efikkanPeople keep making these bold claims pretty much any time such a card is released, yet time after time it proves to be plenty.
Keep in mind we are talking about a lower mid-range card here, it wouldn't have the computational performance nor the bandwidth needed to run high details with high resolutions and frame rates. For most realistic workloads for which this card is intended, 4GB is probably going to be plenty.

I still run my old GTX 1060 3GB (the one "everyone" hated) and GTX 680 4GB, guess which one performs better?

What we'r trying to say is those cards are very capable of delivering satisfactory performance at 1080p even today still, but you cant max out texture details because of very limiting Vram, and that tells you those cards could have had longer life if they were equipped with sufficient Vram, 4 gb was great for budget back in 2016, but keep in mind we have transitioned to new gen of console hardware that are better than ever, and with that PC requirements will increase very soon, why do you think Nvidia is releasing high Vram versions of the current RTX 3000 series cards ? Why the RTX 2060 returned with a 12Gb instead of the 8 gb it had ? what purpose the 8gb version of the 3050 will serve if te 4gb version is all plenty as you said ?

efikkan4GB is probably going to be plenty.

not for the next years it aint its like we'r stuck in a bubble where all time is frozen and the current standards will remain the same forever.... most pc ports of PS4 triple A games consume 4gb minimum, what hopes the 3050 4gb has when pc ports of PS5, you know, a next gen console that has DOUBLE the ram of the ps4, start to become mainstream ?

looniami have no idea where people think *any* entry level card should play AAA titles w/1440p and ultra settings.

1080p at med/high settings at best, ultra for indie games= entry level. DLSS/NIS in supported games will help but i wouldn't expect it across the board.

go see pc port reviews on TPU, most games consume over 4gb at 900p.... just look at Deathloop

Legacy-ZAI think I should get myself the 4GB variant,

That would be a mistake, anything below 6gb today would be insufficient in a couple of years

ExcuseMeWtfShould be good enough for 1080p with some detail tweaking, hopefully not too much sacrifice in texture department as this is where 1060 3G needed tweaking down most, and those SUCK for image quality.

That was in 2016, in 2022 its even worse, further signifying 4gb wont be enough.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )go see pc port reviews on TPU, most games consume over 4gb at 900p.... just look at Deathloop

and in 99.9% of other games as i inferred?
(read sig!)
this is an entry level card which imho, is lower than mainstream and much much lower than enthusiast's.

www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/3060ti-8gb-vs-3060-12gb.289500/post-4661280

just because afterburner, gpu-z or w/e reports more than 4gib doesn't mean it actually does since it'll cache/preload
i'd assume that w/ a 128-bit gddr6 bus for this performance class it'll be just fine. and 8gib on the same 128-bit is basically a waste since the bandwidth's far more impactful than the additional vram itself, but it doesn't get the extra bandwidth ...

Solid State Soul ( SSS )What we'r trying to say is those cards are very capable of delivering satisfactory performance at 1080p even today still, but you cant max out texture details because of very limiting Vram

Such anecdotes are fundamentally flawed because they fail to account for the fact that the need for computational performance and memory bandwidth grows quicker than VRAM requirements. In simple terms, by the time you max out those details, you have a slideshow because of other bottlenecks. Please remember, we are talking about a lower mid-range card here.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )and that tells you those cards could have had longer life if they were equipped with sufficient Vram

Heh, we've heard this "future proofing" argument for ages, and it's been wrong so far. It was really big back in the Radeon 200/300 days. Yet over and over again we see computational performance and memory bandwidth requirements grow quicker than memory capacity.
As anyone familiar with graphics development would know, this balance is not going to fundamentally change unless games start to work fundamentally differently. Until then, the past is the best prediction of the future.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )4 gb was great for budget back in 2016

Yet more subjective speculation…

Solid State Soul ( SSS )but keep in mind we have transitioned to new gen of console hardware that are better than ever, and with that PC requirements will increase very soon

But consoles have shared memory between system memory and VRAM. Probably less than half will be used for VRAM.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )why do you think Nvidia is releasing high Vram versions of the current RTX 3000 series cards ?…

Well there are a few who actually have good use for more VRAM, particularly professional/semi-professional workloads.
But mostly, it's an easy way to earn some extra profits.

looniamthis is an entry level card which imho, is lower than mainstream and much much lower than enthusiast's.

This is suppose to be aimed at gtx 1050ti and gtx 1650 super audience, which are amongst the top selling GPUs outside the US, those are as mainstream as it gets for PC gamers, so after 5 years and two generations and not at fault here for expecting an increase in video memory buffer size, anything below like the gt 1030 is suppose to be for light multi 4K display work loads

efikkanSuch anecdotes are fundamentally flawed because they fail to account for the fact that the need for computational performance and memory bandwidth grows quicker than VRAM requirements. In simple terms, by the time you max out those details, you have a slideshow because of other bottlenecks. Please remember, we are talking about a lower mid-range card here.


Heh, we've heard this "future proofing" argument for ages, and it's been wrong so far. It was really big back in the Radeon 200/300 days. Yet over and over again we see computational performance and memory bandwidth requirements grow quicker than memory capacity.
As anyone familiar with graphics development would know, this balance is not going to fundamentally change unless games start to work fundamentally differently. Until then, the past is the best prediction of the future.


Yet more subjective speculation…


But consoles have shared memory between system memory and VRAM. Probably less than half will be used for VRAM.


Well there are a few who actually have good use for more VRAM, particularly professional/semi-professional workloads.
But mostly, it's an easy way to earn some extra profits.

Here are some PC ports of PS5 exclusive titles, which we will start to see much more of in 2022 and forward, look how much Vram those games eat



As you can see, most new current titles already consume all of the vram at 900p!!!!, that's not good for people with low income who only upgrade once every two or three generations

efikkanYet more subjective speculation…

After seeing this you still think am speculating ?
dude the number dont lie to you

efikkanBut consoles have shared memory between system memory and VRAM. Probably less than half will be used for VRAM.

Take 3 gb away from the PS5 16 gb ram and you have 13 gb for the graphics buffer on a 500$ box.... that's more than an RTX 3080!
PC is not a unique platform on its own, most game developers optimize games for console limitations FIRST, THEN enhance them for PC, and when current gen consoles have more vram than expensive graphics cards today, let alone budget ones, then we have a problem, AMD RX 6000 series with its 16gb top models and 8 gb mid range models are an abosulte value, buy an RX 6800 or above and you are set for yeeears with that Vram, no worries at all

let me quote valantar's post in full then

ValantarYou're assuming that reported data allocated to VRAM is actually in active use (or inevitably will be), which isn't actually the case for any game that streams data in any way. Those asset loading techniques always pre-cache aggressively and thus end up using a lot more VRAM than is actually made use of as gameplay progresses - especially as they for the most part still assume HDD loading speeds (i.e. a maximum of ~200MB/s, likely much less, of compressed data). Of course, cutting this allocation means you either need better predictions (nearly impossible) or faster ways of streaming in data. The latter is what DirectStorage will do, but also what developers themselves can do if they start actually designing for SSD loading speeds. Of course they shouldn't be riding the line on necessary textures, as that will always lead to judder as something is mispredicted, but there are a lot of improvements that can be done.

Even without changes in game code and engines, this still means that with your current <1GB of "free" VRAM, you could likely increase the actual VRAM usage of any game quite significantly without seeing any effect on performance. This is easily illustrated in how many games will show astronomical VRAM "use" figures on GPUs with tons of VRAM, yet show no dramatic performance deficiencies on GPUs with much less VRAM (even from the same vendor).

One sample is of course not generally applicable, but the recent Far Cry 6 performance benchmark is a decent example of this is reality:

>9GB of VRAM usage on cards from both vendors at 2160p, yet when we look at 2160p performance?

No visible correlation between VRAM amount and performance for the vast majority of GPUs. The 8GB 6600 XT performs the same as the 12GB 3060. The 12GB 6700 XT is soundly beaten by the 8GB 3070. There are three GPUs that show uncharacteristic performance regressions compared to previously tested games, and all at 2160p: the 4GB 5500 XT, the 6GB 1660 Ti, and the 6GB 5600 XT. The 6GB cards show much smaller drops than the 4GB card, but still clearly noticeable. So, for Far Cry 6, while reported VRAM usage at 2160p is in the 9-10GB range, actual VRAM usage is in the >6GB <8GB range.


This could of course be interpreted as 8GB of VRAM becoming too little in the near future, but, a) we don't know where in the 6-8GB range that usage sits; b) there are technologies incoming that will alleviate this; c) this is only at 2160p, which these GPUs can barely handle at these settings levels even today. Thus, it's far more likely for compute to be a bottleneck in the future than VRAM, outside of a handful of poorly balanced SKUs - and there is no indication of the 3060 Ti being one of those.

just because a game allocates a certain amount of vram doesn't mean that it'll require all of it for its fullest performance. Given that the 3050's expected performance level's that of the 1660, it is likely safe to assume that 4gb will do just fine since the card's just not that powerful

Selayaassume that 4gb will do just fine since the card's just not that powerful

on cross gen titles only, i would LOVE to see that thing run Deathloop, boy would that be a stutter fest

Solid State Soul ( SSS )This is suppose to be aimed at gtx 1050ti and gtx 1650 super audience, which are amongst the top selling GPUs outside the US, those are as mainstream as it gets for PC gamers, so after 5 years and two generations and not at fault here for expecting an increase in video memory buffer size, anything below like the gt 1030 is suppose to be for light multi 4K display work loads

wut? no. more affordable != mainstream. take a look at min requirements for games: you're looking at (x)x60 series, not the (x)x50(ti) or below series.

and mind you there are 2 configs:

two variants with the GA106-140 featuring 4 GB of GDDR6 video memory and 2304 CUDA cores while the GA106-150 would include 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 2560 CUDA cores

it's obvious there are more than gamers who don't want to be stuck with an anemic (x)10/30 w/2GB series card. add in that originally this was speculated to be a 108, not a 106 chip, methinks you expect too much from bottom of the barrel parts.

looniamwut? no. more affordable != mainstream. take a look at min requirements for games: you're looking at (x)x60 series, not the (x)x50(ti) or below series.

System requirements are a BAD metric to base things on, they are what game devs tested game performance on based on the equipment they had, not an accurate metric of current requirements standards, i'v seen plenty of games recommend i7s and xx80 cards, yet the run absolutely fine on i5s with xx60 cards, some would even recommend a coffee lake 8th gen processors and Nvidia 2000 series cards, yet they run fine on freaking ivy bridge with maxwell GPUs!!!!!

Solid State Soul ( SSS )System requirements are a BAD metric to base things on, they are what game devs tested game performance on based on the equipment they had, not an accurate metric of current requirements standards, i'v seen plenty of games recommend i7s and xx80 cards, yet the run absolutely fine on i5s with xx60 cards.

well, TBH i think assuming that all sales are for gaming isn't any better. but i won't disagree about min gaming requirements and you're seeing a bit of what i'm saying; you keep mentioning AAA games and this product is not aimed (or has ever been aimed) at playing that level of gaming.

take a look at the product/chip stack; every card NV/AMD releases doesn't need to meet those gaming requirements.

looniamou keep mentioning AAA games and this product is not aimed (or has ever been aimed) at playing that level of gaming.

1650 Super and RX 5500XT cards are very capable 1080p 60fps cards on AAA games, even today still. It is sad to see so much elitism about this, thinking anything that is not a top end card aint worth it to play the games most people enjoy, top end cards are for 4k gaming or 1440p 144hz gaming, the 1660 Super can give you 1440p 60fps with slight tweaks, and the 1650 Super is very capable on 1080p 60fps

This elitism saddens me really, buy expensive cards or dont even think AAA gaming, sad :(

Solid State Soul ( SSS )1650 Super and RX 5500XT cards are very capable 1080p 60fps cards on AAA games, even today still. It is sad to see so much elitism about this, thinking anything that is not a top end card aint worth it to play the games most people enjoy, top end cards are for 4k gaming or 1440p 144hz gaming, the 1660 Super can give you 1440p 60fps with slight tweaks, and the 1650 Super is very capable on 1080p 60fps

none of those AAA games would include deathloop, any AC game or halo infinite to name a few . . but halo:mcc would it be expected! you mention its mainstream but don't compare it to the most popular games being played, all have much lower requirements/needs: ie, not all console ports that you appear to have in mind.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )
This elitism saddens me really, buy expensive cards or dont even think AAA gaming, sad :(

sorry your sad but i'm being realistic which doesn't make me an elitist - for god's sake look at my gpu :shadedshu:
i've had my share of GS 8500s and GTX 550tis in the past to know what to reasonably expect.

fwiw, thanks for the chat, i see we'll probably keep disagreeing but don't doesn't mean either of us has a character flaw. :)

take care.

jeremyshaw4GB is too small for ETH to mine efficiently, afaik. Sure, there are probably others, but nothing like ETH to drive prices.

Which might be good for 1080p gamers, but for some reason I can see these on the shelves at MSRP either.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )This is suppose to be aimed at gtx 1050ti and gtx 1650 super audience, which are amongst the top selling GPUs outside the US, those are as mainstream as it gets for PC gamers, so after 5 years and two generations and not at fault here for expecting an increase in video memory buffer size, anything below like the gt 1030 is suppose to be for light multi 4K display work loads

So once again, the argument for 8 GB on budget card is your subjective expectations?
Do you follow the same logic for system memory too? My old PC had ... GB, so my next need twice that?

Seriously, RTX 3050 is a lower mid-range card (some might say an entry level card). You can't expect it to handle the high resolutions at high details.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )As you can see, most new current titles already consume all of the vram at 900p!!!!, that's not good for people with low income who only upgrade once every two or three generations

After seeing this you still think am speculating ?
dude the number dont lie to you

I mean no disrespect, but you are unable to comprehend what the numbers mean.
Allocated VRAM says very little of how much is actually used. As I've said earlier in this thread, not all memory are used simultaneously. On top of that you have caching, which some games may do dynamically based on available VRAM. The only real way to determine if you have too little VRAM is by looking at frame time consistency. If the GPU is swapping memory, the stutter will be quite severe.
If I were to teach you enough to fully grasp how GPUs and graphics APIs work, we wouldn't get done by Christmas 2026 ;)

Solid State Soul ( SSS )Take 3 gb away from the PS5 16 gb ram and you have 13 gb for the graphics buffer on a 500$ box.... that's more than an RTX 3080!

~2-3 GB will probably be used by the OS, leaving ~13 GB for the game in total. I haven't yet seen any game that only resides in VRAM(!), quite commonly games tend to use more system memory than VRAM. :rolleyes:

efikkanSo once again, the argument for 8 GB on budget card is your subjective expectations?
Do you follow the same logic for system memory too? My old PC had ... GB, so my next need twice that?

Seriously, RTX 3050 is a lower mid-range card (some might say an entry level card). You can't expect it to handle the high resolutions at high details.

gtx 960 launched with 2gb ram in 2015, that vram buffer was severely outdated even in 2015 standards, what happens next ?

Nvidia launched the 1060 the following year with 6gb Vram 3x the amount of the 960, so yeah it CAN happen and after 5 years and two generations, i expect atleast 6gb vram, Nvida just being dicks about it, launching good cards with nearly outdated Vram amount just so to force consumers to upgrade often to gain higher margins, its so obvious yet people clueless people defending this is why Nvidia keeps doing it
According to leaks the 3050 should deliver 1660 super performance, that's a 6gb card, why Nvidia decided, "hey lets make a 1660 super but with less vram" ?

obvious cost cutting tactics and blind consumers would buy it not knowing when they play a true current gen PC port of a PS5 game they would be disappointed.

efikkan~2-3 GB will probably be used by the OS, leaving ~13 GB for the game in total. I haven't yet seen any game that only resides in VRAM(!), quite commonly games tend to use more system memory than VRAM. :rolleyes:

I SHOWEd you the graphs above, crossgen games can eat up to 8gb vram, and pc ports of PS5 games like Deathloop is 10gb :eek: and we'r still just year in the current gen consoles, it'll increase as the year go on. why you still in denial...

efikkanI mean no disrespect, but you are unable to comprehend what the numbers mean.
Allocated VRAM says very little of how much is actually used. As I've said earlier in this thread, not all memory are used simultaneously. On top of that you have caching, which some games may do dynamically based on available VRAM. The only real way to determine if you have too little VRAM is by looking at frame time consistency. If the GPU is swapping memory, the stutter will be quite severe.

Death loop has major stuttering problems on PC, looking at the TPU vram graphs shows you why, just go an read steam reviews!

Solid State Soul ( SSS )gtx 960 launched with 2gb ram in 2015, that vram buffer was severely outdated even in 2015 standards, what happens next ?

Nvidia launched the 1060 the following year with 6gb Vram 3x the amount of the 960, so yeah it CAN happen and after 5 years and two generations, i expect atleast 6gb vram, Nvida just being dicks about it, launching good cards with nearly outdated Vram amount just so to force consumers to upgrade often to gain higher margins, its so obvious yet people clueless people defending this is why Nvidia keeps doing it
According to leaks the 3050 should deliver 1660 super performance, that's a 6gb card, why Nvidia decided, "hey lets make a 1660 super but with less vram" ?

obvious cost cutting tactics and blind consumers would buy it not knowing when they play a true current gen PC port of a PS5 game they would be disappointed.


I SHOWEd you the graphs above, crossgen games can eat up to 8gb vram, and pc ports of PS5 games like Deathloop is 10gb :eek: and we'r still just year in the current gen consoles, it'll increase as the year go on. why you still in denial...


Death loop has major stuttering problems on PC, looking at the TPU vram graphs shows you why, just go an read steam reviews!

They're gonna make an 8GB version. I don't know why you're mad. If there are buyers that want to sacrifice some texture capability or something to save a few bucks, that's their prerogative.

efikkanIf the past is any indication, memory bandwidth will become a bottleneck long before memory capacity.
Having extra memory capacity without extra bandwidth isn't very useful for gaming.

efikkanYet over and over again we see computational performance and memory bandwidth requirements grow quicker than memory capacity.

Correct answers, for the powerband and target res and settings this card will be any good for, 4GB will suit 99% of buyers.

Solid State Soul ( SSS )Death loop has major stuttering problems on PC

From the performance reviewW1zzard did. Seems unrelated to VRAM allocation as 6-8GB cards do just fine, at least when used for resolutions and settings that are appropriate and feasible.

Deathloop allocates a lot of VRAM despite the weak graphics. Our performance benchmarks do show that cards with 8 GB can handle this without any noteworthy loss in performance, as apparently not all allocated assets are accessed that often. The 6 GB RX 5600 XT takes a small hit in 4K due to limited amounts of VRAM, but it's not designed for that resolution anyway.

What's a huge issue, and the "mixed" Steam reviews reflect that, is that the game has serious issues with stutter and microstutter .... The underlying reason for that is Arkane's outdated engine design, which requires a fixed "tick" rate to keep track of time in the engine and to calculate physics correctly.

wolfCorrect answers, for the powerband and target res and settings this card will be any good for, 4GB will suit 99% of buyers.

From the performance reviewW1zzard did. Seems unrelated to VRAM allocation as 6-8GB cards do just fine, at least when used for resolutions and settings that are appropriate and feasible.

Just saw this in the forms, but it turns out FF7 Remake PC needs 11-12 gig minimum to not lose performance from excessive texture eviction from VRAM, you could argue its due to a bad port, but i would also add that its being ported from the PS5 version, a current gen console with lots of ram, so yeah, i told you guys we will start to see this very commonly in the next years

Solid State Soul ( SSS )you could argue its due to a bad port

If what you say is true, I would 100% call it a bad port to need 11+gb of VRAM.

Having said that, it doesn't look like VRAM is actually an/the issue at all with the stuttering, provided the GPU in question is used for an appropriate resolution/quality level.