I'm sorry but for those of you running 4k now with ALL settings maxed, the ram is the least of your worries right now.
Not to insult, but that is nonsense. Stop it.
AMD has already said, as has Nvidia, that HBM offers no extra storage, capacity, or usage, at the same size level.
4GB is 4GB, regardless of whether it's GDDR or HBM. Period, end of story. So for those of us at 4k now, who will be running Crossfire setups with ALL settings maxed, 4GB is a massive limiting factor.
For those of us who desperately need higher VRAM counts, the Fury X is a dangerous buy. I'm sure AMD would have preferred to ship 8GB SKUs with the X of course, it just wasn't possible.
The ONLY hope for this particular scenario is that MS isn't bullshitting when it comes to DX12's "stacked vram" capability (2 x 4GB cards would equal a true 8GB of framebuffer). But that's a hell of a gamble to bet on.
From TweakTown's unbiased VRAM tests last week:
Far Cry 4 @ 4k with AA: 5.7GB VRAM needed
GTA V @ 4k with AA: 6.3GB VRAM needed
Shadow of Morder @ 4k with AA: 5.4GB VRAM needed
That's why those of us who own NO stock in these companies, and have owned MULTIPLE cards from both ATi and Nvidia are concerned about the Fury X having just 4GB.
They're not, for the reasons I've already outlined. Way too little framebuffer, especially for an SLI/Crossfire setup where you have the GPU horsepower to set everything high with AA...which then triggers the VRAM issues.
6GB+ cards only for SLI/Crossfire setups running 4k, otherwise it's disappointment as the Tweaktown tests show.
For anything below that (1440p, etc), 4GB is more than enough.
For anything below that (1440p, etc), 4GB is more than enough.
I'm sorry but for those of you running 4k now with ALL settings maxed, the ram is the least of your worries right now.
For right now maybe. I had the exact same thinking when I bought a 2 GB 680 three years ago; when would I possibly need more than 2 GB of VRAM when current games weren't hitting anywhere near that at 1080P? Fast forward a couple years and I can't run max texture settings in Shadow Of Mordor or GTA V because despite the card having plenty of headroom in the processing department to maintain high framerates, it lacks the VRAM needed to use those higher resolution textures without stuttering. So if you only care about buying a card to run games that are out now, yeah, 4 GB VRAM is plenty @ 1080P. But for people who are thinking a card might last them a few years, VRAM is actually pretty valid concern. Increasing texture resolution has a nominal impact on performance while drastically improving IQ, so developers will probably start taking advantage of higher resolution textures. The only thing that really matters there? VRAM. I was hopeful that AMD would be pushing 6-8GB cards out for that reason; looking at 4 GB as "plenty" makes me nervous.
I'm sorry but for those of you running 4k now with ALL settings maxed, the ram is the least of your worries right now.
Do you mean this:
http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/90/much-vram-need-1080p-1440p-4k-aa-enabled/index.html
Because if so it actually doesn't tell us anything useful. The only way to really see how a game is impacted by RAM is to have the same GPU with 2 different amounts of RAM on it and run FPS (minimum, average, maximum, rate) tests. So if you want to see the impact of 4GB of RAM as a possible limit you'd need to test something like 290 4GB vs 290 8GB since I'm not aware of any Nvidia high end cards with a 4GB and greater than 4GB version atm.
I don't disagree, that's why I stated a 980Ti would be a better choice...
980/970/390/390x all are now decidedly mid-range and if you want to do 4K gaming, the 980Ti/TX or Fury are the real options there. I just don't see the added cost of 8GB for these cards, if you are planning to do 1440P or less. If you want more, get a better GPU rather than more VRAM.
8GB mid-range doesn't make much sense right now. Maybe when Pascal/next gen AMD come around next year, but currently its just not worth the extra $$$.
For right now maybe. I had the exact same thinking when I bought a 2 GB 680 three years ago; when would I possibly need more than 2 GB of VRAM when current games weren't hitting anywhere near that at 1080P? Fast forward a couple years and I can't run max texture settings in Shadow Of Mordor or GTA V because despite the card having plenty of headroom in the processing department to maintain high framerates, it lacks the VRAM needed to use those higher resolution textures without stuttering. So if you only care about buying a card to run games that are out now, yeah, 4 GB VRAM is plenty @ 1080P. But for people who are thinking a card might last them a few years, VRAM is actually pretty valid concern. Increasing texture resolution has a nominal impact on performance while drastically improving IQ, so developers will probably start taking advantage of higher resolution textures. The only thing that really matters there? VRAM. I was hopeful that AMD would be pushing 6-8GB cards out for that reason; looking at 4 GB as "plenty" makes me nervous.
Conjecture is hard. Have we seen most of the RAM size increase after the console generation shift, will it keep going up, or will it decrease now that optimization effort is going to making the most of VRAM and we're going to exclusives for newer APIs with better texture compression support?
I run a 5040x1050 set up and 4gb is plenty.
You want as a user a mix between resolution and fps.
120hz set up means for me I want to push fps into 120+ which I cant do with all settings maxed. I dont go the dual card etc..as I am highly sensitive to any issues with framerates.
My 290 push 115fps in BF4 and I expect the Fury to help allow such framerates and then add some higher settings along the way.
4gb wont be and isnt an issue for me in years. 4 years from now I upgrade again unless something special happens with cards in the meantime.
Conjecture is hard. Have we seen most of the RAM size increase after the console generation shift, will it keep going up, or will it decrease now that optimization effort is going to making the most of VRAM and we're going to exclusives for newer APIs with better texture compression support?
From TweakTown's unbiased VRAM tests last week:
Far Cry 4 @ 4k with AA: 5.7GB VRAM needed
GTA V @ 4k with AA: 6.3GB VRAM needed
Shadow of Morder @ 4k with AA: 5.4GB VRAM needed
That's why those of us who own NO stock in these companies, and have owned MULTIPLE cards from both ATi and Nvidia are concerned about the Fury X having just 4GB.
It's not bias, fanboy nonsense, or anything else. The Fury X is $200 cheaper than the 980 Ti when buying two cards, and is likely faster as well...but those of us already at 4k seem to be locked out of it as an option because the 4GB framebuffer is way too low for dual cards (all options on).
No amount of magic compression is going to turn 6GB of framebuffer need into 4GB without a massive penalty. But I'm hopeful you're right, maybe they've pulled something off here. But in looking at those leaked benchmarks today at 5k and 8k, the Fury X drops off massively versus both Titan X and 980 Ti, so my optimism isn't real strong right now...
With the proposed pro/X prices, I am still holding out hope for a 6/8GB version later this year for a small premium (~$100?).
total VRAM usage != VRAM needed to render a scene
we'll find out soon enough how much an issue 4GB is at 4K and whether GPU or VRAM becomes the limiting factor first as settings get pushed to increase VRAM usage
From TweakTown's unbiased VRAM tests last week:
Far Cry 4 @ 4k with AA: 5.7GB VRAM needed
GTA V @ 4k with AA: 6.3GB VRAM needed
Shadow of Morder @ 4k with AA: 5.4GB VRAM needed
We have no software which can precisely tell how much memory the game actually needs... All the VRAM utilization charts from sites like HardOCP, Tweak town etc. uses Afterburner to measure how many MBytes of memory is being allocated but it doesn't tell how much the program actually needs.
I can make a graphic program which allocates full 12GB of Titan X memory but in reality needs only 10MB of memory, and then come here to tell how 12GB of memory on TX isn't enough.I've seen over the years that most people have no frigging idea what really happens when you hit the magical vram wall. I've owned 2560x1600p monitor starting from 2007, when most cards had 512mb of memory so vram wall is something which I did encounter many times in the past.
And we're not talking about that low resolution, of course 4GB works to push 5.2M pixels. But 4k is 8.2M pixels to throw around, a F-ton more, and that's why we're concerned 4GB isn't nearly enough for those of us at 3840x2160.
AMD says its fine so guess that should count for something.
As those of us already running 4K/UHD resolutions know, you're going to hit a wall in GPU performance before you hit a VRAM limitation. And forget about enabling MSAA with a single GPU in newer titles, even with the Titan-X.
Except we're talking about dual card setups, which DO have the power to handle 4k without an issue, and hit VRAM limits BEFORE GPU limits.
Same. Gamed at 1920x1200 in 2002 via a ridiculously ghosting/laggy $3995 work LCD (Samsung 240T) and had the very first Dell 30" at 1600p when it hit the market four years later. At no time did VRAM limits come into play really...
You guys are making a good case, optimisim growing.
The slides in this thread actually don't support that. 290X Crossfire and 980 SLI do just fine.
Nah Crysis was fine example when it suddenly dropped from 15fps to 1fps and then came back to 15fps and the cycle continued. That is the vram wall.
Ofc it really wasn't playable in any case @ 1600p because my gfx cards
wasn't fast enough even if they would have had enough vram.