Aura89:

Where?

Going past 4GB of VRAM is trivial even at 1080p with modern games. And 1080p with max textures, if not max everything else, in modern games is what I'd consider bare minimum even for an entry-level discrete graphics card today. If you're comfortable going lower than that you don't need a discrete card at all. Feel free to disagree. *shrug*

Kaarme:

Let's be honest here: You shouldn't even buy x050 if you are planning to play the latest AAA games. It's good, with its 4GB, for old games and those esports titles that some live and breath for.

For Nvidia It's kind of the only new option under the 3060 series.. with the 60 series now being essentially a high end series, and every card above it just being higher high end. Who am I kidding the 1050 is now overpriced at $400... the 3050 is going to be like $800 My 470 was $279... how is the 1050 more than it now..... prices are just fucked. https://i.imgur.com/EKx8gaU.jpg

KissSh0t:

For Nvidia It's kind of the only new option under the 3060 series.. with the 60 series now being essentially a high end series, and every card above it just being higher high end. Who am I kidding the 1050 is now overpriced at $400... the 3050 is going to be like $800 My 470 was $279... how is the 1050 more than it now..... prices are just ******. https://i.imgur.com/EKx8gaU.jpg

Used Pascal cards are the answer. gtx1070 are going for 400$ used, less than rx580 8gb. Getting a newer/new card is just a dream.

Kaarme:

Mainstream can have many kinds of memory configurations: 3060 and 6700XT have 12GB, 6600 (XT) and 3070 have 8GB, 6800 has 16GB. Let's be honest here: You shouldn't even buy x050 if you are planning to play the latest AAA games. It's good, with its 4GB, for old games and those esports titles that some live and breath for.

Sure,i wouldnt neither. But older games that dont eat up the full memory size already play well enough on cards older as 5 years though. I think the bare minimum should be atleast 6gb now,for recent and newer games. I dont see any reason neither to buy a 4gb card in these times as a gamer. I'd rather buy an older generation with more memory. No matter the new architecture on these gpu's,people will still be heavily limited with 4gb. @KisShot..Yes those prices are absolute ridiculous. Im hoping my 970 lives long enough before i need to upgrade, cus at this point im not gonna spend 1k bucks for a gpu,just no way. I already thought 420Euro was alot back then for my 970.

Smokey25:

Sure,i wouldnt neither. But older games that dont eat up the full memory size already play well enough on cards older as 5 years though. I think the bare minimum should be atleast 6gb now,for recent and newer games. I dont see any reason neither to buy a 4gb card in these times as a gamer. I'd rather buy an older generation with more memory. No matter the new architecture on these gpu's,people will still be heavily limited with 4gb.

I don't disagree on that. Even if the prices were normal throughout the product line, I wouldn't recommend a 4GB card to anyone who intends to play games. Of course there could be a very specific scenario, like the PC would only be used to run an emulator to play obsolete games, but a person building such a system wouldn't need my advice in the first place. Someone saying they only intend to play old games or esports titles is also not super convincing because their thoughts might change after a year. What then? I have no doubt 3050 4GB will find its way into those so called gaming PCs by various OEMs. It'll be decent business for NVidia.

Agonist:

LOL always hilarious seeing people cry about the vram amount on a mainstream GPU. 4GB is enough especially for you DLSS lovers. Most games I have tested my RX 570 8GB dont even use 6GB on a 3440x1440 panel.

Playing Diablo 2R much lately and on my 1060 laptop game is using 5.5gb at high settings while on my desktop rx580 game is using 7.5gb on ultra.

dragonlord:

Just two examples off the top of my head... No Man's Sky uses more than 4 gb of VRAM on any resolution for textures, geometry tessellation, etc. Diablo 2 Resurrected uses more than 4 gb of VRAM at its top quality settings. Both games mean that you have to sacrifice quality for performance (regardless of resolution) on ANY 4 gb VRAM card from the 970 on up. So, count me in on the vote for no more graphics cards with only 4 gb VRAM in the modern age. 🙂

And here's more text without proof. The question isn't: Can a game use more then 4GB of vram The question is: Would a 3050 performance GPU actually get a performance BENEFIT from more then 4GB of ram while still being in a playable state? AKA NOT: "Oh well at 4K the 3050 gets 12fps with 4GB and 8GB improves this to 16fps" Instead: "This GPU with 4GB VRAM runs this game well at these settings and this resolution and can maintain 60FPS, increasing it to 8GB provides a 61fps average and is within margin of error" That is what you'll find, because again, a 3050 will not have the performance when it matters to care about having double the vram. Reviews time and time again show this to be true, i don't even know why its still up to debate on these forums.

KissSh0t:

I was going to purchase an RX 580 at the end of last year when I upgraded everything else and that video card had 8gb memory before the price was inflated from under $300 to be nearly $900 when I went to go purchase it.. and from what I understand a 3050 is more powerful than an RX 580 so that makes it interesting for me.

I'm not saying a 3050 will be a bad card, i'm saying you won't get a benefit from 8GB of vram from that performance of a card, just the same as an RX 580 4GB and 8GB card show little to no difference in performance at playable settings.

Undying:

Playing Diablo 2R much lately and on my 1060 laptop game is using 5.5gb at high settings while on my desktop rx580 game is using 7.5gb on ultra.

It doesn't matter how much a game "can" fill vram up with, as not only is it often just filling it up because it can and/or just allocating it, what matters is if the game CAN'T fill it up to whatever max it theoretically can, does the game lower performance because of it? There's plenty, PLENTY of reviews that show that ram or vram can be filled up by a game but limiting that amount of ram or vram below what it can fill up does not change performance at all. This is ofcourse dependent on the game, but the simple fact is this: Just because it CAN fill it up, does not mean it'll get a PERFORMANCE benefit out of it, and therefore, what is the point?

Exodite:

Going past 4GB of VRAM is trivial even at 1080p with modern games. And 1080p with max textures, if not max everything else, in modern games is what I'd consider bare minimum even for an entry-level discrete graphics card today. If you're comfortable going lower than that you don't need a discrete card at all. Feel free to disagree. *shrug*

Thanks for the added proof yet again https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/captain-picard-facepalm-bust/intro-import.jpg

Aura89:

And here's more text without proof. The question isn't: Can a game use more then 4GB of vram The question is: Would a 3050 performance GPU actually get a performance BENEFIT from more then 4GB of ram while still being in a playable state? AKA NOT: "Oh well at 4K the 3050 gets 12fps with 4GB and 8GB improves this to 16fps" Instead: "This GPU with 4GB VRAM runs this game well at these settings and this resolution and can maintain 60FPS, increasing it to 8GB provides a 61fps average and is within margin of error" That is what you'll find, because again, a 3050 will not have the performance when it matters to care about having double the vram. Reviews time and time again show this to be true, i don't even know why its still up to debate on these forums. I'm not saying a 3050 will be a bad card, i'm saying you won't get a benefit from 8GB of vram from that performance of a card, just the same as an RX 580 4GB and 8GB card show little to no difference in performance at playable settings. It doesn't matter how much a game "can" fill vram up with, as not only is it often just filling it up because it can and/or just allocating it, what matters is if the game CAN'T fill it up to whatever max it theoretically can, does the game lower performance because of it? There's plenty, PLENTY of reviews that show that ram or vram can be filled up by a game but limiting that amount of ram or vram below what it can fill up does not change performance at all. This is ofcourse dependent on the game, but the simple fact is this: Just because it CAN fill it up, does not mean it'll get a PERFORMANCE benefit out of it, and therefore, what is the point? Thanks for the added proof yet again https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/captain-picard-facepalm-bust/intro-import.jpg

I did crank up the settings to ultra on 1060 6gb but you can feel it suffers and performance drops significantly. Stuttering becomes noticable also. Its not becouse 1060 is so much slower than rx580 but simply becouse it does not have enough vram.

I personally have a rx 580 4gb. Even at 1080p the 4gb vram is struggling in modern games. Stutter and fps drop happens often, and in some titles I need to lower the texture to medium settings.

Undying:

Used Pascal cards are the answer. gtx1070 are going for 400$ used, less than rx580 8gb. Getting a newer/new card is just a dream.

You aren't kidding, after now looking.... you can find GTX 1070 for just $20 more than GT 1050.............................. WHAT THE ACTUAL **** *edit* Never mind, that was an auction, for me to buy they are between $500/$600, which I must say is tempting.. I think the best move would be to hold out until Intel enters the ring, just to see what the market does.

KissSh0t:

I think the best move would be to hold out until Intel enters the ring, just to see what the market does.

Signs indicate Intel cards should offer decent hash rates, so you know what the market will do. Intel drivers might cause some trouble to gamers in the beginning, but that doesn't concern miners with their extremely constant requirements.

Undying said, "I did crank up the settings to ultra on 1060 6gb but you can feel it suffers and performance drops significantly. Stuttering becomes noticable also. Its not becouse 1060 is so much slower than rx580 but simply becouse it does not have enough vram." This, of course, is the correct answer. It's not about "can I gimp the game's quality and performance enough to squeeze it into 4 gb vs. 8 gb", but rather are there games for which the added 4 gb will make a huge difference? And the answer to that question is decidedly YES. And now with games that REQUIRE more than 4gb of VRAM at any resolution, that question is entirely moot. The extra RAM to VRAM swapping alone will make the game unplayable with stuttering, etc. The AYEs for "8 gb as a minimum going forward from 2021 on" have it. 🙂

Kaarme:

It's an entry level card, though. You don't buy an entry level card expecting to play the latest AAA games with settings turned all the way up. For medium settings and 1080p, 4GB might still be enough. For the manufacturers dropping the VRAM to 4GB from 8GB would bring some savings. Although consumers will never see any savings as long as miners are in power.

Dunno 4GB is still low. The card should be close to 1060 ~ 1070 in term of performance and i'd say with this kind of performance 4GB is on the low side for new games at 1080. 6GB would be preferable as a minimum.

MonstroMart:

Dunno 4GB is still low. The card should be close to 1060 ~ 1070 in term of performance and i'd say with this kind of performance 4GB is on the low side for new games at 1080. 6GB would be preferable as a minimum.

It's low, but in my opinion it's an entry level card (no matter how it compares to past generations), so being compromised in some ways goes without saying. Of course someone else in this thread did consider it mainstream. If you follow his opinion, it's definitely low.

dragonlord:

And the answer to that question is decidedly YES.

The answer to that is no, you should probably fix that, or provide non anecdotal proof (aka proof that is subject to someones own opinion or has no way of determining if more VRAM would improve the performance in said game. AKA you can't just say that a graphics card VRAM is causing performance issues if you don't have a direct comparison to say one with the 8GB would be better with the exact same GPU. You can do things like this with RX 580 with 4GB and 8GB, but you can not do things like this with something like the GTX 1060 3GB and 6GB as they are entirely different GPUs. Just because a game performs better on the 6GB model does not mean it's "because" of the additional 3GB of ram. Nor can you say "Oh but i went from a GTX 980 4GB and had performance issues but upgrading to a GTX 1080 with 8GB and the extra ram made all my performance issues go away!", it doesn't work that way, it'll NEVER work that way.) Instead of continuing to tout anecdotal or apples to orange comparisons, and spreading misinformation, show the proof. Show proof that there's just such a massive performance difference on these lower end cards with 4GB vs 8GB on an even remotely broad scale (again, cherry picked 1-3 game results in terms of why someone is buying a card is pointless) Show irrefutable proof why such a low end card such as a 3050 would benefit from 8GB that it justifies the additional cost. Or wait for the reviews and stop complaining before the egg is hatched.

4gb is pretty low and 6gb should probably be the minimum with 8gb being the ideal minimum the core on this thing is probably more powerful than a gtx 1080 and its capable of using up the full 8gb vram so yea i dunno what ppl defending 4gb are thinking

Be great for media servers.

Exodite:

There shouldn't be 4GB discrete graphics cards produced in 2022, that amount has been too low for quite a while now.

Amen to that.

Exodite:

There shouldn't be 4GB discrete graphics cards produced in 2022, that amount has been too low for quite a while now.

yea, because all cards should be able to mine eth and sold to miners directly or to people with money to burn wiling to pay $>1000 for entry level cards. I am guessing you are one of the people that gladly overpayed up to 100% for their current GPU.

icedman:

4gb is pretty low and 6gb should probably be the minimum with 8gb being the ideal minimum the core on this thing is probably more powerful than a gtx 1080 and its capable of using up the full 8gb vram so yea i dunno what ppl defending 4gb are thinking

If you have PCIe Gen4 platform, the difference between 4GB & 8GB VRAM is negligible at 1080p in 99% of games right now. In future games, there is MS DirectStorage to help out GPUs with low VRAM. It all comes down to the price difference between 4GB & 8GB, if the 4GB is >=50usd cheaper than the 8GB (I bet the difference is much bigger than 50usd due to mining), it's still worth buying in 2022.