Minimum recommended video ram for a new video card ?

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ng4ever

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If I am about to buy a new graphics card how much minimum should I look for please ?

Does it depend on my resolution ?

If so I run at 2550x1440
 
I personally don’t see a reason to buy a brand new 8GB card for gaming anymore. If I’m going with 8g for budget reasons then go all in and buy a used 8GB card. Better still pick up a used 12g card for the price of a new 8g card. The 6700xt is excellent for that.

8g of vram is still totally serviceable for sure but they are entry level at this point so may as well pay as little as possible for one.

3060ti cards are down to about $250 used and is probably the best Nvidia 8g card for the money right now. The 6600xt or 6650xt are the best used 8g AMD cards to get today imo.

sadly the first compelling RTX 4000 card is the 4070 because it has enough vram, performance , efficiency and modern features but it’s priced a bit high still.
 
TheHig said:
I personally don’t see a reason to buy a brand new 8GB card for gaming anymore. If I’m going with 8g for budget reasons then go all in and buy a used 8GB card. Better still pick up a used 12g card for the price of a new 8g card. The 6700xt is excellent for that.

8g of vram is still totally serviceable for sure but they are entry level at this point so may as well pay as little as possible for one.

3060ti cards are down to about $250 used and is probably the best Nvidia 8g card for the money right now. The 6600xt or 6650xt are the best used 8g AMD cards to get today imo.

sadly the first compelling RTX 4000 card is the 4070 because it has enough vram, performance , efficiency and modern features but it’s priced a bit high still.
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my thoughts are the 6700xt is a good bang for the buck right now. $330 new right now on newegg.
 
3070 is 8GB, right?

Running any game I want with maxed graphics on 1440@144. Works just fine. I mean, I'm not playing AAA first person shooters or anything. Mostly ARPGs and had the Anno series for a little while. RDR2 was maxed settings no issues.
 
Westwood said:
3070 is 8GB, right?

Running any game I want with maxed graphics on 1440@144. Works just fine. I mean, I'm not playing AAA first person shooters or anything. Mostly ARPGs and had the Anno series for a little while. RDR2 was maxed settings no issues.
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That's why I said 8gb min. These other guys are in space. VRAM panic mode. It's friggin Cities Skylines 2 @ 1440.
 
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Diablo IV crashes with "ultimate" textures on my 3080 12GB. I have a lot of other games that get dangerously close to the limit.

Take that as you will.
 
TheSlySyl said:
Diablo IV crashes with "ultimate" textures on my 3080 12GB. I have a lot of other games that get dangerously close to the limit.

Take that as you will.
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At what res? Does the game revert to Diablo 3 textures at the next lowest setting? 😜

Bet you can't even tell the difference.
 
i would say 8gb at least. i run 1440 and 4k(with and without fsr) and my 8GB has never been an issue though.
 
T4rd said:
At what res? Does the game revert to Diablo 3 textures at the next lowest setting? 😜

Bet you can't even tell the difference.
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1440p weirdly enough.
There's some minor differences between ultimate and High. Hard to tell in gameplay but pretty apparent during cutscenes. The textures were just made sub-optimal IMO, could have used a little compression somewhere.

I personally can tell the difference, but I have a sharp eye and can always tell the difference in IQ in situations where lots of people claim they can't.

Mostly due to AI imaging, I'm not gonna buy another videocard unless it has at least 16GB of RAM, preferably 24GB, but I'm also probably not gonna be looking for a few years and when the next generation comes out. My 3080 suffices for now at 1440p unless the game is particularly poorly programmed or using heavy, heavy ray tracing.
 
It really depends on what you play. 8GB is perfectly serviceable for most unless you are really playing the latest AAA games when they come out with ultra texture settings, then I'd imagine you'd have a bad time in which case I'd aim for more 12GB minimum. I'm sure 8GB will be fine for Cities Skylines 2. What else do you plan on playing?

That said, I also think 8GB is sort of lame in 2023 for a new product that isn't sub-$200. 8GB cards first started coming out in what...2015? That's stagnation.
 
For a new card I wouldn’t look at anything below 12. If I was buying used and found a killer price on a 10GB 3080, I may make an exception.
 
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Just out of curiosity if the OP bought two 8GB GPUs and went with SLI or CrossFire, would the PC games see 8GB or 16GB of RAM? I always wondered about that.
 
Hulk said:
Just out of curiosity if the OP bought two 8GB GPUs and went with SLI or CrossFire, would the PC games see 8GB or 16GB of RAM? I always wondered about that.
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Most PC games wouldn't see shit because SLI is officially dead and not even an option on 8GB cards unless you go back multiple generations.
 
Hulk said:
Just out of curiosity if the OP bought two 8GB GPUs and went with SLI or CrossFire, would the PC games see 8GB or 16GB of RAM? I always wondered about that.
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Always wondered? Literally a few seconds of research would tell you that the VRAM is mirrored for SLI and crossfire. I mean that part of the technology was discussed to death for years and years and years and years. Also seems like a strange question to even ask at this point because that technology is dead anyway.
 
pancing1 said:
if you game at 4k 12gb is the minimum as my 3080TI is constantly at around 11gb
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Can you list the games?

I have a 3080, 10gb - and I am concerned about the amount of vram. I would like to upgrade anyway - and I can't decide what card to upgrade to - (used) 3090, 4070 Ti or 7900 XT. I don't just do gaming so I want a good amount of vram - I echo the min. requirement of 12gb - but, the higher it is, the more options for gaming, Compute, gpgpu, video editing etc. I was looking for a 3080 Ti when I was shopping but found a good deal on a 3080 and ppl wanted $200 more for a 3080 Ti (3090 prices). I should have just paid the extra. :-/

Nothing inherently wrong with the card, though - I swear by Asus Tuf cards - at least in the 30 series - quiet, good cooling/cooler - I'd only consider Asus or MSI Trio/Suprim for 30 series.

I commented on 40 series - I did research and read reviews.... so, the brands/models might be a different recommendation. The 4070 Ti - seems pretty good, but is overpriced - and has the min. 12gb but for the price, it really needs to have more vram.
 
pancing1 said:
if you game at 4k 12gb is the minimum as my 3080TI is constantly at around 11gb
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There is a difference between allocation and actual usage. I can allocate 13GB of RAM to Cyberpunk 2077. However, there is no evidence it uses this since performance and image quality do not change if I leave that setting at default values where it consumes I think 11GB instead. You do this via a console command where you can allocate I think 2GB over the standard amount the game takes.
 
Buying new now I would get a 16GB card 12 would be the bottom of the barrel for now and 1-2 years down the road
 
pavel said:
Can you list the games?

I have a 3080, 10gb - and I am concerned about the amount of vram. I would like to upgrade anyway - and I can't decide what card to upgrade to - (used) 3090, 4070 Ti or 7900 XT. I don't just do gaming so I want a good amount of vram - I echo the min. requirement of 12gb - but, the higher it is, the more options for gaming, Compute, gpgpu, video editing etc. I was looking for a 3080 Ti when I was shopping but found a good deal on a 3080 and ppl wanted $200 more for a 3080 Ti (3090 prices). I should have just paid the extra. :-/

Nothing inherently wrong with the card, though - I swear by Asus Tuf cards - at least in the 30 series - quiet, good cooling/cooler - I'd only consider Asus or MSI Trio/Suprim for 30 series.

I commented on 40 series - I did research and read reviews.... so, the brands/models might be a different recommendation. The 4070 Ti - seems pretty good, but is overpriced - and has the min. 12gb but for the price, it really needs to have more vram.
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cp2077 can get up there if you play at max or near max settings, metro exodus, Border lands 3, dyling light 2 especially
 
I went with the 12GB 6700XT and haven't regret so far. It's plenty memory for most games of today in resolutions up to 1440p and it's cheap.
 
Throwing #'s around with no context. Who's picking a 12GB 3060 over an 8GB 3070ti?
I'll lower some textures thanks rather then game at a pathetic FPS.
 
funkydmunky said:
Throwing #'s around with no context. Who's picking a 12GB 3060 over an 8GB 3070ti?
I'll lower some textures thanks rather then game at a pathetic FPS.
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Pathetic FPS? There are players and players... Many of them, if not the most part, just want to run games at steady 60 FPS with Vsynch. I'd personally ditch the expensive 8GB 3070, that cannot even play all the games at 1080p maximum textures/quality, in favor of a 12GB 3060 that could do it while smoothly keeping around 60 vsynched FPS, for less than half the price. Under this pov, no 8GB card makes sense as of now, if all that one wants is playing smoothly with all the textures on. For the FPS freaks, there's always the 4090, why even bother to get anything less? Just my 2c.
 
scoundrel said:
Pathetic FPS? There are players and players... Many of them, if not the most part, just want to run games at steady 60 FPS with Vsynch. I'd personally ditch the expensive 8GB 3070, that cannot even play all the games at 1080p maximum textures/quality, in favor of a 12GB 3060 that could do it while smoothly keeping around 60 vsynched FPS, for less than half the price. Under this pov, no 8GB card makes sense as of now, if all that one wants is playing smoothly with all the textures on. For the FPS freaks, there's always the 4090, why even bother to get anything less? Just my 2c.
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The main question is not about that.
 
AVATARAT said:
The main question is not about that.
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Maybe but it's still about min. VRAM - so, the other guy is suggesting a reason to go with a 'weaker' 3060.
I think 12gb is a good min. - but, it's all relative - to what you play and whether a game requires more VRAM? More VRAM is beneficial for more than just gaming - so, that could be another reason to go with a higher VRAM card. I also have noted a lot of ppl saying their card was 'using 11gb' - I guess on some game..... that kind of sucks for 10gb card owners like me. I don't recall what game it is but if games are like right in the 'middle' - it is probably better to spring for a 12gb card over a 10gb or 8gb one, then?

That's another reason I'm thinking of 'upgrading' my card - or is my 10 gb 3080 still good today? If I do gaming with it - it's okay except for the 10gb - and if I do video editing, I can always use more VRAM - just in case....
 
I think 12GB is going to be fine. The more GB your GPU has the more GB it's going to use. If your PC system has 16GB of RAM Chrome is going to use like maybe 50% of it. If your system has 32GB than all of a sudden the same number of chrome tabs are going to use 50% of it, I think the same thing applies to GPUs. Also, for those of you that say your game maxes out your GPU RAM, that's only like 1% of the time not 100%.
 
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