6GB of vRAM - more than enough for 1080p and 1440p?

[RTX2060Owner]

Hey. I own RTX 2060. I understand it is not the most high-end GPU. I understand most of your rigs probably trash it. However, I have often heard that 6GB of vRAM is not enough for gaming anymore. Is it really the case? I game at 1440p, and I can't recall many instances where the 6GB vRAM limitation has been a problem.

 

I understand that video gaming is developing fast, and soon 6GB won't even be enough for newest games at 1080p, but right now, in 2021, is 6GB of vRAM really bad if you only care about gaming and not 3D art or stuff like that?

[FRD]

6GB is not exactly bad, but it's on the low side for some games. There are games that demand a lot of VRAM (GTA V, for example), others demand CPU (Assassin's Creed) or RAM (COD:Warzone).

If you don't use high or max settings in some games, then the VRAM won't reach the limit. Even if you reach the limit it isn't always that bad, the GPU is running 100% anyway. Remember that many people still game with 4GB cards these days. 8GB is best to have right now, but not all games do need that full 8GB yet, especially if you play older games.

On 1440p it's more a problem that you can't get high fps in most games, other than hitting VRAM limits.

For 3D art and other applications, I think 6GB is plenty. You might only need it for heavy rendering or something like that.

[Alex Atkin UK]

32 minutes ago, RTX2060Owner said:

Hey. I own RTX 2060. I understand it is not the most high-end GPU. I understand most of your rigs probably trash it. However, I have often heard that 6GB of vRAM is not enough for gaming anymore. Is it really the case? I game at 1440p, and I can't recall many instances where the 6GB vRAM limitation has been a problem.

 

I understand that video gaming is developing fast, and soon 6GB won't even be enough for newest games at 1080p, but right now, in 2021, is 6GB of vRAM really bad if you only care about gaming and not 3D art or stuff like that?

There is only one measure you need to really worry about, are you okay with your current performance on the games you play?

Even if performance could be better, if you're okay with it, then its enough.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Watxhdogs (latest one) eats VRAM on 6GB GPUs tested..

Medium Textures helps.

[Mark Kaine]

I mean you would notice this quickly and when it occurs just lower settings?

 

Its not a bad card at all , its just not the best either obv 

[Montana One-Six]

12 hours ago, RTX2060Owner said:

6GB of vRAM is not enough for gaming anymore

On 1080p it is enough. Have yet to see a game that uses more than 6gb on 1080p (cyberpunk for example uses at max settings 1080p about 5-5.5GB).

On 1440p you will run into VRAM limits faster. Here your worries are justified.

Either way you probably will run into non VRAM related performance issues before running out of VRAM on a 2060.

[Areyn13]

Really just depends on the game, i was playing cold war zombies earlier and saw it around 7-7.5gb of vram with high settings no ray tracing at just 1080p. But then i also play games like deep rock galactic and reach around 3gb max, rdr2 with optimized settings around 4-4.5 etc. Generally brand new AAA games that tend to be unoptimized eat through vram the most, but also some games show false reading and instead allocate all of your vram instead of actually using it.

 

I have a 3070 Ti and i worry how it'll hold up in the next few years, I also think maxing out settings is a little overrated and generally speaking a lot of newer games when comparing ultra/max to high or sometimes even medium settings can show very little difference in terms of visual fidelity, but can grant you way more vram headroom and frame rate. It's always best to tinker around in the settings menu if ya can

[Montana One-Six]

On 9/27/2021 at 2:18 PM, Areyn13 said:

Really just depends on the game, i was playing cold war zombies earlier and saw it around 7-7.5gb of vram with high settings no ray tracing at just 1080p. But then i also play games like deep rock galactic and reach around 3gb max, rdr2 with optimized settings around 4-4.5 etc. Generally brand new AAA games that tend to be unoptimized eat through vram the most, but also some games show false reading and instead allocate all of your vram instead of actually using it.

Most programs monitor VRAM allocation of all programs using VRAM and not actual dedicated VRAM of one process. Which often means the reported used VRAM number for a game is higher than the actual amount of used VRAM by the game.

 

You can monitor the dedicated VRAM with one of the newer versions of MSI afterburner. You have to look for "GPU dedicated memory usage / process" in the monitoring tab to get a more accurate number on actual VRAM usage by the game. The only problem is that not every game lets afterburner report that number.

[frozensun]

I played like 10000 games and like 90 % of games don't even utilize more then 4 gigs of RAM.

But ofc there are some titles which do.

On 1080p you are good to go,but except that with some guys which utilize high rez textures you won't pass the test (I think Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Assassins Creed Odyssay).

But I really haven't come to those games yet,even running 1660 Ti.

[xg32]

it's enough for most games, but future/current AAA games, who knows. RE8 used as much as it needed based on texture resolution, 2077 and horizon used over 10gb, 1440p diablo 2 is using 11gb and making certain areas spike, i tested on a friend's 6900xt and 16gb isn't enough for 4k lol...

 

these are mostly exceptions so it depends on the game and settings you want.