3 ms·

An 8GB card is not "coming out swinging". My 1070 I got on the cheap in 2016 has 8GB. Give me some fucking VRAM already.

ceeam 3y ago
Why can't we have DIMM slots on video cards?
- xcv123 3y ago
  Because that reduces bandwidth and occupies more space
- voidbert 3y ago
  Modern VRAM (GDDDR) runs at very high frequencies and very low latency. This makes the wiring between the RAM chips and GPU very tricky (they need to be short and the same length), so slots aren't an option. There were actually VRAM slots in some 90s GPUs.
  - Const-me 3y ago
    VRAM runs at high frequencies, delivers insane throughput, but the latency is not great. GPUs don’t need low memory latency. They have very high degree of parallelism. GPU cores switch to other threads instead of waiting for data from memory. Here’s an interesting system with AMD Zen2 CPU and GDDR6 memory, salvaged from XBox: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/4800s-xbox-chip-shows-us-why-cpus-do-not-come-with-gddr6 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/4800s-xbox-chip-shows-us-w... As you see, high latency of GDDR6 memory ruins the performance of CPU-running code.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Const-me 3y ago
  Not enough bandwidth. My current GPU has 484 GB/second memory bandwidth. It would require 7 channels of DDR5-8400 memory (the fastest one currently defined by these specs), and GPUs aren’t yet large enough to fit 7 slots of SO-DIMM.
- pests 3y ago
  If you look at a modern card you can see how the ram is designed - randomly around the actual GPU core - to get it as close and consistent as possible. Some chips are moving towards having the ram on the same die package as the actual GPU as one integrated chip.
indy 3y ago
The 1070 hit a great sweet spot yet it seems crazy that 7 years later it's still a pretty respectable graphics card.
- vGPU 3y ago
  Mine appears to be finally giving up the ghost, starting to get weird artifacts on my screen. It’s a testament to how good of a card it was though - up until LLM’s hit us, I never felt the urge to look for something else. It would drive my 49in monitor and run anything I cared to play at good settings.
ColonelPhantom 3y ago
The A770 is available in a 16 GB variant, making it the cheapest card on the market to have that much VRAM. Nvidia's closest competitor, the 3060, only has 12 GB and to find more you need to go up to a 3090/4080. On the AMD side the 6800 also has 16 GB, but it's a fair bit more expensive than an A770.

ceeam 3y ago

Why can't we have DIMM slots on video cards?

xcv123 3y ago
Because that reduces bandwidth and occupies more space
voidbert 3y ago
Modern VRAM (GDDDR) runs at very high frequencies and very low latency. This makes the wiring between the RAM chips and GPU very tricky (they need to be short and the same length), so slots aren't an option. There were actually VRAM slots in some 90s GPUs.
- Const-me 3y ago
  VRAM runs at high frequencies, delivers insane throughput, but the latency is not great. GPUs don’t need low memory latency. They have very high degree of parallelism. GPU cores switch to other threads instead of waiting for data from memory. Here’s an interesting system with AMD Zen2 CPU and GDDR6 memory, salvaged from XBox: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/4800s-xbox-chip-shows-us-why-cpus-do-not-come-with-gddr6 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/4800s-xbox-chip-shows-us-w... As you see, high latency of GDDR6 memory ruins the performance of CPU-running code.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Const-me 3y ago
Not enough bandwidth. My current GPU has 484 GB/second memory bandwidth. It would require 7 channels of DDR5-8400 memory (the fastest one currently defined by these specs), and GPUs aren’t yet large enough to fit 7 slots of SO-DIMM.
pests 3y ago
If you look at a modern card you can see how the ram is designed - randomly around the actual GPU core - to get it as close and consistent as possible. Some chips are moving towards having the ram on the same die package as the actual GPU as one integrated chip.

indy 3y ago

The 1070 hit a great sweet spot yet it seems crazy that 7 years later it's still a pretty respectable graphics card.

vGPU 3y ago
Mine appears to be finally giving up the ghost, starting to get weird artifacts on my screen. It’s a testament to how good of a card it was though - up until LLM’s hit us, I never felt the urge to look for something else. It would drive my 49in monitor and run anything I cared to play at good settings.

ColonelPhantom 3y ago

The A770 is available in a 16 GB variant, making it the cheapest card on the market to have that much VRAM. Nvidia's closest competitor, the 3060, only has 12 GB and to find more you need to go up to a 3090/4080. On the AMD side the 6800 also has 16 GB, but it's a fair bit more expensive than an A770.