bottleneck for future titles. A lot of older flagship cards seemed to have that covered so the lack of VRAM never became a performance issue.

We have seen past examples of cards where NVidia or AMD have sold to separate configurations based on memory (e.g. 4/8 GB 580 or 3/6 GB 1060) where the lower memory can cause a big hit in some titles.

I don't think we're to 10 GB yet and most titles are probably built around 8GB unless the game is running some kind of ultra setting that drops everything to its knees for a barely perceptible difference.

 

[Mopetar]

10gigs, they knew, is paltry and rude, but decided to take our money and run.

In a weird way I think NVidia doesn't look at it that way. They want you to run these cards with RT on, which basically means using DLSS on top of it so you don't get a slideshow at native resolution.

If their idea of 4K is really rendering at 1440p and using tensor cores to produce a better looking upscaled image, then do you really need more than 10 GB for the foreseeable future?

I really do think this is what NVidia had in mind and may just have failed to consider that's not the way everyone wants to play their games. Using a bleeding edge memory type probably hurt as well, but I'm not sure they'd treat the extra memory as anything other than a luxury for those who just need to have it.

 

[Elfear]

Or user modded games.
There are plenty of great mods for Skyrim and similar which are mostly visually impressive because of texture mods. Ideally model and shader mods would be even more impressive but far more work.
Texture mods are far easier (relatively speaking: I really appreciate these community mods), but don't stress the raw power of GPUs as much (as model and/or shader mods). However, they love VRAM.
And mods are a major reason for PC gaming, otherwise why not just buy a console for half the price of a similar PC?

This is the reason I'm leery to pick up a 10GB 3080. Texture mods on a game like Skyrim can make the game look gorgeous but suck up a lot of vram. Granted, far and away most games will be just fine at 4k but why would I want to worry about the few I play so much when the GPU "horsepower" is there but not the vram capacity?

When I spend big bucks on a GPU I don't feel I should have to deal with compromises like that. Heck, even on a mid-range videocard the GPU grunt should match the vram capacity IMO (i.e. a 2070S shouldn't have any vram issues at 1440p or lower).

 

[CP5670]

How much memory do the texture mods use? I've been replaying Fallout 3 with a bunch of the ultra quality texture mods and the reported vram usage is not that high (4GB or so), much less than what I've seen in more recent games. I use texture mods in several other old games too, but the memory usage they report never seems that high even though the textures are higher resolution than a lot of newer games.

 

[DiogoDX]

How much memory do the texture mods use? I've been replaying Fallout 3 with a bunch of the ultra quality texture mods and the reported vram usage is not that high (4GB or so), much less than what I've seen in more recent games. I use texture mods in several other old games too, but the memory usage they report never seems that high even though the textures are higher resolution than a lot of newer games.

Skyrim SE here in 4K with mods hit the 11GB of my 1080Ti very often with 9-10GB most of the time. And I'm not even using the most high resolution texture packs (choosing the 2K version of the textures when it has the option instead of the 4K version).

 

[Stuka87]

Skyrim SE here in 4K with mods hit the 11GB of my 1080Ti very often with 9-10GB most of the time. And I'm not even using the most high resolution texture packs (choosing the 2K version of the textures when it has the option instead of the 4K version).

Have you run the exact same mods on a 6 or 8GB card? If not, then your comment doesn't have much bearing. A game will allocate as much memory as it feels it can, even if its just to prevent fetching rarely used assets, or assets from earlier in game play that aren't even being used now, but have not yet been cleared out.

 

[DiogoDX]

Have you run the exact same mods on a 6 or 8GB card? If not, then your comment doesn't have much bearing. A game will allocate as much memory as it feels it can, even if its just to prevent fetching rarely used assets, or assets from earlier in game play that aren't even being used now, but have not yet been cleared out.

Yes. Had a 980Ti before and had to install less textures mods or would sutter a lot and you see some purple objects due to lack of vram to render the textures. I don't think that the old Skyrim engine do the smart vram allocation that more moderns engines does.

 

[Bouowmx]

GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
GA102 with 7424 cores/58 SMs, 10 GB GDDR6X, 320-bit, 320 W

NVIDIA PG132 SKU35 (RTX 3070 Ti?) with GA102-150 to tackle Radeon RX 6800XL? - VideoCardz.com

Just days before RTX 3070 launch the rumor mill is clearly not stopping. NVIDIA PG132-SKU35 with 7424 CUDA cores The third variant of NVIDIA Ampere GA102 has received a board number and SKU number, according to @kopite7kimi. It is alleged that the new graphics card would fill the gap between...

videocardz.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320702114977304577

Looks like GA103 (7680 cores/60 SMs) is not happening


GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
It's coming along quickly
Listed in China retailers

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti goes on preorder in China - VideoCardz.com

Taobao retailers have begun offering GeForce RTX 3060 Ti for preorders. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti already on preorder in China The GA104-200 based NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is now listed by retailers on Taobao. The graphics card is not expected to launch until mid-November. NVIDIA has not yet...

videocardz.com

Spec confirmation in GPU-Z validation (nothing new): 4864 cores/38 SMs, 1410/1665 MHz, 8 GB GDDR6, 256-bit, 14 GT/s, 448 GB/s, 180 W

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti specifications confirmed by GPU-Z validation - VideoCardz.com

It appears that someone has made a public GPU-Z validation of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card, confirming not only its existence but also its specifications. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti specs confirmed An anonymous and public GPU-Z validation confirms the specifications of the GeForce RTX...

videocardz.com

 

[moonbogg]

So the 3070Ti basically kills off the 3080, taking its place, and the 3060Ti kills off the 3070 and takes its place. Can't say I'm surprised since Nvidia's entire lineup entirely sucked. What would surprise me is Nvidia trying to use a giant foam shield wall of 8GB 3070's to withstand the ominously advancing Legio III Gallica that is RDNA2.

 

[Midwayman]

I wonder where this 3070Ti will land price wise? It feels like if they're canceling the base version they will be planning on launching close to the original price.

 

[Qwertilot]

People over thinking it slightly again

If they're already thinking of reusing ga102 with such high demand for the 3089/90 it surely mainly means that they're getting an awful lot of rather defective GA102 dies back from SS & need to use them up.

They need the 3070 as is for laptops etc.

 

[Midwayman]

They need the 3070 as is for laptops etc.

Great for the 60 seconds the battery would last I guess.

 

[PhoBoChai]

In a weird way I think NVidia doesn't look at it that way. They want you to run these cards with RT on, which basically means using DLSS on top of it so you don't get a slideshow at native resolution.

RT on uses extra VRAM for the BVH acceleration structure. Its countered by lowering resolution, but it ends up similar 1440p + RT ~4K.

 

[exquisitechar]

People over thinking it slightly again

If they're already thinking of reusing ga102 with such high demand for the 3089/90 it surely mainly means that they're getting an awful lot of rather defective GA102 dies back from SS & need to use them up.

They need the 3070 as is for laptops etc.

3080 already has a huge number of SMs disabled (68 of the full 84 are enabled). Yields would have to be absolutely horrible for that to be the case. It's obvious what is happening with the number of rumored new SKUs so soon after launch, that seem to have the potential to almost invalidate already existing cards. They are filling performance gaps that AMD will compete in, as usual.