Why more VRAM is needed in GPU?

[cool.dx.rip]

I have seen many members in forums has 4GB HIS 7850 gpu(example) why do they need more VRAM? What would be if they take 7870 1gb,7990 1GB instead?any performance difference i mainly want to know

 

[bystander36]

That depends on the settings used and games played. VRAM is a resource used by the graphics card. It holds textures, frame buffers, and data needed to create a frame. High resolutions and AA levels tend to need more VRAM.

At 1080p, it is almost impossible to need more than 2Gb, except with mods, or with SSAA. If the card has enough VRAM, no amount extra helps. You either are good or not good, it doesn't scale.

Most the time, in order to need more than 2GB, you have to be in 2 or 3 way CF/SLI at 5760x1080 or higher resolutions. If you are at lower resolutions, it is rare to be able to use that much VRAM, and if you don't have 2-3 top in cards, you wouldn't have been able to get good FPS with the settings and resolution to need to use more than 2GB of VRAM.

1Gb is more of a concern, and more so with newer games. Though lower settings will still allow you to get away with 1Gb, but I would not advise it.

 

[futurefields]

It's extra VRAM for multi-gpu setups running multi-monitors. Because VRAM does not stack in SLI/Crossfire, they put 3gb incase you want to run multiple cards.

My single 7950 will never use all it's 3gb. And if it did, it will probably run at 15-20 fps.

 

[Stuka87]

Some newer games, or games with very high res textures/texture mods will use 2GB of memory very easily. If your card only has 2GB, you will get stuttering when textures have to be swapped out.

For most current and older games 2GB is fine. But once new consoles come out with all their memory (PS4 has 8GB total, we can assume a decent chunk of that is for video) texture quality is most likely going to jump quite a bit.

 

[imaheadcase]

Its for multi-monitor setups basicly. You don't really need it if you use one monitor.

 

[Rikard]

Its for multi-monitor setups basicly. You don't really need it if you use one monitor.

...unless you are into modding. Skyrim looks much better when using 3 GB than merely 2 GB for example. I think if all cards had say 4 GB, new games would use close to 4 GB too.

 

[Leyawiin]

Needing more has been a gradual process for me. The 768MB of my 8800 GTX was fine until 2010. Once it would have become a problem the card couldn't mas the settings on the game anyway and I moved on to a GTX 460 1GB. Once that was filling up I couldn't max settings on newer games again. Now I have a GTX 670 2GB and the most its used is about 1700MB. It can max all my games again and the VRAM doesn't fill completely. Once it does I'm sure I would need a stronger GPU anyway.

Basically, for my gaming the GPU/VRAM match has always stayed in balance. I don't need a 3MB or 4MB card for 1920x1200 with no modding.

 

[BrightCandle]

For the most part VRAM isn't worth paying for extra. The cards don't really perform well enough to handle more VRAM and by the time its actually necessary the card is obsolete. There are circumstances, like Skyrim modded or a couple of games in 3 monitors where the VRAM is a genuine limitation and in those cases the game does perform better when you have more VRAM and it allows an extra level of AA or a slightly higher quality of texture. But you will find a lot of games you play today don't even much exceed 1GB let alone 3GB.

The sizes you see today on the cards (2GB and 3GB) were chosen based on the width of the bus and the reasonable expectation that around 2-3GB was going to economic. The 6GB on the Titan just goes to waste on games right now, and once we are at the point when games need 6GB the Titan will simply be too slow to run the games well anyway.

I think it unlikely that the 7000 series cards will out last the NVidia cards from the period just because of VRAM, because in both cases they will probably run out of compute performance on future games anyway. If I was looking to hold onto a card for a long time I would choose the AMD card, more VRAM, more bandwidth and more raw compute means that in theory at least it ought to do better in future titles compared to NVidia's 600 series. In practice it hasn't really played out like that but it should have and I expect the raw hardware to provide a little better life. The extra VRAM however is unlikely to be all that helpful to it when its playing games on medium or low settings.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

helps multi-gpu setups

 

[Makaveli]

For the most part VRAM isn't worth paying for extra. The cards don't really perform well enough to handle more VRAM and by the time its actually necessary the card is obsolete. There are circumstances, like Skyrim modded or a couple of games in 3 monitors where the VRAM is a genuine limitation and in those cases the game does perform better when you have more VRAM and it allows an extra level of AA or a slightly higher quality of texture. But you will find a lot of games you play today don't even much exceed 1GB let alone 3GB.

The sizes you see today on the cards (2GB and 3GB) were chosen based on the width of the bus and the reasonable expectation that around 2-3GB was going to economic. The 6GB on the Titan just goes to waste on games right now, and once we are at the point when games need 6GB the Titan will simply be too slow to run the games well anyway.

I think it unlikely that the 7000 series cards will out last the NVidia cards from the period just because of VRAM, because in both cases they will probably run out of compute performance on future games anyway. If I was looking to hold onto a card for a long time I would choose the AMD card, more VRAM, more bandwidth and more raw compute means that in theory at least it ought to do better in future titles compared to NVidia's 600 series. In practice it hasn't really played out like that but it should have and I expect the raw hardware to provide a little better life. The extra VRAM however is unlikely to be all that helpful to it when its playing games on medium or low settings.

This ^^^^

 

[futurefields]

...unless you are into modding. Skyrim looks much better when using 3 GB than merely 2 GB for example. I think if all cards had say 4 GB, new games would use close to 4 GB too.

But can one card (non Titan) even run 3gb of textures at a decent fps?

 

[Stuka87]

But can one card (non Titan) even run 3gb of textures at a decent fps?

There is very little performance hit just from higher resolution textures. A 7950/7970 can still run skyrim fine with the high res texture packs.

 

[jenneth]

Good post BrightCandle. The way I see it is that unless you have a multi-gpu setup 4~6GB VRAM is not necessary until Maxwell or Volta.

 

[willomz]

Even on Skyrim you can set the mods to use compressed textures and then you won't hit a VRAM limit.

 

[Fastx]

I have seen many members in forums has 4GB HIS 7850 gpu(example) why do they need more VRAM? What would be if they take 7870 1gb,7990 1GB instead?any performance difference i mainly want to know

Fwiw

[H]

It may seem like overkill right now, what with current video cards having 2 or 3GB of VRAM and game's overall not demanding so much. However, we are starting to see some game's that do demand more. Hitman is one game that is extremely sensitive to VRAM capacity. We are seeing 2GB be an absolute bottleneck for the game, and 3GB not being enough either. Once we get to 4GB or 6GB of VRAM the game behaves much better at high MSAA settings at high resolutions. Another game, which came out last year, that is also sensitive to VRAM is Max Payne 3. While it doesn't seem right now that Far Cry 3 is that sensitive to VRAM, we haven't had a video card combination fast enough right now to run it at the highest in-game settings to really test that. As we move forward, we will find out. We haven't had much time to test Crysis 3 and its sensitivity to VRAM, but we will get to that when we can.

We were happy and agreed with the decision when we were introduced to the AMD Radeon HD 7970 and 7950 back in 2011 to incorporate 3GB of RAM. At the time, this seemed like a lot of VRAM back in December of 2011. However, we are seeing today how the extra RAM on the HD 7970 and 7950 have benefited some of the latest games. In this same vein, down the road, this year, the next, we may even see how more VRAM impacts games to come.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/02/21/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_video_card_review/11

 

[Blitzvogel]

While I think 6 GB is overkill, I think in the long term for future proofing it makes some sense, since 3 GB might not be enough in a couple years and of course GDDR5 module size availability dictates certain VRAM sizes for certain overall bandwidths and vice versa.

 

[flexy]

Only a few weeks ago I still "got by" with my old, trusted GTX 275 and 896MB, but now have a GTX 660 TI with 2GB. I would say, today, 2GB should be the norm, more might be interesting for specific situations like downsampling from insane high resolutions and other "experiments" and of course for those people with multiple displays. You cannot run 3000x something resolutions with ultra textures and 2GB, then you need more.

 

[UaVaj]

all depends on (1) how much eye candy you want and (2) what resolution you run.

if you are like some of us and turn every eye candy on, and if not enough gpu power - you simply add another gpu.

with today's titles - you want 2.5GB vram (with the exception of crysis3 - titan quad sli can max out 6GB of vram with playable fps).

 

[Magic Carpet]

what games do you play

I saw Crysis 2 DX11 w/ High Resolution Texture Pack using close to 1.8GB on my computer, the other day @ 1050, single monitor, high, no AA. Crysis 3, eats about 1.5GB easily. Of course, some of that must have been used by Windows but still. 2GB is the minimum, if you are buying today.

 

[Yuriman]

I was using 2x 512MB HD4870's in CF until about 2 months ago. I never watched vram usage, but games such as Guild Wars 2, Sim City, Civ 5 and Skyrim all ran like butter. I never tried a highres texture pack but I was able to max all of the games I play.

I don't play FPS anymore and very few non-FPS really push the envelope, graphically.

Strangely, the only thing that really improved with my purchase of an HD7850 was my gamecube emulator which I hadn't suspected of being GPU limited anyway.

 

[Wall Street]

A lot of these replies are backwards looking. For now higher VRAM cards mainly allow for higher settings, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more games with larger areas between loading screens, more high-res textures and fewer repeated textures once PS4 arrives.

 

[blastingcap]

Moar pixels (multi-monitor, higher-res single screens, etc.) + Moar anti-aliasing and other such video options = Moar VRAM!

Besides, PS4 is allegedly gonna have what, 8GB unified GDDR5 RAM or somesuch. We wouldn't want to fall behind our console-gaming peon neighbors now, would we? Esp. if future games actually take advantage of all that RAM and thus console ports become less of a joke and thus require more PC hardware.

 

[Makaveli]

Moar pixels (multi-monitor, higher-res single screens, etc.) + Moar anti-aliasing and other such video options = Moar VRAM!

Besides, PS4 is allegedly gonna have what, 8GB unified GDDR5 RAM or somesuch. We wouldn't want to fall behind our console-gaming peon neighbors now, would we? Esp. if future games actually take advantage of all that RAM and thus console ports become less of a joke and thus require more PC hardware.

hey if it means we start to see 4,6,8GB gpus a year or two after the PS4 launch i'm not gonna say no.

Alot of people are focusing on if the PS4 will be better than a gaming computer.

What they should be thinking about is how it will improve the quality of the ports and maybe we will see alot more cross platform titles so its a win for everyone.

For the Epeen guys we all know computers will supersede the consoles its just a matter of time. So there is no need for the butt hurt by the fanboys.

 

[willomz]

You'll have to pay a fair chunk extra if you really want 8GB VRAM.

I'd say no unless I saw a compelling reason why I'd need that much.

 

[Wall Street]

You'll have to pay a fair chunk extra if you really want 8GB VRAM.

I'd say no unless I saw a compelling reason why I'd need that much.

In two years would 8 GB be out of the question? Just two and a half years ago (the release of HD 6970 and HD 6950), 2 GB was unheard of, and now it is standard on $175 cards with higher end cards having more.

I certainly expect most cards to have at least 4 GB in two years, and I also expect some future games (even console ports) to use it. So there is no harm in investing in that level of memory now. Most of the Titan price isn't for the extra RAM.