deekortiz3
Weaksauce
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I'd expect in the next year with DX12 in SLI that 6GB will turn to 12GB and be just fine.
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980 Ti
- Thread starter Exor18
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I'd expect in the next year with DX12 in SLI that 6GB will turn to 12GB and be just fine.
BroHamBone
[H]ard|Gawd
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Probably the reason behind the Titan X 12GB and rumored 980ti 6GB.....for those who run 4k+, they will want/require a Titan X, while the 980 ti will settle fine for everyone else under 4k.
except all of that is in your head. 6gb is enough and will cause zero problems
no one is developing a game for titan x or a mystereous 8gb radeon. no one
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Eh, shitty ports use more vram.
Doubt it'll be a problem until Pascal arrives which is when anyone with a $700+ Titan X / 980 Ti will be off-loading it.
Unless you expect me to believe people who can't fight the urge to buy YET ANOTHER 28nm flagship will be able to resist Pascal's sweet temptations? Naw.
So: Will 6~8 GB be enough until ~Q3 2016? Umm, yes. Don't get your panties in a wad.
Doubt it'll be a problem until Pascal arrives which is when anyone with a $700+ Titan X / 980 Ti will be off-loading it.
Unless you expect me to believe people who can't fight the urge to buy YET ANOTHER 28nm flagship will be able to resist Pascal's sweet temptations? Naw.
So: Will 6~8 GB be enough until ~Q3 2016? Umm, yes. Don't get your panties in a wad.
Jury's still out on whether the 980 Ti will be a fully enabled chip (less CUDA cores). For the price you got the Titan for I'd just keep it IMO. Probably won't sell at MSRP for a used one as availability is better now, and after fees I'd expect to get around $900 only
5150Joker
Supreme [H]ardness
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Why would you sell a better card for a lesser one?
I figured I could sell it unopened for MSRP+shipping (newegg is selling it for almost 1100 after shipping) and I paid 850 for mine so I would make about 150 profit and I have 330 dollars credit for newegg and I need to sell my used 970 as well. If not I'll just keep it
It is not used.. it is unopened. I don't even have it yet.. still being shipped
Dion
2[H]4U
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Ya it's amazing how people are so VRAM crazy. 6gigs is more the enough for anything out with room to spare. Even at 4K. And 1080p stuff barely passes 3gigs. If the 980Ti has 6 its perfect and slightly overkill at the same time. It's a comfortable amount.
Because when the 970 and 980 came out everyone said that 4 gb was plenty and only watch dogs because it was such a bad port used more than 4 gb. That obviously went out the window quickly with shadow of mordor texture pack. Every new game is reaching close to 4 gb now and it no longer seems like enough. Then finding out 970 had only 3.5 gb made a huge uproar because people were seeing that even 4gb was struggling so 3.5 gb will start to bottleneck the card.. Same thing can happen with 6 gb and more next gen games designed for ps4 and xbone. Add in AA and it will go above the vram of the new consoles
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GTA V at 1080P uses around 3.7GB with 4xMSAA. At 4K 6GB is just enough for this game. I think to fully max out a lot of games later this year/next you're definitely going to need at least 4GB, even at 1080P. The new Batman game actually recommends a 980 and the previous games were pretty well optimized on PC.
The reason we are seeing such a jump now is because the real next-gen games are starting to come out, last year was just games that were developed in the transitional period between last/current gen.
Except you're using extreme outlier examples that don't make the case for more than 4GB, necessarily. They make the case for *you* to have more than 4GB. It's also caching, bad dev, etc. - not an actual game posting system requirements.
It's like when I ran 4-way SLI. I quickly realized: yes, you can have insane GPU power. However, no developers are coding their games to take advantage it. They barely get SLI right - much less 3-way or 4-way SLI.
What we're talking about with 6GB/8GB/12GB/etc. is FUTURE-PROOFING - which is then another dumb argument (IMO) - by t he time you need that VRAM that you bought for future proofing, you will want the better/faster card that can actually fully fill that VRAM up.
NVIDIA/AMD/etc. know what they're doing when they release 4GB cards. They also know what they're doing when they release enthusiast SKUs with more VRAM because we fall for it EVERY TIME and pay the extra $$$ for 1% of situations. It's cool with me. We're all [H] - but the hysteria over VRAM issues is getting ridiculous.
We've had tests on H showing VRAM usage near 8 GB at high levels of anti-aliasing. And games will make use of extra VRAM: I was most surprised to see BL2 using 6GB.
Dion
2[H]4U
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Oh don't get me wrong. More VRAM will be used in later games. Don't think anyone is denying that. But to push those games to use the VRAM you're going to need a big and better video card. Which will probably come with more VRAM. There is no future proofing in video card land anymore. Nvidia knows what they are doing. They put the right amount of VRAM on there gaming cards for the resolution and performance that card can do. The TitanX has 12 but it also isn't designed for gaming only. For gaming 12gigs of VRAM is beyond overkill.
An optional Placebo texture pack is hardly any reason to freak out about VRAM. Games should use the extra VRAM if its there. But that doesn't mean the game requires it. Un-used ram is wasted ram as people would say.
who plays VRAM usage? how about some performance benchmarks instead. I can fill a bag of rocks but that doesn't mean I can carry it
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1041540758
I'm sure it is a combination of vram limitation and/or crossfire limitation that causes the large spikes in fps. It is noticeable in shadow of mordor which is why I tuned it down. I also ran into vram issues with sli 970 multiple different games (most by ubisoft because they suck at ports). I'm running a single 970 now because I returned one of them as there was no point in the extra horsepower when you hit vram wall and feel spikes all the time, so my itch for a better card made me impulse buy a titan x but thinking about buying some more stuff like improving my entire cpu/mobo/ddr but waiting to see benches for skylake. There are a lot of things I'm planning to upgrade in a couple of months. If 980 ti comes out in a month or so then I probably would prefer to spend a bit less for that despite getting a good deal on the titan x for $870 - 20 dollar gift card for the 970 vram fiasco I have right now.
Maybe its because you guys are playing at 1080 or 1440 16:9 resolution but when you start hitting ultrawide monitors 3440 X 1440 and 4k vram wall feels more real.
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Maybe, that was one of the things I tested out when I got SoM last week, since the Ultra texture packs ate a lot more VRAM than high textures, I really wanted to see how big of a wall that VRAM is.
When I ran the game, the difference in VRAM usage between High and Ultra textures definitely showed up on my GPU monitor. Ultra filled it to the brim, while High didn't even hit the 3.5GB 'wall'.
Everything else were maxed out.
After gaming on both settings for a while, it seems to me that, while there were stutters with Ultra textures, while there wasn't as much of it with high (so for actual gaming I will probably choose high as I really cannot tell the difference between the two), but Ultra stuttered far less than I thought it would. It should have been a major stutterfest, since it wasn't just over what the 970 had, it should have been well OVER it.
By comparison, AC:U played much worse than SoM, and AC:U didn't max out my VRAM either at the settings I had it at.
So either, my tolerance for stuttering is high, G-Sync actually helped here, or something I had completely neglected to take into account are at play.
Regardless, at this day and age, I would definitely not get a 4GB card, be it 970. 980 or even 290x/295x2, 6GB seems to be the sweetspot right now, 8GB if you really want to future-proof. Any higher you probably are not getting your money's worth.
When I ran the game, the difference in VRAM usage between High and Ultra textures definitely showed up on my GPU monitor. Ultra filled it to the brim, while High didn't even hit the 3.5GB 'wall'.
Everything else were maxed out.
After gaming on both settings for a while, it seems to me that, while there were stutters with Ultra textures, while there wasn't as much of it with high (so for actual gaming I will probably choose high as I really cannot tell the difference between the two), but Ultra stuttered far less than I thought it would. It should have been a major stutterfest, since it wasn't just over what the 970 had, it should have been well OVER it.
By comparison, AC:U played much worse than SoM, and AC:U didn't max out my VRAM either at the settings I had it at.
So either, my tolerance for stuttering is high, G-Sync actually helped here, or something I had completely neglected to take into account are at play.
Regardless, at this day and age, I would definitely not get a 4GB card, be it 970. 980 or even 290x/295x2, 6GB seems to be the sweetspot right now, 8GB if you really want to future-proof. Any higher you probably are not getting your money's worth.
16 GB RAM helped get rid of almost all the stutters I had in Shadow of Mordor in 1440p with ultra textures and 970 SLI. Before that driver updates made the problem less prominent. SoM was the only game where I had stutters.
4 GB is fine for resolutions below 4K.
4 GB is fine for resolutions below 4K.
misterbobby
2[H]4U
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No its not
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its not even enough for 1080P for certain games and soon that amount of games will start to increase at the point that a 4GB card will be obsolete even for 1080P.. so no.. is not enough..
Amen! Brother.
I understand the sentiment. However, what choice do you have then if you are putting yourself to these restrictions? TITAN X - that's it (or the Sapphire 8GB 290X - which can't even use the VRAM very effectively). Does that logically lead you to realize that 4GB is, indeed, *enough* for 99% of siuations? Developers today are not going to code games for one $1,000 card.
Dayaks
[H]F Junkie
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I'll just post this again... 9 out of 15 games he went over 4GB. It's hard to imagine ALL those games are just "caching" the VRAM for fun. DSR makes native resolution irrelevant. I use DSR all the time to go above 4k on my 3440x1440
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041560741&postcount=39
My take for VRAM:
- Single cards, the VRAM they launch with is fine. I have yet to see a case where single card is inhibited at decent FPS.
- If you're a 120/144Hz single or multicard user you probably don't need as much VRAM since you sacrafice settings for FPS.
- For 2x multicard the current VRAMs are probably OK (980ti is perfect IMO). For 3x+ you'd probably want Titan X's or the 390x (8GB).
- 60Hz, multicard users would have to pay the most attention to VRAM. I fall into this category, I like to crank IQ settings up at the expense of FPS.
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041560741&postcount=39
My take for VRAM:
- Single cards, the VRAM they launch with is fine. I have yet to see a case where single card is inhibited at decent FPS.
- If you're a 120/144Hz single or multicard user you probably don't need as much VRAM since you sacrafice settings for FPS.
- For 2x multicard the current VRAMs are probably OK (980ti is perfect IMO). For 3x+ you'd probably want Titan X's or the 390x (8GB).
- 60Hz, multicard users would have to pay the most attention to VRAM. I fall into this category, I like to crank IQ settings up at the expense of FPS.
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I'm too lazy to read all of these benchmarks but are we arguing over VRAM allocation or are people actually thrashing? Titan X is a complete waste of time because you will be hard pressed to fill 12 GB.
Dayaks
[H]F Junkie
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It's not about filling 12GB, it's about using over 4GB. Would I prefer a cheaper, 8GB Titan X? Sure, but unforunately that doesn't exist.
Here since people don't seem to like links:
3-Way SLI Titan X w/ 350.05:
Really under 4k I see no need for more then 4GB with even SLI setups. It still seems that people do not understand that the amount of vRam allocated is not the same as required. Just because you are seeing let says 6GB of vRam usage, does not mean that the game needs this to run smoothly. I have had times at which at 3440x1440 my vRam usage is at 3GB, and the game runs perfectly smooth. Even then though this is usually when using high AA settings which is not needed with such high resolutions Running 4xMSAA with 4k is basically pointless.
Who cares how much vRam is being used if the game is running smoothly anyways.
It's not about filling 12GB, it's about using over 4GB. Would I prefer a cheaper, 8GB Titan X? Sure, but unforunately that doesn't exist.
This lovely discussion is hiding critical point: Titan X is SUPER-high-end card. For this segment one packs maximum what is possible. Hopefully there will be another ULTRA-high-end Titan X card, a dual GPU with 24 GB of VRAM a la Titan Z. Are specs of these cards overblown? NO and the argument I will use now is that such cards are solving the chicken-egg problem: limited VRAM does not encourage developers for making more advanced games especially when the DirectX 12 is coming soon. Titan X is a statement: 12 GB VRAM will a new top, expand you horizons for new games. Apart of this, there are people who use graphics cards for other purposes than games. 12 GB is useful extension then and the Titan XX would be most welcome (though its price could be less exorbitant than Titan Z).
D
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GTAV, Shadow of Mordor and likely Witcher 3 in the future will all use 4+GB of VRAM or more. No regrets upgrading to the 980GTX, might upgrade to the TI soon, when it comes out.
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But the one thing you missed here is that the Titian X is advertised as "gaming" GPU, not a workstation GPU which is where the extra vRam would make more sense.
But its price sticker repels standard crowd leaving only ultra-high-end gamers
. Cream of those folks is even buying multiple Titans X which tells there would be demand for the Titan XX. I would be much interested in the Titan XX especially if the price would not be Titan XX = 3xTitan X but with more humanly coefficient.they certainly should be, because that's the point of the memory... having stuff ready for when it's needed...
until someone has benchmarks using the same chip with two different memory sizes, this memory-use hysteria remains not proven
Actually kitguru did one with 290x 4GB (295x to be exact) and 290x 8GB in crossfire:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/sapphire-r9-290x-vapor-x-8gb-cf-review/
The performance of the 290x 8GB in Crossfire was by and large equal, just slightly above the 295x, which is entirely possibly due to the higher clock rate.
There were games that did perform better on 290x 8GB Xfire than 295x (Metro for example), however due to the low frame rates exhibited in that game for both setups, I discounted that as an exception, since one would most likely not play at the reviewed setting, and thus lessening the impact of VRAM.
I have not seen any 960 4GB SLI vs 960 2GB SLI review though, if there is any VRAM bottlenecks to be had, that would be where it would be most apparent.
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/sapphire-r9-290x-vapor-x-8gb-cf-review/
The performance of the 290x 8GB in Crossfire was by and large equal, just slightly above the 295x, which is entirely possibly due to the higher clock rate.
There were games that did perform better on 290x 8GB Xfire than 295x (Metro for example), however due to the low frame rates exhibited in that game for both setups, I discounted that as an exception, since one would most likely not play at the reviewed setting, and thus lessening the impact of VRAM.
I have not seen any 960 4GB SLI vs 960 2GB SLI review though, if there is any VRAM bottlenecks to be had, that would be where it would be most apparent.
ACU and SOM both had noticiable stuter when going over 3.5gb on the 970. It was clearly a wall. Right when I went under to 3.4 ish it was smoother but still not as smooth as I would have liked which may be due to limited caching
AC:U my main stuttering issues arose when I activated MSAA, I couldn't play the game with FXAA or no AA as the aliasing were easily noticeable and rather distracting. So I currently have it maxed with MSAA at x2. I may try lowering the shadows from soft to see if it helps. The game felt sluggish, but almost certainly not stuttery. It does stutter, but not enough for me to smash my 970's over.
With SoM, my experience were completely different. I deliberately used the Ultra textures to force the VRAM on my 970s to be completely saturated, and my GPU monitor also have the VRAM used well beyond the 3.5GB VRAM 'wall' (it was to the brim at one point), however the only real stutter I actually experienced when playing the game was when I was literally fighting a dozen Orcs at the same time. Even the benchmarking tool showed very little difference between Ultra and High textures in terms of average and minimum FPS.
I have since then lowered the textures to high as I couldn't notice the difference between Ultra and High textures.
That being said, I have no idea why this occurs. I initially thought it could be the RAM size, but I also monitored my RAM usage and didn't notice any dramatic increase in RAM usage. I will have to look a little closer though.
With SoM, my experience were completely different. I deliberately used the Ultra textures to force the VRAM on my 970s to be completely saturated, and my GPU monitor also have the VRAM used well beyond the 3.5GB VRAM 'wall' (it was to the brim at one point), however the only real stutter I actually experienced when playing the game was when I was literally fighting a dozen Orcs at the same time. Even the benchmarking tool showed very little difference between Ultra and High textures in terms of average and minimum FPS.
I have since then lowered the textures to high as I couldn't notice the difference between Ultra and High textures.
That being said, I have no idea why this occurs. I initially thought it could be the RAM size, but I also monitored my RAM usage and didn't notice any dramatic increase in RAM usage. I will have to look a little closer though.
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did you downloaded the extra texture package?... if not then ultra and high will be the same.. ultra textures doesn't load until you download the texture package.. and is certainly a performance killer even at 1080P with 4GB cards..
GearChoices
Gawd
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*facepalm* All this talk about 4k...it's a complete waste of money. If I had that kind of money to waste, I still wouldn't waste it. Will it eventually be worth it? Sure, eventually. Right now though, or even anytime in the near future, where is the 4k monitor with IPS/VA-like image quality, g-sync/freesync, 120+ hz, and other high quality features available on 1080p/1440p monitors? And where is the PC capable of running the latest games at high graphics, at 4k, at 120 FPS? Neither exist. You're just doing something objectively inferior in several ways and objectively superior in only a couple of ways, while paying thousands of dollars more for it. All this talk about "best value" or what is "worth it" or what is "needed" concerning 4K is pure BS. And "value," "titan," "needed," and "worth" do not belong in the same sentence as Titan or 390X.
We have not even progressed past 1080P being mainstream. Unless you have lots of money to waste and like wasting it, 4k is just ridiculous. Even 1440P is bad enough as it is. When you go beyond a single video card (which is pretty much what you need to do at 1440P right now), you've entered the realm where value is irrelevant and the only limit is what you can afford, though you're not yet flat-out wasting money as is the case with titans/4k.
And yes, 4gb is clearly a good idea for even 1080p. It's ridiculous that the 970 does not have 4gb and AMD currently has no viable alternatives to the current Nvidia 900 series. Hopefully they get some non-rebranded sub-390x competitors out there to compete with the 970 and 980, and maybe even force nvidia to release a 4gb card inbetween the 980 and 970. Nvidia is really milking their current monopoly right now.
We have not even progressed past 1080P being mainstream. Unless you have lots of money to waste and like wasting it, 4k is just ridiculous. Even 1440P is bad enough as it is. When you go beyond a single video card (which is pretty much what you need to do at 1440P right now), you've entered the realm where value is irrelevant and the only limit is what you can afford, though you're not yet flat-out wasting money as is the case with titans/4k.
And yes, 4gb is clearly a good idea for even 1080p. It's ridiculous that the 970 does not have 4gb and AMD currently has no viable alternatives to the current Nvidia 900 series. Hopefully they get some non-rebranded sub-390x competitors out there to compete with the 970 and 980, and maybe even force nvidia to release a 4gb card inbetween the 980 and 970. Nvidia is really milking their current monopoly right now.
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You, good sir must be drunk.. or certainly does not have any idea of what are talking about..