The whole VRAM thing is making me hella confused

[ChiSquare]

Hey everyone.

So right now I am building a PC from scratch. Going to be going with AM5, specifically 7500F. I haven't made a clear-cut decision on my choice for a GPU yet.

Reason being, I can't decide whether to go for the 8GB VRAM or the 10/12/16GB GPU's. There are so many options - especially now in the used market. For example, I can get a 6700XT for around R6500, or I could get a 3070ti for around the same price. The 6700XT has 16GB or VRAM and the 3070ti has 8GB.

I am aware that simply the "amount of VRAM" isn't the only important part about the card's longevity. I just haven't really been able to dig so deep that I can understand how exactly the bus size and everything plays a role in the card's performance. According to many reviewers, the 3070 does have better performance, but results vary based on bias on many other factors clearly.

I feel like it is important to point out that I am in no means someone who has a desire to play games at like Ultra preset graphics on 1440p. I just want to make sure I buy a card so that I can play most modern titles on High for around 3-4 more years in the future.

I would really appreciate any input regarding this. The more people give their input, the better.

Thanks

 

[Obie]

High on 1440p or 1080p?

 

[Raatle]

I dont think 8gb is really enough anymore.. For most games it will fine but some new titles like hogwarts legacy really need more.. Personally I would take the 6700xt.

 

[TheJudge]

I opted for an RX 7700 XT but I think the RX 6800 16Gb is a great option. @thecurto has stats on the cost per FPS of these cards new which is a good place to start.

 

[thecurto]

Thanks @TheJudge!

@apatheia04 here’s the link for reference: GPU Cost Per Frame Analysis - South Africa Edition! | Tech Other

The pricing may be a bit outdated but the charts should still be pretty accurate.

Another decent rule of thumb is to check how much VRAM the current generation of consoles have since the majority of games are developed for those specs then ported to PC.

The PS4 had 8GB of shared VRAM so 8GB GPUs were plenty during that time.

The PS5 has 16GB of shared VRAM so your starting point should be a 12GB GPU. As more games come out, 8GB will become obsolete quite quickly imo.

 

[Areola Grande]

Depends largely on your resolution as well. But if you're buying today, I would go for 12/16GB if you can.

I had a 3070 (8GB) which played fine at 1440p, but there were games (Hogwarts Legacy for one) which pushed it and it would have done better with 12GB. In fact, someone modded a 3070 to have 12GB and there was a fairly substantial performance uplift.

That said, I would take a 3070 8GB over a 3060 12GB any day.

 

[ChiSquare]

Thanks @TheJudge!

@apatheia04 here’s the link for reference: GPU Cost Per Frame Analysis - South Africa Edition! | Tech Other

The pricing may be a bit outdated but the charts should still be pretty accurate.

Another decent rule of thumb is to check how much VRAM the current generation of consoles have since the majority of games are developed for those specs then ported to PC.

The PS4 had 8GB of shared VRAM so 8GB GPUs were plenty during that time.

The PS5 has 16GB of shared VRAM so your starting point should be a 12GB GPU. As more games come out, 8GB will become obsolete quite quickly imo.

Alright I will probably end up going for a new 7600 XT. Price is very good and offers some very respectable VRAM. Extremely useful sheet you made there, btw! Thanks for the help.

 

[thecurto]

Depends largely on your resolution as well. But if you're buying today, I would go for 12/16GB if you can.

I had a 3070 (8GB) which played fine at 1440p, but there were games (Hogwarts Legacy for one) which pushed it and it would have done better with 12GB. In fact, someone modded a 3070 to have 12GB and there was a fairly substantial performance uplift.

That said, I would take a 3070 8GB over a 3060 12GB any day.

Possibly this video:

Hitting the VRAM limit will impact your game in one of two ways. Either you’ll end up with crazy stutters or textures simply won’t load.

This is all mitigated by turning down the texture quality to high/medium depending on the game and resolution. Just keep in mind that some games scale texture quality quite well between presets and others look like hot garbage.

 

[ChiSquare]

Possibly this video:

Hitting the VRAM limit will impact your game in one of two ways. Either you’ll end up with crazy stutters or textures simply won’t load.

This is all mitigated by turning down the texture quality to high/medium depending on the game and resolution. Just keep in mind that some games scale texture quality quite well between presets and others look like hot garbage.

Do you think that the general trend in unoptimized AAA games also contribute to the fact that VRAM demands are growing so much?

 

[thecurto]

Alright I will probably end up going for a new 7600 XT. Price is very good and offers some very respectable VRAM. Extremely useful sheet you made there, btw! Thanks for the help.

No problem. If you’re buying new and can stretch your budget by an extra R1000 the RX 6800 will give you quite big performance boost over the 7600 XT and keep you going for quite a while.

 

[thecurto]

Do you think that the general trend in unoptimized AAA games also contribute to the fact that VRAM demands are growing so much?

This is a whole other can of worms and I don’t think there is one specific reason behind it. A couple of common arguments are:

• Devs rely too much on upscaling tech now so don’t need to optimise games as much.
• Publishers launch games before they are optimised and get the devs to fix it later so they can maximise their profits.
• There are vastly more PC part combinations than before and it is impossible to account for every variability.
• And my console point mentioned above.

It’s most likely a combination of all these points though