Currently I have the AMD 6900XT however should I be able to get my hands on a 3080Ti or a 3090. Which one should I get? I know the 6900XT is a fast card, but I’m leaning to Nvidia (again) because I think in 4K/6K VR Nvidia still is king and during the last Q&A Martial briefly mentioned Ray Tracing may be coming. I know the difference may not be more than something like 5 fps, but in VR where fps is already low any extra frame will help.
The difference in cores, freq. between the 3080Ti and 3090 is negligible but the thing that worries me on the 3080Ti is it has just 12Gb of VRAM. Is that enough for smooth VR flight? Right now I use the Reverb G2 and I’ll probably stick to that until something new comes along that really improves on some of the downsides of the G2 (bigger sweet spot, FOV and tracking). Maybe an Index 2 next year?
What I’m interested in is hearing from people that have a 3080Ti and/or a 3090. And also about the memory usage with both.
I have a 3090 FE, but don’t tend to fly with the performance viewer open. I also don’t run at 4K currently as my monitor is 1080p only. From what I remember I would see around 8GB memory usage, with some spikes as I rotated my view. Having 24GB of VRAM is future proofing, and I hope to get another 4 years out of this card.
I got the 3090 and it definitely beats the 3080, I had the 3080 before and the difference is a lot. Ps also I use the Reverb G2. Much smoother experience with the 3090.
3090FE here, I have seen VRAM usage go up to 17GB in some cases with everything set to max and 100/100 openxr/render. Usually It will use just less than 12GB. I would say wait until the new patch however, as RAM and VRAM usage seem to be much lower. You may even find your 6900XT is more than enough after the new patch! I would imagine by end of July supply will improve even more.
I would wait until the July update. See where that lands.
In general, I went 3090 because of the extra memory and indeed it’s performance with VR is outstanding. (Depending on title. IL-2 is way more outstanding than MSFS2020 right now in VR, even with a 3090)
However, I seem to have been lucky enough to pick up my 3090 at the regular recommended price back in January. I looked at prices last week, even from trusted retailers and the prices are obscene. I think my model 3090 has doubled in price! So, unless you are seeing them for their regular “pre-madness” prices someplace I would recommend hanging on until things settle down…
I’m running on a 3090 kingpin. Amazing card. Great experience at 4K and in VR.
But if you have a new high end GPU, then I would probably stay put…especially with the upcoming performance update later this month. It may be that there isn’t much of a difference between the 6900xt, 3080ti, and 3090.
Additionally, it sounds like they plan to specifically address VR later this year.
Not used a 3080Ti but I love my 3090. It’s been amazing and I’ve not had the performance issues in VR that many here complain about, which I attribute primarily to having this card.
In terms of which to go for they are similar enough that I would tempted to get whatever becomes available.
I’m not sure how inflated the prices are for 6900XT’s are at present but your best bet might be to buy a prebuilt PC with a 3080Ti or 3090 in it, then sell your 6900XT separately and also sell your old PC without a GPU.
I bought a prebuilt in December for £3500 and I’ve been super happy with it.
I run with the 3080Ti / Quest 2 at 5408x2736 resolution (and 100 in the sim) without issue - The 3090 might be marginally better, but probably not enough to justify price difference. That being said, I haven’t looked at memory usage, etc. But visually, no issues.
The 3090’s real advantage is the silly amount of VRAM it has. It might not be needed right now, but as performance increases through the product lifecycle, 4K will become the norm, and 8K will be where 4K is now.
I now Nvidia had already been boasting of its 8K support, but that’s going to depend on the software in use.
I just had a quick look and it seems the prices of 3090’s have dropped a bit. I have seen one on Amazon for £1899, with £2399 crossed through. That was never the RRP for the FE. IIRC it was more like $1,499 or so. In fact, Scan seem to have lots in stock, but at similar prices. I think the scalpers have likely give up at this this point.
3080Ti is really on par with 3090 when it comes to gaming performance. It makes no sense to buy a 3090 considering price/benefit factors. Definitelly go with 3080ti.
One thing I have learned over the years and in the last 4 years in VR is running out of ram or vram will bring your frames to there knees. If you are not using any tools to watch ram and vram you are using live while in VR you do not know how much you need.
I went from a RTX 2080 Ti to a RTX 3090 because of vram. I stream VR and use SteamVR overlays that use vram and never wanted to be in the position of running out of vram. In MSFS on my 2080 Ti I would see vram from 9 to 10 so wanted to remove that issue by getting the 3090.
From all the reviews ive read and youtubes ive seen prior to buying my 3080 Ti and I picked mine up here in Australia last week for only $100 more than the same branded 3080 is that the Ti goes almost frame for frame with the 90 in most games and in some cases better and the FPS difference being single digits absolutely unnoticeable nor worth the massive price difference… I’m very happy with mine.
I think you’re right that the 3080Ti would be enough. Asobo have also been constantly updating the simulator and Seb has said on multiple occasions that reducing the amount of memory has been one of the focus areas. However I’ve just received my 3090 FE today. I was able to snatch one at MSRP last Friday at a Nvidia drop in Europe. Even though I understand and agree that the 3090 is not a good deal under normal market conditions, today it is. I wasn’t able to get my hands on a 3080Ti FE. That one sold in minutes and I was “slow”. So I took what was available: a 3090.
Edit: I came from a AMD 6900XT with 16 Gb of VRAM. That’s why I was a bit anxious to get a card with just 12. I think Nvidia has really screwed it up this round. They were just reacting to market conditions when they decided that 12 Gb for the 3080Ti would be enough. So they would not cannibalize the 3090 sales they are getting under gamers. Whereas - under normal conditions - no gamer would buy the 3090. It would just be a flagship product (there to claim the crown over AMD) and maybe people that buy it for productivity that actually need the 24 Gb’s (and that are not willing to spend that amount on a Quadro or Tesla).
That’s high, last time I checked on my 6900XT it never used more than 7 Gb. Now I’m curious. Won’t be able to try tonight though. I was in the Beta and I have to install the entire package again (did something wrong I’m afraid). The servers are pretty busy
I use hwinfo64 that gives me tons of info on my system. It reports current, lows and max on everything. I keep that app running in the background always. It is free by the way.
I have a 6900 xt and I’m normally around 13-14 GB vram usage.
Pardon me but I can’t see where a switch to Nvidia will be beneficial. Espectially with this latest su5 performace update. I’m running at all high settings, 100 openxr, 90 render scale and it’s great. How much better do you think it will get? Wait another year and new cards will be out. Performace gains should be significant with the multi-core approach that’s coming. I don’t think you’ll see any appreciable difference moving to Nvidia now.
