How long can a 3GB GTX 1060 survive?

I always recommend the 6gb. It's powerful enough to use it and plenty games happily break 3.5gb really now. I'd be worried going into 2017 with 3gb vram.

All Imo of course.

The problem with VRAM is that the majority of folks (users and reviewers) who use GPUz to prove how much VRAM the game needs think that hat you see in GPUz is what the game is using or needs.... hence the misconception that we all need oodles of VRAM for low resolutions.

1. GPUz does not tell you how much the game is using or who much it needs. Kinda like when teenager asks Dad for gas money and he responds by asking "How much ya need ?" The answer is always exaggerated. A better analogy is when you go for a car loan and the bank does a credit report. You'd say that you owe $500 on your credit card ($5,000 limit) the agency says, you have a $5,000 liability. Here's the technical explanation:

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x

GPU-Z claims to report how much VRAM the GPU actually uses, but there’s a significant caveat to this metric. GPU-Z doesn’t actually report how much VRAM the GPU is actually using — instead, it reports the amount of VRAM that a game has requested. We spoke to Nvidia’s Brandon Bell on this topic, who told us the following: “None of the GPU tools on the market report memory usage correctly, whether it’s GPU-Z, Afterburner, Precision, etc. They all report the amount of memory requested by the GPU, not the actual memory usage. Cards will larger memory will request more memory, but that doesn’t mean that they actually use it. They simply request it because the memory is available.”

Click to expand...

If ya read the article, they show that no game, even at 4k suffers from having less then 4GB of RAM. Not that it couldn't benefit from having it, but at the resolution and settings that you'd need to use to break the 4 GB barrier, the GPU is simply not capable of delivering the frame rates necessary to break 30 fps. If ya can't play it, what does it matter that if you could play it, you'd benefit from more RAM.

The subject comes up again with each new generation but no one seems to take notice

6xx series https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
9xx series http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_960_g1_gaming_4gb_review,12.html

Yes, they are old cards and in some cases old games but some of those games are as demanding as current nes and b) ... look at the resolutions they are using. Aleinbabeltech tested 40 games with the 7xx and they couldn't find significant differences up to 5750 x 1080. You can search youtube for there test but it's in russian or something, tho you can read the charts.

The have been exceptions ... AC:Unity was an extremely poor console port that sucked up RAM like crazy. Newer games in DX12 are showing performance gains with more RAM but, at this point, is that driver immaturity with respect to the new API or an actual VRAM issue... yes you might be able to run out of RAM loading the high resolution textures that come with games designed to use these with 2k and 4k monitors, I don't really see the logic in using them on a 1080 screen.

Perhaps I am jaded by this issue being bandied about thru the 6xx, 7xx and 9xx series and never seeing it survive responsible testing. At this point, especially with new APIs in the picture, it's hard to draw conclusions whether it's the game engine, poor API implementation, or something else.

The 6GB choice is better in the sense that the likelihood of a move to 1440p is a reasonable expectation. But if money is tight and you know that not escaping 1080p for the life of the build, than I'd have no concerns about 3 GB.

Yes, I just assumed, perhaps mistakenly, from your original post based upon 3 GB mention

As far as GTAV ... 95 fps enuff ?

That graphic shows how the amount of ram is just part of what affects the performance of a card. When you look to the future it's not enough to merely consider is X amount of ram enough. You also need to consider how much processing power will be needed. For example, if I'm a game developer and I'm planning a game that's going to need at least 6gb of vram, am I really going to hold back on the processing power that'll be required to play that game at Ultra settings too? No, I'm not.

History has shown that when the good games for a new version of DX come out, they don't play well on the first generation of those DX cards. Don't buy a 1060 or 480 today because you think you'll be getting good performance when the real AAA DX12 games start coming out. For those AAA games, in late 2017/early 2018, you're going to want a new videocard to play those at Ultra settings with smooth framerate. This upcoming year most of what you'll see are DX11 games with DX12 support patched in. You can't judge DX12 performance on that.

While many games show the 3GB and 6GB 1060 with similar framerates like the GTA V benchmark that JackNaylorPE posted that isn't the case for all of them. This Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark shows a 25 FPS difference between the 3GB and 6GB 1060.



I personally would not buy a card with less than 4GB of VRAM right now. If your budget is right on the edge between a 1050 Ti and a 3GB 1060 then the 3GB 1060 (or 4GB RX 480) makes sense. If you can afford tp step up to one of the cheaper 1060 6GB cards I absolutely would though. There is no reason to give yourself a VRAM limitation right from the start if you don't have to.

Whether games like Rise of the Tomb raider actually needed to use that extra VRAM is another conversation but the fact is that there is a significant difference between the 3GB and 6GB models. I would rather just play my games and not worry about whether I have enough VRAM.

+rusztmas Do not buy the 3 GB version of the GTX 1060. It has 10% fewer CUDA cores than the 6 GB version and is fundamentally a different GPU. Buy the 6 GB version.

Addendum: And in direct answer to your question, 3 GB is outdated now in the year 2016. It will certainly remain outdated for the next three years.

I don't quite understand. So you intended to write 1800p? You have a 4K display that's not working at the full 4K resolution? 3840 × 2160 resolution.

If that is the case, is THAT something that you care to troubleshoot?

I read the question as 'is the 1060 3gb a good investment for the next 18 months'. Which Imo it isn't regardless of what vram current games need (some of which 3gb really is borderline even for 1080p).

Not a single game I own uses less than 3.4 at 2560x1080. It's nice having the extra if it means less stutters etc.

To add, average frames tell half the story. Min frames will be where vram lack is shown.

1060 3gb is absolutely fine, i have one and run all games at ultra atm. 6gb is overpriced in 2017 and rx are so expensive so 1060 3gb is way to go. And for that VRAM thing, maybe games are going to start to use less VRAM? 1060 6gb as every midrange card is going to last 2 years . 1070+ gpus are going to last 3-4+ years

It will be fine for years if you are happy to reduce detail settings to keep below the 3gb vram.