NVIDIA ‘Ampere’ 8nm Graphics Cards

[Orangey]

They will have tested the cards to make sure they don't slideshow in vast majority of cases, identified edge cases for upsell and configured their product stack accordingly.

 

[Poneros]

There are plenty of situations today where you definitely want more vram, but the most important part is what's coming next. Even 'old-gen' games like Far Cry 5 once you use HD textures see vram spike to 9.5-10 GB and trust me that's nothing compared to what's coming. Sure, it's not the end of the world because you can just bump it and down and live with it, but who buys brand spanking new cutting edge GPUs only to be choked by the vram? That's insane!

If you look at new but still cross-gen titles like Avengers & MSFS20 they chug vram like it's nothing. Games that allow you to use HD textures do the same (Shadow of War, FC5, FFXV etc.). Games that allow you better streaming capabilities (ala Wolfenstein and Doom) likewise chug vram. Mods and the like, not even worth going there because of course that's a vram hog as well.

Another vram hog is RT, so if you're hoping to upgrade for that make sure you are aware of it also.

But honestly having lots of vram is the cheapest way to get better visual detail in your games, so it's absolutely a damn shame to see them gimping vram amounts yet again.

This just sucks!

 

[JediFragger]

What's the point of 24GB of vram unless the 3090 is the new Titan?

If the perf figures are right and it's only 20% faster than the 3080 then they need the vRam to add extra 'value'

I reckon;

3080 - $800
3080 w/20GB - $1000
3090 w/24GB - $1400

Then they have their stack right upto $1400 (obv not inc Titan craziness)

 

[Joxeon]

What's the point of 24GB of vram unless the 3090 is the new Titan?

Makes it easier to increase the price. Add in an extra 12gb of ram for £200 production cost then charge a £400 premium and people will think wow 24gb and pony up.

 

[Jacky60]

Meh. In the recent iterations of Nvidia cards there has been so little difference between AIB manufacturers that I have given up on that. The only reason I bought a Zotac last time was it was actually cheaper than the rest available.

I would normally wait for EVGA FTW versions but last time EVGA took about 3 months to actually get their card out and when it finally arrived it didnt overclock or cool any better than anybody else's cards and came with a massive proce premium.

People were better off just buying the cheapest reference based card with the longest warranty.

+1 Have to agree, the difference between cards from different manufacturers seems super small these days.

 

[SS-89]

If the perf figures are right and it's only 20% faster than the 3080 then they need the vRam to add extra 'value'

I reckon;

3080 - $800
3080 w/20GB - $1000
3090 w/24GB - $1400

Then they have their stack right upto $1400 (obv not inc Titan craziness)

Prob not far off though maybe a 16GB version, then in 4 to 5 months time 3080TI with 20GB for $1100 and the 16GB 3080 drops down to $800 then a further 6-12 months later the 3080 and 3070 Supers drop.

 

[Greebo]

+1 Have to agree, the difference between cards from different manufacturers seems super small these days.

Yep and with a full 5 year warranty and really good coolers along with cheap pricing, you really cant beat Zotac.

You will have just as much chance of getting a good overclocking card as buying the top of the range Asus or EVGA with a worse warranty.

 

[Rroff]

Another vram hog is RT, so if you're hoping to upgrade for that make sure you are aware of it also.

In Quake 2 RTX at 1440p it adds approx 3.2-3.5GB, with a reasonably complex scene, on top of your normal VRAM requirement - which is a full on path tracing implementation rather than just being used for specific effects. In a game that makes very advanced use of shaders and ultra high resolution assets you might see another 1GB required on top of that.

EDIT: 4K that increased to ~4.8GB.

 

[Orangey]

Did they find some way to properly profile VRAM usage in the last few years? Last time I checked any number given out by any kind of API and displayed by tools like RTSS was not to be trusted.

 

[Jacky60]

The 2080Ti's level of performance should have released around in the $700 price point *years ago*. By now, that same price point should be faster still.

Too true, that's pretty much what I'm waiting for. I guess they'll try and milk every small incremental improvement all they can.

 

[benjii]

If the perf figures are right and it's only 20% faster than the 3080 then they need the vRam to add extra 'value'

I reckon;

3080 - $800
3080 w/20GB - $1000
3090 w/24GB - $1400

Then they have their stack right upto $1400 (obv not inc Titan craziness)

Christ, if it's 20% more performance for 43% more cost then that's ridiculous.

 

[Slam62]

Christ, if it's 20% more performance for 43% more cost then that's ridiculous.

20% is a lot

 

[Poneros]

Did they find some way to properly profile VRAM usage in the last few years? Last time I checked any number given out by any kind of API and displayed by tools like RTSS was not to be trusted.

No, but there are circumstances where you can test and see it makes a difference. Eg Vega cards with HBCC see FPS increases when they enable that feature (confirmed in Shadow of War, Greedfall, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein II, MSFS2020, and others).

 

[beany_bot]

16GB VRAM is the MINIMUM cutting edge cards now should ship with.

 

[Rroff]

Did they find some way to properly profile VRAM usage in the last few years? Last time I checked any number given out by any kind of API and displayed by tools like RTSS was not to be trusted.

You can test with multiple cards with differing VRAM amounts to see what happens. You can't easily see how much VRAM is actually being used versus lazy garbage collection or caching, etc. without in depth knowledge of the game engine and product in question.

 

[Jacky60]

Isn’t MSI on the Gamers Nexus “naughty step” atm?

Sorry won’t touch them until they fix the problem even if they are cheaper.

What was the problem?

 

[Rroff]

What was the problem?

Long story short the were trying to bury bad reviews of their products even offering people money to stay quiet when products had serious design flaws rather than recall/fix them (so quite happy to sell a known flawed product to their customers). If you look at the thread about laptops on the forums here it isn't really surprising.

 

[K1LaW8tt5]

They will have tested the cards to make sure they don't slideshow in vast majority of cases, identified edge cases for upsell and configured their product stack accordingly.

You mean they will have tested to make sure they give you just enough vram to make sure you still need an upgrade in a couple of years.

 

[Poneros]

For me since I love open world games and is what I play the most I know low vram will be a huge bottleneck. I just hope we hear about 16 GB/20 GB models as well near launch, as Videocardz said they can't confirm their existence but can't debunk it either.

 

[Participant]

10GB in next gen doesn't equate with 10GB previous gen. You literally cannot infer anything from 10GB until you understand the rest of the tech.