Is 8gb vram enough?

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whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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So you are saying that 8gb will be enough at 1440p very high settings in 2023? Is that the case today with 2GB? Can 2GB or 3GB card play games well at 1440p high settings? This sounds more reasonable.
Dude, most PC gamers are still playing at 1080p with some modest increase in 1440p gaming. 8GB will be more than enough for high end mainstream gaming for the forseenable future.

4K gaming is still well below 1% of PC gamers.
 
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mohit9206

Golden Member
Jul 2, 2013
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Dude, most PC gamers are still playing at 1080p with some modest increase in 1440p gaming. 8GB will be more than enough for high end mainstream gaming for the forseenable future.

4K gaming is still well below 1% of PC gamers.
"More than enough". But is 3GB more than enough today for 1440p or not? Because we are talking about a time frame of 5 years then we have to look at a card from 5 years ago, for example GTX 780 3GB.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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"More than enough". But is 3GB more than enough today for 1440p or not? Because we are talking about a time frame of 5 years then we have to look at a card from 5 years ago, for example GTX 780 3GB.
The 1070/1080 will provide you with high performance 1440p gaming for long while. And why in Hell would you bother getting a card with less then 4GB anyway in almost 2019?
 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,011
2,279
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People need to ignore vram usage in benchmark charts. It is never an indication of actual usage, but can include usage and caching. Same process as windows ram management, the more ram you have installed, the more "usage" it shows.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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People need to ignore vram usage in benchmark charts. It is never an indication of actual usage, but can include usage and caching. Same process as windows ram management, the more ram you have installed, the more "usage" it shows.
This+. In all seriousness the standard will still be 1080p with a increasing numbers of gamers moving over to 1440p, with a much smaller number to 4K.

The reason for this is that most folks are still fine with 1080p and that 1440p is a nice middle ground that only requires reasonable priced hardware to get playable framerates.
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
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This+. In all seriousness the standard will still be 1080p with a increasing numbers of gamers moving over to 1440p, with a much smaller number to 4K.

The reason for this is that most folks are still fine with 1080p and that 1440p is a nice middle ground that only requires reasonable priced hardware to get playable framerates.
I agree about VRAM usage, but I'm not as sure you'll see 1440p becoming more common over 4K. Since TV's have skipped 1440p, they might influence more people to skip right to 4K. I could see either direction happening.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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I agree about VRAM usage, but I'm not as sure you'll see 1440p becoming more common over 4K. Since TV's have skipped 1440p, they might influence more people to skip right to 4K. I could see either direction happening.
Yeah but dGPUs powerful enough to play AAA titles at 4K with playable framerates are really expensive. How many people do you know in real live that would actually purchase a dGPU that cost four figures?
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
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Yeah but dGPUs powerful enough to play AAA titles at 4K with playable framerates are really expensive. How many people do you know in real live that would actually purchase a dGPU that cost four figures?
Not everyone feels a need to play at max settings. And your average gamer doesn't really think things through the same way people here do.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
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Yeah but dGPUs powerful enough to play AAA titles at 4K with playable framerates are really expensive. How many people do you know in real live that would actually purchase a dGPU that cost four figures?

Yeah i agree, i know literally zero people using a 4k display as their main gaming display, tons of people with them as a secondary display but they all have lower resolution, and usually faster displays with g/free sync for gaming.

The cost difference to push 1080p/1440p to 4k is just way to much. And free/g sync 4k monitors with 100hz+ speeds are way way overpriced to the point of absurdity.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
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So you are saying that 8gb will be enough at 1440p very high settings in 2023? Is that the case today with 2GB? Can 2GB or 3GB card play games well at 1440p high settings? This sounds more reasonable.

There are no 2GB or 3GB cards sold that will run new games at 1440P with very high settings at 60+ fps. VRAM usage increasing over time normally doesn't matter to cards that find themselves not having enough for High/Ultra because they don't have the GPU power to play new games at Ultra 4 years after they came out anyway.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
I have a 6GB GeForce 1060, and I've never had problems with running out of video memory running games at 1440p resolution. Even poorly optimized memory hogs like UEBS seemed to work OK. I'd run out of system memory (I have 16 GB now) before I'd run out of video memory.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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There are no 2GB or 3GB cards sold that will run new games at 1440P with very high settings at 60+ fps. VRAM usage increasing over time normally doesn't matter to cards that find themselves not having enough for High/Ultra because they don't have the GPU power to play new games at Ultra 4 years after they came out anyway.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but in many games you can not actually tell any difference between high and very setting anyway, especially if you are busy playing the game.
 

Jackie60

Member
Aug 11, 2006
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Bang for Buck also has a video of BFV using over 9gb, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpetTcK4Vgk
Personally I wouldn't buy a card with less than 11-12GB ram if buying now. The 1080 Ti /Pascal XP have been out for over two years and future games will only get more demanding. Sure you can dial down settings but buying a card costing that much only to be VRAM limited sometime soon doesn't seem wise. 1440P should be OK for a while as that's at 4K but if it was me I wouldn't compromise on VRAM. I remember my 6990 becoming RAM limited before it was GPU limited and that was annoying. Games out now need more than 8GB so I can't see there's any 'future proofing' in buying an 8GB card for todays and tomorrow's games.
 

Flayed

Senior member
Nov 30, 2016
431
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By the time games need more than 8GB of vram you would be better off to sell your 8GB card and buy whatever is the latest and greatest.
 
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Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
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Please correct me if I'm wrong but in many games you can not actually tell any difference between high and very setting anyway, especially if you are busy playing the game.

Very true, most games the difference is in shadows or HBOA vs SSOA or something. Turning off a few little items can make the game far more playable on midrange cards.

Bang for Buck also has a video of BFV using over 9gb, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpetTcK4Vgk
Personally I wouldn't buy a card with less than 11-12GB ram if buying now. The 1080 Ti /Pascal XP have been out for over two years and future games will only get more demanding. Sure you can dial down settings but buying a card costing that much only to be VRAM limited sometime soon doesn't seem wise. 1440P should be OK for a while as that's at 4K but if it was me I wouldn't compromise on VRAM. I remember my 6990 becoming RAM limited before it was GPU limited and that was annoying. Games out now need more than 8GB so I can't see there's any 'future proofing' in buying an 8GB card for todays and tomorrow's games.

Please name a game that NEEDS more than 8GB of RAM. Just because a game can use more than 8GB, doesn't mean it needs it. To see how much a game actually needs, you need to start to limit how much it can use until you get stuttering. The idea that you say nobody should buy anything less than a $700 video card is a bit nonsense.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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Please name a game that NEEDS more than 8GB of RAM. Just because a game can use more than 8GB, doesn't mean it needs it. To see how much a game actually needs, you need to start to limit how much it can use until you get stuttering. The idea that you say nobody should buy anything less than a $700 video card is a bit nonsense.
I doubt that many gamers will spend $700 pn a dGPU when they can build a fairly decent Box for that much.
 

PeterScott

Platinum Member
Jul 7, 2017
2,605
1,540
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True, i played hitman 2016 with 1gb vram so it only used 1gb. So it will use as much as available to it. Although Anandtech review of RX590 noted that even at 1080p games are starting to cause frame drops on 4gb and 6gb vram cards which doesn't happen on 8gb cards so that's also something to consider. So 4gb rx580 and 570 are not something i would consider anyone to buy going forward even if they play at 1080p

Could you point out where it said that?
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,527
604
126
I got a used 1080Ti over a 2080 partly because of this issue. It's rare but there are a few current games that use over 8GB at 4K with max settings, especially custom texture mods people have made. I'm seeing 9-10GB usage in Deus Ex Mankind Divided at 4K with the ultra setting for textures. The card may be using it just because it's there, but games are generally coming with much larger textures these days than they used to a few years ago.
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
5,154
132
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I got a used 1080Ti over a 2080 partly because of this issue. It's rare but there are a few current games that use over 8GB at 4K with max settings, especially custom texture mods people have made. I'm seeing 9-10GB usage in Deus Ex Mankind Divided at 4K with the ultra setting for textures. The card may be using it just because it's there, but games are generally coming with much larger textures these days than they used to a few years ago.
As you said, it may be using it just because its there. And your example is not a gaming coming out with larger textures. It's a mod with higher textures. I would find it a poorly written mod if they did so knowing only people with a Titan or Ti can use it.
 

mohit9206

Golden Member
Jul 2, 2013
1,381
511
136
8gb vram is more than enough. What is not enough is 4gb. Buyers of 4gb rx480, 570 and 580 are the ones in trouble. 8gb owners have nothing to worry about for the next 4 years atleast.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,527
604
126
As you said, it may be using it just because its there. And your example is not a gaming coming out with larger textures. It's a mod with higher textures. I would find it a poorly written mod if they did so knowing only people with a Titan or Ti can use it.

That game is not running on any mods, just the stock textures on the ultra setting. I was thinking of the texture mods for the Fallout games, which come in several sizes and you can choose one according to how much video memory you have. I haven't tried them on the 1080Ti yet but they make a huge difference to the look of the game.
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
5,154
132
106
That game is not running on any mods, just the stock textures on the ultra setting. I was thinking of the texture mods for the Fallout games, which come in several sizes and you can choose one according to how much video memory you have. I haven't tried them on the 1080Ti yet but they make a huge difference to the look of the game.
There is practically no way in hell that the game on ultra needs more than 8gb. No dev is that stupid.
 
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Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
33,929
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I don't know if it requires it, but Black Ops 4 uses just under 10GB of VRAM while I'm playing on my 1440p display.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,460
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I don't know if it requires it, but Black Ops 4 uses just under 10GB of VRAM while I'm playing on my 1440p display.
And I'm sure I can play the same game using my GTX 970 which only has 4GBs onboard, at 1600p.
 
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