In early November launch, AMD partners with manufacturers investing in R9 Radeon 290X with 8 GB of video memory - double that of the reference model. Now, reports the Japanese Hermitage Akihabara that it also becomes Geforce GTX 980 with double the amount of memory before the start of the year; an upgrade from 4 to 8 GB of GDDR5.
The way i understand it is that more VRAM does not increase the bandwidth, the 8GB is mainly to improve 2/3/4 way SLI scenarios, since VRAM dose not scale with added cards.
More VRAM will not change the bandwidth. Actually, nothing will change at all except your games won't be a stuttering mess at high res and will be playable at very high VRAM requirements(4GB+).
Currently no single card (Dual GPU cards do not count as a single card technically) can run modern games at 4K resolution at high or near-to-high settings. It is because of this that GPUs usually dont have more than 4GB of memory. However, if you are entering the realm of multi-gpu configurations than playing at 4K finally becomes a reality, and if you are applying copious amounts of anti aliasing and mods, that vram is going to get eaten up pretty fast.
Ιf you are going shopping for cards in the holiday season, and the 8GB version has a high premium, I would suggest skipping it unless you plan to upgrade to SLI or are into (very very) heavy modding. For casual modding needs, 4GB variants will more than suffice.
I remember when EVGA did 6GB variants of 780 and 780ti, but Nvidia got on their ass over the ti (since it would effectively be a cheaper Titan Black), but let the regular 780 slide.
Except for the 3GB 580, has getting the extra VRAM version of the flagship ever done anything in the long run? This seems like a decent Titan successor (assuming its double precision is less-gimped), but I can't see that much VRAM being practical for gaming.
isn't this because nvidia know console devs are going to be lazy and start hampering PC GPU RAM with potato ports ?
a sad reflection of the industry, if i was about to buy a GPU i would hold off for the one with the same theoretical RAM limits as the new consoles otherwise your going to be in a SOM situation for most releases
sure they are doing it but AMD are in all the consoles and they designed those with lots of VRAM so yes i agree with you but not for the simple fact AMD PC GPU's are getting it. Every lazy developer is going to get slack with VRAM usage now, its bad enough we have 50gb games just because they cb-anused to compress some audio for less than 15 mins on a decent rig in the office..
sure they are doing it but AMD are in all the consoles and they designed those with lots of VRAM so yes i agree with you but not for the simple fact AMD PC GPU's are getting it.
Should I say they are doing it so soon because AMD is doing it.
Considering the normal 980's still barely stay in stock, I don't think they'd of done this move so early otherwise.
I'm fairly sure Nvidia would be more then happy to sell you a 4gb card only for you to find out some months later it isn't enough, forcing you to buy a new one. Oh wait, they just did that didn't they?
sure they are doing it but AMD are in all the consoles and they designed those with lots of VRAM so yes i agree with you but not for the simple fact AMD PC GPU's are getting it. Every lazy developer is going to get slack with VRAM usage now, its bad enough we have 50gb games just because they cb-anused to compress some audio for less than 15 mins on a decent rig in the office..
I'd like to argue that Hawaii and GM204 have more VRAM than the consoles. Remember, it's 8GB total. About 2-2.5GB of that pool is reserved for the OS. A 64-bit game might be, what, 1.5-2GB of system memory? I'm not sure. That leaves 3-4GB for VRAM for an R7 260 equivalent and R7 265 equivalent.
Correct me if I'm wrong but who thought Nvidia was not going to release 8G at some point here with Maxwell? I think the caveat is that maybe it was exactly what we surmised on a reaction Timing wise as we can pretty well guess Nvidia has several performance bits and bobs they could release that destroys anything out now.
Action / Reaction....
AMD News / Nvidia News....
AMD new release, Nvidia new release
And if AMD takes forever releasing their 390 series, I doubt NV will give Big Maxwell the go ahead until it starts to hurt their sales regarding the current gen of middle maxwell if it's too long in the market with no upgrades or new release. And lord knows the performance arm of Nvidia *cough I mean EVGA has at least 10 models yet to release.
OT:
Sandbaggers!
It's like the card game Spades, and your opponent gives the frown like his or her hand is crap, but they are holding high trump cards, you believe it and then get burned when the cards get thrown down. Sandbagging 101. Except in this case everyone knows NV has the goods and is just holding it back almost..., almost... like it was planned with the competition...
Really not you will run out of gpu horse power first and with SLI barely scaling beyond 2 in most titles you're done for. Just wait 2 years and you'll get a card with the grunt that can. (unless you want to run 3x3840x2160 with low settings then you may get away with it)
Hoping for new cards from both soon but there is a wait waiting for us to wait on it.
I'd like to argue that Hawaii and GM204 have more VRAM than the consoles. Remember, it's 8GB total. About 2-2.5GB of that pool is reserved for the OS. A 64-bit game might be, what, 1.5-2GB of system memory? I'm not sure. That leaves 3-4GB for VRAM for an R7 260 equivalent and R7 265 equivalent.
More VRAM will not change the bandwidth. Actually, nothing will change at all except your games won't be a stuttering mess at high res and will be playable at very high VRAM requirements(4GB+).
Not really true. You need the higher memory bandwidth as well. Not saying that they go together but it could be a limiting factor. When past cards have gotten an increase in Vram, the results are less than good. I don't expect 4K to be much better with the 8gb card.
Reminds of laptops that have 6GB+ (maybe it was 8GB??) of VRAM when those GPUs - and system overall in general - were no where near enough to actually use that much ever.
I'm intrigued by this. Hopefully EVGA has the upgrade program for this chip.
Would running in SLI help the 980s access the 8GB easier? I've had no problem using all 4GB on my card, but I'm a little concerned about the 256-bit bus being able to use a whopping 8 gigs.
Assuming any game ever really benefits from it, anyway...
its like when people buy 32/64gb of ram for pure gaming rigs. my favorite part is when you ask if they are going to ramdisk and they ask what it is.
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