The "8GB not enough" thread

[Furious_Styles]

Meh, nvidia skimping on VRAM and no longer optimizing drivers for older cards is planned obsolescence by design. This way next card will have a selling point of having 2GB more VRAM, and old one is going to be crippled by not having enough VRAM. Nothing is going to change so long as gamers fall for nVidia marketing and so long as AMD cannot produce enough cards for gamers to actually buy - reference 6800/6800XT is impossible to find.

Reference 6700/6800/6900 is pretty impossible. The AIBs are charging those big premiums so they're a lot less desirable.

 

[brianmanahan]

the human eye can't see over 720p
the human eye can't see 4k or 8k texture resolution
the human eye can't see above 30 fps
the human eye can't see ultra settings
the human eye can't see texture streaming artifacts...

wait, it can.

i used to think that we would never more than 640x480, because who can see more than that many pixels?

 

[Magic Carpet]

We have needed a viable third option for about a decade.

Almost two decades, since 3dfx went bankrupt. Hopefully, Intel will able to mount some challenge to the current duopoly.

 

[Timorous]

This gamegpu review produced a very interesting exchange between Hardware Unboxed and DF on Twitter, with Alexander Battaglia from DF pointing out that "texture setting is merely a Cache for streaming and has no visual effect. High looks the same as Ultra Nightmare." It sounds like a very sensible point to make, which should be taken into account when discussing DOOM Eternal with RTX benchmarks. Right?!

Well, here's the big irony: last year, before the 3080 official reviews, Digital Foundry was given exclusive right to publish a preview... and they chose to pit the 3080 against the 2080 at 4K using the Ultra Nightmare quality setting, inducing the same texture buffer pressure on the 2080 with 8GB of VRAM. The aggressive settings were fine back then to showcase the superiority of 3080, but now that they come back and bite the 3070... we need to discuss how Ultra Nightmare isn't really a good benchmark option, since it has "no visual effect".

I have done some reading and the setting impacts texture streaming. More textures in VRAM = less streaming required = better IQ. Eternal seems pretty good with streaming though so it is a minor thing. So while High might look the same as Ultra Nightmare once the textures load in if you are whizzing through sections you are more likely to be looking at a low res temporary texture at High than Ultra Nightmare.

My issue here is that Alex was very particular about pointing out the IQ issues with FSR but now there is an IQ issue that impacts the 8GB 3060Ti, 3070 and 3070Ti he wants to give it a pass by telling people to use a smaller texture pool. The problem is the 12GB 3060 does not have this issue and can run with the texture pool maxed out but Alex does not seem to want to acknowledge it.

When it comes to PC stuff I am just going to ignore anything DF have to say. between GN, HUB, Anand, Ian, LTT, L1T etc I won't miss out on anything of importance and I can avoid obvious NV bias.

 

[coercitiv]

When it comes to PC stuff I am just going to ignore anything DF have to say. between GN, HUB, Anand, Ian, LTT, L1T etc I won't miss out on anything of importance and I can avoid obvious NV bias.

I wouldn't go that far, DF offers good coverage of new tech in games, for Doom Eternal alone they managed to produce some nice interviews with id Software staff full of interesting insights, they're a valuable source of information overall. They're not consistent though, so their own analysis and interpretation of new tech must be filtered using their own previous standards. This applies to image reconstruction, driver overhead, and now VRAM requirements.

 

[Timorous]

I wouldn't go that far, DF offers good coverage of new tech in games, for Doom Eternal alone they managed to produce some nice interviews with id Software staff full of interesting insights, they're a valuable source of information overall. They're not consistent though, so their own analysis and interpretation of new tech must be filtered using their own previous standards. This applies to image reconstruction, driver overhead, and now VRAM requirements.

I think it will depend on who writes the article.

 

[coercitiv]

I think it will depend on who writes the article.

Not necessarily, here's Alex Battaglia talking about 3070 VRAM and how he feels like AMD may have done a better job with the 6000 series from this point of view.

I like to think that DF will become more aware of their own need for consistency in review standards, to me it seems they got a bit carried away with RTX/DLSS tech from Nvidia and they're still in the process of figuring out proper criteria to judge some of the emerging tech from both vendors. Personally I'll still listen to what they have to say.

 

[CP5670]

I don't think the 3080's 10GB is good enough for 4K with RT, HD texture packs, VR, etc. It should be good for 4K without RT or 1440p. Ultra settings are admittedly useless most of the time, but RT and texture packs are well worth it. Even the 3080ti's 12GB is borderline and will fall short in a few cases, particularly given how expensive that card is. AMD's 16GB is probably the sweet spot, but VR can occasionally use beyond 20GB.

 

[BFG10K]

And we have another game, Resident Evil Village added to OP. Once again the 3070 tanks with ray tracing and is slower than the 3060/6700XT at 4K.

The delicious irony is the game doesn't have DLSS but just got FSR patched. Thanks AMD!

 

[Magic Carpet]

The legendary 970 with its 3.5Gb+512mb fared much better! Yeah, for that price, the 3070 is only good for mining. Hell, not even a full year has passed. What happens in 3? Hmm.

 

[Mopetar]

Well I guess we can be thankful that no gamers were able to buy any of these cards!

Maybe by the time the mining boom subsides, Nvidia will refresh the lineup to include more VRAM and we won't have to worry about it.

Of course that may take so long that the 16 GB of VRAM that Nvidia is including in the mid-range will be regarded as widely inadequate. Hopefully Musk or Bezos will have space flight worked out in the interim because I want off this crazy world.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the low VRAM cards for the right price are great *retro* gaming cards where you can play older stuff with VSR/DSR while still maintaining higher framerates, and likely solid forward looking cards for non-RT workloads.

 

[moonbogg]

8GB is for 1080p casual gaming. It's hilarious that Nvidia marketed the 3070 as a 2080Ti replacement for only $500. I cant' wait for the super cards to arrive with the same Vram amounts, lol.

 

[BFG10K]

And we have yet another game added to the OP, Deathloop:

8GB cards show visible texture pop-in at close range as shown in the video, and that's with ray tracing off. Turning on ray tracing uses even more VRAM.

Imagine paying $1500 USD for a 3070Ti and immediately having to start dropping texture quality because it has the same VRAM capacity as a 5 year old 1070. Utter lunacy.

 

[Golgatha]

Pretty amazing that 10GB 3080 is "fine" but makes sense when you consider that they are likely optimizing for the 10GB fast pool on the Series X. I would hazard a guess that lots of console released games will be optimized for that much graphics memory at 1440 and up resolutions.

And maybe optimized for the 10GB 3080

2080ti buyers in that little bitty window when they were fire sold before the 3080 launch are looking like geniuses. I definitely should have snagged the one for $450 that I had a chance at but hesitated on.

That graph makes me feel better about my 6800 purchase. I really wanted a 6800XT but the extra hundreds of dollars soured me on it, while it was relative peanuts to step from 6700xt to the 6800. Looks like both are OK in this title, anyway.

Final edit: Sad for the 3070ti if this is the way things are going to go. Should have gone to 16GB GDDR6 and used the power budget for core clocks or something.

The 3070 ti should have definitely had 16GB of vRAM, if for no other reason than the huge price increase over the 3070.

 

[Golgatha]

Not smart or nerdy like you guys, but why doesn't the bigger memory bus on the RTX 3060Ti and above make up for the lack of VRAM in this scenario?

Nope, that only affects the speed of the card. But once you run out of vRAM, your performance tanks hard.

 

[blckgrffn]

The 3070 ti should have definitely had 16GB of vRAM, if for no other reason than the huge price increase over the 3070.

I still think the 8GB frame buffers are to ensure that IF mining crashes they'll still have a reason to move a lot of 40xx series GPUs, as they'll likely move to 12+GB across the board.

The 3060ti-3070ti values could tank pretty hard.

(glances at 3060ti wrapped on the parts shelf, shudders)

 

[VirtualLarry]

I still think the 8GB frame buffers are to ensure that IF mining crashes they'll still have a reason to move a lot of 40xx series GPUs, as they'll likely move to 12+GB across the board.

The 3060ti-3070ti values could tank pretty hard.

(glances at 3060ti wrapped on the parts shelf, shudders)

Speaking of which... the 12GB RTX 2060... do you think Nvidia will re-brand it the RTX 4050?

 

[blckgrffn]

Speaking of which... the 12GB RTX 2060... do you think Nvidia will re-brand it the RTX 4050?

Wouldn't make me mad *if* we can buy it reliably for less than $300 in 2022.

 

[CakeMonster]

2060 12GB seems like one of the few realistic options for 'cheaper' cards with no immediate VRAM problems, but that would also assume games that can run with low input resolution for DLSS. You might not like the artifacts, but given the options...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Wouldn't make me mad *if* we can buy it reliably for less than $300 in 2022.

Then prepare to get extra spicy my friend, it ain't happening. Current transportation costs and increased times, tariffs, unfulfilled orders for various sectors, the list goes on.

 

[blckgrffn]

Then prepare to get extra spicy my friend, it ain't happening. Current transportation costs and increased times, tariffs, unfulfilled orders for various sectors, the list goes on.

Yeah, I hear that.

Just saying some people might get mad about even the concept of turning a high vram 2060 into a "4050" but that bothers me not really at all - I mean a "50" card would be like $175 in olden times? Now $299 (again?!? lol) A 2060 as a direct replacement for the 1650 Super is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It also makes sense to me that lower tier cards might be older cards repackaged and on process technology that is a step back (or two?) from bleeding edge. I've got no beef with that so long as they are DX12U compliant even at lower performance levels.

But why even bother caring unless we can buy it? And that's where your point comes into play

 

[DeathReborn]

And we have yet another game added to the OP, Deathloop:

8GB cards show visible texture pop-in at close range as shown in the video, and that's with ray tracing off. Turning on ray tracing uses even more VRAM.

Imagine paying $1500 USD for a 3070Ti and immediately having to start dropping texture quality because it has the same VRAM capacity as a 5 year old 1070. Utter lunacy.

Considering 3090's with 24GB run out of VRAM running Deathloop I'd consider the game just plain badly made.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Seems like I am sticking with 1050P for a while longer....

 

[Furious_Styles]

Considering 3090's with 24GB run out of VRAM running Deathloop I'd consider the game just plain badly made.

It does seem to be very poorly optimized and badly in need of a patch for PC.