In my case I think my 3070 is still a decent card, but its meagre 8GB VRAM is its Achilles heels, especially since I upgraded to a 3440x1440 ultra wide - I'd happily keep the 3070 a while longer if games were better optimised, but with games moving to U5 and being poorly optimised, imo a lot of the 'need' to upgrade is purely down to how demanding games have become.
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Right lets talk everyone - are we all just been psychologically tricked into "needing" new graphics cards?
- Thread starter Combat squirrel
- Start date
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- 24 Sep 2020
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- 310
I normally just upgrade to the new flagship card every generation. PC gaming is my main hobby so it's where I put my money. However, if it turns out the gains on last gen are less than 30% as rumoured, and they want 25% more money, they can do one. It's just not worth it. Hoping the reviews will show a better improvement, but losing faith a bit to be fair.
Soldato
I have been waiting for the new AMD or Nvidia cards. I've got a 3080 10GB, its a very decent card still 4 years later, but the VRAM and the weight of games means its suffering more and more recently, especially as I play at 1440p, not 1080p.
My wife has a 7900XT and in the times I've tested it or played around with it, its not just faster, but it's smoother, it doesn't suffer the framedrops in intensive games like the 3080GB does which I suspect it down to that 20GB VRAM over the 3080's 10GB, and now that games are starting to push VRAM requirements higher now they're no longer targetting PS4/Xbox One, Nvidia's decision to stick 8GB on the 3070 and 10GB on the 3080 is starting to hit them in unfortunate ways.
I can tolerate lower average framerates, but I hate stutter and VRAM related hitching and that's something I cannot avoid now on some titles even with plenty of system memory.
Whether game textures are being stored unoptimally/used unoptimally, we just cannot overlook newer titles and engines are pushing VRAM harder than ever before, and for one of the few times I can remember in the last 30+ years of skin in this game, we're genuinely hitting a point where slightly older weaker cards that were sold with more VRAM are actually outperforming newer cards that have been underspecced. (3060 v 4060 for example) In the past inflated VRAM was often used as a selling exercise, but due to several generations of Nvidia refusing to equip cards with more VRAM (and also RT implementations requiring a bit more memory), we're actually hitting a point where the VRAM allocation is starting to actually have a realworld negative impact towards cards which really werent equipped with enough memory. (even beyond whether the cards with alternate memory have crippled cores etc).
It's not so much we're being psychologicaly tricked, as Nvidia's essentially planned obsolescence is kicking in; as the cards aren't keeping up with the requirements and potentially lack of optimisation of newer titles.
My wife has a 7900XT and in the times I've tested it or played around with it, its not just faster, but it's smoother, it doesn't suffer the framedrops in intensive games like the 3080GB does which I suspect it down to that 20GB VRAM over the 3080's 10GB, and now that games are starting to push VRAM requirements higher now they're no longer targetting PS4/Xbox One, Nvidia's decision to stick 8GB on the 3070 and 10GB on the 3080 is starting to hit them in unfortunate ways.
I can tolerate lower average framerates, but I hate stutter and VRAM related hitching and that's something I cannot avoid now on some titles even with plenty of system memory.
Whether game textures are being stored unoptimally/used unoptimally, we just cannot overlook newer titles and engines are pushing VRAM harder than ever before, and for one of the few times I can remember in the last 30+ years of skin in this game, we're genuinely hitting a point where slightly older weaker cards that were sold with more VRAM are actually outperforming newer cards that have been underspecced. (3060 v 4060 for example) In the past inflated VRAM was often used as a selling exercise, but due to several generations of Nvidia refusing to equip cards with more VRAM (and also RT implementations requiring a bit more memory), we're actually hitting a point where the VRAM allocation is starting to actually have a realworld negative impact towards cards which really werent equipped with enough memory. (even beyond whether the cards with alternate memory have crippled cores etc).
It's not so much we're being psychologicaly tricked, as Nvidia's essentially planned obsolescence is kicking in; as the cards aren't keeping up with the requirements and potentially lack of optimisation of newer titles.
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I still find 10GB manageable on the 3080, DLSS reduces the internal resolution to sub 1080p, so it's rare I see run into memory issues. Games usually have texture options which don't hurt visuals too much. Modding FSR FG into a lot of games that support DLSS FG is also pretty nice, and works really well.
