Is 4GB of VRAM enough? extremetech article

[BoredJoe]

So the current situation with 4k is:
Increasing AA at high resolutions is pretty much an exercise in massively increasing required VRAM and reducing performance so you get less "jaggies" at 4k, I don't notice them but ok.

As far as what gives the best experience goes the order is pretty much:
Running native resolution
Reasonable framerate/input lag
High-ish graphics setting apart from AA
High framerate monitor/framerate/low input lag/gsync/freesync
Some AA
Maxing most settings
Maxing every setting apart from AA
Maxing AA.

It's not until you get to the bottom couple of rungs that 4GB VRAM starts to get hit @ 4k.. and when it is getting hit, every other rung above that is more important is getting compromised massively.

So in answer to the question is 4GB VRAM enough- yes it is, unless you want a really horrible gaming experience that isn't caused by the lack of VRAM but your own stubbornness to max out settings in games.

 

[uksoldierboy]

No need for that and clearly you can see that you wasn't running anywhere near close to max settings that you claimed and my point about people who want to run with max settings at 4K and have 2/3/4 cards won't be able to do that if they have a Fury X. Like I said, not a dig at all and just showing what is what. I doubt you can run max settings at 1440P with an FX or 2 if I am honest without needing the page file to cache from.

My down and dirty vid with everything maxed on a single card shows what is what with 1440P and VRAM (and frames).

I played GTA V Maxed at 1440P, all maxed including advanced (High res shadows, Distance streaming max) no issues at all.

Other than the constant crashing etc when Rockstar screwed the patches.

 

[r7slayer]

Wow what a bait thread!!! Basically calling out the AMD guys big time. I doubt there were many AMD users saying 4GB wasn't enough before the nVidia guys was. Titan users were first to that conclusion and i remember it well. You needed a minimum of 2 titans and 6gb was only just enough. Even kaap said at one point titans were better for 4k because of thier 6gb vs 290x with 4gb. Though he probably won't admit this I wish I saved the post.

Also love how instantly Matt gets called out in the thread. And his post got took out of context as he said 4gb isn't enough when you have the grunt there. Back then to run 4k properly you needed a multi gpu setup to get the grunt so yea that post is imo correct. Now you can run 4k with a single card but the single card has the appropriate grunt for the designated vram(Except titan x lol). GDDR5 however you want to look at it is not the same as 4GB of HBM. Obviously when looking at vram usage benchmarks you can see this with the same settings. so 4GB of vram is enough for 4k with a Fury X card as this is what this thread is about. 4GB with other cards probably isn't.

And its better being based on a single card as there are FAR FAR more single card users vs multi gpu users. Single card users out weigh multi gpu users by a mile so multi gpu setups for this argument are irreverent

/Thread.

 

[muziqaz]

I will put up a screen or two later. I agree there is not a lot in it, but i always try and have some MSAA if i can, even though in all truth i probably couldn't tell the difference.

No need for screens, I have plenty of those and I play with everything max, 4k, no MSAA, no frame scaling, two cards. And I love it.
One of the problems I always had with GTA games was MSAA/jaggies at 1080p. The game just always looked crappy. With 4k and 2 fury x, game looks absolutely stunning and I don't see any jaggies, unless I am spending my spare time actively looking for them, but since inside the game there is plenty of things to do besides looking for jaggies, I just don't bother. Thus I still get stunning quality and great performance without adding any e-pen enlargement treatment (read MSAAx8).
Without MSAA game uses just about all the ram of my fury xs, but does not go over, and I don't feel any performance problems, unless I am playing GTA online, then we have loads of other problems, which are beside the point.

P.S. Ok, I apologize but it seems there is some jaggies in my given screenshot. game minimap has them but since that minimap does not get any quality enhancements either way I still stand by my point.

 

[Gregster]

*snip*

Don't look at it that way and look at it as 4GB cards (AMD and Nvidia). No need to turn this into a Red Vs Green bud

 

[Kaapstad]

Wow what a bait thread!!! Basically calling out the AMD guys big time. I doubt there were many AMD users saying 4GB wasn't enough before the nVidia guys was. Titan users were first to that conclusion and i remember it well. You needed a minimum of 2 titans and 6gb was only just enough. Even kaap said at one point titans were better for 4k because of thier 6gb vs 290x with 4gb. Though he probably won't admit this I wish I saved the post.

I still stand by that in a 4 way setup as the 290Xs were running out of VRAM back then.

As Gregster said this should not turn into a Red v Green thing. Now things have moved on it could be argued that in a 4 way setup 6gb GTX 980 Ti's are not up to it @2160p which puts them in the same boat as the Fury X. Games are appearing which when maxed can use 8gb or more so it does not matter if cards have 4gb or 6gb if you want to go 4 way with them, they all have the same problem.

 

[r7slayer]

Don't look at it that way and look at it as 4GB cards (AMD and Nvidia). No need to turn this into a Red Vs Green bud

Tell that to the people who did that before me lol

Greg i can see in your vid you got to the 5 - 5.5GB area vram usage but that's using a card which is still running GDDR5 and not HBM. If you look at vram usage benches with the Fury x you can see with the exact same settings which would get GDDR 5 cards to reach 4gb the FX usage would be noticeably lower most of the time. Thanks to HBM technology and better memory optimisations, we all can look forward to this next year. Anyway to reach that 4GB on a FX at 4k your going to be hitting what most people would consider just playable frame rates sort of area. To me this is enough vram for this card.

With multi gpu set-ups this would be different as you have the grunt to increase the visuals but mutli gpu users are well a minority. There's not even a huge amount of people with the latest high end GPUs tbh but there are vastly more of these people than multi gpus users that's for sure.

I do admit though it would have been nice to have seen the FX with more than 4gb so we could have seen what were possible with multi gpu but with the price of the FX i don't think it would be such a good idea lol. The price is already stupid.

also my point of getting to 4k and 4gb you obviously have to balance the settings as you cannot run 8x MSSA and all the goodies but at 4k do you really need these sort of settings? They may ever so slightly increase the visuals but you have to certainly look for them. For the performance drop off and visual increase is it worth it? You can still run games at near max so all the main settings are maxed, just you have to drop off things such as MSSA which is a vram hog!

 

[setter]

Considering going for a 4k monitor very soon, one 980ti at the moment but may add another at some point. Will be using a 5820k on X99 so dual cards will be my limit.

 

[Geeman1979]

I still stand by that in a 4 way setup as the 290Xs were running out of VRAM back then.

As Gregster said this should not turn into a Red v Green thing. Now things have moved on it could be argued that in a 4 way setup 6gb GTX 980 Ti's are not up to it @2160p which puts them in the same boat as the Fury X. Games are appearing which when maxed can use 8gb or more so it does not matter if cards have 4gb or 6gb if you want to go 4 way with them, they all have the same problem.

Test with 2 to 3 cards up. How many people out there realistically run 4 cards or would want to.

 

[r7slayer]

Test with 2 to 3 cards up. How many people out there realistically run 4 cards or would want to.

How many people realistically run 3 cards never mind 2 lol. Not a huge amount of people run multi gpu setups. They may do on here but pc gamers on a whole don't. Not even top end cards, were talking minuscule numbers for multi gpu set-ups.

 

[andybird123]

How many people realistically run 3 cards never mind 2 lol. Not a huge amount of people run multi gpu setups. They may do on here but pc gamers on a whole don't. Not even top end cards, were talking minuscule numbers for multi gpu set-ups.

I'd love to take a look at some real researched figures, where did you get yours from?

 

[Seanspeed]

Wow what a bait thread!!! Basically calling out the AMD guys big time. I doubt there were many AMD users saying 4GB wasn't enough before the nVidia guys was. Titan users were first to that conclusion and i remember it well. You needed a minimum of 2 titans and 6gb was only just enough. Even kaap said at one point titans were better for 4k because of thier 6gb vs 290x with 4gb. Though he probably won't admit this I wish I saved the post.

Also love how instantly Matt gets called out in the thread. And his post got took out of context as he said 4gb isn't enough when you have the grunt there. Back then to run 4k properly you needed a multi gpu setup to get the grunt so yea that post is imo correct. Now you can run 4k with a single card but the single card has the appropriate grunt for the designated vram(Except titan x lol). GDDR5 however you want to look at it is not the same as 4GB of HBM. Obviously when looking at vram usage benchmarks you can see this with the same settings. so 4GB of vram is enough for 4k with a Fury X card as this is what this thread is about. 4GB with other cards probably isn't.

And its better being based on a single card as there are FAR FAR more single card users vs multi gpu users. Single card users out weigh multi gpu users by a mile so multi gpu setups for this argument are irreverent

/Thread.

Ya hear that multi-GPU users? You guys are irrelevant.

END THE THREAD.

 

[r7slayer]

Ya hear that multi-GPU users? You guys are irrelevant.

END THE THREAD.

from a business side of things, yes! AMD and nVidia dont focus or make multi gpu users a priority. They also don't make sure they focus on these users when manufacturing their gpus. They focus on people who will be thier main investors.

 

[Geeman1979]

How many people realistically run 3 cards never mind 2 lol. Not a huge amount of people run multi gpu setups. They may do on here but pc gamers on a whole don't. Not even top end cards, were talking minuscule numbers for multi gpu set-ups.

I've run duel card setups many a time and they're popular. 3 cards and above is when it becomes niche. Now that the cards are becoming a lot more powerful I'd run no less than 6GB cards as the bare minimum.

 

[r7slayer]

I'd love to take a look at some real researched figures, where did you get yours from?

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

That's one source i can find. If you look the majority of users are rocking low to mid range GPUs. With some rocking high end, you don't see hardly anyone with high end gpus. This show and demonstrates with most users having low end systems its very unlikely they will have multi gpu set-ups. They could have certainly two low end gpus in their systems but this is unlikely for a mast majority of pc gamers. You can see majority of pc gamers are not rocking multi gpu set-ups. I remember AMD stating most of their users are not multi gpu users but single card users.

 

[Gregster]

Tell that to the people who did that before me lol

Greg i can see in your vid you got to the 5 - 5.5GB area vram usage but that's using a card which is still running GDDR5 and not HBM. If you look at vram usage benches with the Fury x you can see with the exact same settings which would get GDDR 5 cards to reach 4gb the FX usage would be noticeably lower most of the time. Thanks to HBM technology and better memory optimisations, we all can look forward to this next year. Anyway to reach that 4GB on a FX at 4k your going to be hitting what most people would consider just playable frame rates sort of area. To me this is enough vram for this card.

With multi gpu set-ups this would be different as you have the grunt to increase the visuals but mutli gpu users are well a minority. There's not even a huge amount of people with the latest high end GPUs tbh but there are vastly more of these people than multi gpus users that's for sure.

I do admit though it would have been nice to have seen the FX with more than 4gb so we could have seen what were possible with multi gpu but with the price of the FX i don't think it would be such a good idea lol. The price is already stupid.

also my point of getting to 4k and 4gb you obviously have to balance the settings as you cannot run 8x MSSA and all the goodies but at 4k do you really need these sort of settings? They may ever so slightly increase the visuals but you have to certainly look for them. For the performance drop off and visual increase is it worth it? You can still run games at near max so all the main settings are maxed, just you have to drop off things such as MSSA which is a vram hog!

4 x 390X's are not a bad shout for 4K in truth and will give you the VRAM and the grunt in VRAM heavy and good scaling games. I was getting along quite nicely with 3 x Titans back in the olden days

My biggest concern with the FX was VRAM and as I intended on staying 1440P, I didn't see it as a problem, as I also had no intention of going CF/back to SLI this round and more than happy with a single card setup. G-Sync does help me with the lower end of frames as well and low 30's feel more but still not what you want for fast paced shooters lol but for games like Batman/Mad Max (which is a bit of a time stealer for me at the mo), you don't need massive frames with G-Sync.

Anyways, I am waffling and going back to Mad Max

 

[r7slayer]

I've run duel card setups many a time and they're popular. 3 cards and above is when it becomes niche. Now that the cards are becoming a lot more powerful I'd run no less than 6GB cards as the bare minimum.

So do people actually thing there are a significant amount of multi gpu users vs single gpu users? The numbers % wise are not going to be in favour of multi gpu for sure! This is a enthusiasts forum so it will appear a lot different around here obviously.

 

[r7slayer]

4 x 390X's are not a bad shout for 4K in truth and will give you the VRAM and the grunt in VRAM heavy and good scaling games. I was getting along quite nicely with 3 x Titans back in the olden days

My biggest concern with the FX was VRAM and as I intended on staying 1440P, I didn't see it as a problem, as I also had no intention of going CF/back to SLI this round and more than happy with a single card setup. G-Sync does help me with the lower end of frames as well and low 30's feel more but still not what you want for fast paced shooters lol but for games like Batman/Mad Max (which is a bit of a time stealer for me at the mo), you don't need massive frames with G-Sync.

Anyways, I am waffling and going back to Mad Max

I can second this! Though i do beleive for the FX it does have an appropriate amount of vram for its grunt as a single card. Though your not wrong for having concerns! How's Mad Max btw? Is that a recommended investment? sorry for offtopic lol.

 

[JediFragger]

I was getting along quite nicely with 3 x Titans back in the olden days

Except when you sold one as it wasn't being utilised in many games???

 

[Geeman1979]

So do people actually thing there are a significant amount of multi gpu users vs single gpu users? The numbers % wise are not going to be in favour of multi gpu for sure! This is a enthusiasts forum so it will appear a lot different around here obviously.

Of course they're not going to be on the scale of single card users, that's pretty obvious, although that doesn't take away the fact there are plenty out there that are and growing in numbers.