Polaris 10 benchmarks...

[Zstream]

Seconded. Anything less than 60 fps minimums or ~45 FPS on adaptive sync in most action games (FPS, 3rd person, etc.) leaves me uncomfortable and feeling very disconnected. Acting like no one sees the point in getting over 30 FPS in a Video Card and Graphics forum on a technology enthusiast site is laughable

Agreed, but it has nothing to do with an enthusiast site or any other site for that matter. As I was responding, and what I thought everyone else got out of the post, was that not everything is black and white, very similar to the posts above

 

[Kenmitch]

I've been playing games for over 20 years on a PC. I never had an issue playing at 30fps, as long as the screen isn't tearing like crazy. People are obsessed with this number, seesh.

Agreed, but it has nothing to do with an enthusiast site or any other site for that matter. As I was responding, and what I thought everyone else got out of the post, was that not everything is black and white, very similar to the posts above

Just personal preference in the end really.

Having a 144Hz monitor I play with vsync off and just tweak settings to get whatever fps feels comfortable to me in game. Usually anything over 70-80fps is tolerable, around 90-100fps is better, above is best.

 

[sirmo]

Depends on the game as well. In some games I must have 60+ FPS. If it's not a twitch based game and scenes don't update as much I can do 40fps (like top down or adventure games).

Also I am not an Ultra settings purist. I don't mind turning down a few settings here or there to get the most comfortable frame rate / quality balance.

 

[Thinker_145]

$30 is 15% of the total cost of the card.

That means you can save that money and put to towards your next GPU purchase.

The 8GB is only worth it for those that really, really need to up graphics and don't mind suffering massive performance hits which the cards can't handle, or go dual cards to increase perf.

And $30 is like max 5% cost of a gaming PC. If someone looks so deeply at $30 then they shouldn't be doing PC gaming.

And $30 is less than the cost of an actual game.

 

[Thinker_145]

Seconded. Anything less than 60 fps minimums or ~45 FPS on adaptive sync in most action games (FPS, 3rd person, etc.) leaves me uncomfortable and feeling very disconnected. Acting like no one sees the point in getting over 30 FPS in a Video Card and Graphics forum on a technology enthusiast site is laughable

Way to miss the point entirely. The argument here was if someone would play maxed settings at 30FPS or lower settings at higher FPS. Nobody suggested that 30FPS is ideal.

And I assume you guys just don't play those games which are locked at 30FPS?

 

[Bacon1]

And $30 is like max 5% cost of a gaming PC. If someone looks so deeply at $30 then they shouldn't be doing PC gaming.

And $30 is less than the cost of an actual game.

Does 8GB offer anywhere close to 15% more performance in games? No.

4GB is the max most people will need for the performance this card will be able to do. 8GB is there for people that will be able to use the extra performance (multi gpu) to actually run settings that require 8gb.

For the rest of the people its better to save the money thus be able to upgrade sooner.

I love you turn 15% of the cost of the card into some 5% number that is coming from no where and has no value in the discussion

 

[Thinker_145]

Does 8GB offer anywhere close to 15% more performance in games? No.

4GB is the max most people will need for the performance this card will be able to do. 8GB is there for people that will be able to use the extra performance (multi gpu) to actually run settings that require 8gb.

For the rest of the people its better to save the money thus be able to upgrade sooner.

I love you turn 15% of the cost of the card into some 5% number that is coming from no where and has no value in the discussion

lol dude you are throwing around the number 15% as if percentages have the same value everywhere. The lesser the monetary value in question the less percentages matter. Do you also think about $2 as 100% more than $1?

$30 is not going to let someone upgrade sooner what a ridiculous thing to say. As I said if someone is on that sort of a budget then they should find another hobby than video gaming.

Not to mention I bet you will actually get those $30 back in resale. Nobody will be looking to buy 4GB cards after 2-3 years like how nobody buys a 2GB card now.

 

[Bacon1]

lol dude you are throwing around the number 15% as if percentages have the same value everywhere. The lesser the monetary value in question the less percentages matter. Do you also think about $2 as 100% more than $1?

$30 is not going to let someone upgrade sooner what a ridiculous thing to say. As I said if someone is on that sort of a budget then they should find another hobby than video gaming.

Not to mention I bet you will actually get those $30 back in resale. Nobody will be looking to buy 4GB cards after 2-3 years like how nobody buys a 2GB card now.

Yes I would think of $2 as 100% more than $1. That's why percentages matter.

$30 matters less on a $500 card than a $200 one. That is why it matters.

Please show me how the 8GB is going to help this card.

 

[Thinker_145]

Yes I would think of $2 as 100% more than $1. That's why percentages matter.

$30 matters less on a $500 card than a $200 one. That is why it matters.

Please show me how the 8GB is going to help this card.

Forget it. You seem naive about the history of PC gaming and the disastrous effects of insufficient VRAM. You are free to do whatever you want I am done with this discussion.

 

[casiofx]

Yes I would think of $2 as 100% more than $1. That's why percentages matter.

$30 matters less on a $500 card than a $200 one. That is why it matters.

Please show me how the 8GB is going to help this card.

Future games that ships with higher resolution textures that eat VRAM, as you would know, running higher resolution textures barely degrades performance.

Current games that would break 4GB barrier? Shadow of Mordor HD pack, Call of Duty Advanced Warefare's Cache Spot Shadow Maps and Cache Sun Shadow Maps in settings (4GB cards need to disable it else will just watch slideshows) etc

And 8GB cards starts to flood the market now, you can expect game developers to start bundling more high resolution texture packs into the game in the next 12 months.

Either way, you can't go wrong with RX480 4GB or RX480 8GB.

 

[Thala]

Future games that ships with higher resolution textures that eat VRAM, as you would know, running higher resolution textures barely degrades performance.

You ignore 2 facts.
1) higher resolution textures are primarily designed for higher screen resolutions...otherwise the gain of a higher resolution would just be a reduction of aliasing
The corollary is, that high resolution texture packs have questionable benefit at lower screen resolutions as at lower screen resolution the textures are under-sampled.
2) The general performance requirements going up faster than texture resolution - as texture resolution have a clear limit depending on screen resolution. If the argument is today, that a graphics card is performance limited before the VRAM limit kicks in then this argument becomes even more valid in the future.

So for most intents and purposes 4Gbyte is fine for 1080p and below even more so in the future.

 

[casiofx]

You ignore 2 facts.
1) higher resolution textures are primarily designed for higher screen resolutions...otherwise the gain of a higher resolution would just be a reduction of aliasing
The corollary is, that high resolution texture packs have questionable benefit at lower screen resolutions as at lower screen resolution the textures are under-sampled.
2) The general performance requirements going up faster than texture resolution - as texture resolution have a clear limit depending on screen resolution. If the argument is today, that a graphics card is performance limited before the VRAM limit kicks in then this argument becomes even more valid in the future.

So for most intents and purposes 4Gbyte is fine for 1080p and below even more so in the future.

Both of your points are invalidated by one single fact, there are barely performance loss by using high resolution textures.

It does not benefit low resolution monitors? Do you even looked at games like Far Cry 4? The object tuxtures are amazing even when close up, and it is made for 4GB cards, it'll be even better if it can go up to 8GB.

 

[Silverforce11]

@casiofx

I used to think 4K textures and such were nice but rather meh for visual improvement over Ultra textures in most games. Until I got a 4K monitor.

I would say most of the clarity and detail is lost on lower resolution for 4K textures as they are sampled down to display on a lower res screen. Thus, to really benefit from 4K textures, you should be rocking a 4K monitor.

VSR/DSR really is just Super Sampling and they help with aliasing issues.

 

[casiofx]

@casiofx

I used to think 4K textures and such were nice but rather meh for visual improvement over Ultra textures in most games. Until I got a 4K monitor.

I would say most of the clarity and detail is lost on lower resolution for 4K textures as they are sampled down to display on a lower res screen. Thus, to really benefit from 4K textures, you should be rocking a 4K monitor.

VSR/DSR really is just Super Sampling and they help with aliasing issues.

It does matter eapecially for fps games where you will end up doing a lot lf close ups to objects. That's why I put the example of far cry 4. Plus, since there is no performance degradation, why turn it off when you can use it?

 

[Bacon1]

Future games that ships with higher resolution textures that eat VRAM, as you would know, running higher resolution textures barely degrades performance.

How can you say there isn't a performance hit when going up in resolutions?

Going from 1080->1440->4k is one of the most taxing things for a GPU.

One of the reason AMD cards don't show as much scaling degradation is because they were cpu limited and thus not able to perform as well at 1080.

Yes there are some limited games like Shadow of Mordor or Skyrim that can use >4GB of ram, but most games are going to lose too much performance long before you hit >4GB of ram.

And like we've seen in Shadow of Mordor (http://www.pcgamer.com/spot-the-difference-shadow-of-mordor-ultra-hd-textures-barely-change-a-thing/) and Mirrors Edge, the difference between >4GB textures and under aren't even noticable in most cases.

So like I was saying, if you plan on keeping the card for a very long time or going multi gpu, 8GB can be worth it, but most people will be fine with the 4gb version and upgrading faster

 

[selni]

<images>

How can you say there isn't a performance hit when going up in resolutions?

Going from 1080->1440->4k is one of the most taxing things for a GPU.

One of the reason AMD cards don't show as much scaling degradation is because they were cpu limited and thus not able to perform as well at 1080.

Yes there are some limited games like Shadow of Mordor or Skyrim that can use >4GB of ram, but most games are going to lose too much performance long before you hit >4GB of ram.

And like we've seen in Shadow of Mordor (http://www.pcgamer.com/spot-the-difference-shadow-of-mordor-ultra-hd-textures-barely-change-a-thing/) and Mirrors Edge, the difference between >4GB textures and under aren't even noticable in most cases.

So like I was saying, if you plan on keeping the card for a very long time or going multi gpu, 8GB can be worth it, but most people will be fine with the 4gb version and upgrading faster

Texture resolution and screen resolution aren't the same thing. People overhype extra VRAM all the time, but those charts have very little to do with texture resolution.

 

[Bacon1]

Texture resolution and screen resolution aren't the same thing. People overhype extra VRAM all the time, but those charts have very little to do with texture resolution.

Ah sorry missed you saying texture just thought you meant resolution .

Even so, can you show any that require > 4GB @ 1080p (or even 1440p) that make a noticeable difference?

 

[Adul]

That extra $30 worth of VRAM will never be more useful than $30 worth of better cooling/better binning. Not today, not 3 years from now.

We will never need more than 640kb of memory...

Never say never, we do not know what could be done to make use of the RAM.

 

[misuspita]

That 30$ of vram can go in other places too. 30 to a bigger ssd, or more ram, or a faster cpu... Remember, we are talking about mainstream, where 30$ is big.

And as pointed by others, if gaming at max 1080, it's futile to spend those 30 in 4gb vram when you cannot feel a difference. Any one that i mentioned could make a difference, especially ram

 

[selni]

Ah sorry missed you saying texture just thought you meant resolution .

Even so, can you show any that require > 4GB @ 1080p (or even 1440p) that make a noticeable difference?

Wasn't me that said it made a difference - I think 4GB will be fine for a midrange/value card. You'll probably have to turn down a setting or something occasionally but you'll have to do that anyway. The whole "but you could use higher res textures" line is true, but doesn't happen to that degree all that commonly.

 

[realibrad]

Wasn't me that said it made a difference - I think 4GB will be fine for a midrange/value card. You'll probably have to turn down a setting or something occasionally but you'll have to do that anyway. The whole "but you could use higher res textures" line is true, but doesn't happen to that degree all that commonly.

We are seeing this more though. Because consoles have shared memory devs are putting everything in vram. It's just easier for them.

 

[selni]

We are seeing this more though. Because consoles have shared memory devs are putting everything in vram. It's just easier for them.

It's much more likely for a game to ship textures that could actually use that much VRAM than it was a few years ago due to the consoles, sure - they've raised the target quite a bit and I'm sure it'll happen/is happening. However no one is going to release a game that only a tiny fraction of the market can play. There's going to be a setting to reduce texture quality because no publisher is going to make money on a title that handful of highend cards and a single variant of a mainstream card can play.

Whether that matters much visually or not is yet to be seen and will probably be case by case, but if you want to OCD on maxing stuff out you're probably looking at the wrong cards if you're looking at 4 vs 8GB.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Whether that matters much visually or not is yet to be seen and will probably be case by case, but if you want to OCD on maxing stuff out you're probably looking at the wrong cards if you're looking at 4 vs 8GB.

Exactly.

Is more VRAM better? Sure it is.

The point being made is the end user who is opting for a 4GB card is likely not going to see a big difference for the price increase. They could use that money on another part of the PC like the CPU or system RAM in hopes that these parts remain a bit more future proofed as has been true for the last 8 years or so.

Even more likely at this budget they may want to use that 30 dollars to buy some games to run.

I was going to suggest holding the 30 bucks to sell the 480 next gen and buy a 580 etc but I think the mainstream does not do this as much/often. Someone in the mainstream is probably going to be happy with the 480 for multiple generations until 1080p med settings is no longer enjoyable. Freesync might keep them happy with it for even longer if they have it.

 

[Thala]

Both of your points are invalidated by one single fact, there are barely performance loss by using high resolution textures.

Are you lacking comprehension? I did not even mention the performance impact of these HD texture packs.
I did say that high res textures are under-sampled with lower screen resolution.
They have very limited visual impact on lower resolutions, if at all.

Lets review quickly what the tech press had to say about the Shadow of Mordor HD pack

http://wccftech.com/shadow-of-mordor-ultra-hd-texture-6gb-vram/#ixzz4BwVwok4B

But it seems like the optional pack that is available on Steam store isn&#8217;t much of a visual asset, as it doesn&#8217;t graphically enhance the game further and is easily comparable to the high settings.

http://www.pcgamer.com/spot-the-difference-shadow-of-mordor-ultra-hd-textures-barely-change-a-thing/

The Steam store page for the ultra textures says they are &#8220;the highest resolution textures available,&#8221; but when I loaded them in game, I had to double check that they were even installed at all. The ultra textures are so incredibly similar to the high setting ones that when I compare near identical images I can only catch a subtle difference here or there.

And even this HD texture pack runs nicely with 4Gbyte VRAM even though the suggested size is 6GByte.

My second point refers to the fact that future games are more demanding in general. So the tendency is that you rather reduce screen resolution, which would require even less high res textures.

So my arguments come down to the fact, that if today you do not benefit from high res textures, so for future game you would visually benefit equally or even less.

My argument has nothing to do with the fact that the performance impact of ultra HD textures itself is minor (e.g. 5% range).

 

[Thinker_145]

Ultra settings are for many games not really that much better than high settings. If we are to follow this line of reasoning you could say why even buy a high end card at all.