Question gpu vram amount

[tbgjlb]

hello all
I have a 6 ish year old pc ( i3 8350k cpu, 32gb ddr4 ram, gtx 1060 6gb ) and I'm quite pleased how well its lasted for the games I play . But its now struggling on some things so time to upgrade.

I'm not necessarily looking for a pc to last another 6 years ish but at least be decent for 3- 4 years gaming nothing to high end needed,

And so to my question , Is 8gb gpu vram acceptable for the above time frame OR do I REALLY need more , maybe a 12gb or 16 gb vram and the added price involved .

thanks for any advice

 

[Lutfij]

I have a 6 ish year old pc ( i3 8350k cpu, 32gb ddr4 ram, gtx 1060 6gb ) and I'm quite pleased how well its lasted for the games I play .
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

8GB is fine for 1080p...any resolution above that and if the titles are higher end, then you'll need to look at higher amounts of VRAM.

What titles do you tax the system with and at what resolution?

 

[tbgjlb]

thanks for the reply. It's not so much about what specs I need at the moment or even the games I play more about if I should just dismiss 8gb vram cards and concentrate on the higher vram cards which is what I'm leaning toward.

I'm using a 1440 monitor with the gtx 1060 and it does ok , I'm just looking ahead 3 years and whats the better option because I've seen a couple of articles suggesting that 8gb vram is a big no no in todays gaming pc. But is this really the case especially considering the jump I should get going from a gtx 1060 to something like a rtx 4060 or higher .

 

[helper800]

thanks for the reply. It's not so much about what specs I need at the moment or even the games I play more about if I should just dismiss 8gb vram cards and concentrate on the higher vram cards which is what I'm leaning toward.

I'm using a 1440 monitor with the gtx 1060 and it does ok , I'm just looking ahead 3 years and whats the better option because I've seen a couple of articles suggesting that 8gb vram is a big no no in todays gaming pc. But is this really the case especially considering the jump I should get going from a gtx 1060 to something like a rtx 4060 or higher .

You would want more than 8GB for any lasting power on 1440p resolution. Higher resolutions compounded with higher textures, and other such VRAM heavy settings can go into the 16gb realm for a couple of the newest games out right now. If all you play are games made pre-2020 then 8gb is fine even at 1440p. I suggest at least a 12gb VRAM capacity otherwise. Something like the 4060 ti 16gb, 5060 16gb, 5070 12gb, 7900 XT 20gb, 9070 16gb, 9070 XT 16gb, or even the upcoming 9060 XT 16gb would be fine. Previous gen mid tier cards with 12gb or more VRAM are also a prime candidates as long as they are prices appropriately.

 

[tbgjlb]

thanks for the help helper800 it confirms my own thoughts.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

If you’re on 1440p then 8gb will be a limiting factor sooner rather than later imo. Depending what motherboard you have, you might consider tossing something like an i7 8700 into the existing board and get a slightly better cpu cooler. That and a gpu upgrade such as the 9060xt 16gb or 5060ti 16gb should help you get a couple of extra years while you save up.

 

[geofelt]

VRAM resides in the graphics card and has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, and by the game. There may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
And differences between games.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.

Video Card Performance: 2GB vs 4GB Memory

Similar video cards are often available in versions with more than one memory size. The GeForce GTX 680 is an example, and comes in both 2GB and 4GB variants. With computer components more is often better, but does doubling the memory on a video card like this actually help with game performance...

www.pugetsystems.com

Spoiler... not a significant difference.
A more current set of tests shows the same results:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1114-vram-comparison-test/page5.html

And... no game maker wants to limit their market by
requiring huge amounts of vram. The vram you see will be appropriate to the particular card.

 

[Flayed]

The PS5 has a bit more than 8GB of vram so some games ported to PC seem to do badly with less.