10GB vram enough for the 3080? Discuss..

[james.miller]

There very little chance that any card bought today will be running games as well in 3 or 4 years time using the same settings. That's never been the case at any other point 8n history.

 

[Sargatanas2511]

What evidence you do you actually have to support your "theory" that the cards obsolete and needing to run lower details blah blah, or did you climb aboard the bandwagon as per the usual suspects ?

I have not jumped on anyones bandwagon or stated that this WILL happen. There are already a couple of games pushing 10GB (Flight Sim as an example) though, and quite a few that are pushing 8GB. With new consoles coming out and next gen consoles coming there will be engine changes and graphical improvements which generally lead to more memory, both system and video being used.

I still don't understand why the 3080 has less VRAM than the 1080Ti from 2017 too, it's perplexing to me that they would go down, even if it's only a small amount. I am waiting to see what else comes out to try and alleviate any problems that potential memory limitations may cause. I may end up being wrong and that's totally fine, I am not calling people who buy one an idiot or anything I am just going on what I expect will happen.

 

[TNA]

Yeah it all depends entirely on your own use case. Some people are happy to lower details, some know they will upgrade next gen too and some don't care and just wanted the card. They are all totally fine and up to them, but I plan on keeping a card for a couple of gens and personally think spending £650 on a card to not run maxed out even in a year would be ridiculous.

Each to their own though and I am glad you enjoy it.

That is fair enough. At the end of the day if it makes you happy then that is all that matters.

I still don't understand why the 3080 has less VRAM than the 1080Ti from 2017 too, it's perplexing to me that they would go down, even if it's only a small amount.

The way the card is designed it would only have the option of being 10gb or 20gb. But then unless Nvidia want to take smaller profits (they are not that type of company) then the price would be higher. I am actually very happy they went this route, as I would be getting a 3070 otherwise, as no way would I pay £900+ for a 3080.

 

[Things change I've changed]

That is fair enough. At the end of the day if it makes you happy then that is all that matters.



The way the card is designed it would only have the option of being 10gb or 20gb. But then unless Nvidia want to take smaller profits (they are not that type of company) then the price would be higher. I am actually very happy they went this route, as I would be getting a 3070 otherwise, as no way would I pay £900+ for a 3080.

Exactly, had they went 20gb this would be a lot more expensive card and I also would have been on the 3070 train, @ 10gb this has allowed me to jump up a model and enjoy quite a big performance leap, the 10gb limit won't effect me or many people that upgrade every 2 years, and even if you're gaming under 4k it will probably be a non issue for a fair bit longer than that.

 

[Twinz]

I have not jumped on anyones bandwagon or stated that this WILL happen. There are already a couple of games pushing 10GB (Flight Sim as an example)

I don't think flight sim is actually "pushing" the 3080's 10gb of VRAM. It is still outperforming the 2080Ti and its 11gb of VRAM.

 

[TNA]

I don't think flight sim is actually "pushing" the 3080's 10gb of VRAM. It is still outperforming the 2080Ti and its 11gb of VRAM.

Yep. There is not a single game that needs more than 10gb from what I have seen.

 

[Wrinkly]

I have not jumped on anyones bandwagon or stated that this WILL happen. There are already a couple of games pushing 10GB (Flight Sim as an example) though, and quite a few that are pushing 8GB. With new consoles coming out and next gen consoles coming there will be engine changes and graphical improvements which generally lead to more memory, both system and video being used.

I still don't understand why the 3080 has less VRAM than the 1080Ti from 2017 too, it's perplexing to me that they would go down, even if it's only a small amount. I am waiting to see what else comes out to try and alleviate any problems that potential memory limitations may cause. I may end up being wrong and that's totally fine, I am not calling people who buy one an idiot or anything I am just going on what I expect will happen.

Flight Sim, great example. A game from Microsoft who also make consoles. The next Microsoft console has a total of 16GB of RAM made up of 10GB fast GDDR6 and 6GB slower GDDR6. Do you really think Microsoft don't know what they are doing?

Now forgetting Microsoft, what percentage of PC gamers do you think will buy/can afford to buy video cards with more than 10GB of VRAM? Take a look at Steam's hardware survey for a rough idea.

Lastly as a 1080Ti owner I have never needed 11GB of VRAM. It has that amount due to its address bus.

 

[Sargatanas2511]

Flight Sim, great example. A game from Microsoft who also make consoles. The next Microsoft console has a total of 16GB of RAM made up of 10GB fast GDDR6 and 6GB slower GDDR6. Do you really think Microsoft don't know what they are doing?

Now forgetting Microsoft, what percentage of PC gamers do you think will buy/can afford to buy video cards with more than 10GB of VRAM? Take a look at Steam's hardware survey for a rough idea.

Lastly as a 1080Ti owner I have never needed 11GB of VRAM. It has that amount due to its address bus.

I agree, never argued any of that. It's more about buying a top of the range card which again what percentage of gamers will spend £650+++ on a card? I would be very reluctant to do that for it to not be able to max games in a year and no I am not saying this WILL happen, but I can't help but feel it might.

I have a 1080Ti too and I very much enjoy the card, I am just wary of the 3080 aging like the Fury cards in terms of memory capacity.

 

[Grim5]

bandwidth is more worrying than memory capacity.

go read interviews with developers, the number one complaint about the Series X and Series S is the slow memory bandwidth, not the amount of memory.

So Nvidia decided to push high bandwidth with GDDR6x and not put money into un-necessary capacity - you might say, Nvidia is in tune with what game developers want

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I have not jumped on anyones bandwagon or stated that this WILL happen. There are already a couple of games pushing 10GB (Flight Sim as an example) though, and quite a few that are pushing 8GB. With new consoles coming out and next gen consoles coming there will be engine changes and graphical improvements which generally lead to more memory, both system and video being used.

True, but it also puts more demand on the GPU, the actual processing part of the video card that has to deal with generating new frames. You don't get one without the other, you don't get load on the vRAM for shiny new assets without getting more load on the GPU. So the question is, which becomes a bottleneck first, the GPU or the vRAM.

In FS2020 it's worth noting that it can just about hit the 10Gb limit, but by the time the settings are that high something like a 3080 will be running way less than 30fps. The impact on the GPU happens first, it's not constrained by its vRAM it's constrained by the GPU not being able to produce enough frames at those settings.

I still don't understand why the 3080 has less VRAM than the 1080Ti from 2017 too, it's perplexing to me that they would go down, even if it's only a small amount. I am waiting to see what else comes out to try and alleviate any problems that potential memory limitations may cause. I may end up being wrong and that's totally fine, I am not calling people who buy one an idiot or anything I am just going on what I expect will happen.

A better question might be why did the 1080Ti have so much, did it need that much to begin with? The answer to that is: so far nothing has used more than 8Gb of RAM with an extreme few exceptions, and those exception DO NOT run with a playable frame rate on a 1080Ti when consuming that much vRAM. So the conclusion there is it had too much vRAM to ever be useful. My personal theory is that cards can only have specific configs of vRAM on them due to architecture limitations (usually some multiple of somthing) and that the 1080Ti because of its specific architecture could either have 11Gb or some much smaller amount like 5.5Gb, and they opted to over compensate rather than undercompensate, so there was no bottleneck.

Comparing video cards I think is a bad idea, it leads to these confused comparisons. Instead think of the video card as its own internal system which has multiple components, each of which could be a bottleneck adn what you need is the right balance of vRAM and GPU to get the most out of your card. Too much of one and not enough of the other and it becomes a waste.

 

[Dave2150]

I don't think flight sim is actually "pushing" the 3080's 10gb of VRAM. It is still outperforming the 2080Ti and its 11gb of VRAM.

Outperform by 2-3 FPS lol, sure.

 

[Twinz]

Outperform by 2-3 FPS lol, sure.

More is more. Less vram, more performance.

And it's more like 8 FPS (stock v stock) comparing a STRIX to an FE in a title where every GPU has very low FPS numbers.

 

[TNA]

A better question might be why did the 1080Ti have so much, did it need that much to begin with? The answer to that is: so far nothing has used more than 8Gb of RAM with an extreme few exceptions, and those exception DO NOT run with a playable frame rate on a 1080Ti when consuming that much vRAM. So the conclusion there is it had too much vRAM to ever be useful. My personal theory is that cards can only have specific configs of vRAM on them due to architecture limitations (usually some multiple of somthing) and that the 1080Ti because of its specific architecture could either have 11Gb or some much smaller amount like 5.5Gb, and they opted to over compensate rather than undercompensate, so there was no bottleneck.

Makes sense.

Outperform by 2-3 FPS lol, sure.

Clutching at straws.

More is more. Less vram, more performance.

And it's more like 8 FPS (stock v stock) comparing a STRIX to an FE in a title where every GPU has very low FPS numbers.

+1

 

[Grim5]

Outperform by 2-3 FPS lol, sure.

Says the the person who fans Intel for its 2-3fps advantages lol

 

[TNA]

Says the the person who fans Intel for its 2-3fps advantages lol

 

[imginy]

Outperform by 2-3 FPS lol, sure.

Flight sym is CPU limited.

 

[Participant]

Flight sym is CPU limited.

Lulwut

 

[Richdog]

Lulwut

It's been reported: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Micro...FPS-at-FHD-on-high-end-hardware.489254.0.html

Hardware Unboxed also noted it in their testing as a result of DX11 https://youtu.be/y6RIvvMPBTg?t=491

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I've consulted The Big Man and he says he's happy with the 10GB, so consider the argument settled.

Awright.

(Contains mild swears)

 

[Nablaoperator]

Now forgetting Microsoft, what percentage of PC gamers do you think will buy/can afford to buy video cards with more than 10GB of VRAM? Take a look at Steam's hardware survey for a rough idea.

The thing about pc is that you will have some radio buttons to put that 10gb to shame.. it all depends on Nvidia's outreach. They'd try their level best to ensure such radio buttons are not available, so overall I feel there's nothing to worry there.. but no guarantee the modding scene will follow Nvidia's playbook (there's a 24 gb prosumer card on the prowl)

I would be very reluctant to do that for it to not be able to max games in a year and no I am not saying this WILL happen, but I can't help but feel it might.

If you're sure about ampere, i'd suggest getting in the 3080 queue... this kind of tech depreciates fast, if you've missed launch by 5-6 months it would be best to target high value midrange cards that can still be considered an upgrade