Anyone with personal experience regarding triple 1440p and hitting the 10gb vram limit?

[Big Linda]

Hi all

A little about my current setup:

Triple 1440p monitors
12700f cpu
1080ti gpu
16gb 3200 ram
850 Corsair Psu
SSD

Upgraded my PC and loving it so far. Everything is new except my GPU. Thankfully, GPU prices are coming down and I'm close to pulling the trigger and have three choices:

1) 3080 10gb (around $1100)
2) 3080 12gb (around $1300)
3) 3080ti (around $1600)
*I'm in Indonesia and these are considered good prices here)

The main reason for the upgrade is for ACC as the 1080ti is struggling a bit with fps (around 60 with optimised settings)

I would love the 3080 10gb to save a bit of money. However, I'm a little worried about the 10gb vram pushing so many pixels.

Does anyone here run 1440p triples with a 3080? Have you experienced ACC hit the 10gb limit and cause stuttering? It's worth asking as it will help my decision.

For the record, I loaded up an AI race at Monza before and Afterburner was showing my 1080ti at 10.5 gb of vram. However, this could be allocated and not actual usage.?? Maybe...

Any input would be great.

Happy racing!

 

[blekenbleu]

Any input

Task Manager > Performance > GPU 1 > Shared GPU memory
My understanding is that appreciable values before the "/"
indicate that current usage exceeds GPU's VRAM.

Reportedly, by enabling plugin AIDA64.dll:

newer Afterburner can report both allocated and usage, e.g.:

 

[2stains]

Task Manager > Performance > GPU 1 > Shared GPU memory
My understanding is that appreciable values before the "/"
indicate that current usage exceeds GPU's VRAM.

Reportedly, by enabling plugin AIDA64.dll:

newer Afterburner can report both allocated and usage, e.g.:
View attachment 553610

I've never understood this, my 3080 says 7.9GB shared memory! I have 16GB RAM and a 10GB card yet it says 7.9GB.

 

[Neilski]

I've never understood this, my 3080 says 7.9GB shared memory! I have 16GB RAM and a 10GB card yet it says 7.9GB.

No it's the first number there (0.1 GB) that should be getting your attention. It's tiny but non-zero which seems a wee bit odd given that the actual GPU memory usage is only 0.8 GB of an available 10... (Mine says 0.0 GB normally.) But yeah, you will want to check it again when the game is running.

 

[Big Linda]

Task Manager > Performance > GPU 1 > Shared GPU memory
My understanding is that appreciable values before the "/"
indicate that current usage exceeds GPU's VRAM.

Reportedly, by enabling plugin AIDA64.dll:

newer Afterburner can report both allocated and usage, e.g.:
View attachment 553610

Thank you . I will give this a try.

I assume I have to crank up the graphics to try and test the vram as much as possible.

I'm also assuming that the extra frames a 3080 would push won't affect the vram usage.

Cheers

 

[blekenbleu]

extra frames a 3080 would push

If a scenario is only GPU-constrained, then a faster GPU should rarely need more VRAM.
Many CPU-constrained games are because some single process cannot provide information fast enough to satisfy higher GPU rendering rate. However, a so-called corner case does exist:

• when motherboard data traffic limit is exceeded and more VRAM is needed
  to cache e.g. textures which otherwise need to be reloaded.
  • this is called cache-thrashing and wants more caching (VRAM)
• if CPU and GPU workloads were both previously nearly balanced and saturated,
  then a faster GPU may need more VRAM to deliver higher frame rates

My neighbor is an MSFS enthusiast, regularly flying some Airbus simulation.
Just flying past some busy airport that is never visible can sometimes cause his PC to bog down.

 

[RasmusP]

My neighbor is an MSFS enthusiast, regularly flying some Airbus simulation.
Just flying past some busy airport that is never visible can sometimes cause his PC to bog down.

Would be interesting if the same would happen with more vram!
Maybe it's just not optimized and would always cause this stutter no matter what?

 

[Big Linda]

Just an update.

I put settings to high, as that is how I would run ACC when I get the new GPU, and measured actual vram usage.

I averages around 8.5gb and it went up to 9 for a short while.

This seemed interesting to me as the 3070 has only 8gb of vram and the internet isn't full of people running that with triple 1440 monitors complaining.

 

[blekenbleu]

3070 has only 8gb of vram and the internet isn't full of people running that with triple 1440 monitors complaining.

.. which is why shared RAM for GPU. Implicitly, PCIe and RAM bandwidth were not saturated.

 

[Big Linda]

Done a bit more reading and it seems that the 10gb version would be enough for triple 1440p racing sims.

Does that seem right?

Cheers

 

[blekenbleu]

10gb version would be enough

I agree, having yet to buy and test,
but RTX 3080 OG (10GB) is e.g. the max recommended by Gamers Nexus.
As they explain, those cards have often been unavailable,
encouraging vendors to offer more expensive cards
with negligible practical added value for gamers.

It is possible that some VR headset which benefits from more VRAM
may become compelling, but "future proofing" rarely works ....