10GB vram enough for the 3080? Discuss..

[GAC]

now not sure if this has been posted in here and yes its from nvidia but at least its a straight enough answer for games NOW

Why only 10 GB of memory for RTX 3080? How was that determined to be a sufficient number, when it is stagnant from the previous generation?

[Justin Walker] We’re constantly analyzing memory requirements of the latest games and regularly review with game developers to understand their memory needs for current and upcoming games. The goal of 3080 is to give you great performance at up to 4k resolution with all the settings maxed out at the best possible price.

In order to do this, you need a very powerful GPU with high speed memory and enough memory to meet the needs of the games. A few examples - if you look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Metro Exodus, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Gears of War 5, Borderlands 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 running on a 3080 at 4k with Max settings (including any applicable high res texture packs) and RTX On, when the game supports it, you get in the range of 60-100fps and use anywhere from 4GB to 6GB of memory.

Extra memory is always nice to have but it would increase the price of the graphics card, so we need to find the right balance.

and yes that last line does mean in 6-12 months we could get a 2080 super with more memory for a bump in price.

 

[Kelt]

Like how you covered your bases there with 3 years.

I may be wrong but I think they were talking about Vram...

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

now not sure if this has been posted in here and yes its from nvidia but at least its a straight enough answer for games NOW

and yes that last line does mean in 6-12 months we could get a 2080 super with more memory for a bump in price.

See below

Allow me to highlight the important bit that you seem to have missed. You need to look at what is not said as well as what is said.

He never actually said that 10GB is all we need. He didn't say that 10GB was good enough. Infact he didn't actually directly comment on the memory capacity of the 3080.
He never addressed future/next gen games only current titles (Just because they spoke to game developers about upcoming titles doesn't mean they took everything that was discussed into account when they designed the 3080. You could argue that these discussions would help them in planned obsolescence).

He said it's a balance and acknowledged that more memory would be a good thing.

The only thing that we can take away from this, is that the capacity they settled on was done for cost reasons. Not because it is good enough for next gen titles as some people seem to be insinuating from this quote.

 

[GAC]

as i said we could see one later. but for today seems like it could be ok. guess we will get a better idea in a week if they have messed up again on memory like the 970's 3 and a half gig.

 

[Jimmy Weirdarms]

See below

But everything is done for cost reasons. The 3080 doesn't have two of the chips out of the 3090, pre-SLI'd on one card, for cost reasons too.

I think the onus really is on the complainers here to show that it is too low, and that it's actually affecting something.

 

[BigBANGtheory]

10GB is 10GB no matter how fast it is.

Nvidia is not your friend, it doesn't have your best interests at heart. It wants to extract the most money it possibly can out of your pockets, period. The last thing they want is to give their customers another 1080 Ti - a card that has amazing value and keeps its relevancy for years and years. Planned obsolescence is much more lucrative.

This is absolutely right.

One problem Nvidia has going forward from Ampere is having sold a true 4k capable card how do you convince someone to upgrade. Better RT, 8k sure but that has diminishing returns I for one am far more likely to have an 8k VR headset than a monitor and those guys won't be mainstream for years

 

[Twinz]

It seems like every game in existence is just one texture-pack away from rendering any vram buffer obsolete.

If we don't have a way to tie GPU power (grunt?) directly to the amount and bandwidth of vram, we are just chasing ghosts.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

But everything is done for cost reasons. The 3080 doesn't have two of the chips out of the 3090, pre-SLI'd on one card, for cost reasons too..

People were pointing to that quote as a "See 10Gb is enough. Look at what the Nvidia engineer said". I was pointing out that the engineer didn't say that.

I think the onus really is on the complainers here to show that it is too low, and that it's actually affecting something.

The reasoning behind why we don't think 10GB is enough, has been given multiple times across all 28 pages of this thread. Nobody has truley addressed it as far as i am aware. From this comment of yours, you don't seem to understand why people don't think it is enough.
Grab a cup of coffee and a snack and have fun re-reading all of this.

 

[chroniclard]

We see the reasons people think its not enough but as yet there is no evidence its not enough. That may well appear at some point.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

We see the reasons people think its not enough but as yet there is no evidence its not enough. That may well appear at some point.

Don't worry for the rich folk like you who change their graphics card as often as they change their underwear, when the evidence starts to smack the 3080 round the face, you will have moved on to the 16GB 4080 and forgotten all about this conversation about how graphics cards don't need more than 10GB of VRAM.

 

[Jimmy Weirdarms]

People were pointing to that quote as a "See 10Gb is enough. Look at what the Nvidia engineer said". I was pointing out that the engineer didn't say that.

Sure, but he also doesn't say "we think you'll need more over the next couple of years", just "more is always nice"

The reasoning behind why we don't think 10GB is enough, has been given multiple times across all 28 pages of this thread. Nobody has truley addressed it as far as i am aware. From this comment of yours, you don't seem to understand why people don't think it is enough.
Grab a cup of coffee and a snack and have fun re-reading all of this.

I've been following it thanks, all I see is the usual level of speculation. Like I said, I think the onus is on those who think it's too low to actually prove it. Let's have some evidence.

(edit - I'm not saying you need to produce this now, that's half the issue - nobody has any good, solid info yet!)

 

[chroniclard]

Don't worry for the rich folk like you who change their graphics card as often as they change their underwear, when the evidence starts to smack the 3080 round the face, you will have moved on to the 16GB 4080 and forgotten all about this conversation about how graphics cards don't need more than 10GB of VRAM.

I'm still on a 1080 Just waiting for reviews and AMD's offerings before proclaiming 10gb VRAM doom or not is all. ie actual evidence.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Sure, but he also doesn't say "we think you'll need more over the next couple of years", just "more is always nice".

Where did i say that he said that?
I laid out exactly what i took away from his startement right here

The only thing that we can take away from this, is that the capacity they settled on was done for cost reasons.

I've been following it thanks, all I see is the usual level of speculation. Like I said, I think the onus is on those who think it's too low to actually prove it. Let's have some evidence.

Are you saying you want to see evidence that games in future will grow larger and demand more VRAM as we move into these new generation of consoles?
Go look at previous generation of consoles and how VRAM requirements have been constantly increasing, and will continue to increase.

Are you now going to say that, that isn't good enough and we can't use the past to predict the future. Are you going to stay your course and insist that 10GB is enough VRAM for a gaming GPU and that we will never need more?

I would like to point you to this earlier comment of mine

To those who are saying that 10GB is enough, and RTX IO will make up the difference, etc...

Spoiler

You will all be singing a different tune when Nvidia launches their next generation of cards with ~16GB VRAM on the top end.
And none of you will be complaining about having to pay more for an extra 6GB of VRAM you "don't" need.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

I'm still on a 1080 Just waiting for reviews and AMD's offerings before proclaiming 10gb VRAM doom or not is all. ie actual evidence.

Except that's not the argument. Have you also been "paying attention" to this thread like the other guy.

 

[chroniclard]

Except that's not the argument. Have you also been "paying attention" to this thread like the other guy.

Pretty much is.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Pretty much is.

The issue most people have is will it cut the life span of a £600+ graphics short and force people to upgrade as soon as the 4000 series rolls around (with its increased VRAM) to maintain a high level of graphical detail.

Are you telling me that is what you tried to convey in 8 words?

 

[james.miller]

forced to upgrade. LOL.

We don't know there will be any issues any more than we know there wont. let the cards release and we'll see what's what, until then this thread is just a bunch of ego trying to out smart-word eachother.

 

[Twinz]

The issue most people have is will it cut the life span of a £600+ graphics short and force people to upgrade as soon as the 4000 series rolls around (with its increased VRAM) to maintain a high level of graphical detail.

Are you telling me that is what you tried to convey in 8 words?

Isn't the answer "It depends." If all it takes is a random texture pack to eat up all of a vram buffer, no amount of vram will ever be "enough".

I think the "10gb is not enough" crowd have made their point in a way that also makes their point moot.

If it's that easy to wreck a given vram buffer, then there's no fixed target to shoot for beyond "More is better."

We're chasing our shadows.

 

[james.miller]

Isn't the answer "It depends." If all it takes is a random texture pack to eat up all of a vram buffer, no amount of vram will ever be "enough".

I think the "10gb is not enough" crowd have made their point in a way that also makes their point moot.

If it's that easy to wreck a given vram buffer, then there's no fixed target to shoot for beyond "More is better."

We're chasing our shadows.

No need for that kind of sensibility in this thread!

 

[Jimmy Weirdarms]

Are you saying you want to see evidence that games in future will grow larger and demand more VRAM as we move into these new generation of consoles?

I'm saying that we don't know how fast VRAM requirements will grow, that the consoles really only have around 10GB of VRAM available so they aren't aren't really relevant. I'd like some real-world evidence that a) we're going to hit this limit in an appreciable number of games (i.e. not outliers like flight simulator), and that it matters if we do (games engines can likely get more intelligent about swapping data in and out ahead of need)

Are you going to stay your course and insist that 10GB is enough VRAM for a gaming GPU and that we will never need more?

Now you're just making up stuff you imagine I might say. I feel no need to respond any further. The other posters have covered this - there's a lot of hot air and posturing in this thread. Let's wait until we have some data.