Does increased bandwidth lead to reduced VRAM consumption?

[hsjj3]

I just swapped out my GTX 960 SC 4GB with the new GTX 1060 SC, and I noticed something very interesting.

While running Firestrike on my older card, the VRAM consumption would max out at around 1400MB. But on the new card, it maxes out at around 1100MB.

Any idea why this is the case? Is it due to the much greater bandwidth, which leads to reduced VRAM consumption?

 

[sm625]

Maybe it is due to having more advanced texture compression.

 

[DamZe]

Maybe it is due to having more advanced texture compression.

I second this.

 

[nathanddrews]

It's a combination of increased bandwidth due to GDDR5X and better compression. According to NVIDIA's own analysis, what you are seeing (22% reduction) is appropriate:

 

[Lepton87]

From what I know the compression technology is only supposed to increase the effective bandwidth and not the effective memory capacity. AFAIK both cards store the textures in the same format.

 

[Bacon1]

It's a combination of increased bandwidth due to GDDR5X and better compression. According to NVIDIA's own analysis, what you are seeing (22% reduction) is appropriate:

His 1060 doesn't use GDDR5X

 

[96Firebird]

From what I know the compression technology is only supposed to increase the effective bandwidth and not the effective memory capacity. AFAIK both cards store the textures in the same format.

This is accurate.

 

[dogen1]

His 1060 doesn't use GDDR5X

It says compression benefit is ~20%.

 

[Bacon1]

It says compression benefit is ~20%.

I know, but he was specifically pointing out GDDR5X in his comment:

It's a combination of increased bandwidth due to GDDR5X and better compression

 

[nathanddrews]

His 1060 doesn't use GDDR5X

The chart from NVIDIA is for the 1080 vs 980, it wasn't meant to be specific to his problem, but by simple deduction, provide some basis for what he's seeing. For the 1060, only the compression improvements of Pascal over Maxwell apply in this instance.

We can probably assume there was a driver update at some point, which could also improve memory usage, but he didn't state that. :shrug:

 

[Bacon1]

The chart from NVIDIA is for the 1080 vs 980, it wasn't meant to be specific to his problem

I already commented on that right above your post. He specifically mentioned GDDR5X in his post.

Just posting the chart with "Pascal has newer compression which could be doing it" would be fine, but when saying that it is a combination of GDDR5X and compression is misleading when the card doesn't use GDDR5X.

 

[nathanddrews]

I already commented on that right above your post. He specifically mentioned GDDR5X in his post.

Just posting the chart with "Pascal has newer compression which could be doing it" would be fine, but when saying that it is a combination of GDDR5X and compression is misleading when the card doesn't use GDDR5X.

I'm sorry you were mislead.

 

[Bacon1]

I'm sorry you were mislead.

I wasn't, I was trying to prevent others from being mislead. Why don't you update your post to remove that part?

 

[dogen1]

I know, but he was specifically pointing out GDDR5X in his comment:

Ah, didn't notice that.

 

[hsjj3]

Guys, sorry for no follow up. The forum has not wanted to load on my iPad.

Does anyone here have a 900 series card, especially a GTX 960?

Does anyone have both a 900 and a 10 series card?

Would be easy to settle this for sure then if we can get confirmation from at least another member that indeed VRAM consumption has decreased. Make sure to run a standardised benchmark like TimeSpy, Firestrike, Heaven etc.

 

[hsjj3]

Guys, sorry for no follow up. The forum has not wanted to load on my iPad.

Does anyone here have a 900 series card, especially a GTX 960?

Does anyone have both a 900 and a 10 series card?

Would be easy to settle this for sure then if we can get confirmation from at least another member that indeed VRAM consumption has decreased. Make sure to run a standardised benchmark like TimeSpy, Firestrike, Heaven etc.

 

[2is]

From what I know the compression technology is only supposed to increase the effective bandwidth and not the effective memory capacity. AFAIK both cards store the textures in the same format.

This is my understanding as well.

 

[Carfax83]

The new compression tech for Pascal pertains to pixels only I believe, and not textures. That's why it affects bandwidth, and not VRAM capacity. AFAIK, textures don't require much bandwidth at all since they are only decompressed when they are about to be used.

The discrepancy with the VRAM in the OP is likely due to drivers..