How Much VRAM Do Gamers Need? 8GB, 12GB, 16GB or MORE?

[@mackan072]

This shouldn't even be a discussion. VRAM is cheap, but sold to users at a huge premium. VRAM amount should *never* be a bottleneck for gaming, but because of greed, it is. Having spare VRAM is fantastic. It improves the longevity of the GPUs by enabling users to run newer games, on lower settings - but keeping textures and whatnot high, at little to no performance cost. It keeps the hardware usable for longer, which obviously isn't in Nvidias interest. So they limit the amount, to ensure that we keep on upgrading, even though we otherwise wouldn't need to. They're generating E-waste for the sake of profit. It's a version of planned obsolescence.

[@RoiDeCoeurs]

Can you be more dramatic please, you’re being too kind

[@miha1999grobar]

this comment My 1070 lasted me for nearly 7 years purely because of 8GB vram which at the time of it's release was a lot, even an overkill at that moment because most of 2016 games used no more than 4 GB of vram. I guess nvidia saw what they did and how people didn't upgrade their GPUs for a long time and decided enough is enough, if you don't want to upgrade at least every 2 generations we're gonna force you to do it with GPUs crippled with insufficient vram Recently I got a 7900 XT and those 20 gigs are a godsend, It will be plenty of vram before the GPU itself starts struggling

[@RoiDeCoeurs]

@@miha1999grobarwhat you people don’t realize is that the demand for vram will not go up forever, we’re pretty close to the best graphics possible and I can bet that even in 20 years, 20Gb of VRAM will still be more than fine.

[@miha1999grobar]

@@RoiDeCoeurs No way lol. I don't know for how long it will keep going up but it definitely will keep going up for years

[@micsunday14]

GDDR6X is not cheap.

[@1Grainer1]

as Nvidia marketing team expert i can say 6gb is enough in 2024

[@angel_killzit]

but with 6gb am i buying enough to save?

[@xKamiiii]

​@@angel_killzityes. the more you buy, the more you save. that's right.

[@1Grainer1]

​@@angel_killzit yes, you can use AI built into our drivers, that's the most important part, as for games, just just upscale with dlss and double those frames with FG, it will be the best experience of your life, and you will be able to buy more cards for your family to save even more!

[@hrvojemilicevic3309]

You mean 3gb?

[@Celis.C]

For a premium, you can always download more

[@DarthChewie]

Nvidia marketing RT as the future of gaming and DLSS as the saviour of gamers, while also selling cards lacking the VRAM needed to run DLSS and RT.

[@andreamichelezucchi8600]

It has always been the strategy. I was saying this to my friends up to 4 years ago. One of them already changed GPU twice since then because of low VRAM which lead to poor performance. Yet all still fail to recognize anything but NVIDIA as a viable option. It's crazy how brainwashed people are.

[@randy206]

TBF, DLSS reduces the vram required vs having it off. I would still rather just have a strong enough GPU and enough vram to not need DLSS but that's expensive.

[@louisshin642]

@@randy206 AMD's cards are significantly cheaper than Nvidia's.

[@gewdvibes]

@@louisshin642and you get less features as a result, they’re not equivalent. Youre making trade offs to get that lower price. If you don’t care about the trade offs then it’s a good deal

[@Eric-ct2ri]

@@louisshin642 amd cards release at around the same price as nvidia cards ie where they fit in nvidia's line up and then drift down in price later. also significantly cheaper depend on the tier of gpus cause in some case thats an outright lie since the 7600 and he 4060 are basically the same price.

[@qarim350xd]

Finally a comprehensive video on VRAM usage in games. I wish you have had added a comparison of VRAM consumption when playing with the 7900 xtx and the 4090 as both have 24 GB of VRAM. I always hear that "20 GB VRAM in Radeon GPUs are equivalent to 16 GB VRAM in Nvidia GPUs". I would only believe it if someone like you shows a side by side comparison.

[@komraa]

This is the same cope Apple uses in their phones. Sure you can optimize but memory is memory

[@albzc8345]

well thats bullshit nvdia fan boys talk too much crap .I have a 7900 xtx and my mate as a 4080s and we playin same game in coop and yes my xtx used more vram but it was only by 700 to 800 mb less then 1 gig . Space marines 2 was game.

[@MrSeb-S]

​@@albzc8345You spent around 1000$ and this card has perfomance at RT like 4060TI? Also bad fsr, more heat, usual bad coil whine and high power usage. I would go with 4080s. 😅

[@evilzinabyssranger5695]

@@albzc8345 TRUE. In smaller cards it goes like 500mb, 200 mb + than a nvidia equivalent. Nvidia users say a lot of shit. Children. Its all about them.

[@Heracl0s]

​@@albzc8345 and maybe its just because you have more Vram, so the game feels free to use it

[@TheZoenGaming]

Not only did the 1070 have 8GB of VRAM, it was double that of the 970!

[@xDUnPr3diCtabl3]

3,5GB double? 😉😂

[@TheZoenGaming]

@@xDUnPr3diCtabl3 LOL It had 4GB total, it's just that half a gig was at a reduced speed.

[@xDUnPr3diCtabl3]

@@TheZoenGaming True.

[@HennesTobias]

And 4 years after that, the 3070 released still with the same 8gb VRAM lol

[@Hirnlego999]

@@HennesTobias Yeah, going from rx480 8GB to 5700 8GB to 3070 8GB is a joke

[@MrFredscrap]

So DLSS frame gen uses Vram... VRAM that Nvidia doesnt give you at the mid-low range cards. thats a hell of an upsell trick lol.....

[@andreamichelezucchi8600]

It has always been. Claim that the technology is worth overpaying while not caring about the hardware. And then turns out that software requires appropriate hardware to run well!

[@creativityfails1]

Create the problem and sell the solution. They have so much market share and marketing they can turn a feature like "ray tracing" that was nearly universally panned and make it something gamers absolutely can't leave on the table when they could get superior raster for their budget with Radeon.

[@warnacokelat]

Always remember the time nvidia sold 3.5GB + 0.5GB VRAM.

[@UltimateGattai]

​@@warnacokelatthat was a massive sh*t Strom when people found out what they did. Especially when that last 0.5 gb of VRAM was slower vram.

[@HoodHussler]

Listen…….we the faithful Nvidia sheep must keep believing everything they tell us as words of gospel now that being said I believe the saying was “the more you buy the more you save” which translates to upgrade to the highest tier that your bank will allow you and upgrade every generation it’s a simple concept really

[@edwinduisburg8138]

Graphics card from 7 years ago (1080ti) having more Vram than 2024 cards is criminal.

[@Antipiperosdeclony]

Flagship vs entry level be like

[@EarthIsFlat456]

1080Ti was a flagship in case you didn't realize.

[@Apollo-Computers]

2080 ti has 11gb as well.

[@mintymus]

Hey, you could always start your own GPU company and just make cards with 1TB of VRAM.

[@Rachit0904]

1080 Ti doesn’t have more VRAM, unless you are comparing it to $300 GPUs which is just dumb

[@TheRealEtaoinShrdlu]

So wtf is the point of the 4060 then!? I recently bought a 3060, but was considering the 4060. When I found only 8GB options, I decided to go for the 3060 12GB and spent the savings on more system memory.

[@originalscreenname44]

The point of the 4060 is to upsell you on a higher tier card for more money. These companies don't want to give you a product that will fulfill all your needs at the price you're willing to pay, so if you need more VRAM but you're primarily shopping on the lower end, they're going to do everything in their power to get an extra $100-200 out of you for what you really want.

[@SebastianWeiss-c8d]

4060 is a hard sell. It's not bad the price is or was just terrible for what it has to offer. It is still a good card just not for 1440p and probably a lot used in asia and internet cafes and stuff where not very demanding games are being played. The 4060ti with 16GB Vram is pretty good, except for the price of course. And you get to use DLSS3 and FrameGen. Not saying the 4060 line-up is great but if one finds a good deal the Ti version is a good thing.

[@jacoblee8989]

It really should have been the 4050 but Nvidia swapped the names around. Instead they gave a few percent performance increase +FG so not worth IMO

[@zilverman7820]

3060 12gb ram will not give more fps. 3060 is not fast enough to utilize that 12 gb ram.

[@syncmonism]

@@zilverman7820 It's true that you would rarely be running games with settings that benefit from having more than 8GB with the 3060, but it definitely can happen sometimes. Also, while it may be very rare that it would be beneficial to use anywhere near the full 12GB with this card, having more than 8 is still very useful, as a lot of games will use more than 8GB but less than 10GB with certain combinations of settings. Having more vram can also help a lot with games that are not very well optimized, or with user created mods (especially graphical mods), which tend not to be well optimized, and can use a lot of vram. Having lots of vram on the videocard can also make up for having less system RAM, though that's not likely to be a very important consideration, especially because RAM is relatively cheap right now.

[@mttrashcan-bg1ro]

It blows my mind how many people say the 3080 with 10gb is still fine, I upgraded to a 4090 at the start of 2023 and nearly every new game at 4k uses over 10gb at High or Ultra, and plenty of games use around 10gb at 1440p as well. In-game my overlay shows most games want more than 10gb at 4k, even though the 3080 is plenty fast to run those games otherwise. Like the 4060Ti 8gb vs 16gb video showed, even with 8gb it'll be running out while showing 6gb or 7gb used, and you know what that means. It means people using a 3080 who haven't used cards with more aren't gonna notice they're still held back even if the game says it's using 8-9gb. That's potentially because of other applications, or multi monitors, for example, I find 1.5gb is used with nothing open, which drops down if I uplug my 2nd monitor.

[@Rainquack]

nVidia: Please buy our GPUs to play all these *totally* efficient graphics-arms-race games with our RTX features and frame-gen! Also nVidia: What do you mean you need VRAM for that?

[@Elimunary]

For games with mods I almost use all 24gb, others most iv seen is close to 16gb @ 4k

[@DJ-fw7mi]

Same here, Skyrim, cyberpunk, Witcher 3, and more eat up my 20GB on my 7900XT.

[@JanM2]

​@@DJ-fw7mi Allocated or not?

[@DJ-fw7mi]

Actual usage given upscaled textures, reshades, light to medium ray tracing, among model and other population mods. Incredibly noticeable in Hogwarts legacy with 60 mods or so. Comparing 1080 1440 4k between my two rigs with the GTX 1080 and my new 7900XT.

[@handlemonium]

I'd love a 24GB RX 8800XTX for $599. A 32GB "8850XTX" would be for $699 would be even better.

[@vigilant_1934]

​@@handlemonium Ignoring the first ridiculous sentence, you're not getting 32GB of VRAM for $699. You're also not getting a new XTX card for that price either (RX 8000 series will be mid range cards with probably 16 GB anyway so come on). The 6900XT had a NAVI21XTX GPU and that was $999 at launch in 2020. No gaming card has ever had more than 24 GB of VRAM and with 32 GB you can do some AI workloads not possible with 24 so that's gonna cost you extra if you even get it all (probably not for a couple generations). In fact, the cheapest card to have 24GB is the 7900XTX and that launched at $999 too. ATi charged $949 to get the highest VRAM card (ATi FireGL X1 256MB) way back in 2003 when 128MB cards like the 3DLabs Wildcat VP970 were going for $899. You want more VRAM than even Nvidia's future nearly $2000 card will give you for less than $1000?

[@ianwolter6142]

I mean, ada lovelace architecture is more cache dependant, so the vram thing on rtx 40 cards is stupid, 8Gb for 1080p, 12GB for 1440p, and 16+GB for 4K is pretty good and enough

[@addingvalue2326]

Can you explain it in detail?

[@addingvalue2326]

I am planning to buy 4070 super for 1440p gaming at (high or ultra) will it be suffice?

[@Jomenaa]

Here I am again with my GTX 1070Ti with 8GB VRAM @ 1080p, just gave it some love and changed paste because hot spot temp was getting uncomfortable for me (also, summer D:)

[@dsc9894]

I predict the 7900XT is going to age particularly well from this generation with its 20GB of VRAM. The 4080 outclasses it in raw performance, but that extra VRAM will probably keep it performing consistently for at least one extra generation over the 4080 if I had to guess

[@jozefhirko6024]

I believe once 16GB will be fully utilized, 4080 will need DLSS to keep performance so VRAM usage will drop anyway.

[@deviouslaw]

Meh, at that point you're kind of talking about limping it along with reduced quality, and that's exactly the kind of thing that happens when graphics cards aren't aging well. ​@@jozefhirko6024

[@Vinterloft]

The 6950XT I bought for a little over €500 over two years ago is pushing my 3440x1440 OLED to its 165 FPS limit just fine in Ghost of Tsushima which is literally the only good AAA game that has come out since I bought that card

[@dsc9894]

@@jozefhirko6024 I imagine it’ll be kind of like the 1060 vs the Rx580/480. Early on, the 1060 looked a good deal better, but as time went on, the 580 maintained an acceptable level of performance for much longer. Nothing crazy, mind you, but if you were trying to stretch your card as long as possible, the 580 was the better purchase

[@deroger612]

@@dsc9894 thats actually what happend to my dumb ass i was fooled by nvidia (bought 1060 3GB) had to upgrade within some years if i would have had an 480 or 580 with 8gb for literally the same price i wouldnt have to upgrade (and yes at the time it was already pretty ass i got a uhd 28" gifted for free which was far better then my 1050p dell)

[@matthew4107]

''we know games use more memory when its available than what they actually need'' but were going to completely ignore this fact we stated and pretend like what we say in relation to these charts matters...... your not really selling the channel to me tbh lol

[@Dr.RojoMcDelly]

I play marvels spiderman remastered on pc. 8gb rx6600 1080p native with Digital foundry’s optimized settings. (Some bumped up) With ray tracing enabled and half refresh rate Vsync and I get virtually a locked 72 fps

[@kostaskeremis4091]

Would love if you tried revisiting the rtx 3060 vs rtx 4060 to see how the vram affects them

[@vanveenmatt]

I have a 7900 XTX so, 24 GB of vram, and I've seen some games use up to 18.5. Avatar Frontiers of Pandora for example (amazing looking game btw). I would say more RAM the better. But 24 for now is more than plenty.

[@DeadPhoenix86DP]

Some games will try to use as much VRAM as Possible.

[@Empire24453]

I use a RTX 3090 with 24GB - and in MSFS2020 and all other programs that I need to run, I seen as high as 20gb Vram being used XD

[@The_Noticer.]

@@DeadPhoenix86DP Be glad, as it means less SSD read/write cycles.

[@medovk]

i saw modded cyberpunk running over 24gb on my 4090, and Escape from Tarkov is around 19gb at 4k

[@Chronically_ChiII]

@The_Noticer That's good info to know. Also, unrelated, but is your name antisemitic 😂😂

[@Jasontyo]

Hopefully AMD keeps their larger VRAM buffers on their new "mid-range" cards and they show benefits longterm.

[@seanchina9902]

Hopefully they beat or at least match ngreedia in ray tracing and power draw. Nvidia ain't sweating yet coz they know they have an edge over amd.

[@AFT_05G]

​@@seanchina9902 All Nvidia has to do are give more vram to their mid range gpus and give them a reasonable launch price , AMD wouldn't stand a chance if they do that.But no, greed is really strong with Nvidia at the moment.

[@ETophales]

Steve, can you explain how you measured used VRAM as opposed to allocated VRAM?

[@JustinTheMan369]

I am a laptop gamer and when I was in the market to upgrade from my Alienware with a 1070 I paid up for my Eluktronics with a 3080 due to it having 16gb. It has about the same performance of a desktop 3070 but has double the VRAM which is the limiting factor of the 3070.

[@curryking1]

Less than 16 gb will age quite fast with newer games past 1440p but it always depends how you play if its not max settings than u can get away with less

[@sudhakarnayak1210]

Dude you would feel like a fool if the next gta game can only be run on your 4060 ti with medium settings just because of vram constraints, whereas it would be perfectly capable of playing high or ultra and imagine a 6700xt getting better frame rates being cheaper on higher settings.

[@puffyips]

I honestly find the “just lower settings” and “just don’t use ultra/high textures” as the worst coping I’ve ever heard but to each their own I find maxing out textures to be just as fun as playing the game sometimes 😂

[@yurijai9801]

​@@puffyips lol ok have fun maxing out playing with yourself. Make sure you clean up those textures

[@gandalfpsykos]

You show horizon forbidden west not needing more than 12gb vram at 4k in your tests, but that does not match my experience playing on a 12gb gpu, where I frequently saw numbers at 11.8gb and accompanying stutters as it starts filling ram instead. That was in both main game and DLC. 10 min tests is nowhere near adequate.

[@kurtwagner16]

well then go ahead and test for yourself. Every game at all those settings and that for 1 hour each.

[@Kanivalos80]

Random guy: Vram makes the card more futureproof Nvidia: 6GB it is....

[@The_Noticer.]

This is exactly what i've been saying on many AAA discussion pages on steam. People complaining about stuttering, but refusing to believe its their 12GB buffer on their 4070. Or for that matter, Nvidia's weak DX12 driver with CPU overhead. But I also know, these people will buy a 5070 and the cycle continues. C'est la vie. I have seen Forbidden west use up to 14.5GB on my 6800XT, but that was after extended playing.

[@TheKlebiN]

I finished Forbiden West at 1440p with my RTX 4070ti at around 100 fps with a smooth frametime for the entire game, I'm super sensitive to these types of things! You have to learn that allocation does not mean real use.

[@vigilant_1934]

@@TheKlebiN Horizon Forbidden West typically doesn't use more than 10 GB at 1440p, at least up to 10 minutes of gametime, so you shouldn't have issues. You don't know if the OP's VRAM usage was allocated or not though as it's possible VRAM usage went up after a long session. HWInfo64 shows what resources are actually being used, not allocated, and it gives you the maximum, average and minimum. The tests Steve showed in this video was use not allocation and we see multiple games use 12-14GB at the highest settings in 1440p with Avatar using 16.4 GB which is crazy but that's due to frame generation added to the Unobtanium setting.

[@itbaggedurgf]

i feel like shortly, (2026~) gamers will likely need nearing 16Gb of GPU memory which is pretty lame for a majority of people.

[@fVNzO]

Majority yes, but the majority also bought 3.5GB 970's and 6GB 1060's and 8GB 3070's. So the majority will keep buying what the majority keeps buying.

[@Audiosan79]

I upgraded from a 16GB card to a 24GB card, so i'm set for the next few years.

[@zbigniew2628]

You overdramatize as F😂 not everybody plays 4k with framegen on ultra settings. 12gb is going to be fine untill ps6.

[@IgorBozoki1989]

​@@Audiosan79I actually downgraded from 24gb 3090 to 16gb 4070 Ti Super. Don't ask me why.

[@mightylink65]

There's so many people being mislead into buying 8gb cards thinking that's "future proof" because companies are telling them that.

[@PindleofKujata]

I bought a 7800XT to "upgrade" from my 3070 Ti (tired of Nvidia's crap and I wanted more VRAM). I ran Cyberpunk 2077's benchmark with the same settings (1440p, DLSS/FSR enabled, ultra quality, volumetric fog high) as the 3070 Ti. While I saw 19 more average FPS on the 7800 XT, I saw almost double the 1% lows, (67FPS to 111FPS). Not sure if it was the raw raster uplift, or the VRAM. Either way, I'm pleased.

[@andersjjensen]

When you see a small uplift to AVG but a large uplift to 1% Lows it is nearly always VRAM related.

[@CheesyPotat0]

I upgrade my GPU about every five years, and I game at 4K. I need all the VRAM I can get. I went from an RTX 2080 Ti 11GB. I'm now using an RTX 4090 24GB. It really depends on the resolution and how often you upgrade your hardware. Some people will use the same old GPU for many years. I still see people on Steam using an RX 580 8GB. That's crazy to me. It's so old now. Not everybody plays the latest games. It helps to have a lot of system RAM for when you exceed dedicated GPU VRAM. I would be in the red playing Resident Evil remakes at 4K ultra settings with the RTX 2080 Ti and the games still ran fine. My laptop has a mobile RTX 4070 with only 8GB VRAM. The Last of Us Part 1 glitched out in a strange way with white light all over the place and then crashed. You definitely want more than 8GB for 4K ultra settings for AAA games. Laptop chips are too cut down. I prefer desktop gaming.

[@voldislavdracularicusso5081]

I think this whole vram panic is very profitable for gpu makers. People are willing to give them more money and go for higher-tier gpus because they have more vram. I think both Nvidia and AMD are motivated to keep this going for another generation.

[@miha1999grobar]

Its literally the apple move, overcharge for iPhones with more storage and force people to pay crazy money for it

[@Lazarosaliths]

Intel enters the chat

[@toptime737]

You are reversing things.

[@tanmay8952]

amd left the gpu race

[@gonozal8_962]

AMD has very good cards in the 6000 series, with 10 GB for the 6700 12 GB for the 6700XT and higher and 16GB for the rx 6800 and higher, with 192/256 bit bus respectively. having gotten an rx 6800 for 400€, these are budget options for mid-tier grapics cards

[@owlmostdead9492]

So my next card will need at least 20Gb, got it. Thanks for this, it's surprisingly hard to find somewhat accurate information in terms of VRAM consumption.

[@GugureSux]

That's because the big tech company channels always crank up settings and resolution, and don't even bother testing out 1080p no more, and way too often skip any sort of setting optimizations. As an user of a single-digit VRAM GTX card who still enjoys rock solid 60fps in all games, without any wonky upscaler tricks, I'm seriously disturbed by this VERY RECENT skyrocketing of system requirement. And no, it's absolutely not explained by any sort of jump in visual quality; some literal 10yo games look exactly the same, if not better, than modern slop.

[@someasianguy8493]

Agreed. Honestly, it's like PC gamers don't understand that optimising games like Alan Wake 2 or Hellblade 2 will still end up with a fantastic looking game, even on medium settings. What does 'medium' even mean? It's arbitrary. Didn't the Avatar devs hide the Unobtainium graphics setting? They probably did that cos PC gamers can't help themselves and want to max out every setting, then complain that the game is unoptimised. I don't max out graphics on games, unless I see a significant visual benefit from it.

[@gonozal8_962]

@@GugureSux if you don’t use upscalers, AMD is just better for gaming. raytracing also costs VRAM, so you probably don’t use that, either. if you don’t need it for productivity, keep AMD in mind should you upgrade ;)

[@Jakiyyyyy]

​@@gonozal8_962 Does AMD really bad in productivity and editing? 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@kevinerbs2778]

@@GugureSux its cause DX12 is actually garbage at its job, games engines make it even worse.

[@raresmacovei8382]

Chilling with 24 GB on 7900 XTX. Gonna be set for a while.

[@albert2006xp]

Even better considering you won't be turning on any heavy ray tracing and probably don't care about running AI cause AMD so 24 Gb Raster machine is definitely still going to be a raster machine with plenty of VRAM in 2030+.

[@raresmacovei8382]

@@albert2006xp I'm playing Cyberpunk with Path Tracing at 250 fps. (1080p XeSS 1.3 Performance + FSR3 Frame Gen + AFMF). I'm keeping my card underclocked to 2000 MHz instead of the possible 2900 MHz.

[@benjaminoechsli1941]

​@@raresmacovei8382Dang. And RDNA 4 is supposed to have a massive RT boost. If they maintain their generosity with VRAM (at least compared to Nvidia), they should have a highly-compelling product.

[@i3l4ckskillzz79]

1080p with xess performance is basically 240p it looks horribly 😂👌

[@Ragssssss]

​​@@raresmacovei8382 whom are you lying to? Yourself? At 1080p upscaling is bad idea, at best DLSS quality looks decent, not FSR, despite that say you get 250fps with XeSS 1080p performance? Hilarious, that must have been mudy & blurry mess, I bet. Good luck to you 😂. Like, honestly? 540p upscaled to 1080p LMAO!!!!

[@EndstyleGG]

My 1080Ti 11GB is somehow still going just fine after 7 years (even outlasted a fairly good quality psu that exploded a little while ago haha), never thought I would go this long without an upgrade. I think I will only upgrade for GTA VI, otherwise with a little tinkering and optimizing, it still runs anything at 1440p 60+ no problem. I do kinda miss the times of just turning everything to ultra and still getting over 100fps on anything tho :)

[@mikeramos91]

12gb vram is enough but is cutting it close. Any new builds planning on lasting 2-3 generations should get 16gb+ or wait for 50 series

[@FireCestina1200]

8GB: Can't max most game at 2K Can max most game at 1080p 12GB: Can max most game at 1080p upgraded to 2K (will usually lack of VRAM on very demanding VRAM or badly optimized game), will usually not be able to max game on 2K. 16GB: Well, technically you can max everything, so you're kind of future proof. (but there's a few game that already hit the 16GB VRAM by their poor optimization) 20GB: To my knowledge. None game is enough badly optimized to consume 20GB (max I've seen was around 17GB VRAM). Because I don't own a 4K monitor. I don't know if some game hit the 18-20GB VRAM usage on 4K ultra (+ RT if possible) especially with FSR or DLSS using more VRAM when enabled. (You will the limit with some heavy computing/IA simulation/video 24GB: Well. You're more than fine (Almost no task hit the 24GB but there's some oddly specific who does)

[@elu5ive]

what you call 2k is not 2k. you mean 2560x1440. 1920x1080 is what some call 2k, because the horizontal resolution is approximately 2000 pixels. 3840x2160 is called 4k because the horizontal resolution is approximately 4000 pixels. 1080p, 1440p and 2160p are not resolutions, but video formats, because the p stands for progressive scan as opposed to interlaced 1080i, 1440i, 2160i. all games are rendered progressively and adding the p is the same as saying that your car has wheels every time you mention your car, though it's unfortunately common these days, even among hardware reviewers

[@magicsmoke6000]

Thanks for solid content Steve! I have 21:9 ultrawide monitor and wondering how much VRAM usage would 3440 x 1440 resolution take? Should I aim for 4K results for my VRAM requirement?

[@Shimo_28]

4070 Ti Super at minimum or a 7900 XTX

[@stevenostrowski6552]

@@Shimo_28 cap got a 7900 gre and hit 100fps+ in newer titles on 3440x1440p

[@Shimo_28]

@@stevenostrowski6552 100+ isn't great when it's 144hz monitor and I was suggesting for ultra presets in games so that it could still be viable into the future, tell me what kind of games are you talking about

[@shuntao3475]

One thing You all are missing is MONITORS. 1080p is not longer Entry Level, I would say 1440P 160mhz is closure to Entry level. Many Panel Manufactures have stopped making 1080p.

[@dialgapalkia7978]

thanks for the explaination, you explain it really welll with perfect pace, not like other youtubers that explain it like they rushed to the toilet

[@MrVybson]

I feel like it's a game problem as well. Low texture settings are way too fucking high res to the point where changing the setting makes no difference to the visuals. And it's not like the texture resolution matters when everything's smothered in taa/upscaling/motion blur/whatever else.

[@Arutemysu]

It's what I keep telling people. My 6800M often pulls ahead in newer games over a desktop RTX2070 in 1440p because of the extra VRAM, but people don't fucking believe me. I even showed them the difference and they tell me it's faked and I underclocked the 2070.

[@onodoot3400]

All these high quality textures increasing VRAM usage only to get blurred by TAA, DLSS, and FSR, it's shameful.

[@elvisvasquez97]

Vram matters you can max textures and set everything else low and not be a noticeable drop in FPS but definitely notice the visuals. Wish I bought at the time a RX 6750 xt or RX 6800 over the RTX 3060 Ti sucks to lower textures even at 1080p for newest games. Moving forward 16gb for 4k/ 12gb for 1440p / 10gb for 1080p. Play mods on games going to need more than 16gb vram. 7900 XT / 7900 XTX / 3090 / 3090 Ti and 4090 is future proofing vram wise.

[@sirmaster55]

I'm planning to buy a gaming laptop in the RTX 4060-4080 range after being tired of suffering with my 7-year-old 2GB VRAM laptop, but the prices are ridiculous here in Europe. I'd love to play in 1440p but I have a feeling these RTX 4th generation will get obsolete in a couple of years already, which is a complete shame lol. These kind of videos are a perfect way of convincing potential customers like me to wait for a sale on them, so thank you mate.

[@jment34]

Interesting 8 is not enough nowadays? I am using an rx 470 with 4gb and don't have any desire to add more. Even the vega 6 apu is enough for me at the moment.

[@CrisIsBored]

i have 12gb vram for around 4 years now... and i will have to upgrade to probably 24gb or something in that direction, the way it looks

[@gonozal8_962]

for my rx 6800, I crank texture quality to ultra and leave other settings on low/medium for low latency gaming. that way, I have non-pixelated textures and high framerates when I‘m not bottlenecked by my i7 6700K CPU or my monitor, which I‘m looking to upgrade (good monitors costing more than budget PCs is insane imo)

[@icyspecter]

vram usage very depends on monitor resolution, more physical pixels more vram need on same settings, if for 1080p gaming mostly enough 8gb of not very fast gpu, in 1440p needs 1.5-2x more vram, or it will heavy stutter and freeze. 4k on lows many games require more than 8gb. check it out, plug different monitors, not render change ingame, and looks like you have tested on same 1440p monitor with different renders

[@Malis__]

i noticed that having discord and browser with youtube/twitch tab open will eat up 500 MB of vram, but id rather lower texture/shadows then give up on those

[@xzm996]

1080p high preset is controllable even by 6GB rx 5600 xt 😒 ray tracing is what makes it difficult and below rx 6800 level ray tracing is inapplicable even if 32GB vram is there.. the gpu will just keep struggling

[@TungstenS7]

I'm getting the 5090. I don't play any games where the VRAM of the 3080 has been a problem for me, but I knew 10gb wasn't going to cut it long term. 3 years with a card I essentially got for free has served me well though. 😁

[@edwardsutherland8240]

so all gaming laptop users are screwed?

[@corriban]

"Gaming" and "laptop" right next to each other is blasphemy in and of itself

[@erikbritz8095]

Its been screwed for years, laptop users jist wont admit it 😅

[@Cpt_Wolf]

They always been.

[@giglioflex]

That's nothing new. Gaming laptops have always had a short lifespan. If it isn't the heat killing it early, it's the lack of VRAM or lack of drivers because your laptop OEM requires ones for your specific laptop that they don't even bother updating.

[@AnonymousUser-ww6ns]

@ed that’s why I just buy a cheap $400 laptop and an expensive $2,000 gaming pc. Gaming pc is more upgradeable anyways

[@robblack8754]

It's Gigabytes Used not Gigabyte's Used

[@ozzuneoj]

Thank you. I was hoping I wasn't the only one.

[@walter274]

2016 to 2024, 450 becomes 600. About a 33% increase. I don't make 33% more :(

[@XPuntar]

Well I bought GTX 1070 for €400 in 2017. 4070 Ti Super with 16GB in EU cost €900! My wage certainly did not increased by 125%!!!

[@HaikuOezu]

Some games straight up crash when they run out of VRAM so yeah I'm feeling the VRAM crunch I find myself unable to play Robocop Rogue City with everything maxed out and DLSS + FG despite my card handling it just fine because the game allocates a bunch of assets during cutscenes and it causes the game to crash with DXGI_DEVICE_HUNG. And no, it's not a broken GPU or something else, this happens with two completely different 4070's and I can make it happen at any time by using something like OCCT to occupy VRAM while the game is running - the second VRAM usage goes over 15.6GB for the Ti Super and 11.5 for the 4070 the game crashes no matter what's happening on the screen.

[@Rileygee0224]

Memory isn't the issue, lack of game optimization is. Ok let me be more clear, you could spend hundreds of hours optimizing a game but still get worse performance on a 6Gb vs 8Gb card but my point is larger games now a days depend on you having tons of V-ram to buffer loose assets and such just to push a game out faster and worry about fixing it later I.E Battlefield 2042 which was terrible at launch and some users with 12+ Gbs of ram were maxing out so I can't imagine how bad it would be for a smaller 8Gb card or less. My older Rtx 2060 which had 6Gbs of ram ran modern triple A titles at the time perfectly.

[@vash_dakari]

Frame gen works best when DLSS is on, so even at 4K you're not at native resolution while frame gen is active. There would be a VRAM offset with the two technologies enabled. While the comparison is amazing, it's being done on a 4090 that really doesn't require frame gen. If you're on a card where you do need frame gen, it's probably because you've had to use DLSS to begin with. At 4K with DLSS Quality you would actually be at 1440p, so you could extrapolate from the graphs by using the 1440p table to see how much VRAM is needed. DLSS performance? Look at the 1080p results. This still doesn't look good for 8GB cards, but it does bode better for 12GB cards. Honestly, I wouldn't get anything less than 16GB anyways.

[@Velzevul666]

what about the same test but on AMD cards? Do AMD cards handle memory the same way as NVIDIA or is it dictated by the game?

[@AaronWOfficial]

idk if people are just taking some insane crack or what, but I am running 1440p DSR with no upscaling (I have 1080p screen atm, but plan to upgrade to 1440p soon) with 12gb of vram and my performance is fine on the majority of games using max settings. Obviously I am not running cyberpunk with path tracing, not even a 4090 can run that well XD. I would say above 12gb of vram is only necessary if playing in 4k.

[@spladam3845]

That's strange, Horizon Forbidden West uses 10-11GB of VRAM for me on average @ 1440p, it will start out at 9 but level out in the mid 11's. I've recently upgraded so I've spent a lot of time in game with the overlay and HWinfo logging.

[@darodaredevil]

Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor was using 7.5gb in 2017 on my old 1080. Its disgrace they try to sell anything less than that in today market

[@awebuser5914]

"Used" or allocated? Two _entirely_ different things...

[@puffyips]

@@awebuser5914you’re really gonna still use that argument on a hardware unboxed video talking about vram.. some people 🤦‍♀️

[@awebuser5914]

@@puffyips Ya, these HUB guys are basically clueless when it comes to actually _understanding_ how software interacts with PC VRAM and the incredibly complex optimizations that are going-on behind the scenes. Clearly, a lot of recent console ports were horrific disasters where the devs. did little to no work on optimizing for the highly varied platform that PC is, but that has no relevance to how powerful even older-gen hardware is compared to "current" consoles. (TL/DR: lazy, clueless devs. are the issue, not the hardware...)

[@clinten3131]

Everyone building or buying a gaming pc should see this video first. I would not go below 16 gb in 2024 in a new system. Also why are gaming laptops dumbed down with low vram a 16 gb laptop costs a fortune. Anyway this was a really interesting watch

[@garetts21]

Keeping my 3090 until the ps6 is released thanks Steve

[@AenimaEater]

So far I’ve had no problems with my 10gb 3080, playing ultrawide. Even Cyberpunk runs nicely.

[@cl0ud88]

that's pretty much on brand for nvidia. 11 years later I am still mad at myself why I bough a GTX 770 with just 2GB. At least the GTX 1080 I bought after that had 8GB unlike the GTX 1060 with 6 which was already bad back then in my opinion

[@troublemaker948]

you mean 11 years later since gtx 770 released in 2013

[@cl0ud88]

@@troublemaker948 okay my math obviousy doesn't add up. feels like it would be 15 years to be honest, there I edited it, thanks

[@randomisedaccessgaming1876]

Great video, the vram usage is really impressive and important, if you are building a new pc and want longevity you need at least 16gb or more vram particularly if you are using 4k or QHD.

[@mrbobgamingmemes9558]

I glad i stick to mostly indie games which dont need tons of vram. But still, few years ago vram is never a problem in games unless you buy very low end gpu or use integrated graphics,. I remember that from 2016 to early 2020 average aaa games only ask gpu with 2gb of vram on its minimum requirement. But from 2020 to 2023 minimum vram requirement increased like 3 times

[@Greenalex89]

VRAM is the main reason I place the 7900XTX above the 4080S anyday, even if the prices were the same. AMD generally offers a way higher longevity by providing the necessary VRAM, while Nvidia obviously wants you to upgrade sooner than later.

[@andersjjensen]

Same. I'm running my XTX on 1440p monitors, so even the upscaling argument is nonsense to me. It is not needed in any game, and I crank the RT up just fine. The level of visual fidelity I'm getting is something I'm perfectly willing to live with until this card dies, regardless if it's called Ultra or Low.

[@Nimosomething]

16gb if you plan to keep your GPU for the next 5 years especially if you're going to be playing at 2k, 4k is a pipe dream.

[@bosshoggish1]

I'm reaching the threshold with every new/ported game on my 3080 12GB. I usually game in 4k (DLSS Quality), with high/medium settings. In games like Ghost of Tsushima, GOW, Cyber Punk, etc., my card allocates around 11 to 11.5 GB of VRAM. Although I'm getting 90-100+ fps, the lack of VRAM will force me to upgrade here soon.

[@Amberion]

I bought an 8GB graphics card 2 weeks ago. a 6650 XT. Prior to that, I was on an extremely limited budget and only had integrated video on a 2200G. A 12GB graphics card was at least 100 dollars more and looking at the performance comparisons I didn't judge it to be worth the extra cost. I don't mind dialing down the settings, and I'm pretty much going to be stuck at 1080p. RAM just seems to have too much of a price premium these days.

[@niezzayt3809]

With the existence of CAMM2 module, there no one stopping the GPU companies to include empty CAMM2 slot on the back of GPU's PCB So user can add their own VRam. Sure it might be "slower" than actual soldered VRam, but it's still faster than communication speed between GPU and actual RAM

[@CrispyLimit]

it would at least be interesting to see. but sadly it will never happen cause Nvidia/AMD set limits on what manufactories can with their designs. I believe everything has to be signed off my Nvidia/AMD before they make/sell a design. Nvidia do the VRAM limits on purpose to make you want to buy the more expensive cards with more VRAM.

[@bigdeagle1331]

When are they going to make graphics cards wear you can add memory on the card or motherboard

[@shingod700]

I saw this coming a while ago, I had a 3080 10GB and sold it before people figured out it was a bad match with the vram. Switched to a 24GB 4090 series and much happier.

[@mahakleung6992]

I bought a 4090, and it was worth it. My games will not consume more than 14Gb of VRAM. With 10Gb VRAM I built a gaming expert AI assistant to run alongside using about 10Gb of VRAM. I have dumped manuals (text, Word, RTF, PDF, Web Pages, Wikis, Steam Guides, forum strategy, KZbin video transcripts into my vector database for the AI (RAG aka "chat with docs). I can now put down a game for 6-12 months no problem and easily return and just ask questions. When you are a senior and your memory is failing making game hopping impossible; having a gaming expert at your side is fantastic. 24Gb VRAM was perfect.

[@Roll_the_Bones]

Obviously! That's a bit of a dumb statement tbh - what did you expect from the most expensive GPU on the market, a slightly better 4060 Ti, for 4-5x the cost? This discussion is not for you, it's for those who have a normal fixed budget, and need to get best value & longevity.

[@mahakleung6992]

@@Roll_the_Bones It was about full memory utilization and that is where I am at. Do you I imagine that retired seniors are not on fixed budget? I waited 8 years to build that PC. It’s amazing how petty some people get. Also, what most builder channels are not even realizing is VRAM reduction is not about NVidia greed. It is about big tech putting an end to open source AI.

[@miladh1859]

16 G vram only

[@Sp3cialk304]

If the card is powerful enough to use it, 16gb is nice to use. The problem is most current 16gb cards run out of performance before the vram matters. I found this out myself by getting a Rx 6800. By the time a game was demanding enough to use 10-12gb of vram I was running into performance issues. Forcing me to drop settings anyway. I would have happily traded 4gb of its vram for a larger memory bus or AI upscaling.

[@albert2006xp]

Which according to all leaks is going to be 5080+... Ridiculous.

[@ptpoul]

So happy I have a 3090. Before that a 1080ti extra vram is great

[@solocamo3654]

Would love a Radeon VII vs RTX2080 revisit due to this or even Radeon VII vs 5700XT.

[@juezna]

Not to defend Nvidia, but maybe developers should cool down with the vram usage and optimize their games? I find it crazy that 12gb is the bare minimum.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

I find it crazy that after all these years games aren't using higher quality textures and pushing up around 16 GB's. Progress really has been slow. But it's a chicken and egg situation I guess.

[@juezna]

@@Hardwareunboxed Its a little of both I guess. I still agree that nvidia selling 8gb cards is unacceptable at those prices, specially when the last gen of cards (3060/70) was already criticised for its low vram amount.

[@Karishin32]

Oh, this shit again from hub.

[@saricubra2867]

Missleading nonsense.

[@TheGympert]

I just build a new PC couple of months ago right at the time the RX 7900 GRE was released in Europe. I was looking at the 4070 at first and yes its a good card etc but the 12GB simply aint enough. So I took a good look at the specs adn benchmarks of the RX 7900 GRE (with 16GB) and the choice was quickly made. So after a long long time I switched from Nvidia to Amd and I don't regret it all. It's a beast of a card for it's price and faster then the 4070 and 4070 super in many games. Yes Nvidia had better RT bur for me personally that ain't a problem cause I don't use RT that much. Overall I'm happy I went for the 7900 GRE cause it's simply better futureproof cause of the 16GB compared to the 12GB on the 4070.

[@bagerklestyne]

Wondering which architecture handles the lack of VRAM better at a given performance level.

[@irwanstn]

i got my RX 6800 16 GB VRAM for only 369 $ 😎

[@albert2006xp]

Nice VRAM, you can do fuck all with it because it's attached to a 6800 XT but nice nonetheless.

[@gonozal8_962]

@@albert2006xp you do know that you can turn on ultra textures (costing VRAM) while turning other settings down can still provide high framerates, right? also, the lack of stutter is very important for me as stutters in eg horde shooters always happen in the most intense moments, those being the moments where performance matters most. nobody cares about 60 or 120 framerate when moving in a section without enemies tbh. also, it has very fast bitrate, it’s 256bit being 2/3rd of the 4090s 384 bit bus

[@Techn9cian123]

Diablo IV, with hi res textures, is the only game I’ve seen to use my entire 16gb VRAM at 1440p. I bet it would use more on the 4090 at 4k plus ray tracing and frame gen.

[@j.b.7813]

Still use rx 6600 and nothing that I play requires more then 8 gb of vram. However if I was bying something new today I would probably go for 7800xt at least as the other offers like 4060 for that price and 8 gb vram looks like an insult to me.

[@johnbrooks2122]

Nivida is like drug dealers that give u just little more but big cost and when ur hook there laughing that u are .

[@puffyips]

Holy that’s actually pretty accurate 😭

[@jake1225]

My problem isn't gaming but gamedev...I'm working on building my rig but really don't know which card to get. The arc cards offer a good amount of vram for the price but NVIDIA cards play nicer with the programs I use.

[@Angel7black]

12 is not a real problem with any current GPUs at 1440p to 1080p unless youre using max RT in a couple of games and dropping textures from ultra to high fixes that pretty quick. By the time 12 would be an issue you wouldnt wanna be using RT with those cards anyway or dropping settinga to medium or just using DLSS to upscale from a lower res; all things that put you back under the vram limit. On top of that consoles can only dedicate 10-12 gb of their unified ram to actually acting like vram, so as long as we arent in the PS6 era, 12gb of vram is fine. No im not giving a pass for companies to not put 16gb on future GPUs that will be limited by 12gb when they come out when theyre 4090 fast, actually fast enough for 4K or fast enough for how demanding 1440p will be at that time while also using more vram. Im just saying its a bit of a blown out of proportion problem, sorta like when tech deals would say 6 cores isnt enough then would use broken on release cyberpunk to showcase 6 cores running worse than 8 cores in cyberpunk and say you need 16 cores for a 2080 ti/3090. We can be realistic about these cards functionality. 8gb of vram in 2024 is pretty rediculous tho. Its still fine in most games at 1080p but both the 4060 ti and 7700XT are capable of 1440p high in most games and even ultra in a lot of games and all it does is hard limit them, even worse are their 128 bit buses and i think the cutting down of the actual bus is a wayyy bigger issue that isnt getting talked about as much as a limiting factor

[@nephilimslayer]

thats why i went with the 7900xt...it has 20gb vram with 50 terraflops of raster....i will game for the next 5 years no problem

[@Webinho7]

Rx 6800 at 16bg vram for $370 is an absolute steal

[@shadowalphaop5238]

4:47 look at the power draw difference

[@supergubben]

Woah, it draws more power when running at 80 fps than 30?!

[@mars_12345]

I really hope that Intel raises the VRAM bar with Battlemage, requiring AMD and Nvidia to do the same to not lose too many people on the edge of switching. If they start with B750 at 16 GB and B770 at 20/24, then we are golden. GeForce 5000 and Radeon 8000 are probably already lost, but at least the gens after them should have increased VRAM and start at 16 GB as well. But we all know that Battlemage will probably have 12 GB for B750 and maybe some uplift or again a double sku for B770. Wouldn't be surprised to see B750 at 12 GB and B770 at 12 and 24. It's still better than starting at 8, but might not be enough to pressure other two companies. I use B750/770 as a representation of current A750/770 lineup. I have no idea if they are going to keep these numbering schemes for Battlemage.

[@felixkremer7773]

This video just proves that my 3070 doesn’t have enough vram. Some games it’s fine but since most new titles are using insane amounts of vram it’s barely playable. Also some games rely on dlss to get playable fps and that doesn’t help vram usage. I love my 3070 but the 8gb is just a joke.

[@OCX600RR]

DLSS reduces VRAM usage. Frame Generation increases it.

[@Snafu2346]

I play at 3440x1440, kind of like 3k. I'll have to call it in the middle. Though I want to look at a 5120x2160 ultrawide or something like that in the future. Most of the vRAM I use it for stable diffusion in which I don't have enough.

[@jasonsoh79]

The rx6800 which i purchased in 2019 has 16gb and its been great for 1440p gaming even till now.

[@Nintenboy01]

I reckon 12GB is enough until the next console generation, at least for 1440p - but some games like Ratchet & Clank , Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4 Remake you have turn texture quality down a notch to reduce hitching, especially if RT is enabled.

[@vabenchu]

I’m currently torn between 4080S or a 7900xtx, and I slightly willing to drop RT in favor of the extra mem and just play rasterized

[@bradweir3085]

When nVidia said it wasn't a graphics company anymore, they meant it. They have to be making bank of professional -centric cards with much more vram for AI/pro use. They just don't care about pleasing gamers and having prosumer cards cutting into their enterprise sales.

[@cyberwaste]

From my personal experience, if you're playing 4k or higher resolution, 16GB+ is necessary. I used to have a 3080ti and it just ran out in some games.

[@aldamon1]

I always use optimized settings from channels like Hardware Unboxed, so I'm not too concerned with VRAM on my 3080 10GB. Maybe folks who just want to set it and forget it will have to worry about these things.

[@Dudewitbow]

for gpus 250-500 historically should match whatever the consoles have access to. Devs on the PS5 have access to about 12.5, so 12 should be the average with 16 recommended long term. Always keep the console dev vram access in mind when buying gpus for long term decisions as it will save you headaches few years down the line, and why if you're spending money on a gpu post 2020, it should NOT have been on a 8gb card unless its sub 200$ as it is going to age like milk. Some people don't take that into consideration when buying a gpu, especially around a console release window

[@dreed100]

Mods also push vram up. Cp77 has downscaled textures so there are mods which improves quality of them by giving game native textures