8GB VRAM not enough (and 10 / 12)

BFG10K · Jul 13, 2021

8GB

Dying Light 2, Battlefield 2042, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, Horizon Forbidden West, Alan Wake 2, The Last of Us, Tekken 8, FC 24, Detroit Become Human, Death Stranding, Alone in The Dark, Overwatch 2
3060 12GB higher 1% low than 4060 8GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIfz57wmywg
Cyberpunk 2077, Diablo 4, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon Zero Dawn, Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, Witcher 3, Watch Dogs Legion skip to 4K + DLSS for each game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPiaWWd0xGc
Ratchet & Clank, Plague Tale Requiem, Last Of Us, Jedi Survivor, Far Cry 6, Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Cyberpunk 2077 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr3MckDxMfE&pp=ygUTMTZnYiB2cyA4Z2IgNDA2MCB0aQ==
Far Cry 6, Godfall, Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Forspoken, Doom Eternal, Watchdogs Legion https://youtu.be/fJc--C01P90?t=268
Last Of Us, Resident Evil 4, Callisto Protocol, Plague Tale Requiem, Halo Infinite, Forspoken https://youtu.be/2_Y3E631ro8?t=429
Last Of Us, Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4, Forspoken, Plague Tale Requiem, Callisto Protocol https://youtu.be/Rh7kFgHe21k?t=288
Hogwarts Legacy, Last Of Us, Spider Man Remastered, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 5 https://youtu.be/R943CbDTq_s?t=1473
Horizon Forbidden West 4060 has issues @ 1080p + DLSS unless you switch off frame generation and reduce settings to high https://youtu.be/3AyKvI23VGw?t=233
Horizon Forbidden West 3070 requires reducing textures 2 notches https://youtu.be/xTwEGy6HHKo?t=351
Deathloop https://youtu.be/lu_XHyO-6zY?t=918
Ghost Recon Breakpoint https://youtu.be/iUGppQVpXzU?t=529
Resident Evil 2 https://youtu.be/Aa-gsgRjMII?t=796
Talos Principle 2 https://youtu.be/K6FATQAuEwI?t=337
Spider Man Remastered https://youtu.be/vRVR_plVSlc?t=1060
Witcher 3 https://youtu.be/vRVR_plVSlc?t=1240

Horizon Forbidden West 3060 is faster than the 2080 Super despite the former usually competing with the 2070. Also 3060 has a better 1% low than 4060 and 4060Ti 8GB.

Resident Evil Village 3060TI/3070 tanks at 4K and is slower than the 3060/6700XT when ray tracing:

Company Of Heroes 3060 has a higher minimum than the 3070TI:

10GB / 12GB

Plague Tale Requiem 3080 10GB tanks if you enable ray tracing, would be fast enough if it had more VRAM because if you stop moving, the framerate stabilizes to >60FPS https://youtu.be/7zjrMww3fAc?t=496
Hogwarts Legacy 4K + RT, 4060Ti 16GB is faster than 4070 12GB https://youtu.be/X-h_R488Mq8?t=191

Reasons why still shipping 8GB since 2014 isn't NV's fault.

It's the player's fault.
It's the reviewer's fault.
It's the developer's fault.
It's AMD's fault.
It's the game's fault.
It's the driver's fault.
It's a system configuration issue.
Wrong settings were tested.
Wrong area was tested.
Wrong games were tested.
4K is irrelevant.
Texture quality is irrelevant as long as it matches a console's.
Detail levels are irrelevant as long as they match a console's.
There's no reason a game should use more than 8GB, because a random forum user said so.
It's completely acceptable for the more expensive 3070/3070TI/3080 to turn down settings while the cheaper 3060/6700XT has no issue.
It's an anomaly.
It's a console port.
It's a conspiracy against NV.
8GB cards aren't meant for 4K / 1440p / 1080p / 720p gaming.
It's completely acceptable to disable ray tracing on NV while AMD has no issue.
Polls, hardware market share, and game title count are evidence 8GB is enough, but are totally ignored when they don't suit the ray tracing agenda.

According to some people here, 8GB is neeeevaaaaah NV's fault and objective evidence "doesn't count" because of reasons(tm). If you have others please let me know and I'll add them to the list. Cheers!

Seba · Saturday at 5:02 AM

I tried to run MHW Benchmark on my RX 7600 8GB (Medium Graphics settings, FSR disabled, Upscaling disabled) and it crashes after 10 seconds or so (Adrenalin 25.6.1).

Initially I thought it could be the tuned GPU settings, but it crashes even with the default settings.

Lots of people complain online about this MHW Benchmark crashing even with much better graphics cards (especially with AMD cards, but also a few with Nvidia cards).

DAPUNISHER · Saturday at 8:40 AM

marees said:
I also think that the hardware compression/decompression engines which allow fast streaming from SSDs in modern consoles encourages game devs to prioritize vram heavy gameplay for open world games

Xbox Velocity Architecture https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/14/a-closer-look-at-xbox-velocity-architecture/

and PS5 Oodle texture and Kraken https://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-oodle-kraken-and-oodle-texture.html

Are both impressive. Some seem to think you can grab a 3700X and RX 6700 and effectively have a PS5, but that is well below the PC hardware specs you need to get similar results, due to those console features. Hell, Oodle is one of the best ways to expose Raptor Lake degradation. The PS5 Pro gives developers access to 13.7GB of GDDR6. You can see how PS5 ports hammer 8GB cards on PC. Last of Us 2 they cheesed because of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the first game being a vram hog. PCMR is a bad joke anymore. Bunch of chuds playing with cope settings worse than console, defending outdated 8GB cards. Because why? 😵‍💫

Ranulf · Saturday at 10:36 AM

Seba said:
I tried to run MHW Benchmark on my RX 7600 8GB (Medium Graphics settings, FSR disabled, Upscaling disabled) and it crashes after 10 seconds or so (Adrenalin 25.6.1).

Initially I thought it could be the tuned GPU settings, but it crashes even with the default settings.

Lots of people complain online about this MHW Benchmark crashing even with much better graphics cards (especially with AMD cards, but also a few with Nvidia cards).

Yeah, I noticed with my nvidia card that the benchmark would say "good" with dlss on but with fsr and framegen it said "playable". This despite the fps being over double on the fsr/fg version.

eek2121 · Saturday at 11:28 AM

DAPUNISHER said:
Xbox Velocity Architecture https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/14/a-closer-look-at-xbox-velocity-architecture/

and PS5 Oodle texture and Kraken https://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-oodle-kraken-and-oodle-texture.html

Are both impressive. Some seem to think you can grab a 3700X and RX 6700 and effectively have a PS5, but that is well below the PC hardware specs you need to get similar results, due to those console features. Hell, Oodle is one of the best ways to expose Raptor Lake degradation. The PS5 Pro gives developers access to 13.7GB of GDDR6. You can see how PS5 ports hammer 8GB cards on PC. Last of Us 2 they cheesed because of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the first game being a vram hog. PCMR is a bad joke anymore. Bunch of chuds playing with cope settings worse than console, defending outdated 8GB cards. Because why? 😵‍💫

I am curious as to why none of the GPU vendors have innovated more in the GPU/bulk storage area. Something like a PCIE 5.0/6.0 m.2 slot to allow textures to be bulk cached or something. (that is, the PCIE slot goes to the GPU and isn’t shared with the host system.

Just my wild thinking, don’t mind me. 🤣

Thunder 57 · Saturday at 11:38 AM

eek2121 said:
I am curious as to why none of the GPU vendors have innovated more in the GPU/bulk storage area. Something like a PCIE 5.0/6.0 m.2 slot to allow textures to be bulk cached or something. (that is, the PCIE slot goes to the GPU and isn’t shared with the host system.

Just my wild thinking, don’t mind me. 🤣

Something like the Radeon Pro SSG?

marees · 2025-06-16T05:46:11-0400

So, then, R.I.P. 8gb vram cards ???

marees said:
CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 4 will be a 'more console-first development'
News
By Jody Macgregor published 5 hours ago
But also: "Because we're CDPR, we always like to push PCs to the limit."

Digital Foundry interviewed CD Projekt Red and Epic about the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for The Witcher 4 and it's an interesting look at the state of the art when it comes to how many polygons you need to make a pine tree look all nice (answer: a lot). One of the first topics that came up was the fact this tech demo was shown running on a PlayStation 5 rather than a PC.

"We always do PC and we push and then we try to scale down," said Charles Tremblay, VP of technology at CD Projekt Red. "But then we had so many problems in the past that we tried to see, OK, this time around we really want to be more console-first development, right? And then we worked with Unreal, with our partner, and then we saw the challenge—to realize the ambition that to make what we want at 60 fps on PS5 would be, you know, there would be work."

we knew that once we'll set up certain foundations both visually and technically, there's room to scale up. Now what that means is another question. Because we're CDPR, we always like to push PCs to the limit. It's just a creative process how to really use it.

CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 4 will be a 'more console-first development'

But also: "Because we're CDPR, we always like to push PCs to the limit."

www.pcgamer.com

poke01 · 2025-06-16T06:02:12-0400

marees said:
So, then, R.I.P. 8gb vram cards ???

When a NINTENDO CONSOLE has more usable Video memory thats when you really know that 8GB VRAM is RIP.

Mopetar · 2025-06-16T09:49:13-0400

poke01 said:
When a NINTENDO CONSOLE has more usable Video memory thats when you really know that 8GB VRAM is RIP.

Not just a Nintendo console, but one that is essentially a handheld as well.

marees · 2025-06-16T12:08:25-0400

poke01 said:
When a NINTENDO CONSOLE has more usable Video memory thats when you really know that 8GB VRAM is RIP.

By the time witcher 4 releases, we might have the 6060 with 12gb of vram

& probably 80% of playstation users on PS5/pro plus remaining 20% waiting for PS6

8gb vram cards such as the 5060 ti 8gb will be reduced to entry level settings at 1080p low/medium

jpiniero · 2025-06-16T12:08:57-0400

marees said:
By the time witcher 4 releases, we might have the 6060 with 12gb of vram

9 GB

maddie · 2025-06-16T12:28:29-0400

jpiniero said:
9 GB

That will be the "sub-entry model", and since entry model is by definition the point of entry to gaming cards, I will assume from your statement that none will sell to gamers, or should I say will only sell to the "sub-entry" crowd.

Jaskalas · 2025-06-16T20:46:49-0400

Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Uses MORE than 12 GB VRAM at maxed out 1080p.
12 GB card was suffering in all the 8 GB ways.

https://youtu.be/-hwsyQQA5MI?t=819

DAPUNISHER · 2025-06-17T08:10:03-0400

As expected, the 5060ti 8GB is horrendously bad when it runs out of vram, especially at older PCIe standards. You could pair the 16GB card with a PCIe 3.0 system and everything would be groovy. With the 8GB you'll be using super cope settings.

DAPUNISHER · 2025-06-17T08:53:41-0400

Jaskalas said:
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Uses MORE than 12 GB VRAM at maxed out 1080p.
12 GB card was suffering in all the 8 GB ways.

https://youtu.be/-hwsyQQA5MI?t=819

12GB requires far fewer cope settings than 8GB obviously. What I found more impressive is how RDNA 4 compares against AMD older generations. Greatly improved ray tracing and upscaling, and more vram in the under $400 tiers.

Here are the 2 charts that show the progress best -

Ranulf · 2025-06-17T09:04:53-0400

Jaskalas said:
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Uses MORE than 12 GB VRAM at maxed out 1080p.
12 GB card was suffering in all the 8 GB ways.

https://youtu.be/-hwsyQQA5MI?t=819

Interesting comparison. My 6700xt is 2 years old, was $300 with a free copy of Starfield (meh). Two years later and if you're lucky you get the 16Gb 9060 for under $400 is not much of an upgrade incentive. If buying new vs used, it might be worth getting the 9060 instead.

DAPUNISHER · 2025-06-17T09:19:42-0400

Ranulf said:
Interesting comparison. My 6700xt is 2 years old, was $300 with a free copy of Starfield (meh). Two years later and if you're lucky you get the 16Gb 9060 for under $400 is not much of an upgrade incentive. If buying new vs used, it might be worth getting the 9060 instead.

My opportunity cost analysis - You can still get $250+ for your card as Daniel-San showed. More than worth the upgrade IMO, particularly to get a much better upscaler and much more usable ray tracing with 4GB extra ram.

I think you are in the same position as @Jaskalas, in that your cards have not depreciated too much yet. Wait and they may lose not only substantial resale value, but also take longer to sell.

Ranulf · 2025-06-17T11:20:02-0400

Eh, for $100 it is iffy to me. Maybe if prices drop to msrp and/or stock availability goes up in the next few months. When it comes to Ebay, I'm highly skeptical I could get $250-270.

jpiniero · 2025-06-17T11:23:30-0400

Ranulf said:
Eh, for $100 it is iffy to me. Maybe if prices drop to msrp and/or stock availability goes up in the next few months. When it comes to Ebay, I'm highly skeptical I could get $250-270.

I looked on eBay and $250+ seems realistic.

Remember the MSRP for the 6700 XT was $479. You got it at a Fire Sale price.

Mopetar · 2025-06-17T12:23:48-0400

DAPUNISHER said:
As expected, the 5060ti 8GB is horrendously bad when it runs out of vram, especially at older PCIe standards. You could pair the 16GB card with a PCIe 3.0 system and everything would be groovy. With the 8GB you'll be using super cope settings.

There are still a lot of PCIe 3.0 systems out there. Only X570 boards had PCIe 4.0 on the AM4 side and the first generation of LGA 1200 only had PCIe 3.0.

There are still a lot of people using those CPUs and systems and 8 GB VRAM utterly cripples both the 5060 Ti and 9060 XT. Even slightly newer systems with PCIe 4.0 are still going to feel it.

MrPickins · 2025-06-17T12:51:10-0400

Mopetar said:
Only X570 boards had PCIe 4.0 on the AM4 side

I agree with the rest, but this isn't entirely true. B550's have a limited number of PCIe 4 lanes; enough for a x16 link and and for an NVME drive.

Golgatha · 2025-06-17T13:13:06-0400

MrPickins said:
I agree with the rest, but this isn't entirely true. B550's have a limited number of PCIe 4 lanes; enough for a x16 link and and for an NVME drive.

Yeah, if you have a 5000 series CPU, then you get PCIe 4.0 x16 for the graphics slot and x4 for the primary NVME drive. I upgraded from a couple of B550 systems and ran that configuration.

SolidQ · 2025-06-17T14:15:41-0400

Mopetar said:
There are still a lot of PCIe 3.0 systems out there.

still a lot B450 systems with cheap R5600

DAPUNISHER · 2025-06-17T14:27:42-0400

SolidQ said:
still a lot B450 systems with cheap R5600

Ryzen 5500 is $69.99 on Amazon and has been in the top 5 best seller going back to the holidays last year; Cezanne PCIe 3.0

MrPickins · 2025-06-17T15:03:27-0400

Golgatha said:
Yeah, if you have a 5000 series CPU, then you get PCIe 4.0 x16 for the graphics slot and x4 for the primary NVME drive. I upgraded from a couple of B550 systems and ran that configuration.

Good call on the CPU series.

IIRC, the 20 lanes in question come directly from the CPU? The 5700G in my HTPC definitely only does PCIe 3.0

Golgatha · 2025-06-17T15:38:50-0400

MrPickins said:
Good call on the CPU series.

IIRC, the 20 lanes in question come directly from the CPU? The 5700G in my HTPC definitely only does PCIe 3.0

I suppose Vermeer 5000 series (Zen 3, without IGP), and another requirement is the motherboard has to support it too. I had ASUS B550-F boards, so they supported PCIe 4.0 with 20 lanes from the 5800X3D and 5800X that was in there on each board. Getting super technical, those CPUs support 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes, but 4 lanes are reserved for chipset links.

8GB VRAM not enough (and 10 / 12)

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CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 4 will be a 'more console-first development'