Question Is 10GB of Vram enough for 4K gaming for the next 3 years?

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moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,635
3,095
136
The question is simple. Will 10GB be enough moving forward for the next 3 years? We all know what happens when Vram gets breached: skips, stutters and chugging.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,508
586
126
I'm guessing it will be "available" in the same way the 3090 and 6900XT are "available." :p

I'll have to try out that Discord channel.
 

sze5003

Lifer
Aug 18, 2012
14,177
622
126
Here's a few discord channels I have joined. Saw a few alerts for 3080's but I wasn't lucky enough.





 

Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
3,599
5,340
106
Here's a few discord channels I have joined. Saw a few alerts for 3080's but I wasn't lucky enough.

I watched stock drops for a week or two, received nothing, realized it was worthless.

By the time stock drops posts it is all gone. It was a complete waste of time for me.
 

undertaker101

Banned
Apr 9, 2006
301
195
116
I watched stock drops for a week or two, received nothing, realized it was worthless.

By the time stock drops posts it is all gone. It was a complete waste of time for me.
I placed 11x orders successfully, 5 I canceled myself ( 2 3090 fun orders, 2 3070s I couldn't be bothered with selling for $100 profit and a 3080 FTW3 on Amazon yesterday), 6x that came though 2x 5600x 1x 5800x, 2x 3070, 1x 3080 from Zotac.. Patience and quick reflexes are the name of the game.. My 5800x/3080 PC are living proof :) I even canceled my evga queues when my Zotac 3080 came because the extra 3-4% wasn't worth the hassle to me...
 

sze5003

Lifer
Aug 18, 2012
14,177
622
126
I keep seeing the Asus cards going in stock. I do have an rog strix oc 1080ti now and would not mind getting the 3080 version of this. But their site loads so slow even when traffic is not hitting it.

Made it to the cart and it was asking me to select billing info while I was logged in but I couldn't select or type anything it. Then it refreshed on its own and took me out of the cart area.
 

lobz

Platinum Member
Feb 10, 2017
2,057
2,856
136
To quote Nvidia themselves (and not GPU-Z or EVGA precision with their dodgy VRAM consumption figures):
Yeah how incredibly funny of them not mentioning Doom Eternal with its highest texture setting, even though the game engine itself performs much better on NVIDIA than it does on AMD uarchs.
 

undertaker101

Banned
Apr 9, 2006
301
195
116
Snagged an ASUS 3070 TUF for 560+tax from Uncle Bezos. Probably let it go here at near cost. So my friends, it is very much possible to still get chipped and carded these days :)
 

Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,547
651
126
I'm on that discord bot too yet I didn't see any notification for amazon. I saw some newegg alerts for the combos.

Do you have the link handy?

I'm prepared to wait only until January to see if an announcement of 3080ti will show up.

Sorry, just coming back now. Well, it ended up being cancelled. I guess Amazon had it available for like ten minutes but they only had a couple of cards. A few people got shipment dates and after a couple of days, the rest of us got cancelled.

But some good news, I actually have from Amazon an EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra and a Zotac 3090 with shipment dates for Jan 10th. Probably going to cancel the Zotac order as it's worse than the FE. Even though I can afford it, I have a hard time spending $1800 on a card that is only 10-15% faster than a 3080 that costs $800. Would love to be get an EVGA 3080 and then step up when the 3080 ti comes out. I'm guessing I can use the EVGA 3090 and sell it when I get a 3080.

The two Discord channels I've been using our Stock Drops and ATR - STONKS. Both times, the card showed it was available but error'd when I tried to add it to my cart but I kept pushing the add button and about the 5th it finally added. You literally only have a second or two to be able to snag one. I've had zero luck trying to get anything at Newegg though I've been able to add things to my cart but by the time I hit the purchase button, it's been removed from my cart as out of stock.
 
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sze5003

Lifer
Aug 18, 2012
14,177
622
126
I've been using stock drops.net, brobot, and stock radar discord channels. I also signed up on the evga site for notifications. By the time I'll have a new card it will probably be the 3080ti.
 

Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
3,599
5,340
106
I've been using stock drops.net, brobot, and stock radar discord channels. I also signed up on the evga site for notifications. By the time I'll have a new card it will probably be the 3080ti.
I have given up on everything but the evga queue myself.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,508
586
126
Sorry, just coming back now. Well, it ended up being cancelled. I guess Amazon had it available for like ten minutes but they only had a couple of cards. A few people got shipment dates and after a couple of days, the rest of us got cancelled.

But some good news, I actually have from Amazon an EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra and a Zotac 3090 with shipment dates for Jan 10th. Probably going to cancel the Zotac order as it's worse than the FE. Even though I can afford it, I have a hard time spending $1800 on a card that is only 10-15% faster than a 3080 that costs $800. Would love to be get an EVGA 3080 and then step up when the 3080 ti comes out. I'm guessing I can use the EVGA 3090 and sell it when I get a 3080.

The 3090 is not a great deal by any means, but it does pull away more at higher resolutions and is well suited for VR. I took a cheaper 3090 over the higher end 3080s, which are harder to find in stock and more marked up by scalpers. My headset with 100% supersampling (quite helpful in VR) runs at about 6000x3000 resolution. I see 14-17GB memory usage in some games that only show 7-8GB usage in 4K on a flatscreen, although it may just be the commit charge. I also got a better price for my old 1080ti on ebay, same as what I paid 3 years ago, by selling now versus 3 months later.
 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
3,848
2,014
136
Nvidia can be trusted because they always knew that 10GB of Vram is more than enough for a high-end card, which is exactly why the upcoming 3060 has precisely 12GB of Vram.
Overly simplistic. They are bound by the 192-bit bus here, which gives them only 6gb or 12gb vram option. They feel that 6gb is less marketable nowadays so thats why the opted for 12gb. They've done it before where a bottom tier card had more vram than the flagship. The FX5200 which originally had 64mb was also made in 128mb versions up to 512mb, which is more than the flagships 256mb. It was a horrible performing card that was allocated more vram purely for marketing purposes, where many less knowledgeable consumers thought vram was the most important spec in a GPU. This is the same group of consumers whom Nvidia are targeting with the 12gb 3060.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
9,990
126
Overly simplistic. They are bound by the 192-bit bus here, which gives them only 6gb or 12gb vram option. They feel that 6gb is less marketable nowadays so thats why the opted for 12gb. They've done it before where a bottom tier card had more vram than the flagship. The FX5200 which originally had 64mb was also made in 128mb versions up to 512mb, which is more than the flagships 256mb. It was a horrible performing card that was allocated more vram purely for marketing purposes, where many less knowledgeable consumers thought vram was the most important spec in a GPU. This is the same group of consumers whom Nvidia are targeting with the 12gb 3060.
That said, there are also a few mining algorithms that require large VRAM buffers, some of the Cookoo-related MimbleWimble algos. There are some that will ONLY run on a 11GB or 16GB VRAM card. I'm looking forward to potentially running those algos on a 12GB 3060, if I can pick one up.

Cuckatoo31 ~ 7.4GB VRAM
Maybe they eased-up on the VRAM requirements, or perhaps I was mistaken. I thought that it took MORE than 8GB to run that algo. *shrug*.
 

AnitaPeterson

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
5,942
388
126
... and in February 2021 nVidia says "Too bad, here's some more 4GB for you suckers. And you'll take it, and you'll like it!"
 

DooKey

Golden Member
Nov 9, 2005
1,811
458
136
... and in February 2021 nVidia says "Too bad, here's some more 4GB for you suckers. And you'll take it, and you'll like it!"

For a low end card 4gb is plenty.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
2,559
136
... and in February 2021 nVidia says "Too bad, here's some more 4GB for you suckers. And you'll take it, and you'll like it!"

With a card that slow, 4GB is fine. VRAM amounts are only an issue if the GPU itself is fast enough to run settings that require more memory than is available.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
7,797
5,899
136
Let's face it, Nvidia could either take all of those chips and sell them as 1050 Ti's, or some fly-by-night Chinese company could eventually take all of those chips and try to flog them off as 4060's or whatever else they hack the BIOS to report the card as.
 
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CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,508
586
126
There are a decent number of current games using over 10GB on a 3090. I was seeing 12-13GB in COD BOCW and Fallout 4 with their HD texture packs, and 10-14GB is common in anything VR, going over 20GB in a few cases. This is the actual process usage, not the commit charge. Other games like Cyberpunk or Control only use 6-8GB, but have noticeably worse textures.

That being said, it doesn't mean these games will be unplayable on a 3080, might just hitch once in a while. I also replayed Crysis 3, which uses less than 3GB and looks just as good as all these games.