[Techno-Kitchen] GTX1060 3GB has major VRAM bottlenecks in Forza Horizon 3 & Mirror's Edge Catalyst

[DamZe]

We both know that his complaint has nothing to do with 3GB vs 4GB and everything to do with it being an Nvidia card.

Now back in reality, we know that 3GB is doa today. The question becomes when does 4GB face the same fate. We have low end cards with 4, we have last generation mid/high end with 4. More than likely based on what is in the market currently and what history has shown is we'll see this same issue with 4GB cards inside the next two years. Should someone buy a 3GB card today? Not really with 470 and 480 4GB below $175 and 1060 6GB/480 8GB around $200 when they are all on sale. Black Friday is coming up and there will most likely be slightly better deals. It's not that the 1060 3GB is a bad card from a technical perspective, it just sits in no mans land. With the coming release of the 1050ti 4GB it wouldn't surprise me if Nvidia phases out the 1060 3GB or relegates it to China/OEMs.

The 1060 3GB is a bad card from a technical perspective in its price range. The 3GB is without a doubt the most gimped thing possible, especially when we all know that cards with an uneven vRAM amount are a thing of the past.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It seems like the entire low-end segment has been overpriced, spec and VRAM gimped for the last couple of generations.

Was just coming here to post this. I feel like the entire lower-end segment has been gutted in one way or another (bad arch, bad binning, whatever) trying to scrape another 10-20 bucks off, been that way for a few gens too. With on-die video creeping upward, at some point NV/AMD is going to have to just pull the plug on these half-assed 'MOBA cards' or whatever they're trying to market them as. Falling apart at medium detail on year-old games used to be something only acceptable to the oxymoronic 'Laptop Gamers'.

 

[RussianSensation]

We both know that his complaint has nothing to do with 3GB vs 4GB and everything to do with it being an Nvidia card.

I don't think so. I provided data above that shows RX 480 4GB also suffering against GTX1060 6GB and RX 480 8GB but there is still data that shows GTX1060 3GB performing the worst out of all of those cards in games that have the steepest VRAM demands. I didn't see many GTX1070 owners here criticizing the Micron issue, but despite me owning 3 GTX1070s, I have no problem discussing the issue or criticizing the card/NV when it's deserved.

Same thing about high DPC latency that Pascal owners on here didn't want to admit to. It took months for NV to admit the issue exists and resolve it. Some of us actually purposely waited to buy a GTX1070 card before this issue was resolved.

Now back in reality, we know that 3GB is doa today. The question becomes when does 4GB face the same fate. We have low end cards with 4, we have last generation mid/high end with 4. More than likely based on what is in the market currently and what history has shown is we'll see this same issue with 4GB cards inside the next two years. Should someone buy a 3GB card today? Not really with 470 and 480 4GB below $175 and 1060 6GB/480 8GB around $200 when they are all on sale. Black Friday is coming up and there will most likely be slightly better deals. It's not that the 1060 3GB is a bad card from a technical perspective, it just sits in no mans land. With the coming release of the 1050ti 4GB it wouldn't surprise me if Nvidia phases out the 1060 3GB or relegates it to China/OEMs.

Ya, I agree that given the small price premium, the 6-8GB versions are worth buying instead. The issue becomes when GTX1050Ti launches this month for $139. Someone can stretch their budget to a $160-180 RX 470/480/1060 but may not be willing to go all the way up to $205-210. At the point the RX 470/480 4GB vs. GTX1060 3GB will become a real decision gamers will be making when cross-shopping $140 GTX1050Ti and a slightly more expensive tier above.

Was just coming here to post this. I feel like the entire lower-end segment has been gutted in one way or another (bad arch, bad binning, whatever) trying to scrape another 10-20 bucks off, been that way for a few gens too. With on-die video creeping upward, at some point NV/AMD is going to have to just pull the plug on these half-assed 'MOBA cards' or whatever they're trying to market them as. Falling apart at medium detail on year-old games used to be something only acceptable to the oxymoronic 'Laptop Gamers'.

Ya, or how AMD pulled the $199 RX 480 4GB at launch and then those cards were MIA after the first batches sold out. Or how NV blatantly increased the price of the GP106 $129 GTS450 and GP116 $149 550Ti tier to $249-299 with GTX1060.

 

[EXCellR8]

Can't wait 2 years from now when I have a 24GB card, look at threads like this and laugh, and then go run the latest call of duty on medium settings.

 

[96Firebird]

Jesus Christ RS, you can't even keep your own threads on topic.

Simply amazing.

 

[Annisman*]

My 1060 3Gb mini is doing very well as an HTPC card for MadVR processing on my 4K TV, now, I wouldn't expect that to be the case if I started gaming with it at the resolution but I'm just giving one small example where it actually shines.

 

[PhonakV30]

I think next year, 4GB will be DOA.who knows

 

[RussianSensation]

Jesus Christ RS, you can't even keep your own threads on topic.

Simply amazing.

The thread is 100% on topic:

- if the gamer intends to keep the GPU for 2-4 years, with a small premium, it probably makes sense to buy the 6-8GB cards. At the very least, the PC gamers should be aware that 3GB is a real bottleneck for 1080p gaming in some AAA PC games
- the low-end sub-$150 dGPU market has been rather underwhelming, overpriced and often spec gimped for years now. It's best to skip all those cards if possible. I will provide the same recommendation for $139 GTX1050 vs. $169 RX 470. The $30-40 savings on the low-end is no longer worth it.
- I am not going to sit there and have people call me AMD-biased when I spent more $ than most of this forum during both Fermi and Pascal generations on NV cards. I actually buy GPUs from both camps depending on the generation. Surprise.

It's also disappointing that a lot of GPU-related valuable data continues to come out from foreign websites while the US GPU reviewers are either too late with their data, do not sufficiently investigate these matters (VRAM bottlenecks, frame time latency), are purposely ignoring them or just don't care. It's ironic because years ago the US review sites were investigating both frame time latency and VRAM bottlenecks.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2396/5

 

[Azix]

some folks bought 1060 3GB for the same price as 8GB 470 cards and 4GB 480 cards. sucks to be them.

 

[railven]

Can't wait 2 years from now when I have a 24GB card, look at threads like this and laugh, and then go run the latest call of duty on medium settings.

With 24GB of VRAM, we can run the whole OS on the GPU!!! Sign me up!

 

[moonbogg]

I miss the 512MB days... wasn't nearly as much flak surrounding GPU specs and mostly everything ran fine at release time.

2008 - Fallout 3... 512MB to 1GB was perfect.

2015 - Fallout 4... 3 or 4GB recommended and the graphics aren't even that much of an improvement. Bad port but still wth?

Anyone else ready to wave their BS flag?

I've been calling BS on this stuff for a while. These games don't need that much Vram. No way. Its a conspiratorial racket

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

As the hardware expands in capabilities, the software expands to fill it, that's no different than it ever was (see the thread floating around about software installation sizes). I do agree that Fallout 4 should look better for its vram usage (F3 looked ridonkulous for its time), but I don't suppose we'll see a prettier fallout until after the next elder scrolls game gets released

 

[EXCellR8]

I've made textures for game engines before and there is no way that all those huge textures actually utilize that much memory, unless they are absolutely unreasonably huge like 5000x5000 pixels or something. It is very true that a good texture makes for a good model or environment but they could seriously cut back on triangle and pixel count and still have a fantastic-looking game. Just because the hardware can handle it doesn't make it worthy of needing gobs of computing power to run. In Fallout 4's case, I feel like they just raised the resolution of their material set, added a few lighting and effect improvements, and then slapped on another $60 price tag. There's nothing in that game that should require a GTX970 for full visual settings when I could max everything in Fallout 3 and vegas on a half-gig 4870 from 2008, and a 1GB 5870 from 2010 for skyrim.

 

[Headfoot]

I've made textures for game engines before and there is no way that all those huge textures actually utilize that much memory, unless they are absolutely unreasonably huge like 5000x5000 pixels or something. It is very true that a good texture makes for a good model or environment but they could seriously cut back on triangle and pixel count and still have a fantastic-looking game. Just because the hardware can handle it doesn't make it worthy of needing gobs of computing power to run. In Fallout 4's case, I feel like they just raised the resolution of their material set, added a few lighting and effect improvements, and then slapped on another $60 price tag. There's nothing in that game that should require a GTX970 for full visual settings when I could max everything in Fallout 3 and vegas on a half-gig 4870 from 2008, and a 1GB 5870 from 2010 for skyrim.

Remember though that as you utilize GPU to compute on data, that data should be resident on the GPU in VRAM otherwise you have to page out to slow system memory. GPU compute effects have been steadily increasing so that is definitely a driver of VRAM use

 

[waffleironhead]

Adjustable settings, how do they work?!

Exactly. When I fire up my nvidia machine I always think: What settings am I going to have to lower to get it to work.

 

[ConsoleLover]

1060 3GB is the worst thing to come on the market after the GTX 960 which review sites absurdly praised as the second coming of Christ, when it could have been Lucifers ruling of earth in reality. The 960 was one of the worst mid range cards in probably the last 5-6 years.

3GB in basically 2017 is DOA, its worthless. Nvidia might optimise in the drivers right now to cover up the 3GB deficiency, but as 90% of games coming up are going to be using more and more ram and as 5GB+ is becoming a standard, I don't see 3GB being useful for more than a year from now. This time next year 3GB will be literally GARBAGE, it won't be able to run any games, you'll have to game at 720p or using low level textures to run games decently.

 

[SolMiester]

1080 hyper settings for a budget card?.....what is the difference in IQ between hyper & high? I know im a little older thasn most here, but really, Im so caught up trying to keep up with play to notice a slight blur difference between hyper & high....

 

[Bacon1]

1080 hyper settings for a budget card?.....what is the difference in IQ between hyper & high? I know im a little older thasn most here, but really, Im so caught up trying to keep up with play to notice a slight blur difference between hyper & high....

It can't do Hyper or Ultra in Mirror's Edge

And can't even do High in DXMD

While the 4GB 470 / 480 handles those:

So you get one higher setting on the 4GB over the 3GB cards.

Why would Nvidia have designed a 4GB 1050 ti instead of a 3GB one if 3GB was enough? They had to cut down the 6GB card to make it cheaper to compete with the 470 4GB.

 

[happy medium]

is there any game @ 1080p that will choke using high settings with a 3gb card?
I don't buy a card for $190 and expect to play all games at ultra max settings for very long. I would think the fps will choke before the ram runs out.
Does the 1060 3gb run all games at 1080p super max settings at over 50 fps? Are we sure that its the ram choking it?

 

[imported_bman]

I've made textures for game engines before and there is no way that all those huge textures actually utilize that much memory, unless they are absolutely unreasonably huge like 5000x5000 pixels or something. It is very true that a good texture makes for a good model or environment but they could seriously cut back on triangle and pixel count and still have a fantastic-looking game. Just because the hardware can handle it doesn't make it worthy of needing gobs of computing power to run. In Fallout 4's case, I feel like they just raised the resolution of their material set, added a few lighting and effect improvements, and then slapped on another $60 price tag. There's nothing in that game that should require a GTX970 for full visual settings when I could max everything in Fallout 3 and vegas on a half-gig 4870 from 2008, and a 1GB 5870 from 2010 for skyrim.

Textures do consume piles of memory, this is why content streaming systems are still important. Fallout 4 is a significant improvement over both Fallout 3 and Skyrim when it comes to texture quality and variety. It also has far better shadow maps and more detailed normal maps both of which take up plenty of memory. The texture compression used in games scales linearly with resolution, so moving from half a gig to around 4 gigs should not be unexpected given the higher resolution of the assets in Fallout 4. Also remember that the textures that sit in video memory are in an easy to decode DXT form which are often bigger than lossless forms like PNG which make use of LZW compression.

 

[Bacon1]

is there any game @ 1080p that will choke using high settings with a 3gb card?
I don't buy a card for $190 and expect to play all games at ultra max settings for very long. I would think the fps will choke before the ram runs out.
Does the 1060 3gb run all games at 1080p super max settings at over 50 fps? Are we sure that its the ram choking it?

I just listed some in the post right above yours.

 

[happy medium]

I just listed some in the post right above yours.

Using "high" settings? I said high not ultra, not with 4x AA, just high settings.
You might not find any reviews with high settings. They want us to think we need ultra settings with 8x AA at 60fps to fully enjoy a game.
Honestly , I can almost never tell the difference between high and ultra.


How many FPS does a gtx1060 3gb get at high settings in DE mankind? My guess its under 40.

 

[happy medium]

1080 hyper settings for a budget card?.....what is the difference in IQ between hyper & high? I know im a little older thasn most here, but really, Im so caught up trying to keep up with play to notice a slight blur difference between hyper & high....

Well mabe we are the same age because I agree with you.

 

[daxzy]

My 1060 3Gb mini is doing very well as an HTPC card for MadVR processing on my 4K TV, now, I wouldn't expect that to be the case if I started gaming with it at the resolution but I'm just giving one small example where it actually shines.

And it's probably way overkill if you're not gaming. A $90 GTX 950 or RX 460 would've done the same thing.

 

[SolMiester]

It can't do Hyper or Ultra in Mirror's Edge

And can't even do High in DXMD

While the 4GB 470 / 480 handles those:

So you get one higher setting on the 4GB over the 3GB cards.

Why would Nvidia have designed a 4GB 1050 ti instead of a 3GB one if 3GB was enough? They had to cut down the 6GB card to make it cheaper to compete with the 470 4GB.

Are those frame times?, I dont pretend to know why NV created 3gb 1060, its not the same chip, or rather it is the 106 which didnt make the grade, rather than targeting a AMD GPU @ values that AMD tends to move.