Regarding 3080 VRAM

[NE0XY]

Like probably a lot of other people on this forum I'm considering upgrading to one of the new 30-series cards. 

I'm mostly looking towards the 3080, but have one question regarding its vram. Since it's "only" 10GB, could this be a possible bottleneck for the next two-three years for 1440p gaming? 

For instance upcoming Watch Dogs: Legion has a requirement for 8GB, which seems awfully close to that 10GB limit. 

 

Am I worrying for nothing? 

Thanks

[BTGbullseye]

7 minutes ago, NE0XY said:

Like probably a lot of other people on this forum I'm considering upgrading to one of the new 30-series cards. 

I'm mostly looking towards the 3080, but have one question regarding its vram. Since it's "only" 10GB, could this be a possible bottleneck for the next two-three years for 1440p gaming? 

For instance upcoming Watch Dogs: Legion has a requirement for 8GB, which seems awfully close to that 10GB limit. 

 

Am I worrying for nothing? 

Thanks

There is no evidence whatsoever of a slowdown caused by 10GB of VRAM capacity right now. There is a noticeable issue in some games when running at maximum settings and 4k, (there is no proof this is not caused by really poor optimizations of texture settings) without using DLSS, but only on cards with 8GB VRAM or less.

[Jurrunio]

If you dont use max textures (which is meant for 4K these days) you will be fine, if you are on 4K then only time will tell

[Deli]

5 minutes ago, BTGbullseye said:

There is no evidence whatsoever of a slowdown caused by 10GB of VRAM capacity right now. There is a noticeable issue in some games when running at maximum settings and 4k, (there is no proof this is not caused by really poor optimizations of texture settings) without using DLSS, but only on cards with 8GB VRAM or less.

What about games in the next two or three years? I know no one has the crystal ball. However I bet many will keep the card for a few years. So knowing if 10GB VRAM is potentially not enough for future games can be a deal breaker for some.

[BTGbullseye]

4 minutes ago, Deli said:

What about games in the next two or three years? I know no one has the crystal ball.

You literally just answered your own question. It's a coin flip.

 

It is far more likely IMO that game devs are going to target the 10GB capacity from now on for their max settings, mainly because of the 3080. The only thing that would give a chance that they wouldn't, is if AMD has a performance competitive GPU with significantly more VRAM, and near the same price.

[GrockleTD]

1 minute ago, BTGbullseye said:

You literally just answered your own question. It's a coin flip.

 

It is far more likely IMO that game devs are going to target the 10GB capacity from now on for their max settings, mainly because of the 3080. The only thing that would give a chance that they wouldn't, is if AMD has a performance competitive GPU with significantly more VRAM, and near the same price.

*applies tinfoil hat* that is unless Nvidia paid game devs to not do that... but more seriously there is also allegedly another SKU floating around out there, so there might be some sort of 3080Ti with 12-16GB or so of VRAM

[Deli]

9 minutes ago, BTGbullseye said:

You literally just answered your own question. It's a coin flip.

 

It is far more likely IMO that game devs are going to target the 10GB capacity from now on for their max settings, mainly because of the 3080. The only thing that would give a chance that they wouldn't, is if AMD has a performance competitive GPU with significantly more VRAM, and near the same price.

I remember my GTX780 only has 3GB VRAM. Things can change fast in a few years.

 

I watch Gamers Nexus disassembles the 3080 founder card. The PCB has two empty space for VRAM. I really think a more VRAM 3080 Ti will come later.

[IWolfieI]

Have a read through this: https://www.resetera.com/threads/vram-in-2020-2024-why-10gb-is-enough.280976/

 

Most games request as much VRAM as possible, and most tools don't show true VRAM usage.

[BTGbullseye]

1 minute ago, GrockleTD said:

*applies tinfoil hat* that is unless Nvidia paid game devs to not do that...

Y'know... I wouldn't put it past 'em. They did use the 8GB vs 10GB thing to their advantage in their Doom Eternal "benchmarking" in the announcement.

2 minutes ago, GrockleTD said:

but more seriously there is also allegedly another SKU floating around out there, so there might be some sort of 3080Ti with 12-16GB or so of VRAM

I've seen too many SKUs that never went anywhere except the Quadro line or trash heap to bother being concerned about missing SKUs.

[Kilrah]

2 minutes ago, Deli said:

I watch Gamer Nexus disassembles the 3080 founder card. It has two empty space for VRAM. I really think a more VRAM 3080 Ti will come later.

More likely related to binning as he explained.

[BTGbullseye]

2 minutes ago, Deli said:

I watch Gamers Nexus disassembles the 3080 founder card. It has two empty space for VRAM. I really think a more VRAM 3080 Ti will come later.

The missing VRAM modules shifts around based on the section of the GPU die that is disabled. Even if you had the VRAM modules there, they wouldn't be able to function because the GPU simply doesn't have the free hardware to run them.

[GrockleTD]

2 minutes ago, BTGbullseye said:

I've seen too many SKUs that never went anywhere except the Quadro line or trash heap to bother being concerned about missing SKUs.

i don't disagree, hence my liberal application of the word allegedly. One thing i do wonder about though, is what sort of affect DLSS has on VRAM usage

[BTGbullseye]

Just now, GrockleTD said:

what sort of affect DLSS has on VRAM usage

The same exact effect of turning down your resolution setting. That's how it's designed.

[GrockleTD]

1 minute ago, BTGbullseye said:

The same exact effect of turning down your resolution setting. That's how it's designed.

i was in the school of thought that it wouldn't have quite as much of a VRAM reduction as actually reducing the resolution, as it would still have to store the "upscaled" frames, but i'm certainly not an expert i will admit

[Dedayog]

1080Ti for the win!!!

 

Actually recommended VRAM usage is never accurate.  Check with a trusted program or two.

[BTGbullseye]

Just now, GrockleTD said:

i was in the school of thought that it wouldn't have quite as much of a VRAM reduction as actually reducing the resolution, as it would still have to store the "upscaled" frames, but i'm certainly not an expert i will admit

According to both their marketing, and the tests of previous versions of DLSS, they scale the exact same as resolution scaling.

[porina]

17 minutes ago, Deli said:

What about games in the next two or three years? I know no one has the crystal ball. However I bet many will keep the card for a few years. So knowing if 10GB VRAM is potentially not enough for future games can be a deal breaker for some.

Game devs will scale up and down the hardware scale, as they have always done. 8GB is probably the most common "higher" quantity, so I'd assume most will aim to have a good experience with that quantity, as well as some settings for lower.

 

Now if "higher VRAM" cards become a thing as rumoured for AMD's impending launch, that might make some devs offer a setting to take advantage of it. How much difference this will make remains to be seen, as it is a bit speculative.

[NE0XY]

thanks for the replies, interesting read

Whenever I build a new system I usually aim to get the (almost) very best so I can try to max out all settings for as long ass possible without dipping below "acceptable" FPS. 

That said, at almost twice the cost (at-least here in Sweden), the 3090 doesn't really seem worth it, unless it really outperforms the 3080 by a lot. 

 

Also, I don't really see myself doing a full rebuild, since my 8700K probably runs fine for a while more. 

 

But yes, if the 10GB becomes a bottleneck, it would definitely be a bit sad

[Deli]

4 minutes ago, porina said:

Game devs will scale up and down the hardware scale, as they have always done. 8GB is probably the most common "higher" quantity, so I'd assume most will aim to have a good experience with that quantity, as well as some settings for lower.

 

Now if "higher VRAM" cards become a thing as rumoured for AMD's impending launch, that might make some devs offer a setting to take advantage of it. How much difference this will make remains to be seen, as it is a bit speculative.

I have a 1080Ti in my main rig. I use DaVinci Resolve and Blender a lot. 11GB VRAM is a bit marginal sometimes. I'd really love to see a 3080 with 16GB VRAM.

 

Can't afford a 3090.

[porina]

7 minutes ago, Deli said:

I have a 1080Ti in my main rig. I use DaVinci Resolve and Blender a lot. 11GB VRAM is a bit marginal sometimes. I'd really love to see a 3080 with 16GB VRAM.

Do you know if it is using almost 11GB because you have 11GB, or is your workload by chance requires exactly that much? The difference being, if it is the first case, it should scale well. How much perf impact, you'd have to look elsewhere. If it really does require that amount, it could have some more impact if it then has to swap out of system ram. 

 

Anyway, if the rumours are correct, there is a 20GB model waiting in the wings ready to rain on AMD's 16GB parade.

[BTGbullseye]

1 minute ago, porina said:

Anyway, if the rumours are correct, there is a 20GB model waiting in the wings ready to rain on AMD's 16GB parade.

Then again, there are rumors of 32GB AMD cards as well...

[porina]

Just now, BTGbullseye said:

Then again, there are rumors of 32GB AMD cards as well...

I hope this doesn't get as silly as the core wars. For consumer level devices there's a point where it doesn't matter. Not to say that no one has a use for it, there will be specific use cases where it'll be warmly welcome. If AMD want a top level card to show off, that's fine. VRAM doesn't come free so those who really need it will have to pay for it.

[BTGbullseye]

Just now, porina said:

I hope this doesn't get as silly as the core wars. For consumer level devices there's a point where it doesn't matter. Not to say that no one has a use for it, there will be specific use cases where it'll be warmly welcome. If AMD want a top level card to show off, that's fine. VRAM doesn't come free so those who really need it will have to pay for it.

Well, if they manage similar core performance, and the 16GB is using something like HBM, then it might be a good competition. It's not likely to happen that way though. I rarely take rumors at face value for any GPU launch.

[Deli]

9 minutes ago, porina said:

Do you know if it is using almost 11GB because you have 11GB, or is your workload by chance requires exactly that much? The difference being, if it is the first case, it should scale well. How much perf impact, you'd have to look elsewhere. If it really does require that amount, it could have some more impact if it then has to swap out of system ram. 

 

Anyway, if the rumours are correct, there is a 20GB model waiting in the wings ready to rain on AMD's 16GB parade.

For 4K footage, 11GB is perfectly fine. When with 6K and 8K footage, I have to reduce resolution in timeline. So to have more VRAM is preferable.

[porina]

13 minutes ago, Deli said:

For 4K footage, 11GB is perfectly fine. When with 6K and 8K footage, I have to reduce resolution in timeline. So to have more VRAM is preferable.

It's not my area of expertise but I find it hard to believe VRAM quantity is what's limiting you in that scenario. Even an 8k uncompressed frame is under 100MB or so.The limit feels like it is more likely to be either moving the data in the first place or decoding it.