I'm considering an RX 9070 GRE to pair with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, but the card has 12GB of VRAM. I mainly plan to play at 1080p and I'm wondering whether that capacity is likely to become a problem soon. Cards with 16GB cost more than $200 extra where I live, so I'm trying to figure out whether the additional VRAM is worth that premium.
3 Answers
12GB should be perfectly adequate for 1080p for several years. Most games won’t come close to needing more unless you use maximum settings, heavy ray tracing, or high-resolution texture mods. The 9070 GRE should also handle 1440p well in many games if you upgrade your monitor later.
You should be fine. Even 8GB can still work at 1080p when settings are adjusted, although newer demanding games are starting to make 8GB less comfortable. 12GB gives you a much better buffer, so I wouldn’t pay an extra $200 solely to move from 12GB to 16GB for 1080p.
VRAM usage depends heavily on the game and settings rather than resolution alone. A badly optimized game, memory leak, ray tracing, or texture mods can push usage higher, but those cases are uncommon at 1080p. For normal high settings, 12GB is a reasonable amount and should last quite a while.
There are already a few games that can exceed 8GB at 1080p, especially at ultra settings, but that doesn’t mean they require it to run well. Lowering textures or ray tracing usually solves the issue.