How Much VRAM Does It Take 3 4K displays At Max Settings?

[Wowbowty]

I plan on buying 3 4k Asus displays when they hit the market and I was wondering how vram it requires to run all of them at max settings on games.

 

[mkaibear]

a) VRAM is game dependant as well as monitor dependant, so it depends on the games.
b) No-one knows but Anand had a look at one monitor and he found that (for example) for Metro 2033 you need 3 GTX Titans to maintain a >40fps rate. Thus I would suggest you need 9 GTX Titans to run 3 4K displays at Max Settings - or basically with the maximum of 4 GTX Titans you could run 3 4K displays at max settings at about 20fps.

And some games are a lot harder hitting than Metro 2033!

 

[JJ1217]

6 Gigs is around enough for 3 1600p displays. Now we're talking 2160p, which has more than twice the amount of pixels as 1600p. I would say you would need a 12 Gigs of vRAM.

 

[Memnarchon]

I think that you will hit the GPU limit looooooong before you reach the VRAM limit. Gaming at 11520x2160 should make your GPU melt so you will need to go to lower settings that require also less VRAM. I think that triple Titan's 6GB VRAM should be enough with the settings you will choose on each game. But as long as we haven't seen any benchmark we are all just making suggestions here...

 

[Someone Somewhere]

IIRC most 4K displays show up as two 1920*2160 screens on a daisy-chained DP connector. Thus, you'd need an Eyefinity 6 setup to run the damn things as one display (Surround only handles exactly 3 IIRC).

You couldn't game on it with current hardware. Plus the size would be ridiculous, and you couldn't see all of it at once. Goodbye peripheral vision.

 

[Memnarchon]

IIRC most 4K displays show up as two 1920*2160 screens on a daisy-chained DP connector. Thus, you'd need an Eyefinity 6 setup to run the damn things as one display (Surround only handles exactly 3 IIRC).

You couldn't game on it with current hardware. Plus the size would be ridiculous, and you couldn't see all of it at once. Goodbye peripheral vision.

If You can't use Titans in a triple 4K setup, then I agree, people can't game on it with current hardware. 🙁

 

[mathew7]

The resolution has no importance on GPU memory (at least with todays 1+GB boards).
The resolution itself needs around 100MB (maybe 2x or 3x due to buffering and internal GPU handling). So you would not use more than 0.5GB even at 2xAA.
The problem is the GPU processing power, as 3x 4K monitors increase the frame pixel count by 100% compared to 3x FullHD (I'm currently gaming with 1 7950 and 3x FullHD). Also, the memory bandwidth is not scalable, so doubling the pixel count would result is less than 50% fps.

So I'm sure my 3GB 7950 could handle easily 3 4K monitors, but I would have to drop the detail levels. Please bear in mind that the 4K benchmarks floating around are for high detail.
PS: if you see 1x4K benchmarks with 4xAA or more, feel free to drop the AA by 4x (so 1x 8xAA ~~ 3x 2xAA) to estimate 3x 4K gaming.

 

[Memnarchon]

The resolution has no importance on GPU memory (at least with todays 1+GB boards).
The resolution itself needs around 100MB (maybe 2x or 3x due to buffering and internal GPU handling). So you would not use more than 0.5GB even at 2xAA.

Just no.

Hell no.

The problem is the GPU processing power, as 3x 4K monitors increase the frame pixel count by 100% compared to 3x FullHD (I'm currently gaming with 1 7950 and 3x FullHD).

100% agree here. The problem as I said theoritically would the the GPU processing power. 11520x2160 is nuts for any GPU setup.

Also, the memory bandwidth is not scalable, so doubling the pixel count would result is less than 50% fps.

Oo, since when? The amount of memory capacity isn't scalable. The memory bandwith is scalable. (edit: unless you are not talking about multi-gpu setups)

So I'm sure my 3GB 7950 could handle easily 3 4K monitors, but I would have to drop the detail levels. Please bear in mind that the 4K benchmarks floating around are for high detail.
PS: if you see 1x4K benchmarks with 4xAA or more, feel free to drop the AA by 4x (so 1x 8xAA ~~ 3x 2xAA) to estimate 3x 4K gaming.

I don't think that is possible for Crysis 3 to be playable (at least 40FPS) even in lower settings with a single 7950 3GB in a 3x4K.

And this is only from a resolution that is 6 times smaller...