NVidia announce they can fix over utilisation of VRAM

[SpyderTracks]

I've been a sucker for nVidia marketting before so now am quite sceptical about their announcements

This is basically off the back of the 4060ti announcement, when they said it was only 8Gb VRAM there was a lot of backlash from the community frustrated as it's kind of been proven that a lot of new titles are requiring more than that, even at 1440p.

And then low and behold, nVidia announced the 16Gb version. Bear in mind the 8Gb version would already have been in production and was on their roadmap, the 16Gb wasn't, the feeling is it was a last ditch attempt to quickly modify some already manufactured 8Gb cards to appease those who understand VRAM requirements

They recently posted this

A Deeper Look At VRAM On GeForce RTX 40 Series Graphics Cards

What is VRAM? How much do I need? Does bus width matter? These questions and more are answered in our new explainer article.

www.nvidia.com

The interesting section is:


NVIDIA Technologies Can Help Developers Reduce VRAM Usage
Games are richer and more detailed than ever before, necessitating those 100GB+ installs. To help developers optimize memory usage, NVIDIA has several free developer tools and SDKs, including:

• NVIDIA RTX Memory Utility (RTXMU): Ray tracing requires additional VRAM. RTXMU can reduce this usage by up to 50%
• NVIDIA Micro-Mesh SDK: Reduces the memory usage of complex geometry while also increasing performance
• NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporter: Creates highly compressed texture files to reduce memory usage and the file size of games

These are just a few of the tools and technologies that NVIDIA freely provides to help developers optimize their games for all GPUs, platforms, and memory configurations.

But games developers are already chiming in, here's a really good twitter thread from one called Ben Golus whose worked in the industry for quite a while and has a couple of big titles under his belt along with Planetary Annihilation on Windows

Benjamin Golus video game credits and biography - MobyGames

Benjamin Golus's game credits - MobyGames

www.mobygames.com

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1659440613576826881

Just worth having a read over.

I would personally avoid the 4060ti 8Gb unless you're doing high refresh 1080p, I wouldn't go near it if you're considering 1440p.

 

[AccidentalDenz]

It's crazy how 8Gb has gone from fine to obsolete so quickly. My 10Gb 3080 is making me nervous now - not a sentiment I thought I'd have for a few years yet!

 

[Scott]

This is the reason I'm after a 3090

 

[sck451]

I'm very unconvinced by either of the 4060 Ti cards at 1440p. They are very cut down compared to the 4070, which itself wasn't remarkable for its performance.

It's a very different kettle of fish to the 3060 Ti, which was the same die just cut down slightly. The 4060 Ti cards are actually using a different die. We'll have to see benchmarks, but I haven't seen a convincing argument for either of them.

 

[SpyderTracks]

There's been too much drastic change over the last couple of years, I'm getting so confused about everything. The 3070ti has just for the first time since release gone under MSRP and it's being heralded as "great value". The worlds gone mad!

I'm very unconvinced by either of the 4060 Ti cards at 1440p. They are very cut down compared to the 4070, which itself wasn't remarkable for its performance.

It's a very different kettle of fish to the 3060 Ti, which was the same die just cut down slightly. The 4060 Ti cards are actually using a different die. We'll have to see benchmarks, but I haven't seen a convincing argument for either of them.

100%, we should all be waiting for 3rd party reviews no matter what but the 4080 and 4090 are the only cards that make sense to me from a performance standpoint, certainly not value.

 

[SpyderTracks]

A good article from XDA. I was a regular on XDA back when they were purely a place for modding ROMs for phones, they've really expanded over the years, but they're very knowledgeable and come from an open source perspective

Nvidia isn't putting enough VRAM on its GPUs, and it's a disaster waiting to happen

Many of Nvidia's latest cards are paired with a worryingly low amount of memory, and it could become problematic for users.

www.xda-developers.com

 

[Scott]

Good read that and I don't think anyone following GPU hardware could draw any other conclusion.

I'm really torn with what GPU to get next. I want to get a 40 series but the pricing is crazy IMO, the only one that makes sense for the performance is the 4090 but that's a step too far for me. I'm thinking that if I can get a 4080 for £1k I'll go for that, if not I'll be aiming for a good used 3090(ti). I think the minimum for anything over 1080p is 16GB now, I genuinely do. Not because that's what's required today, but it's definitely going to be required tomorrow. Textures maps are only getting bigger.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I know everyone sees me as an AMD fanboy, which I undoubtedly am, but I think there are valid reasons for it nowadays, both in CPUs and GPUs.

Generations past, I saw the ludicrous amounts of VRAM AMD were putting on their GPU's as a way to make unknowing buyers think they were getting more for their money, when actually it was over the top and not really required, and NVidia were putting what was actually going to be used.

I've linked this before, but it's just another example where I think AMD under Lisa Su have been playing the long game. This article was posted in March 2021

8GB is no longer enough VRAM for High-end 1440p Gaming - AMD Claims

AMD is upping their VRAM allocations with the Radeon RX 6000 series. Are AMD more

overclock3d.net

AMD are not saints, they're still a corporate entity beholdent to their greedy investors, their GPUs are still overpriced, and lets not talk about the cost of AM5, but at least Lisa Su seems to have far more ethics than the others on the market since she's taken the reigns. She really is looking generations in advance and planning for the future, rather than grabbing the instant rewards and cost cutting to the extreme.

 

[Scott]

I would be all over AMD right now if they could actually sort out their drivers. I've been floating around the AMD forums for months now, hoping for some news on the VR front. Hanging around there shows how many niggles there are though, they aren't reliable on the driver front. They're far and away the best value hardware wise, but from what I can tell they aren't great for plug and play.

 

[Scott]

It's weird....NVIDIA had issues for months and months and, just as they have seemingly resolved their major issues, AMD start having issues themselves. Coincidence anyone?

Discplaimer: I am not suggesting that someone from NVIDIA got themselves a job at AMD and sabotaged them.....I would never accuse a technology company of using underhanded, unethical and immoral tactics. No sirree!

From what I've seen, the NVidia issues teem to be temporary and due to an implementation of something. Specifically the VR shortcomings have plagued AMD for the past 18 months. They just can't get the VR performance to match their raster performance.

For example, the 6950XT outperforms the 7900XTX in VR, and not by a small margin for the most part. The 6950XT and 3090 pretty much trade blows on flat panel, in VR it's a no-contest for the 3090 though.

I would have bought a 7900XTX if it wasn't for this shortcoming.