4gb or 8gb VRAM for 4k gaming?

helios321 · Jan 25, 2015

What do you guys think about the amount of VRAM for 4k gaming? Would you go for at least 4gb or 8gb? I play flight sims and find that they require alot of VRAM would 8gb be better? And will I need to SLI to make full use of 8gb? I ask this because of thinking whether to wait for gtx 970/980 8gb version or buy the 4gb version now.

thank you

Coolboy951 · Jan 25, 2015

4gb is enough when you sli or CrossFire you cannot use the other Vram on the card you can only use 1 set of Vram

GRUxTSAR · Jan 25, 2015

8gb is an absurd amount of VRAM. 4gb will be enough for a few years. I don't think you'll start to need over 4gb for 4K for at least 2-3 years

rvilkman · Jan 25, 2015

4K already benefits from > 4GB especially if you have enough juice otherwise to run the higher AA settings.

photonboy · Jan 25, 2015

1) 4K gaming makes little sense when it gets roughly 55% the performance of gaming at 2560x1440 and looks nearly IDENTICAL.

2) VRAM is not added in SLI or Crossfire. The same data is on both cards as they simply alternate processing frames. Thus 2x4GB = 4GB in terms of the usable framebuffer.

3) 2xGTX970/980 just to game at 4K instead of 2560x1440 is a waste of money. Again, it looks nearly identical. If you were already gaming at 2560x1440 but needed higher frame rates that would be a different story.

4) A single GTX970 4GB card should give you an awesome flight sim experience on any program.

Summary:
So 4GB is IMO plenty, and again I wouldn't game at 4K anyway. I'd game at 2560x1440. Even if you had a 4K monitor.

GRUxTSAR · Jan 25, 2015

rvilkman :

You don't need AA at 4K. Unless you sit 2" from your monitor and play extremely slow paced games with little to no screen movement, you will not benefit at all from AA

helios321 · Jan 26, 2015

Well I've got the 40 inch 4k phillips monitor, i wanted large monitor coz i sit maybe 1.2m> from the screen in my cockpit setup. What I really want to know is if a single gtx 970/980s at 8GB vram is overkill as the gpu may not be even powerful enough for 8gb to be worth it.

GRUxTSAR · Jan 26, 2015

helios321 :

It's not worth it. 1 GTX 970 should be more than enough for a flight sim. We aren't talking Crysis 3 or Metro

photonboy · Jan 28, 2015

helios321 :

I can't state this enough:

You don't need to game at 4K resolution even if you have a 4K monitor. It would look basically IDENTICAL at 2560x1440 but your frame rate would be a lot lower.

I've used several flight sims and IMO a GTX970 is perfect.

*Thus, I recommend a GTX970 4GB card and to game at 2560x1440. If for some reason you can't maintain your desired frame rate such as 60FPS (VSYNC ON likely) then simply tweak some settings like you would in any game.

leeb2013 · Jan 28, 2015

in that case, you can't tell the difference between 1080 and 1440, so I can't state enough that you don't need 1440 just use 1080 LOL!

The OP has a 4k monitor, why would he not want to use it to it's full capability.

OP, as 4k will already use 4GB, I would suggest getting two 980's 8GB versions if and when they come out, unless you are only ever playing a flight sim, then a single 980 4GB would probably do.

helios321 · Jan 29, 2015

thanks for the replies. I understand that playing at 2560x1440 would of course mean better framerates. But i have a very large 40 inch monitor, so yes I can tell a difference more than other smaller monitors. Thank you photonboy your points are still quite valid. But i've been playing on 4k now and I dont think i'd want to use any lower resolution. I do play other games other than flight sim, so I think i'll wait for some new 8gb video cards. Unfortunately it seems a while before one does.

GRUxTSAR · Jan 29, 2015

helios321 :

OP get an R9 290X. AMD is better than Nvidia at 4K and the 290X has a large memory bus. It was designed for 4K. There isn't a single card on the market that could utilize 8gb VRAM. Even the GTX 970 only uses 3.5gb

helios321 · Jan 30, 2015

GRUxTSAR :

Why do you say R9 290X rather than gtx 970 for 4k? They seem practically the same in most benchmarks. I haven't used AMD's in a while but from memory nvidia is generally more compatible with more games.

11sphere92 · Jan 30, 2015

Suggesting to get R9 295x2, it Cost Cheaper and BENCHMARKED more than TITAN graphcard, it had 8gb. But if you had no limit on budget, would be better getting GTX 980 x 2 (SLi), since it gonna cost way more.

Anyway, R9 290x > GTX 970 (3 Days ago NVIDIA State that GTX 970 only had PRIMARY 3,5gb and SECONDARY 512MB which is lot slower, and people are experiencing some problems when they uses 3,5gb of those VRAM also there are other info that is wrong such as the ROP)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation/4

FYI : I'm a GTX 970 User also and kinda dissapointed with this NVIDIA

GRUxTSAR · Jan 30, 2015

helios321 :

Because the R9 290 series were made for high resolution gaming. The 970 also suffers from VRAM issues (Nvidia falsely advertised it). It has only 3.5gb of primary VRAM that runs at 7/8ths of the advertised speed, and 0.5gb that runs at 1/8th of the advertised speed. So people with 970s at 4K have VRAM issues

gasolin · Apr 21, 2016

GRUxTSAR :

just look at the test,review You are SOOOO wrong the test/review is only made 6 month later then this thread

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor,Grand Theft Auto V,Far Cry 4

I know this is an old thread, i was searching for the answer if 4 gb would be enough for 4k gaming and had to replay since your SOOOO wrong http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/90/much-vram-need-1080p-1440p-4k-aa-enabled/index.html

Search

4gb or 8gb VRAM for 4k gaming?

helios321

Reputable

leeb2013

Coolboy951

Dignified

GRUxTSAR

Reputable

rvilkman

Distinguished

photonboy

Titan

GRUxTSAR

Reputable

helios321

Reputable

GRUxTSAR

Reputable

photonboy

Titan

leeb2013

Honorable

helios321

Reputable

GRUxTSAR

Reputable

helios321

Reputable

11sphere92

Distinguished

GRUxTSAR

Reputable

gasolin

Distinguished

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page