VRAM, how important really?

[DocGB]

I'm reading and watching different guides and having a hard time understanding how critical the VRAM is.

 

Background:

I haven't built a gaming computer since 2012 (HD 7870).  I'd like to game at 1440p, ~75+ fps, max settings for most modern titles.  I'm not a competitive multiplayer gamer, my priority is for immersive visuals/experience.

 

I figure I'm going to pick the GPU first and then design the cheapest system that doesn't bottleneck the GPU. Targeting $1500 or less.

 

For my above goals it seems many guides recommend RX 79OOGRE or RTX 4070 Super.  They seem to be neck and neck though I really would like ray tracing.  It looks like it could be very cool.  So I was thinking goin with the 4070 Super, but a lot of people are warning about the only 12GB of VRAM saying that anything under 16GB VRAM will be a limiter.

 

Question:  If the benchmarks say the 4070 Super with 12GB matches the 7900GRE with 16GB then what does it matter?  Are they hinting at future compatibility? Does it really work that way?  Like the 4070 Super will just one day all of the sudden stop performing as well as the 7900GRE because of the VRAM?

 

If it is a problem does that mean I have to pay ~50% more for the 4070 Ti Super 16GB if I want ray tracing AND near/mid-term future proofing for 1440p performance?  That might make me abandon my dream of ray tracing and just stick with the 7900GRE...  

[AAVVIronAlex]

If you want better textures VRAM is the way to go.

 

I would say that going AMD over Nvidia is the difference between you wanting to play the games upscaled or native, but that would have been true a few months ago. Now with FSR3 and FSR3 FG AMD can also upscale pretty well, and the FSR upscaler does not exclusively apply to AMD cards, Nvidia's old generations work with it too.

 

It really is about upscaling and textures here. For 1440p I would personally go for AMD because I like to go for competitive underdogs.

 

The 7900XT is also an option.

[mariushm]

I upgraded to a 7700XT 12 GB last month , Sapphire Pure version...  it was around 30$ cheaper than the 16 GB version.

I reasoned it's enough of a jump from RX 570 4 GB and I still use 2 24" 1080p screens that can do only 60 Hz.

 

I think 12 GB is gonna be enough for a few years, and it's gonna last for longer time if you have enough ram on your computer for the game to keep the stuff that can't fit in the video card, into the ram.  With smart access memory (resizable bar) modern cards can transfer large chunks of data between the card and ram  (ex 256/512/1024 MB at a time)

 

It's also worth looking into the bus width ... a 12 GB card will be 192 bit wide, while a 16 GB card could be either 128 bit or 256bit ... a 128 bit card could be lower performance than 192 bit wide one.

 

 

[TatamiMatt]

Few things and thoughts, have you tried ray tracing yourself, even at a friends house or similar? If not, is the want to play ray traced games from some other experience or like a hyped up first try. I can definitely tell a difference when playing something ray traced vs not, but its not nearly big enough of a change to warrant running 20-40% less smoothly.

 

Secondly to directly answer the VRAM question, so long as you have enough for your use case, it shouldnt matter, having 12 vs 24gb wont make a difference so long as youre using under 12gb

[Salted Spinach]

If you want to max out image quality at 1440p with raytracing, get the 4070 Ti Super or forget about it. Upscaling will definitely lower the image quality.

 

Saying this as an owner of a 4070 Super