12GB vram enough for 4K? Discuss..

[Nexus18]

Couldn’t that just be because fewer people own an AMD card so there’s fewer people that care.

Not wrong there I suppose, after all:

nvidia - 86%
amd - 10%
intel - 4%

Honestly intel have done pretty damn well for their first entry and I really wouldn't be surprised if they overtake amd in the coming years, they have shown that when needs be they are willing to be pioneers where as amd seem quite happy to just follow suit and not lead the way (at least in the DGPU space), dare I say, they could even stand a better chance of keeping nvidia on their toes but I suppose this is largely because amd have the console market, which is more lucrative for them "currently" than the dGPU space.

Yeah, but AMD good, so don't worry about RT performance.

I used to like AMD a lot and cheered them on as underdog, but each time the ******* see a bit of success they hike their prices to high heavens. They have no loyalty to us, so why should we have any for them?

Way I see it is, make a product I want to buy at a competitive price and I will buy it. Been happy with my last two AMD CPU's and in the past I had loads of Radeon's and was happy with them. No issues buying AMD.

Likewise, I've enjoyed all the amd products I've owned, of which highly outweighs nvidia and intel combined. Only reasons I have gone of them over the past couple of years (at least for dgpu space) is simply the following:

- "fine wine".... yes it is great to get better performance over the time of owning said card but at the same time, highly infuriating when leaving all that "fine wine" on the table for several months/years by which time new gpus will be out (obviously if you intend on keeping a gpu for 5+ years then this will be a big pro though), nvidia can also get "fine wine" but it is far rarer and you more often get it from the get go
- not leading the way in must have/cool features and instead following their competitor and usually late to the party with an inferior solution for the first several months/years, I don't consider "SAM" (which isn't even an amd thing) aka resize bar a big advantage like dlss 2, gsync was.... given nvidia enabled resize bar the next day and amds SAM doesn't provide a big boost to the point where amd smash the equivalent nvidia gpus
- the way they play the "good guy" card because "open source is good and closed source is bad" when reality is they only use this narrative because they can't get away with closed source practices and also because they don't want to or can't support closed source practices i.e. they prefer the over the fence approach hence why we very rarely see any amd tech in games, people will say "nvidia pay developers to put their stuff in their games", well even if true, as a customer I don't really care, if it means getting a better gaming experience, I'm happy to pay for this, nothing is ever free in this world
- charging in same bracket as nvidia when their products/package "overall" is not as good, if there is a £50-150 difference when spending £££, I got no issues spending a bit more if it means getting the better "overall" package

 

[Nexus18]

Ray Tracing is something only a select amount of people care about where as most who buy will care about Vram amounts as its needed in every game so its not that similar.

The Vram threads will explode as the competition give overkill amounts in comparison to NV. I mean i feel the 80 has more than enough this time round. I think for the price of the 70ti 12gb is not enough. Will it impact games i don't know but more than likely something will come out where it does.

But why is that? RT games and arguably the increased visuals it provides far outweighs the benefit of larger vram, again we have hundreds of games now with RT (we aren't stuck in turing era where it was only BF 5 and control....) and how many "legitimate" vram needy titles? So far, every major title announced for this year is adding RT, of course we could also get more titles requiring 12/16+GB vram too but time will tell on that.... so far, it's only for-spoken (and even then that isn't confirmed to actually "need" 12gb yet...)

This falls back to where I stated use cases for larger vram pool:

At the end of the day, there will be the odd game/use case where more vram will be beneficial e.g.

- a **** ton of mods in something like MSFS (but even then, your fps will still be **** due to cpu bottleneck issues, which only FG can overcome...)
- refuse to use dlss/fsr at 4k for certain games (only a 4090 be capable of this if you want to max out settings or compromise on settings with other gpus)
- play at a res. higher than 4k (in which case, good luck achieving this with anything other than a 4090 and even then you'll still need to use dlss or/and FG )

i.e. applies to very "niche" scenarios and a couple of scenarios, which are highly unlikely e.g. people not using upscaling tech.

Most people said they also cared about "power efficiency", however, seems that isn't important any more, I wonder why....

Maybe that's Nvidia's goal.
"Not enough vram? Well friends turn on that beautiful DLSS and it will play just perfectly"

Now you have an entire group of people thinking DLSS is the be all be and end all and a must have to justify the bad hardware decisions

Every single reviewer has stated they find dlss to be worthwhile and still an advantage over FSR 2+, even Tim/HUB have stated the same.

 

[K1LaW8tt5]

Complains that these threads get to 50+ pages, proceed to post walls of garbage in defence.

 

[Bencher]

Maybe that's Nvidia's goal.
"Not enough vram? Well friends turn on that beautiful DLSS and it will play just perfectly"

Now you have an entire group of people thinking DLSS is the be all be and end all and a must have to justify the bad hardware decisions

I had a 3090 and now a 4090,neither have vram issues but i still think dlss is the best thing that happened to pc gaming. It gives insane longevity to cards. If nvidia was as greedy as people think why would they work so hard on a feature that extends the lifetime of your gpu by that much?

 

[SpellowHouse]

I had a 3090 and now a 4090,neither have vram issues but i still think dlss is the best thing that happened to pc gaming. It gives insane longevity to cards. If nvidia was as greedy as people think why would they work so hard on a feature that extends the lifetime of your gpu by that much?

So much longevity you traded in your less than two year old 3090 for a 4090.
I'm joking.
I would have upgraded my GPU this time but I can't justify the prices and no doubt that DLSS is the answer for me.

 

[Bill Turnip]

If nvidia was as greedy as people think why would they work so hard on a feature that extends the lifetime of your gpu by that much?

For sales

 

[kieran_read]

I had a 3090 and now a 4090,neither have vram issues but i still think dlss is the best thing that happened to pc gaming. It gives insane longevity to cards. If nvidia was as greedy as people think why would they work so hard on a feature that extends the lifetime of your gpu by that much?

I wouldn't mind if it was to extend the life of a card, i.e my card was capable for a year or two then as games get thirsty for power I lower the settings or turn on DLSS to hit the same settings.

The issue I have is both AMD and Nvidia a promoting them as day one features.

"Hey that brand new card you just bought is already not powerful enough to play what's already out so turn on DLSS"

The thing is if cards have to use DLSS from day one then they are no better than what we already have.

An existing card can play what you want day one and you lower settings overtime before buying a new one.

Now rather than have a powerful card you have powerful AI to play day one and have to lower the AI settings over time.


The way every one talks about DLSS is not to extend life but to replace the power that once was.

 

[Bencher]

So much longevity you traded in your less than two year old 3090 for a 4090.
I'm joking.
I would have upgraded my GPU this time but I can't justify the prices and no doubt that DLSS is the answer for me.

What I did is irrelevant, the point is 3090 is still a very capable card and will remain so for many more years thanks to dlss. I gifted it to my brother thats why i upgraded, not that im using it much cause I'm playing dota 2.

 

[TNA]

It is incredible how fast PC parts become outdated, people were asking this exact question 2 years ago about 10GB. Now they are asking about 12GB and in a couple of years people will be asking if 16GB is enough.

If you want to play at 4K then get the best you can afford.

Yep. That's what gpuerrilla did. He paid an extra £750 got himself a 3090. Money well spent

Ray Tracing is something only a select amount of people care about where as most who buy will care about Vram amounts as its needed in every game so its not that similar.

Wi have to agree to disagree. I mean if vram is such an issue, how the hell are you still coping on 8GB?

Complains that these threads get to 50+ pages, proceed to post walls of garbage in defence.

You must love it as you keep coming back for more

 

[Bill Turnip]

Ray Tracing is something only a select amount of people care about where as most who buy will care about Vram amounts as its needed in every game so its not that similar.

Wi have to agree to disagree. I mean if vram is such an issue, how the hell are you still coping on 8GB?

I don't know, the comment about RT only being cared about by a select amount of people is pretty fair - It's nice, but I don't particularly care for it if performance is tanked as a result. The amount of people that are on this forum and say they don't particularly care for it is also evidence for this. Also a poll that was started to ask what was most important (ignoring price) didn't have RT in the top 3, so I would suggest it is still fairly niche. It won't really take off until good performance is available for a large amount of people.

 

[K1LaW8tt5]

You must love it as you keep coming back for more

Yes, the overreacting to the possibility of an overpriced GPU hitting a vram limit is too entertaining to miss.

 

[coughlanio]

My rule of thumb when buying a new GPU is to have as much VRAM as the current generation consoles have in system RAM. Hasn't burned me yet, and if I decide to keep a GPU for a number of years, I can be pretty confident that I can at least continue to run games at "console quality" settings, and at potentially higher resolutions or framerates.

 

[brostradamus]

Yep. That's what gpuerrilla did. He paid an extra £750 got himself a 3090. Money well spent

amd's hit rock bottom if thats true

 

[SeeNoWeevil]

It is incredible how fast PC parts become outdated

Which is a good reason NOT to buy the best you can afford. The 3090 was what, £750 more than the 3080 and is now a crusty old potato utterly outclassed by the new generation of cards - better off saving the difference and upgrading more frequently. Buying a top GPU and hanging onto it for years makes no sense to me.

 

[SeeNoWeevil]

Maybe that's Nvidia's goal.
"Not enough vram? Well friends turn on that beautiful DLSS and it will play just perfectly"

Now you have an entire group of people thinking DLSS is the be all be and end all and a must have to justify the bad hardware decisions

4K DLSS Quality looks better than native, it's free real-estate.

 

[Darujhistan]

Which is a good reason NOT to buy the best you can afford. The 3090 was what, £750 more than the 3080 and is now a crusty old potato utterly outclassed by the new generation of cards - better off saving the difference and upgrading more frequently. Buying a top GPU and hanging onto it for years makes no sense to me.

This, the Halo cards AMD and NV are always bad investments.

 

[Nexus18]

Complains that these threads get to 50+ pages, proceed to post walls of garbage in defence.

Beats reading the usual sea of one liner drivel, which is usually 99% of the time bs

I don't know, the comment about RT only being cared about by a select amount of people is pretty fair - It's nice, but I don't particularly care for it if performance is tanked as a result. The amount of people that are on this forum and say they don't particularly care for it is also evidence for this. Also a poll that was started to ask what was most important (ignoring price) didn't have RT in the top 3, so I would suggest it is still fairly niche. It won't really take off until good performance is available for a large amount of people.

Same was also said for power efficiency and performance per watt yet turns out those who care so much about it turn their back on it now and don't hear any complaints from the same people who praised rdna 2 PE....

It's not really a case of if you prefer RT or more vram, more why is one thing (which usually makes very little, if any difference in 99% of use cases) so important, yet the other thing, which is in majority of games being released these days and does make a difference not an issue?

For RT scenarios, we get = oh just turn it off, no one uses/cares for it
For vram limited scenarios = zOMG, pos gpu, damn nvidia for not putting more vram on it, I refuse to turn down one setting or/and use dlss/fsr!!!!! lets go and make a thread about this.... "how dare nvidia"

 

[Bill Turnip]

It's not really a case of if you prefer RT or more vram, more why is one thing (which usually makes very little, if any difference in 99% of use cases) so important, yet the other thing, which is in majority of games being released these days and does make a difference not an issue?

Because VRAM Is vital to get high res assets and have a big impact on visuals. RT has an impact on visuals, but the tech for that is at the high end of the market. You can dial down res settings or turn RT off, but turning RT off is only a visual sacrifice for the high end of the market - For people who aren't at the high end, which let's be honest are the majority, VRAM is more important with regards to image fidelity.

 

[TNA]

I don't know, the comment about RT only being cared about by a select amount of people is pretty fair - It's nice, but I don't particularly care for it if performance is tanked as a result. The amount of people that are on this forum and say they don't particularly care for it is also evidence for this. Also a poll that was started to ask what was most important (ignoring price) didn't have RT in the top 3, so I would suggest it is still fairly niche. It won't really take off until good performance is available for a large amount of people.

The point being made was it seems fine to go on and on about vram and use a crap game like FC6 to make the point, but bring up RT and nope, no one cares about that. I mean like who cares about FC6?

Yes, the overreacting to the possibility of an overpriced GPU hitting a vram limit is too entertaining to miss.

They are all over priced. Which games are hitting the vram limit again? Where is that list of yours? Lol

 

[Nexus18]

Because VRAM Is vital to get high res assets and have a big impact on visuals. RT has an impact on visuals, but the tech for that is at the high end of the market. You can dial down res settings or turn RT off, but turning RT off is only a visual sacrifice for the high end of the market - For people who aren't at the high end, which let's be honest are the majority, VRAM is more important with regards to image fidelity.

Did you skim my post?

• How many games need 16+GB of vram for high res textures? And in those game(s) does it really impact the visuals "that" much given what was posted earlier about fc 6 HD texture pack and a few people have stated they didn't find it that much better....
• How many games need the extra RT grunt? And in those game(s) does it really not impact visuals "that" much?

No one is going to be using the likes of a 3050, 6600xt, 3060 for 4k max settings with no fsr/dlss gaming, it just simply isn't happening no matter even if they had 20+gb vram, people will be pairing likes of them low/mid end gpus with lower res. screens which is where vram becomes less of an issue and RT grunt will be there (in use with dlss/fsr)

Gpus released within last 2 years, which have more than 12GB vram:

- 6800xt
- 6900xt/6950xt
- 7900xt(x)
- 3090(ti)
- 4080
- 4090

Only ones there which are arguably "affordable" and could still be considered high end are the rdna 2 ones and they aren't quite cutting it at 4k max settings with RT especially if games don't have fsr (of course could use RSR but then IQ takes a noticeable hit)

Meanwhile someone pairing say a 3060 with its appropriate Res. can happily use RT with dlss/fsr or using high end ampere can use RT at 4k with dlss