Question RTX 3080 VRAM

[Shadow0201]

As of today, early benchmarks for the RTX 3080 were released with some impressive performance gains. One thing that has concerned me for a couple of weeks now is the amount of VRAM that it has. Gamersnexus mentioned in his video today that there is a common misconception that the VRAM shown in benchmarks is what is allocated to the program and is not necessarily what is being utilized. Despite this, I want to know if you think that the VRAM of this card is future-proof considering the total it has and the speed. I am planning on building a high-end PC towards the end of this year. I am focusing on it to last at least 7 years, preferably 10 years.

 

[Oussebon]

If you're buying any graphics card to last you 7-10 years, you're buying the wrong graphics card.

Or you're going to be very disappointed.

Or both. Most likely both.

So if your question is whether the card's VRAM will be fine for 7-10 years, that's the wrong question.

If the question is whether the VRAM will be sufficient for the useful lifespan of the card at the settings/resolutions for which it is intended, then probably, yes.

*edit - awful typo

 

[Zoid]

If you're buying any graphics card to last you 7-10 years, you're buying the wrong graphics card.

This. Unless you're ok with your graphics card going from "top of the pile" to "just barely getting by" in that time.

One of the top-tier graphics cards of 2010 was the Radeon HD 5870 1GB. You can still play some older games on it today, but definitely not modern AAA titles. If you advance to 2013 then you'd have a little better luck with something like a GTX 780 Ti 3GB.

I have a Radeon R9 280 that I've had now for 7 years, and it's still fine for games that are a few years old and less demanding, but it definitely can't keep up in modern titles.

With GPUs, you'd be better off spending $350 to last you 3-4 years instead of spending $700+ to last you 7-10.

As to your concerns about VRAM, I wouldn't worry too much. 10GB is a lot, and although some games look like they're using that much, that's often just allocated memory instead of memory actively being used. The upcoming consoles also seem to think 10GB is enough, since the Xbox One X's GPU can use up to 9GB of memory. I wouldn't sweat it