3060ti 8gb vs 3060 12gb

[looniam]

My game plan is likely 3060 due to queue, then 3060ti from queue and sell the 3060,

yeah that was my plan BUT you know evga are still waaaay behind?

EVGA Queue Tracker

Web site to track the EVGA Product Queues

www.element35gaming.com

3060ti XC gaming are still in january and the FTW are still processing launch day orders. if you didn't mash the que button within minutes (if not seconds) of launch . .forget it.

there had been a crowd sourced spreadsheet on google and seen i was gonna (estimated) wait until next april and left the queue with ~1500+ people ahead of me.

sorry, i really am not trying to rain on your parade.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

So, you're still upset that a midrange card isn't good enough for you? I don't follow your logic.

Not really, I still buy their high end products.... I wouldn't personally touch the 3080 down and just pointing out Nvidia likes to cut every vram corner it can when it comes to their margins all the way up to the 80 tier cards these days. They use to only do it up to the 60 tier cards how times have changed...... I feel bad for people in this general price range it sucks... I didn't even like the 3080 at MSRP it only looked good because Turing was such a bad value

yeah that was my plan BUT you know evga are still waaaay behind?

EVGA Queue Tracker

Web site to track the EVGA Product Queues

www.element35gaming.com

3060ti XC gaming are still in january and the FTW are still processing launch day orders. if you didn't mash the que button within minutes (if not seconds) of launch . .forget it.

there had been a crowd sourced spreadsheet on google and seen i was gonna (estimated) wait until next april and left the queue with ~1500+ people ahead of me.

sorry, i really am not trying to rain on your parade.

Yeah, it's depressing I was averaging about 12 gaming builds per year from 2013-2019... 2020-2021 I've done 2 due to the gpu shortages..... Not including upgrading my own hardware which I do frequently. It's a sad day when I feel relieved I got a 3080ti FTW3 for its $1400 MSRP. I know people who have been waiting over a year for a vanilla 3080 in the evga queue.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Not really, I still buy their high end products.... I wouldn't personally touch the 3080 down and just pointing out Nvidia likes to cut every vram corner it can when it comes to their margins all the way up to the 80 tier cards these days. They use to only do it up to the 60 tier cards how times have changed...... I feel bad for people in this general price range it sucks... I didn't even like the 3080 at MSRP it only looked good because Turing was such a bad value



Yeah, it's depressing I was averaging about 12 gaming builds per year from 2013-2019... 2020-2021 I've done 2 due to the gpu shortages..... Not including upgrading my own hardware which I do frequently. It's a sad day when I feel relieved I got a 3080ti FTW3 for its $1400 MSRP. I know people who have been waiting over a year for a vanilla 3080 in the evga queue.

I do agree that the 3080 felt a little on the lower end of things with VRAM as to how the previous high-end cards were progressing, I thought it would show up with at least 12GB.

I was thrilled when the saw the performance the cards offered and the MSRP they were listing for when the cards were supposed to launch.
A RX 6800 or a RTX 3070 would have been the best option for me, they landed in the best price range and would have been a helluva upgrade from the 980Ti I was using. I didn't fell hindered by the 6GB of VRAM on the 980Ti and 8GB on the 3070 should handle things just fine for my needs. I was pumped to get one! Sadly, many of us know how things went with inventory and then followed by price hikes and scalping.

Then the 3060Ti was announced, a solid performance card that's just behind a 3070 and priced lower....I could live with that. Then, of course, everyone and their cousins were snatching them up for scalping or mining.

Eventually, when all was said and done, I was lucky enough to find a 3080 for around $950 after taxes and shipping costs. If things go like they did with my 980Ti, I'll probably make good use of this card for a good 4-5 years.

I still know a few people waiting for 3070 or 3080 cards from the EVGA queue, too. They've been in it since the start of November 2020 for the models they opted in for.

Hopefully folks are hitting up the newegg.com/shuffle - you can generally find 3060Ti listed on there without being in a bundle, around the $550-620 price range.

 

[looniam]

well i guess jan 11 (9am pst?) will be another episode of cue button mash

does this put a new spin on things?

 

[RandallFlagg]

Yeah, it's depressing I was averaging about 12 gaming builds per year from 2013-2019... 2020-2021 I've done 2 due to the gpu shortages..... Not including upgrading my own hardware which I do frequently. It's a sad day when I feel relieved I got a 3080ti FTW3 for its $1400 MSRP. I know people who have been waiting over a year for a vanilla 3080 in the evga queue.

That's interesting. I've been thinking that this GPU situation may kill PC gaming and more generally desktops if it goes on for too long. I've said for a long time if someone asks me about a brand new PC gaming build, for most of the past year I would point them towards a laptop.

However, even laptops with current dGPUs are beginning to get silly high in cost.

My last laptop was a 7700HQ with a 1070, got it near the end of the 10X0 series life, and cost $1100. Today looking at newegg and eliminating the sub 3050 cards, looks like the lowest in stock is $1850.

I've been doing Newegg shuffle on the off chance I can get a 3060 Ti... for $600. Back in early 2020 I didn't even want to spend $300 on a GPU, that was pretty much my self-imposed limit since the only time I have ever bought a top end GPU it was $300 (think it was the Geforce 256).

For a lot of people who want to game and aren't loaded with disposable income, pointing them to an AppleTV or Nintendo Switch or some similar device is making a lot of sense. Think maybe the days of PC gaming are just going to stagnate here.

 

[Bomby569]

well i guess jan 11 (9am pst?) will be another episode of cue button mash

View attachment 228150​

does this put a new spin on things?

those vram numbers make a lot more sense, but as no one will be able to get one at decent prices i guess it doesn't help us at all

 

[Valantar]

well i guess jan 11 (9am pst?) will be another episode of cue button mash

View attachment 228150​

does this put a new spin on things?

Meh - to me that just looks like Nvidia going with the flow of people shouting for more VRAM with little backing up that claim besides inaccurate driver readouts and "AMD has 16GB!" Guess we'll see in a few years whether or not I'm wrong. I doubt it. The 3080 Ti might be the exception there, as it's powerful enough to do 2160p RT in most games, and thus can stand to have some RAM added. 8GB is complete overkill for the 3050, but 4GB would be on the low side so I guess that's where the bus leaves them. That 3070 Ti is ... well, silly. But again, this is where the bus stops, so to speak. Doubling RAM for a higher SKU was less of a shock back when that meant another GB or two. Now that we're tacking another 8GB onto a card, if anything, we're starting to see a need for more diversity in VRAM die capacities. If they made 12Gbit chips too instead of just 8 and 16 things would be much more reasonable across the board. IMO, given how huge VRAM capacities are these days, this is becoming a necessity in order to configure SKUs in non-stupid ways. 192-bit bus you say, and 6GB seems low? Have 9, instead of a useless 12. 256-bit bus and 8GB on the stingy side? Here's 12. All the while the limited wafer output would be made better use of across more products.

 

[Bomby569]

Meh - to me that just looks like Nvidia going with the flow of people shouting for more VRAM with little backing up that claim besides inaccurate driver readouts and "AMD has 16GB!" Guess we'll see in a few years whether or not I'm wrong. I doubt it. The 3080 Ti might be the exception there, as it's powerful enough to do 2160p RT in most games, and thus can stand to have some RAM added. 8GB is complete overkill for the 3050, but 4GB would be on the low side so I guess that's where the bus leaves them. That 3070 Ti is ... well, silly. But again, this is where the bus stops, so to speak. Doubling RAM for a higher SKU was less of a shock back when that meant another GB or two. Now that we're tacking another 8GB onto a card, if anything, we're starting to see a need for more diversity in VRAM die capacities. If they made 12Gbit chips too instead of just 8 and 16 things would be much more reasonable across the board. IMO, given how huge VRAM capacities are these days, this is becoming a necessity in order to configure SKUs in non-stupid ways. 192-bit bus you say, and 6GB seems low? Have 9, instead of a useless 12. 256-bit bus and 8GB on the stingy side? Here's 12. All the while the limited wafer output would be made better use of across more products.

coincidence was just watching Linus and he disagrees with you. Don't forget DLSS and FSR that lets you use lower end cards with higher resolutions and settings.

 

[RandallFlagg]

It used to be when you selected textures, they would say '1080p' '1440p' and '4K' or similar.

Now they just say 'Medium' 'Max' and 'Ultra'. Good move. Helps sell 12GB GPUs to people with 1080P monitors.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It used to be when you selected textures, they would say '1080p' '1440p' and '4K' or similar.

That was never a thing.

 

[RandallFlagg]

That was never a thing.

Skyrim.

 

[Vario]

yeah that was my plan BUT you know evga are still waaaay behind?

EVGA Queue Tracker

Web site to track the EVGA Product Queues

www.element35gaming.com

3060ti XC gaming are still in january and the FTW are still processing launch day orders. if you didn't mash the que button within minutes (if not seconds) of launch . .forget it.

there had been a crowd sourced spreadsheet on google and seen i was gonna (estimated) wait until next april and left the queue with ~1500+ people ahead of me.

sorry, i really am not trying to rain on your parade.

3060 XC Black SKU 3655 Last Timestamp 02/27/2021. I am early March 2021 time stamp for 3655 SKU. So I am due for 3060 queue draw.

EVGA "In Stock" and "Queue" Summary

EVGA has started sending out emails that read, in part Now that EVGA has sufficient stock on 30 series at EVGA.com and at ETAIL/RETAIL partners, starting June 23th 2022, all pending queue notifies on [Fill in the blank EVGA SKU number] will be removed and the product will be made available for ...

docs.google.com

 

[Valantar]

coincidence was just watching Linus and he disagrees with you. Don't forget DLSS and FSR that lets you use lower end cards with higher resolutions and settings.

Well, we all have our opinions. Interesting that the screenshot you chose (which is a marketing slide from AMD, so hardly an unbiased source of information) has a subtitle noting the exact thing I've been saying all along here: that measuring actual VRAM usage is extremely difficult (and driver readouts of allocated VRAM are misleading and untrustworthy).

Also, DLSS and FSR do the opposite of what you say - they allow you to render at lower resolution than native, not higher than previously. They output at a higher resolution, but that's through upscaling. It can lead to minor increases in VRAM over non-upscaled rendering at the same resolution due to the buffering of data for the upscaler, but that amount is negligible. But remember, DLSS 2160p ranges from 720p rendering at Ultra Performance to 1440p rendering at Quality. VRAM usage will be more in line with the render resolution than the output resolution.

 

[Outback Bronze]

I was lucky enough to find a 3080

I wouldn't be disappointed with a 3080 matey. Its a very good card. It was a toss-up of that and a 6800XT for me and at the time the 3080 prices were out of control so 6800XT it was.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Skyrim.

What was that?

 

[Frick]

What was that?
View attachment 228165

but modz

Regardless of what everyone is saying, I believe paying above msrp for a 8gb card in now soon to come 2022 is a bad idea, lots of new games can consume up to 8gb at 1080p, and todays games are cross gen, what do you think will happen once developers start to optimize games form the ground up for consoles with 16gb ram ?

I strongly believe if you are buying a card today it should have 12gb minimum, and please don't spill me the "suffent vram for sufficient performance " that is utter BS, the 780ti came with 3gb vram when ps4 launched with 8gb ram, then two years later every game under the sun ate that 3gb for breakfast, the 1060 launched 3 years later with 780ti performance and double the vram, that card still plays games today fine, so would have the 780ti, if only it came with sufficient vram, and let's not forget the 1060 3gb ...

People need to stop falling for Nvidia bs, Nvidia intentionally limit their cards vram so that consumers keep upgrading every couple of years once games start to demand more, this is not 2016 anymore, wake up people

If I were you I would wait for Nvidia 4000 series or buy AMD rx 6800 with its generous 16 gb vram buffer, Jensen can take his above 700$ 3070ti card with its mesely 8gb ram buffer and F himself withit, Nvidia are not failing to read the room, they are more aware of it than all of you, and they grinning from ear to ear cause yall fall for it

All of this would make sense if there existed such a thing as a GPU sold at MSRP. But that is not the case, and there are no signs whatsoever the situation will change for the forseeble future. So it sucks, but it's the way it is. If you sit on a failing GTX980 or a RX480 and want more perfromance, what are the realistic options?

 

[looniam]

3060 XC Black SKU 3655 Last Timestamp 02/27/2021. I am early March 2021 time stamp for 3655 SKU. So I am due for 3060 queue draw.

EVGA "In Stock" and "Queue" Summary

EVGA has started sending out emails that read, in part Now that EVGA has sufficient stock on 30 series at EVGA.com and at ETAIL/RETAIL partners, starting June 23th 2022, all pending queue notifies on [Fill in the blank EVGA SKU number] will be removed and the product will be made available for ...

docs.google.com

your link has my link. (e: oops it was another)
enewt is a good guy.

 

[AvrageGamr]

Go for the 12 gig if you are gaming at or above 1440p. Vram usage is increasing. Far Cry 6 for example has issues with the high res texture pack with 8 gig cards at high resolutions. There is a number of games that use 11 plus gigs of vram in 4k. FH 5 is the same. Don't be surprised when 16 gig vram becomes the standard. Edit; Even the consoles have significantly more ram in them now.

 

[Vayra86]

I agree, $200 ish cards from 2016 had 8GB of vram.. 400+ gpus have no business only having that amount. Regardless of budget I would be shooting for at least 3060 ti performance but with at least 12GB of vram if I was keeping the card longer than 2 years.

Nvidia decided to give us two bad options in the midrange a card not powerful enough for 12GB and a 2080 super level card with the same amount of vram as budget cards from 2016....

Exactly.

Everything else is massive cognitive dissonance. But the topic question is the choice between two Nvidia cards... and in that limited scenario I do think the 3060ti with its 8GB would be the 'least shitty option'... The real question is whether that is worth spending big money on at all...

So, you're still upset that a midrange card isn't good enough for you? I don't follow your logic.

You owned top-end cards (1080/1080Ti/Titan XP) and they were okay for you in 2016 with 8+GB they came with. Are the top-end cards of this current gen not good enough for your needs? They come with 10/12/24GB, depending on the model you get. I can understand why a mid-ranged card like the 3060Ti and possibly the 3070 wouldn't be good enough for you since they're limited to 8GB, but they are just mid-ranged gaming cards in the lineup that's available from Nvidia.

Also, you need to stop comparing prices of 5-6 years ago to prices now. Things have changed, prices are up.

Even the RX 480 card that had MSRP of $239, just from inflation alone would almost see a 12% increase, putting it at $270 for today's cost.
But, it was also using different tech (GDDR5 vs GDDR6), so you can't just outright compare and older generation and boldly claim prices these days are way out of line for what's being provided as stuff from 5/6/7 years ago. Prices have gone up from other factors, too; such as tariffs, wage increases, costs of raw material, etc.

I don't disagree that prices seem high for what is offered, but time has moved on and prices are going up. On the bright side of things mid-ranged cards from Nvidia have been having an uptick in available RAM as new generations come out.
GTX 760 was 2GB
GTX 960 was 4GB
GTX 1060 was 3GB and 6GB
RTX 2060 was 6GB
RTX 3060 is 12GB (let's face it, 12GB on a 3060 is wasted, if possible to put 8GB would have been just fine, but I don't think 6GB wouldn't have been enough for it)
RTX 3060Ti is 8GB

The issue isnt price in isolation, its that unholy combo with planned obscolescense. Paying alot for tech that is hardly used to advantage (tensor/Rt) in exchange for low VRAM buffer is exactly that.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Exactly.

Everything else is massive cognitive dissonance. But the topic question is the choice between two Nvidia cards... and in that limited scenario I do think the 3060ti with its 8GB would be the 'least shitty option'... The real question is whether that is worth spending big money on at all...

I think it's fine as long as he gets it in the evga queue soon. The 3060 might cover itself and half the Ti on the used market. If it takes more than 3-4 months probably not worth it.

 

[Bomby569]

Well, we all have our opinions. Interesting that the screenshot you chose (which is a marketing slide from AMD, so hardly an unbiased source of information) has a subtitle noting the exact thing I've been saying all along here: that measuring actual VRAM usage is extremely difficult (and driver readouts of allocated VRAM are misleading and untrustworthy).

Also, DLSS and FSR do the opposite of what you say - they allow you to render at lower resolution than native, not higher than previously. They output at a higher resolution, but that's through upscaling. It can lead to minor increases in VRAM over non-upscaled rendering at the same resolution due to the buffering of data for the upscaler, but that amount is negligible. But remember, DLSS 2160p ranges from 720p rendering at Ultra Performance to 1440p rendering at Quality. VRAM usage will be more in line with the render resolution than the output resolution.

If i used DLSS i can max all the settings because i'm rendering at a lower resolution, if i didn't and stayed at my native resolution i had to go for lower setttings, so doesn't that makes VRAM usage go up? because that's exactly what happens in RE for example and what is showned on the AMD chart.

Either i'm very confused or i think you got things backward.

 

[Valantar]

If i used DLSS i can max all the settings because i'm rendering at a lower resolution, if i didn't and stayed at my native resolution i had to go for lower setttings, so doesn't that makes VRAM usage go up? because that's exactly what happens in RE for example and what is showned on the AMD chart.

Sure, that would increase it, but it goes up relative to the baseline of a lower resolution. And it would take a pretty significant increase in detail levels to make up for the difference between rendering at, say, 1440p and 2160p, and even more if you're not running DLSS Quality but something with a lower baseline resolution like Performance. You won't be able to increase detail levels past the game's Ultra settings, so whatever those are + however much DLSS adds is the ceiling there.. Thus, 2160p DLSS Quality (1440p redner resolution) at Ultra settings will use marginally more VRAM than 1440p Ultra, but most likely nowhere near as much as native 2160p Ultra. DLSS is still a fancy upscaler, and upscaling does not bring your VRAM usage up to the level of native rendering at the output resolution unless it's already very close.

An example (and yes, these numbers are entirely pulled out of my rear end and are only for the sake of exemplifying the dynamics here, not actual VRAM usage):
In a given game, at ultra settings, playing at native 1440p needs ~6GB of VRAM and playing at native 2160p needs ~8GB of VRAM. DLSS consumes a few hundred MB for its temporal buffering and other data. How much VRAM will 2160p DLSS Quality at Ultra settings then require? 6GB + a few hundred MB. There is no increase in the internal rendering resolution, thus none of the factors that increase VRAM usage in native rendering between 1440p and 2160p are in play, and thus, you don't see the same increase in VRAM usage.

 

[Bomby569]

I think you got my original point.
This is confusing but i can do 1440p with max settings (even if i'm not really doing 1440p), and i would never be doing 1080p high or ultra (that is not an option for most of us, go for the lower res then what your monitor supports), i would be doing 1440p low settings, so it uses a lot more VRAM. This was just my point. Even if i admit the way i initially put it was confusing.

 

[Valantar]

I think you got my original point.
This is confusing but i can do 1440p with max settings (even if i'm not really doing 1440p), and i would never be doing 1080p high or ultra (that is not an option for most of us, go for the lower res then what your monitor supports), i would be doing 1440p low settings, so it uses a lot more VRAM. This was just my point. Even if i admit the way i initially put it was confusing.

I see what you're saying, but how does that relate to DLSS? DLSS always lowers the actual rendering resolution - that's the entire point of it. You have DLAA, which uses the temporal scaler from DLSS as an anti-aliasing pass at native resolution, but that's not DLSS. DLSS is an upscaler, after all, and a huge part of its point is to allow for play at upscaled-to-native resolution at higher quality levels than you would be able to use if you were rendering at native resolution. I.e. in a game where you can play at 1080p High or 1440p Low, DLSS allows you to kinda-sorta get the experience of 1440p High through rendering at 1080p High and then upscaling it.

Also, lowering detail levels at any given resolution will drastically lower VRAM usage in most games, so at that point this whole discussion is pretty much moot. If we have games in 4-5 years that need more than 8GB of VRAM at 1440p medium (or, god forbid, low), PC gaming would be utterly dead, as that's an entirely unrealistic baseline for performance.

 

[Mussels]

I think you got my original point.
This is confusing but i can do 1440p with max settings (even if i'm not really doing 1440p), and i would never be doing 1080p high or ultra (that is not an option for most of us, go for the lower res then what your monitor supports), i would be doing 1440p low settings, so it uses a lot more VRAM. This was just my point. Even if i admit the way i initially put it was confusing.

Resolution + Textures + AA

Those three are the VRAM eaters, the rest of the settings are more or less GPU usage
So quite often all you need to do is lower from ultra to high or medium, and halve the VRAM usage with the eye candy still the same

DLSS, Image scaling, and FSR all let us render lower than native res while outputting native res - so we are finally getting the methods consoles have always had to cheat performance on PC as well.

Render at 1080p, output at 4k with sharpening and away you go. Suddenly you dont need a monster GPU, or 24GB VRAM