Confuse About GPU VRAM

[Azue]

Hi guys, I am new here, so this is my first post in this forum.

As we all know that, every year there will be end year sale for GPU manufacturer. So, I think I will grab one of their graphic card.
The graphic card that I aim for is GTX1060, but there is 2 type of GTX1060 which is GTX1060 3GB and GTX1060 6GB (vram).
 

So this is where my dilemma begin.

I was planning on doing some rendering video and editing video, but I does not know which one is better.
Is it upgrading the RAM or get the GPU with high VRAM is better.
Planing to use Adobe Premier Pro. 

Any recommendation guys?

sorry for the bad english,

english is not my main language

[Crunchy Dragon]

The 1060 6Gb has more GPU cores than the 1060 3Gb in addition to the extra 3Gb VRAM, it's more like a 1060Ti. No clue why they didn't just have the 1060 and 1060Ti but whatever. In general, people recommend the 1060 6Gb over the 3Gb, it's a better card in general. Although it also has great value and the price has inflated so much due to its mining capabilities. If you can, stretch a bit for a 1070

[Colin Donoghue]

25 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

The 1060 6Gb has more GPU cores than the 1060 3Gb in addition to the extra 3Gb VRAM, it's more like a 1060Ti. No clue why they didn't just have the 1060 and 1060Ti but whatever. In general, people recommend the 1060 6Gb over the 3Gb, it's a better card in general. Although it also has great value and the price has inflated so much due to its mining capabilities. If you can, stretch a bit for a 1070

Not another ti, god no

[Azue]

2 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

The 1060 6Gb has more GPU cores than the 1060 3Gb in addition to the extra 3Gb VRAM, it's more like a 1060Ti. No clue why they didn't just have the 1060 and 1060Ti but whatever. In general, people recommend the 1060 6Gb over the 3Gb, it's a better card in general. Although it also has great value and the price has inflated so much due to its mining capabilities. If you can, stretch a bit for a 1070

The GTX1060 6gb is around 318.82 USD and the GTX1070 is around 539.55 USD in my country. The price is so far and beyond my budget.
The highest GPU I can afford GTX1060 6gb at max.
So the option I left with is, upgrade the RAM or get the GPU with high VRAM, which lead to open of this thread. So I only have two option which is GTX1060 3GB and upgrading RAM or just get the GTX1060 with 6gb VRAM, which one should I pick  .

[System Error Message]

the gtx 1060 6GB is much faster than the gtx 1060 3GB. It has more of every GPU resource. The gtx 1060 3GB is not far from the GTX 1050 TI in performance.

[1234vietnam]

i would say get the 1060 6gb, it has a decent bit more performance than the 1060 3gb because the 3gb model also has less cores

[Azue]

1 hour ago, System Error Message said:

the gtx 1060 6GB is much faster than the gtx 1060 3GB. It has more of every GPU resource. The gtx 1060 3GB is not far from the GTX 1050 TI in performance.

I see,  thanks for the information.  Really appreciate it

[Froody129]

A lot of people say the 3gb is fine... remember when the 960 2gb was all you needed and the 4gb was a waste? Remember when the 3gb 780ti was plenty of VRAM? Remember when the 6gb on the Titans was complete overkill?

 

Just go 6gb. Also how much ram do you currently have? 8 is fine, just set the page file to use the HDD or it chows your SSD. 

[Jurrunio]

How much do the 6gb and 3gb cost?

 

4 hours ago, System Error Message said:

the gtx 1060 6GB is much faster than the gtx 1060 3GB. It has more of every GPU resource. The gtx 1060 3GB is not far from the GTX 1050 TI in performance.

10%. That's the difference between the two cards in frame rates and it is faster, but only a little faster

[System Error Message]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

How much do the 6gb and 3gb cost?

 

10%. That's the difference between the two cards in frame rates and it is faster, but only a little faster

theres more than just the difference in frame rates. 3GB is barely enough today.

[Jurrunio]

3 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

theres more than just the difference in frame rates. 3GB is barely enough today.

If the frame rate is decent then why is 3GB a problem?

[System Error Message]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

If the frame rate is decent then why is 3GB a problem?

some games already use more than 3GB of vram. Serious sam 3 BFE at 1080p already uses about 4GB of vram for the speed of the 1060.

[Jurrunio]

Just now, System Error Message said:

some games already use more than 3GB of vram. Serious sam 3 BFE at 1080p already uses about 4GB of vram for the speed of the 1060.

does it impact the frame rates as much as the cuda core difference then?

[System Error Message]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

does it impact the frame rates as much as the cuda core difference then?

definitely when you run out of vram. There are various other things as well. CUDA cores only do math, the actual graphics itself is also done by the TMUs and ROPs. So more of these also help the performance. For instance the titan x pascal has more TMUs, ROPs and processor cache than the gtx 1080 ti despite having the same shader  count. This does translate to increased performance in some settings from AA to texture.

 

The difference becomes much more apparent when you overclock, not only does the 6GB card have more of GPU resources, but when overclocked, the difference is very apparent.

 

If you can afford the 6GB version you will benefit more as the 3GB version is only good for today, not next year.

[Jurrunio]

8 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

There are various other things as well. CUDA cores only do math, the actual graphics itself is also done by the TMUs and ROPs. So more of these also help the performance. For instance the titan x pascal has more TMUs, ROPs and processor cache than the gtx 1080 ti despite having the same shader  count. This does translate to increased performance in some settings from AA to texture.

I'm just saying the performance reduction is caused by the cut down core, not VRAM. Thanks for your time to explain these in detail though

 

9 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

The difference becomes much more apparent when you overclock, not only does the 6GB card have more of GPU resources, but when overclocked, the difference is very apparent.

 

Proof?

9 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

If you can afford the 6GB version you will benefit more as the 3GB version is only good for today, not next year.

Then dont crank MSAA or texture details too high. At 1080p the texture quality difference isnt going to be noticeable unless you compare in-game footage side by side.

The thing with the 1060 3GB is that it's as far up as you can go without competing with miners. That's why the cheapest 1060 3gb only costs $180 in the US while the cheapest 6GB version cost $260.

 

[System Error Message]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

I'm just saying the performance reduction is caused by the cut down core, not VRAM. Thanks for your time to explain these in detail though

 

Proof?

Then dont crank MSAA or texture details too high. At 1080p the texture quality difference isnt going to be noticeable unless you compare in-game footage side by side.

The thing with the 1060 3GB is that it's as far up as you can go without competing with miners. That's why the cheapest 1060 3gb only costs $180 in the US while the cheapest 6GB version cost $260.

 

It highly depends on what you want from a GPU and your budget. Actually the 1060 3GB offers  better value for miners than the 1060 6GB since they have the same memory bandwidth. While pricing matters, theres no point saving money if the card isnt going to perform at the level you want it. This is why i always say to get the best within your budget. In the video, he says "stay clear of HD texture packs" more so meaning that the card wont do well for future games.

[Jurrunio]

43 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

Actually the 1060 3GB offers  better value for miners than the 1060 6GB since they have the same memory bandwidth

Wrong. 3gb is worse value because more popular cryptocurrency like Ethereum has increased the difficulty of mining, which means cards with less than 4gb VRAM couldnt mine it. This is why 3gb models got ditched.

 

43 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

theres no point saving money if the card isnt going to perform at the level you want it.

I dont see 1060 3gb to be slow for 1080p gaming. If it is, then so is the 1050ti which sold well but didnt get a bunch of people moaning about it.

 

43 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

This is why i always say to get the best within your budget

So if someone has got an 8700k system without a graphics card and has $1200 left, he should buy a Titan Xp? Getting best within budget isn't a tactic anyone should use in reality.

 

43 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

he says "stay clear of HD texture packs" more so meaning that the card wont do well for future games.

If HD texture packs (which means they come in the form of DLCs or mods) are a must then your argument makes sense. Sadly, it's not. Standard textures (those that come with the game) look well enough for 1080p displays. As I said before, maxing out texture quality doesnt mean it's improving gaming experience at all. Textures that can fit into a 3GB buffer is already good enough for 1080p gameplay to look good.

[System Error Message]

37 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Wrong. 3gb is worse value because more popular cryptocurrency like Ethereum has increased the difficulty of mining, which means cards with less than 4gb VRAM couldnt mine it. This is why 3gb models got ditched.

 

I dont see 1060 3gb to be slow for 1080p gaming. If it is, then so is the 1050ti which sold well but didnt get a bunch of people moaning about it.

 

So if someone has got an 8700k system without a graphics card and has $1200 left, he should buy a Titan Xp? Getting best within budget isn't a tactic anyone should use in reality.

 

If HD texture packs (which means they come in the form of DLCs or mods) are a must then your argument makes sense. Sadly, it's not. Standard textures (those that come with the game) look well enough for 1080p displays. As I said before, maxing out texture quality doesnt mean it's improving gaming experience at all. Textures that can fit into a 3GB buffer is already good enough for 1080p gameplay to look good.

HD texture packs make a huge difference. For example crysis 2 with HD textures was a big improvement. and even in other games too. Textures make the difference between a mess of muddled meshes to actually knowing what you're looking at (consoles dont get high quality textures)

 

I said get the best within the budget. If they had $1200 left the best within budget for gaming would be the 1080 ti and not the titan xp. DIfferent case if the use case was gaming + AI.

 

Please note that OP's use case is adobe which can be ram intensive. So in the case of choosing, GPU processing power doesnt matter much in adobe, but vram might.

[System Error Message]

Accidantly dual posted

[Azue]

5 hours ago, Froody129 said:

A lot of people say the 3gb is fine... remember when the 960 2gb was all you needed and the 4gb was a waste? Remember when the 3gb 780ti was plenty of VRAM? Remember when the 6gb on the Titans was complete overkill?

 

Just go 6gb. Also how much ram do you currently have? 8 is fine, just set the page file to use the HDD or it chows your SSD. 

Yes, currently I have 8gb RAM and thanks for the information. You make it more easy to understand since I am just novice in this kind of thing.

[Jurrunio]

4 hours ago, System Error Message said:

HD texture packs make a huge difference. For example crysis 2 with HD textures was a big improvement. and even in other games too. Textures make the difference between a mess of muddled meshes to actually knowing what you're looking at (consoles dont get high quality textures)

 

I said get the best within the budget. If they had $1200 left the best within budget for gaming would be the 1080 ti and not the titan xp. DIfferent case if the use case was gaming + AI.

 

Please note that OP's use case is adobe which can be ram intensive. So in the case of choosing, GPU processing power doesnt matter much in adobe, but vram might.

In older games with texture packs they dont use more than 3gb, sometimes 2gb of VRAM. You have to consider that cards back then only had 2-3gb of VRAM maximum and standard graphics are meant for cards with only 1gb vram which make up most of the market. 720p is also the norm back then, so standard graphics looks good to gamers at that time. Of course it looks terrible without these texture packs when we view them with 1080p or higher resolutions.

 

Titan Xp have drivers that allow better workstation use. Did you miss that news?

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/07/31/titan-xp-drivers-new-levels-of-performance-for-creatives/

With the fully enabled core the Xp is faster than a 1080ti

So Titan Xp is the best, which is what your (old) logic points to.

 

As for Premiere Pro

Video editing has always been easy on the graphics card. If a 2GB 960 can pull off 4K editing, then it's too easy for a 1060 3gb. Not like the 960 was hard pushed either.

[System Error Message]

9 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

In older games with texture packs they dont use more than 3gb, sometimes 2gb of VRAM. You have to consider that cards back then only had 2-3gb of VRAM maximum and standard graphics are meant for cards with only 1gb vram which make up most of the market. 720p is also the norm back then, so standard graphics looks good to gamers at that time. Of course it looks terrible without these texture packs when we view them with 1080p or higher resolutions.

 

Titan Xp have drivers that allow better workstation use. Did you miss that news?

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/07/31/titan-xp-drivers-new-levels-of-performance-for-creatives/

With the fully enabled core the Xp is faster than a 1080ti

So Titan Xp is the best, which is what your (old) logic points to.

 

As for Premiere Pro

Video editing has always been easy on the graphics card. If a 2GB 960 can pull off 4K editing, then it's too easy for a 1060 3gb. Not like the 960 was hard pushed either.

no i didnt miss out the better drivers, but its the fact that there are some hardware on the titan that helps in some cases (like processor cache). I always say to buy the best in your budget for your use case. In this case, having 3GB of vram now is like what having 512MB of vram was when crysis was new. The VRAM usage increases more now as we have larger resolutions and data to stuff into the GPU itself. This is why laptop manufacturers used to stuff more vram into lower end GPUs because they know that people like to keep their laptops around for long and a faster GPU wouldnt make a difference 5 years later, but desktop space is different.

 

For the gtx 1060, the 6GB and 3GB are physically different, the 6GB variant being a bit faster so if working in adobe and it can use more vram the 6GB variant definitely helps. From what linus tested, GPU power doesnt matter much in adobe as its more of a CPU thing but more vram(and faster) allows larger higher quality scenes. In the video you showed, the vram usage sometimes peaked high for small amounts of time. the 960 has slower and less vram than the 1060.

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

no i didnt miss out the better drivers, but its the fact that there are some hardware on the titan that helps in some cases (like processor cache). I always say to buy the best in your budget for your use case. In this case, having 3GB of vram now is like what having 512MB of vram was when crysis was new. The VRAM usage increases more now as we have larger resolutions and data to stuff into the GPU itself. This is why laptop manufacturers used to stuff more vram into lower end GPUs because they know that people like to keep their laptops around for long and a faster GPU wouldnt make a difference 5 years later, but desktop space is different.

 

For the gtx 1060, the 6GB and 3GB are physically different, the 6GB variant being a bit faster so if working in adobe and it can use more vram the 6GB variant definitely helps. From what linus tested, GPU power doesnt matter much in adobe as its more of a CPU thing but more vram(and faster) allows larger higher quality scenes. In the video you showed, the vram usage sometimes peaked high for small amounts of time. the 960 has slower and less vram than the 1060.

17

Any data to back up your claims?

 

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

having 3GB of vram now is like what having 512MB of vram was when crysis was new.

No new games will come with such harsh requirements on the system as Crysis did back when it was launched. It was Crytek's advertisement of Cry Engine after all. Also your metaphor doesnt represent the actual situation. Back then it was the time when ATI's HD4870 competes with Nvidia's GTX 280, back when most mid-range HD 4850 and GTX 275 sold out had 1GB / 896MB VRAM and it is still considered to be enough. Having 3GB VRAM now is more like having 1GB at that time.

 

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

This is why laptop manufacturers used to stuff more vram into lower end GPUs because they know that people like to keep their laptops around for long and a faster GPU wouldnt make a difference 5 years later, but desktop space is different.

VRAM capacity were the same on mobile platforms and desktop platforms in the past and has been like this ever since dedicated graphics on laptops are a thing.

 

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

the 6GB variant being a bit faster so if working in adobe and it can use more vram the 6GB variant definitely helps

Exactly. A bit faster for a hefty price extra is why I oppose the idea of buying a 1060 6gb. The price difference between the RX 580 4GB and 8GB isnt as great so I tell people to get the 8GB if they can.

 

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

more vram(and faster) allows larger higher quality scenes

Only matters if OP is doing very detailed scenes at high resolution. As the video I linked above, no just ordinary 4K video editing will make 6GB so much better to be the preferred card.

 

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

the vram usage sometimes peaked high for small amounts of time. the 960 has slower and less vram than the 1060.

70% max VRAM usage isnt bad. Also mentioning the 960's situation does not prove your argument to be true.

[System Error Message]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Any data to back up your claims?

 

No new games will come with such harsh requirements on the system as Crysis did back when it was launched. It was Crytek's advertisement of Cry Engine after all. Also your metaphor doesnt represent the actual situation. Back then it was the time when ATI's HD4870 competes with Nvidia's GTX 280, back when most mid-range HD 4850 and GTX 275 sold out had 1GB / 896MB VRAM and it is still considered to be enough. Having 3GB VRAM now is more like having 1GB at that time.

 

VRAM capacity were the same on mobile platforms and desktop platforms in the past and has been like this ever since dedicated graphics on laptops are a thing.

 

Exactly. A bit faster for a hefty price extra is why I oppose the idea of buying a 1060 6gb. The price difference between the RX 580 4GB and 8GB isnt as great so I tell people to get the 8GB if they can.

 

Only matters if OP is doing very detailed scenes at high resolution. As the video I linked above, no just ordinary 4K video editing will make 6GB so much better to be the preferred card.

 

70% max VRAM usage isnt bad. Also mentioning the 960's situation does not prove your argument to be true.

just go compare the specs from nvidia about the 2 different 1060s.

 

As i said no gaming was mentioned and with adobe it is highly dependent on the use case. so the extra processing power of the 6GB card isnt needed but the vram might be. It is very dependent on the workload since with adobe you can have many layers, and with gpu acceleration you are only limited by CPU, RAM and VRAM while anything faster than a 1050 ti at the moment already does well.

[Jurrunio]

9 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

just go compare the specs from nvidia about the 2 different 1060s.

1

I know the 1060 3gb is 10% behind the 6gb in performance. Just go compare the prices of the 2 different 1060s in PCPP.