Is 11Gb of RAM going to be useful?

[whoopn]

Ok I'm sure parts of this question/discussion have occurred but I'm not finding exactly what I'm looking for (or my Google Fu is failing me).

 

Question: I'm fine with the benchmarks on the 2080s, though the 2080tis are impressive.  My question is a matter of planning, "Is 11Gb of RAM useful?  Are there any games that will make use of that much RAM now or in the next few years?"

 

I'm happy to add another card later but as you're stuck with the amount of RAM I want to pick well now. 

 

So we're clear I'm not interested in entertaining the "just get a 1080ti" argument, I want some of the other features turing introduces.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Jurrunio]

no 4K, no need for 11gb

[Derrk]

more vram is more better, but nothing really uses all of it to my knowledge.

 

When i read your title, i thought you were talking about system memory, and it made me upset. 11 is such a weird number

[Tristerin]

Last I read with VR, increased resolution in VR yes the memory will be utilized (and 4k as mentioned above) and AMD's infinity fabric stuff is supposed to start utilizing the SYSTEM memory when the GPU memory is full correct?  Because they foresee a future with this need, if I recall the articles correctly

[whoopn]

Just now, Derrk said:

more vram is more better, but nothing really uses all of it to my knowledge.

 

When i read your title, i thought you were talking about system memory, and it made me upset. 11 is such a weird number

Hah!  Sorry I should have been more clear.

 

@Jurrunio

4K for sure!

 

What do the highest use games use today?  I've read some use as much as 5GB but that was an article written in 2016...

 

Sounding like the splurge might be worth it for me.  I don't buy cards often, this will be a 3-4yr purchase likely.  Yeah sucks near the end but whatever...my R9 270x has held on quite well for its specs.

[Derrk]

2 minutes ago, whoopn said:

Hah!  Sorry I should have been more clear.

 

@Jurrunio

4K for sure!

 

What do the highest use games use today?  I've read some use as much as 5GB but that was an article written in 2016...

 

Sounding like the splurge might be worth it for me.  I don't buy cards often, this will be a 3-4yr purchase likely.  Yeah sucks near the end but whatever...my R9 270x has held on quite well for its specs.

I'm not sure what the highest vram uses are. I think i've used close to 8gb on certain games by turning up every absurd setting i could

in theory you could scale your game up to the point where you're using all of your vram, but you'll end up with like ~10fps if you're lucky

[i_build_nanosuits]

i'm playing through Call of Duty WWII at the moment and on max settings at 1440p the game uses anywhere from 9800mb to 10600mb of VRAM...so yeah, take it for what it's worth but for such powerful cards i personally think 8GB is really nowhere near enough.

[Bigman397]

If you look at some of the benchies, the reason the 2080 starts to lag behind the 1080ti at higher resolutions is the difference in ram quantity. If you aren't doing 4k then 8g is fine.

 

If you are doing 4k and don't mind knocking settings down a smidge, then 8gb is fine.

[Edgehill]

If your running 4K today you can go over 8GB.

BLOP3 for example uses lots of VRAM, remember seeing a review that was hitting 12GB.

[whoopn]

5 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

i'm playing through Call of Duty WWII at the moment and on max settings at 1440p the game uses anywhere from 9800mb to 10600mb of VRAM...so yeah, take it for what it's worth but for such powerful cards i personally think 8GB is really nowhere near enough.

There we go.  Thank you!

 

Now I just need to figure out when they're going to release that 2080TI Strix...

[Froody129]

5 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

i'm playing through Call of Duty WWII at the moment and on max settings at 1440p the game uses anywhere from 9800mb to 10600mb of VRAM...so yeah, take it for what it's worth but for such powerful cards i personally think 8GB is really nowhere near enough.

It should be noted that the 'used' VRAM isn't always what is actually being used. Like with normal RAM the game will page more in advance, even if it doesn't actually need it. So the bigger buffer is nice but really games aren't using all of it.

 

OP: I'd check out used 1080ti's. The 2080 is overpriced and the 1080ti has the same performance with the extra VRAM. RTX isn't going to be worth it this generation (IMO) but it remains to be seen what real effect DLSS has on performance.

[whoopn]

17 minutes ago, Froody129 said:

It should be noted that the 'used' VRAM isn't always what is actually being used. Like with normal RAM the game will page more in advance, even if it doesn't actually need it. So the bigger buffer is nice but really games aren't using all of it.

 

OP: I'd check out used 1080ti's. The 2080 is overpriced and the 1080ti has the same performance with the extra VRAM. RTX isn't going to be worth it this generation (IMO) but it remains to be seen what real effect DLSS has on performance.

I appreciate that but my card will be used for more than gaming and the NVENC updates are both intriguing and much desired for transcoding video.  And what you said about RAM makes sense, I think its a factor in the benchmarks though as others have noted.  If an extra $400 gets me another year or so of maxed or nearly maxed out settings, even if not at 4k 3 years from now then I think its worth it in my case.