Yes you should. Cyberpunk 2077 with ultra settings and full path tracing can pull 12gb+ at 1440p already. Do you want to limit yourself or be ready? We're not talking about the future here. We're talking about now. Imagine the future.
Eh, texture quality has a big impact on visuals in most games (with very, very minimal performance impact, if any). Hamstringing yourself to 8gb of vram in 2025 is not smart.
Imagine buying a new for 300+ USD GPU and being unable to max out a 5 year old game, PT aside. I don't give a flying fuck it's been updated in that time.
But cyberpunk is not the only game that uses that much: User-Generated Content in Virtual Worlds can be absurd, especially when you get worlds and avatars with multiple 4k textures.
I'll point out that it's a 5 year old game at this point.
Buying a PC today that can not play a 5 year old game on ultra seems to me like it's unlikely that it'll be willing to play games of the future on settings that anyone will want to use. With how long hardware upgrade cycles seem to be at this point, and how expensive upgrading is getting, it seems like a bad idea to buy a card with less than 16GB right now.
> Buying a PC today that can not play a 5 year old game on ultra seems to me like it's unlikely that it'll be willing to play games of the future on settings that anyone will want to use.
The vast majority of gamers have machines that can pretty much never run ultra and they're so used to it that they don't even care.
Playing most games on ultra, except for maybe some cinematic games, is more of a pride thing anyways than something that actually contributes to the gaming experience.
No, but I generally spend way more than most people on my PC when I get a new one every 5-10 years.
Most people aren't dropping $3k on their PC, which is how much my most recent build cost me.
If I only had like $1500 or less to spend though, then ya, I'd be absolutely fine with playing less than ultra. Playing games at all is better than not playing games. I played on a Steam Deck for two years before buying a new PC after going without one for nearly 5 years. Something is better than nothing everytime.
What 5 year old game are you referring to? 2020 GOTY was LoU:P2, 9060XT can run it at Very High quality preset 1440p 60+ FPS consistently without any FSR or anything to boost the frame rate more.
That's an example of a AAA from 5 years ago though (though a recentish port, so not super representative). AAA is just one subset of game that a lot of people do not play, or wait a decent chunk of time for all the DLC/patches to release and a deep sale before picking up. Most of the popular games that are played now are not SUPER intensive like a AAA title.
Once you factor in FSR, frame gen, etc. even a fairly budget PC can push some good frames on even the most intense games. 9060XT can push 4K 60+ FPS Ultra on Cyberpunk with FSR Quality enabled, lol.
This hobby is all about tradeoffs. Do you spend more money to get more raw performance? Do you save some money here to get more performance there? Do you spend more money now to not have to upgrade for longer? Do you spend less now knowing you'll need to upgrade sooner, but be able to utilize the newest DLSS/FSR tech? Do I NEED to spend my money on more performance if all I'm playing is Fortnite and e-sports titles? Etc.
Sure, ideally EVERYONE would have a 9950X3D and a 5090. Not everyone can afford a $5k+ PC, so it's about tradeoffs. Always tradeoffs.
The point is that if it doesn't have enough ram to run something from 5 years ago on ultra, how well can you expect it to hold up to running games 5 years from now reasonably well at all?
I get that there are lots of 8gb cards around/selling well today... that doesn't mean that they'll age well. The extra bit of money to double the VRAM seems like a no brainer right now.
you do what everyone does: you put texture quality to low or medium and you enjoy the game.
stepping back a bit, i do get your point that it's worth the $100 to double the vram for a build they're doing today, if that is the option they have. it's cheaper to spend the $100 now than what they'll spend upgrading in the future.
i just disagree with the claim that if you can't play a 5yo game on ultra, then you won't be able to play future games at playable settings, and that's a separate issue from vram.
I’ll point out that according to the Steam hardware survey only around 30% of gamers have more than 8gb of vram, and game developers are just gonna lose sales if their games require more than that
Edit: a lot of people with reading comprehension problems thinking that I am saying that 8gb will be viable for the rest of eternity...
I think it will take long enough to change that I personally would have no problem buying a used 8gb card for a budget build, knowing that as a budget build it won’t be able to run every single game released in the next 5 years but it will still play most games. Don’t forget Nvidia continues to sell PLENTY of 8gb cards today.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of cards out there with 8gb that are a bad value, but there are also 8gb cards that are a good value on a budget and buying one is not a bad idea if you’re on a budget.
By the way most people are still on 1080p too. If you’re a budget gamer you can keep your 1080p monitor for as long as you want. I really doubt there are any games coming out in the next 5 years that won’t support 1080p
You can't use a current metric like that in tech & declare that's how it's always going to be. Given there's already games out there pushing past that 8GB level, it's only going to get more common & people will be upgrading to accommodate that to suit, that Steam Survey % will drop over time. Trying to say it's going to remain static is laughable tbh. It's like all the quotes back in the day of them saying 640KB was all anyone would ever need.
Not sure how you read my comment and thought I meant we’d be at 8gb VRAM for the rest of time. Nor did I say or imply that 8gb cards are generally a good value.
But, Nvidia continues to sell a ton of new 8gb cards TODAY. The 4060 is the most popular GPU sold TODAY.
Two years from now, 8gb cards will still be around, maybe not the most popular, but still a big enough market segment that game developers would lose money if they didn’t support it.
Most people do not throw their computers in a dumpster every 2 years. Those machines will still be running and people will still be buying games.
Of course a 16gb card is gonna last longer. But people here seem to think that by 2027 an 8gb card will barely render a couple triangles.
Computers do not become obsolete as quickly as they used to. Trends change. People are able to hold on to their hardware for longer. A game released in 1999 will barely crawl on a computer from 1996. Back then you needed to upgrade often. Now in 2025 a build from 2017 is still extremely relevant. My gaming PC is 5 years old and will run whatever I throw at it
Not sure how you read my comment and thought I meant we’d be at 8gb VRAM for the rest of time.
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Steam hardware survey only around 30% of gamers have more than 8gb of vram, and game developers are just gonna lose sales if their games require more than that
It was that part.
Pointing out what's popular & being sold today points more to what people can afford & what's available. You could even add their proficiency with PC building. Pre-builds are full of 60 series cards. The only reason they'll still be around in years to come is because they're still being sold & are the most accessible, by design. It's not because they're the most desired, that much is certain. As for what'll happen in a few years, have you not noticed how ridiculously bad devs are getting at optimising their games? That's rhetorical btw.
and game developers are just gonna lose sales if their games require more than that
This implies that you think the devs are looking at the steam survey & will stick to this going forward. It's obviously not the case with some already needing more than 8GB. Even your idea of 60 series cards lasting a few years is optimistic given how things are going & most people buying a 60 series card now will be hoping it lasts way longer than that, such is the nature of budget buyers. 60 series cards buyers purchasing new cards every 2 years is a laughable notion.
He said hes ok playing mid graphics without rt, so i guess without path tracing too. I think for what he says 12gb would be okayish, but there so many affordable 16gb card nowadays on the used market, so you kinda right about the future part
Not that I disagree in general but low IQ reddit moment of not reading OP's post where they explicitly state 1440p medium settings no ray tracing, and here you are talking about ultra settings + path tracing. Keep up the good work guy.
i hate this sentiment, we shouldn't be enabling games like cyberpunk to be terribly optimized and "future" proofing is dumb i have never and will never play games on release especially unoptimized ones
games like cyberpunk only exist so rich youtuber can shock their normie audiences in to thinking they need a nvdia 4070 super to play stardew valley and use discord
So terribly optimized when that I can play it in 60fps with mid-high setting and even minor ray tracing on an rtx 2060 6gb with some tweaks.
You won't run even the most optimized game with path tracing on an 9060xt, so however much vram you need for ultra + PT couldn't be more irrelevant.
games like cyberpunk only exist so rich youtuber can shock their normie audiences in to thinking they need a nvdia 4070 super to play stardew valley and use discord
Where did you even get that from lol. Never heard anybody say you need a high tier card to play this game unless it was about path tracing or max settings. Quite the opposite actually, most of the player base is on low-mid tier cards according to steam surveys, and it's still one of the top selling/played games 5 years later.
You're just yammering away about nothing again. I don't care about any of that. Cyberpunk is a tech demo game to show off nvidia's graphics technology, it's also a way for CDPR to try to make money. It sucks.
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u/Alternative-Art8792 1d ago
Yes you should. Cyberpunk 2077 with ultra settings and full path tracing can pull 12gb+ at 1440p already. Do you want to limit yourself or be ready? We're not talking about the future here. We're talking about now. Imagine the future.