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when a GTX1060 is not a GTX1060 - the VRAM problem

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when this card was announced, I had a head to head with couple of people who said 3GB of VRAM is quite enough for 1080p gaming - my reasoning is that while that can be true for some games, you don't buy a card for couple of months then toss it in the bin, you make an investment for couple of years; especially for the market segment this card is tailored for, people that don't have much cash to spend on PC components

 

aside from 3GB of VRAM less, the full  GTX1060 has 1280 shaders while the 3GB model drops to 1152

the 3GB model is within 5% performance of the 6GB model, as shown in handful of games

 

but what happens when things aren't so cut and dry? DF tossed in a 4Gb model RX480 for comparison

the premise: Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1080p with very high quality settings and SMAA

the 1st section of the benchmark shows the 3GB model behaving as expected, withing 5% difference from it's bigger brother

eYaeDfR.png

 

now, pay close attention on what happens in the 2nd section of the benchmark:

hrY85kd.png

 

frametimes take a nose dive, framerate too - for the rest of the benchmark, the 3GB model does not recover, it drops 30% (!!!) perf compared to the 6GB model

 

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the writing was on the wall

two weeks ago when this whole debate started, I've done my own testing with RotTR and reached a similar conclusion - 3GB of VRAM will not be enough for games to come, and won't be enough for games using the new low level APIs (DirectX 12 and Vulkan)

l9Ag9Au.png

 

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my advise to people thinking of buying this card - if you plan to play a single game (MOBAs or CS:Go) this card will suffice

but if plan to make this purchase for general gaming and want to keep it for couple or years, make an effort at get the 6GB model - this is not a sound investment

 

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I will say that with this product, nVidia made a disservice to it's potential client base - the way it's marketed is deceitful, this is not a GTX1060

most people don't go on tech sites to read reviews, don't go on tech forums to read 1st hand experiences with the product, they go and make the purchase based on brand recognition, brand loyalty (sometimes misguided), by word of mouth or simply they just don't know what they're buying (ignorance)

 

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a lot of people use GFE and a lot of those people use GFE to set the games they play for them

how long until GFE will push GTX1060 6GB settings for 3GB card owners? since you know ... nVidia thinks it's the same card :dry:

 

ps: OBS uses extra VRAM, ShadowPlay uses extra VRAM

Edited by zMeul
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Couldn't agree more. People were surprised to see how little Nvidia promoted this cut down 1060, but I was not. I think it was intentional. With less comunication on this new 1060, people will be more inclined to buy this card because it's named 1060 without knowing it's more of a 1050 Ti.

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Honestly the 3GB can be enough, the other cuts though such as bandwidth make the 3GB more problematic, especially if you throw AA setting to very high settings

 

1050ti was indeed a better name for this card.

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The 3GB 1060 is basically a 780ti in both performance and memory size. Nvidia have done this same thing in the past, but usually these oddball cards are only available through OEM's, and not launched publicly for ridicule. Realistically, 3-4GB of Vram is no longer justifiable at the 480/1060 performance range, but apparently someone at Nvidia thought there was still a market for sucker-cards.

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Interesting find, I didn't imagine 1080p gaming to become so VRAM hungry.

 

Well, at least I know now before I make recommendations with it.

if you have to insist you think for yourself, i'm not going to believe you.

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Just now, Suika said:

Interesting find, I didn't imagine 1080p gaming to become so VRAM hungry.

 

Well, at least I know now before I make recommendations with it.

Yeah, its the reason why anyone looking at the Fury/Nano cards should really reconsider their options. They may be selling for cheap, but there's good reason.

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Just now, Misanthrope said:

What a terrible ordeal

 

*changes AA settings*

*changes texture settings*

 

Oh look, solved!

yeah, that'll will work for one game, what about the next one?! can't wait for DX to do their DeusEx analysis - that game is even more hard-core

ps: I've showed you, in the graph I posted, that without any AA, just simply by using DX12 I can get VRAM usage above 3GB mark

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So...occasional frame dips due to the lack of more RAM? Eh.

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Just now, Nineshadow said:

So...occasional frame dips due to the lack of more RAM? Eh.

occasional !? did you even bother .. guess not

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1 minute ago, zMeul said:

yeah, that'll will work for one game, what about the next one?! can't wait for DX to do their DeusEx analysis - that game is even more hard-core

ps: I've showed you, in the graph I posted, that without any AA, just simply by using DX12 I can get VRAM usage above 3GB mark

I'm guessing this puts 4GB in danger as well for dx12 since clearly it is going to be pushing the limits on that as well if the Vram requirements go up by that large of an amount

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Just now, AresKrieger said:

I'm guessing this puts 4GB in danger as well for dx12 since clearly it is going to be pushing the limits on that as well if the Vram requirements go up by that large of an amount

it's a possibility, but won't be for some time at 1080p - it will be, I'm guessing it already is, for 1440p

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1 minute ago, zMeul said:

yeah, that'll will work for one game, what about the next one?! can't wait for DX to do their DeusEx analysis - that game is even more hard-core

ps: I've showed you, in the graph I posted, that without any AA, just simply by using DX12 I can get VRAM usage above 3GB mark

PC games will not have graphical options now? Why wouldn't they? Because is not convenient for your straw man? All devs, even AAA devs know they have to support even lower specs than that and have to get it running on 2gb vram even lower than that even.

This isn't console gaming there will always be an option to tweak games into VRAM submission.

 

Even if there isn't games that are popular enough (i.e. Skyrim) usually have mods to improve textures while lowering their size or focus on lower end systems. Sure it involves some trickery for users 3 years down the road but they're not left out in the cold with a broken product as you are implying here. It's just a shitty inconvenience.

 

I personally much rather have Nvidia telling us upfront it's 3gb instead of marketing as 4gb but only 3.5gb at max speed again though.

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5 minutes ago, zMeul said:

occasional !? did you even bother .. guess not

I read 85 avg on the 2nd one and reckoned that.

 

Seriously though, it's still gonna do just fine. Not as fine as the 6GB version, but it's going to be doing ok. It doesn't make games unplayable. You might need to turn down 1-2 settings but that's about it. And those settings won't make much of a difference in your visual experience in the end.

 

The 6GB version is a better choice if you can afford it.

 

I managed to play Rise of The Tomb Raider on my GTX 560 with 1 GB of RAM so yeah...I don't know.

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4 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

PC games will not have graphical options now? Why wouldn't they? Because is not convenient for your straw man?

really mate, really!?

go to the average joe that bough this card and ask him about all this stuff - do you expect him to know?

reddit is full of people who come from consoles that try to make sense on what all those setting do - and those are the people who at least try

 

wow .. just wow!

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8 minutes ago, Overkilled said:

But isnt the 6gb not that much pricier than the 3gb?

it's 50$ diff in retail - comparing the two product from the same manufacturer:

EVGA GTX1060 3G ACX2.0: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487263&cm_re=gtx1060-_-14-487-263-_-Product

EVGA GTX1060 6G ACX2.0: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487260&cm_re=gtx1060-_-14-487-260-_-Product

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18 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

Yeah, its the reason why anyone looking at the Fury/Nano cards should really reconsider their options. They may be selling for cheap, but there's good reason.

Intense increases in bandwidth make this a non issue for HBM cards. The Fury X held its own in 4K and closed the gap with 980 ti compared to lower resolutions

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8 hours ago, zMeul said:

really mate, really!?

Yes really. Reply when you actually have an argument and not just indignation and yet another straw man.

 

8 hours ago, huilun02 said:

I guess 3.5GB wasn't bad enough... 

How is this worst?

 

You know exactly what you're getting. The issue wasn't the ammount of vram but the misrepresentation (imo outright lie by omission) about being 4gb instead of 3.5 and crippled .5

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34 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

Yeah, its the reason why anyone looking at the Fury/Nano cards should really reconsider their options. They may be selling for cheap, but there's good reason.

Those cards perform better than a 980 at 1080p and 1440p even if it has 4GB and the 980 has 6GB.

Not the same kind of VRAM so it isn't comparable.

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3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

My ultimate issue here though is...

 

Why are you buying a midrange (or now "budget" card as this has been pushed into by the marketers) and expecting to crank up everything to maximum and expect 60FPS+?

Because some users seem to be adamant about creating more problems for the company they dislike as if that somehow made the company they do like more preferable.

 

Really there's nothing to this "controversy" at all: you know what you're getting 3gb. I haven't seen (and I'm even fairly certain I will never see a case within 2 years) a single case when you can't just lower the settings and stay within 3gb and/or the performance you want.

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Just now, Misanthrope said:

Because some users seem to be adamant about creating more problems for the company they dislike as if that somehow made the company they do like more preferable.

 

Really there's nothing to this "controversy" at all: you know what you're getting 3gb. I haven't seen (and fairly certain I will never see a case within 2 years) a single case when you can't just lower the settings and stay within 3gb and/or the performance you want.

The only problem I have with this card is its name. I wouldn't mind it so much if it was the exact same GPU with less VRAM, but it's not.

 

But yeah, when you're buying a $200 card when the upper end market is $500-$600, don't expect to play with the big boys. You have to compromise if you want your consistent 60FPS. If you're not willing to compromise, I suggest you go download some more VRAM.

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