Would you buy a 4 GB graphics card in 2022?

[W1zzard]

AMD has just announced the Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB, and NVIDIA is rumored to have a GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB in addition to the 8 GB variant that was announced.

What do you think, is 4 GB enough for 1080p gaming and would you spend your money for such a graphics card?

 

[AnotherReader]

I think it would be alright for playing older games, and even some recent games like Far Cry 6. However, I would prefer the RTX 3050 8 GB to the 6500 XT.

 

[plastiscɧ]

for economic and marketing specific reasons yes;
if i put together PCs for families and don't have graphics cards that cost clearly under 700€, we often have problems in the POS. because not every young person gets a computer for over 1500€ placed on the desk.

 

[Sithaer]

Personally, not really.

For 1080p with tweaked settings and older games/e sports sure its fine but texture setting is where I don't like to make a compromise in my singleplayer games which I play almost exclusively.
I would rather lower every other setting than textures cause I can't stand muddy/blurry textures and if possible I also mod older games with fan made high quality texture mods.

I did own a 4GB RX 570 for nearly 3 years and it was an issue in newer games with my native 2560x1080 resolution, for example Horizon Zero Dawn was completely messed up and even the low texture setting caused failed or very low detailed textures to load in the game and Doom Eternal also wasn't a big fan of it. 'tho HZD is fine with a 4GB Nvidia card so its also an issue with AMD/game'

I have a 8GB card since 2021 August and honestly I'm not sure if I would go lower at this point with my resolution, 8 is kinda my sweet spot currently and what I would be comfortable with if I had to buy a brand new GPU now.

 

[jesdals]

4 gb is not enough

 

[elghinnarisa]

I voted yes, which comes with a few asterisks and some conditions.
I wouldn't buy one if it was for me and how I normally play games, but as a card in something like my sisters setup, sure. Shes still on a 1050Ti, with my old 2700k. No worries for the way she play games and the stuff she enjoys.
Then it's mostly down to price after that.

 

[PoolSchools]

Talking about futureproofing for next gen games, do you think that DirectX Ultimate new features are going to be important or even required to run games, even for those who will never care about or enable raytracing? Not sure if paying a lot more for an RTX card is worth it, instead of getting an equivalent performing GTX 1660 Ti , 1070 or RX 5000 card.
As for VRAM, 4 GB should still be enough, thans to the ability to use system RAM many recent games still run on 2 GB and even 1 GB VRAM, just with a lot more stuttering and popping issues, paying extra for more VRAM is almost never worth it.

 

[Aquinus]

Absolutely not. I was unwilling to buy a 4GB GPU back when I bought a Radeon R9 390 and I won't accept it now. Hell, even my laptop has 8GB of HBM2, just like my Vega 64.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I voted yes. But this is because of a philosophical belief that bad hardware does not exist, just bad prices.

If a 4 GB, affordable GPU is a thing, then I do not see the problem as long as it meets one's needs. That said, 199 USD price point for the RX 6500 XT is very high as it stands. This should be a $99 GPU in any era other than the cryptocurrency and NFT scam one.

 

[BSim500]

AMD has just announced the Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB, and NVIDIA is rumored to have a GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB in addition to the 8 GB variant that was announced.

What do you think, is 4 GB enough for 1080p gaming and would you spend your money for such a graphics card?

Yes I'd buy one, but only for under £200. 4GB is fine for older games and Indie's (which is what I play most of), and by "older games" I don't mean "relegated to 90's / 2000's", but as a reality check - Prey (2017) uses 3.5GB, The Talos Principle (2015) uses 3.2GB, Supraland (2019) uses 2.6GB, and many "Overwhelmingly Positive" games I've played recently like (off the top of my head) Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun (2016), The Pedestrian (2020), Lair of the Clockwork God (2020), Neverwinter Nights EE (2018), Dusk (2018), etc, are well under 2GB, as are the bulk of pre 2014 games (Bioshock 1-3, Dishonored, Deus Ex:HR are under 1.5GB, Oblivion is 0.7GB, Morrowind is 0.5GB, etc). Many games will in fact still remain under 4GB even with a mild resolution increase to 2560x1080 (budget 29" Ultrawide), or even 1440p for old titles. There's also this other feature called "common sense" where if a game needs 4.3GB Ultra but only 3.7GB High, then just turn it down a notch. Again hardly perceivable in many games outside of static screenshot comparisons.

Given absurd GPU availability in many regions, it also has value as a backup. If you have an iGPU-less CPU and if your main GPU dies, you'll be more far grateful for the ability to play 90-95% of your collection vs having no usable PC at all than worrying about the 5-10% you can't if this ends up one of the better available GPU's you can get precisely because 4GB isn't enough for mining Ethereum. This is one reason why I'm keeping my GTX 1650 Super as a backup (which I was happy to pay £149 for). I've been tempted several times to sell it given ridiculous prices people are paying (up to £350 on Ebay at one point), but my CPU has no iGPU and I'm taking no chances at all as I refuse to pay "scalper prices" for anything.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Yes I'd buy one, but only for under £200. 4GB is fine for older games and Indie's (which is what I play most of), and by "older games" I don't mean "relegated to 90's / 2000's", but as a reality check - Prey (2017) uses 3.5GB, The Talos Principle (2015) uses 3.2GB, Supraland (2019) uses 2.6GB, and many "Overwhelmingly Positive" games I've played recently like (off the top of my head) Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun (2016), The Pedestrian (2020), Lair of the Clockwork God (2020), Neverwinter Nights EE (2018), Dusk (2018), etc, are well under 2GB, as are the bulk of pre 2014 games (Bioshock 1-3, Dishonored, Deus Ex:HR are under 1.5GB, Oblivion is 0.7GB, Morrowind is 0.5GB, etc). Many games will in fact still remain under 4GB even with a mild resolution increase to 2560x1080 (budget 29" Ultrawide), or even 1440p for old titles. There's also this other feature called "common sense" where if a game needs 4.3GB Ultra but only 3.7GB High, then just turn it down a notch. Again hardly perceivable in many games outside of static screenshot comparisons.

Given absurd GPU availability in many regions, it also has value as a backup. If you have an iGPU-less CPU and if your main GPU dies, you'll be more far grateful for the ability to play 90-95% of your collection vs having no usable PC at all than worrying about the 5-10% you can't if this ends up one of the better available GPU's you can get precisely because 4GB isn't enough for mining Ethereum. This is one reason why I'm keeping my GTX 1650 Super as a backup (which I was happy to pay £149 for). I've been tempted several times to sell it given ridiculous prices people are paying (up to £350 on Ebay at one point), but my CPU has no iGPU and I'm taking no chances at all as I refuse to pay "scalper prices" for anything.

This is precisely my reasoning. I intended to buy the 6600 XT Strix but it arrived at an absurd price and it only increased over time. I would not mind snagging one of those 6500 XT TUF models, not to mention it would look super cute next to my 3090, which is a TUF too. This GPU is reliable and serves me extremely well, but I would be lying to you if I did not feel a bit unsafe knowing I would have to go back to a G80-based card that barely serves to output an image these days.

 

[Tetras]

Talking about futureproofing for next gen games, do you think that DirectX Ultimate new features are going to be important or even required to run games, even for those who will never care about or enable raytracing? Not sure if paying a lot more for an RTX card is worth it, instead of getting an equivalent performing GTX 1660 Ti , 1070 or RX 5000 card.
As for VRAM, 4 GB should still be enough, thans to the ability to use system RAM many recent games still run on 2 GB and even 1 GB VRAM, just with a lot more stuttering and popping issues, paying extra for more VRAM is almost never worth it.

It's kind of moot at this price point anyway, because it's unlikely that the raytracing of the 4GB cards (if 3050 or 6500) will be good enough for any game that needs it (heck, even the RX 6600 has barely playable raytracing in most games). So, if I could get a great price for a 1660/1070/RX5000 (used warranty issues aside), then it wouldn't concern me. My own belief is that fast SSD / DirectStorage is more likely to be required in the near-term than ray tracing is.

 

[seth1911]

Second hand, yes.

But not a new card, im not totaly stupid.
On 1900x1200 the sweetspot is 6GB.

 

[NC37]

Funny how years ago during the 970 years, there was people adamant that you'd never need more than the 4GB (3.5GB) offered and that 8GB or more was overkill. Consoles were all going to 8GB but people said it was irrelevant. My how poorly that aged...

Which I said is the same thing that has been said going back to the sub 32MB VRAM days. Which became 64MB...then 128MB...then...

Stop listening to marketing and bad reviewers who are paid to sell you things and look at where games are and at where console games are at. If they use X now, they'll need Y later. Resolutions are only one small factor in it all.

 

[kruk]

My answer is yes, but at sub 75W with proper decoding/encoding support (and good price ofcourse ...).

IMHO the amount of RAM is a irrelevant factor if the card is properly balanced. Example: you can currently buy a 4 GB GT 730 GPU (Kepler!) which is massacred by the 2 GB RX 550 and 2 GB GT 1030.

If you run into memory problems, just turn down the texture quality and you are good to go. Most of the times the difference between High and Ultra quality is indistinguishable, even more so if you are playing at 1080p which is the target resolution for this GPU.

 

[micropage7]

for me, yea i'm gonna buy it coz i just rely on dual monitor, photoshop and few games, so basically for me 4gb is just fine

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I would buy a 4gb graphics card for the right price.

 

[sith'ari]

Hmmm , once again i would tend to disagree with the words chosen for a poll , since i believe that the question as it is ,it is confusing for the voter.
(After i voted , i noticed that Wizzard clarified that this poll was meant for gaming ,but this should be clear in the poll-title as well)
I believe that the pole-title should be like this :

Would you buy a brand-new 4 GB graphics card in 2022 ,as your main gaming GPU ?​

Personally , i'm too old to care for new games any more (i prefer my old & beloved ones that i keep at my retro pc alongside a GeForce 8800GT 512MB !!!)
So , someone like me who keep my main PC mainly for browsing ,i wouldn't mind to spend money for a brand-new GPU or even an older/used GPU with only 4GB VRAM or even less.
But if i did care for the new game-releases ,then my answer would be definately no

 

[Outback Bronze]

Voted yes.

Why? Because of old games and something that would be better than the iGPU for more low end systems.

 

[Llewelyn_MT]

Given absurd GPU availability in many regions, it also has value as a backup. If you have an iGPU-less CPU and if your main GPU dies, you'll be more far grateful for the ability to play 90-95% of your collection vs having no usable PC at all than worrying about the 5-10% you can't if this ends up one of the better available GPU's you can get precisely because 4GB isn't enough for mining Ethereum. This is one reason why I'm keeping my GTX 1650 Super as a backup (which I was happy to pay £149 for). I've been tempted several times to sell it given ridiculous prices people are paying (up to £350 on Ebay at one point), but my CPU has no iGPU and I'm taking no chances at all as I refuse to pay "scalper prices" for anything.

I just auctioned off my 2 year old Vega 64 with an insane markup (got paid 280% of the purchase price). It got replaced by the cheapest off-the-shelf used GPU I could find that supports 4K output (because I have a 3440x1440 monitor), which turned out to be a Radeon R5 430 2 GB. To my surprise, many indie, older and e-sports titles are perfectly playable even in 1440p/Low..Medium. Since I mostly play strategy games that are not graphics-heavy, it's more than sufficient, especially since the card is 1/22nd of the price Vega was sold for and "only" 11 times less powerful.

 

[ExplodingCaps]

I've been using gigabyte m28u for 6 months now pair with rtx 3080, I can't go back to my old ad27qd (1440p 144hz) anymore. The most heaviest vram usage is Hzd, it uses 9GB in 4k with dlss, other games use between 5GB-6GB max. So no, 8GB is barely enough for me now.

 

[Shrek]

It all depends on price, but that was not a voting option.

 

[Chrispy_]

4GB is enough for medium 1080p in every game I can think of, and that will likely hold true for a few years more at least.

If it means that pricing and availability for gamers is better, then 4GB is a very good trade-off;

The 4GB cards that are being sold in 2022 are going to be delivering slideshows at 4K Ultra settings where the extra VRAM is needed, so the lack of VRAM is irrelevant. In terms of VRAM-to-performance, the 6500XT is in a much better place than most 6GB/8GB/10GB cards.

I'm more worried about how cards like the 3070Ti are going to hold up in 2022 and 2023 because the target audience for those cards WILL expect high framerates at 4K and they WILL be using high or ultra settings. 8GB was barely enough for that in 2020/2021.

It all depends on price, but that was not a voting option.

That's true for any card regardless of the VRAM size, so it would be pointless to include as a voting option.

"It all depends on price" applies to any purchase by default.

 

[Shrek]

If the 4GB option is close in price to the 8GB option, I'll go high

So, I am not so sure it is pointless, as it decides which way I vote

 

[Chrispy_]

If the 4GB option is close in price to the 8GB option, I'll go high

So, I am not so sure it is pointless, as it decides which way I vote

There is no 8GB 6500XT, and for the RTX 3050 where Ethereum miners will not provide a sales demand, it's likely that the street price difference between the 4GB and 8GB will widen considerably compared to the price difference between their respective MSRPs.

I don't have to guess, the used market has been giving us reliable price data between 4GB/6GB/8GB cards of similar performance over the last 18 months. 4GB cards will be much cheaper as long as the supply of them remains equal to that of the 8GB cards.