How Long will an RTX 3070 last with just 8gb of VRAM?

[Niko_Papasta]

How Long will an RTX 3070 last with just 8gb of VRAM?

 

I've seen games like Watch dogs Legion using over 8gb of vram @1440p with raytracing, my question is: If games at launch are already exceeding the cards vram capacity, at 1440p (it is in most respects a 1440p card), is it even worth getting a 3070 for the long haul, say 2 or 3 years down the line? In no, what would be a better option? Get an RX 6800, wait for the 3070 ti?

 

Thanks for reading,

Niko.

[boggy77]

games "reserve" more than 8gb of vram if available, but doesn't mean they actually use it or benefit from it.

[Applefreak]

Just now, Niko_Papasta said:

How Long will an RTX 3070 last with just 8gb of VRAM?

 

I've seen games like Watch dogs Legion using over 8gb of vram @1440p with raytracing, my question is: If games at launch are already exceeding the cards vram capacity, at 1440p (it is in most respects a 1440p card), is it even worth getting a 3070 for the long haul, say 2 or 3 years down the line? In no, what would be a better option? Get an RX 6800, wait for the 3070 ti?

 

Thanks for reading,

Niko.

Hi Niko, the games are not necessarily using 8 GB VRAM. The games just allocate all the available memory. It is a lazy thing as a programmer you can do instead of checking and setting a limit. Hardware Ray Tracing and it's implementations are still very new and could get more efficient software side in new games, requiring even less resources. If you can live without max Ray Tracing settings, you should be fine until the next gen of nVidia GPUs launch. If you can live without it, that card should be good for even longer. Really depends on what you are willing to do to play a game at decent fps. 

[boggy77]

8 minutes ago, Niko_Papasta said:

How Long will an RTX 3070 last with just 8gb of VRAM?

it's not like at some point you'll launch a game and it will give you an error message saying "sorry, but you only have 8gb of vram and this game requires 10"

the current performance you're getting in modern games with the 3070 won't change and will be similar to the performance in the games launching in the next couple of years.

[Tan3l6]

If not using ultra settings in all the games the 8GB will last a lot of years.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Graphics Cards

[Falkentyne]

If you're playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, not very long at all

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

I very much want like a 3070ti with at least 12gb vram

 

[Mark Kaine]

10 hours ago, boggy77 said:

games "reserve" more than 8gb of vram if available, but doesn't mean they actually use it or benefit from it.

 

10 hours ago, Applefreak said:

Hi Niko, the games are not necessarily using 8 GB VRAM. The games just allocate all the available memory. It is a lazy thing as a programmer you can do instead of checking and setting a limit. Hardware Ray Tracing and it's implementations are still very new and could get more efficient software side in new games, requiring even less resources. If you can live without max Ray Tracing settings, you should be fine until the next gen of nVidia GPUs launch. If you can live without it, that card should be good for even longer. Really depends on what you are willing to do to play a game at decent fps. 

 

hi my guys, I just wanted to inform you that your interpretation of how this works is not quite accurate as it totally ignores *why* you don't want to run out of VRAM at any point. And saying "it's not a problem" is just missing this reason - maybe because you never experienced it (there are tons of games that don't use a lot of VRAM so I think that's a likely explanation for this wrong interpretation) 

 

 

 

So this is MHW at 1080p / VSYNC on, HIGH settings... 

 

over 6GB "usage" as it really does not matter if this RAM gets used every single frame, the VRAM is filled up with actual data (over 6GB at this point) is what actually matters. 

 

Because what happens the moment this VRAM "usage" (you can call it allocation or unicorns if you'd prefer, it doesn't matter as it doesn't change the fact that the amount is actually "loaded" in memory) exceeds the available amount is very simple: the game will start "swapping" data in VRAM for data it actually *needs* right now or very soon, which by all intends and purposes on any game I tested will result in massive *framerate drops* that can last several seconds. 

And this also means if your GPU is running regularly out of VRAM "allocation" or *usage* you will also regularly experience *massive framedrops*

 

And that also means, that if you play a game that uses a lot of VRAM (if that makes sense depends on the game btw) like MHW (where it *does* make sense) you simply cannot run at "high settings" / 1080p / 60 fps if your card has *only* 6GB of RAM because the game clearly *requires* more than that to run "stable" at these settings... 

 

Tested a million times with my old GTX 1060 6GB, also in other games, and it's not a rendering power issue either, the main reason that prevents running at higher settings is indeed VRAM *usage* as it is clearly the limiting factor and not general "GPU or CPU usage" as those still are well within acceptable limits. 

 

So yeah, tldr, saying "games only allocate the RAM, but don't use it and there is no issue" is factually wrong and misleading, depending on the games in question. Of course if all ya play is "CSGO" and similar low requirements games that mostly have low quality textures and simply don't use a lot of VRAM, you won't know or ever experience this. 

 

#Say no to framerate drops #free the FPS  #high res high quality textures ftw  #tyvm and stop ignoring the actual problem by arguing like there isn't an issue when there clearly is. 

 

 

 

 

 

[SFFDesigns]

2 hours ago, Falkentyne said:

if you're playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, not very long at all

Why do people keep bringing this example up? It uses a max of around 8GBs or a tad more at 4K (Tokyo, Ultra everything, 78X) on a 3080 (measured via the sim's own tools, that's the only way to properly measure), and with the 3070 it'll probably be limited by GPU before VRAM even at 4K

[xg32]

the processing power will come into play before the vram does for 1440p, i don't recommend it for 4k