Geforce RTX 3090: Measured with 20 GiB/320 bit and 12 GiB/192 bit – What does the memory loss cost?

The YouTube channel has what happens if you take a Geforce RTX 3090 with a regular 24 GiByte RAM at 384 bits and compress it to 20 GiByte RAM at 320 bits or 12 GiByte RAM at 192 bits PRO Hi Tech measured. It’s made possible by a modified BIOS that he got his hands on (through Chinese and Russian forums) that allows him to measure the two configurations of memory on the same card. According to our graphics card editor’s rule (you can never have enough memory), you should see a significant difference if the Geforce RTX 3090 is suddenly missing 40 percent of its memory.

The loss is not linear, but it is considerable: While the 4 GiByte loss is not particularly significant and 4 to 5 percent of the original performance is missing in the series of measurements, the 40 percent less RAM is significantly more effective. While the loss isn’t linear, a quarter to a third is noticeable, depending on the use case. Unfortunately, there aren’t an endless number of measurements, and one of them is from the synthetic 3DMark. In the comments to the video it is noted that the tests could have been more meaningful. The experienced graphics card vizier knows, however, that depending on the title and settings, memory is sometimes more or less sorely missed when it comes to achievable and stable frame rates. In Cyberpunk 2077, for example, the Geforce RTX 3090 is fairly unimpressed with 4K-UHD, ray tracing and (!) DLSS. The 12 GiByte memory is noticeable in Watch Dogs, but there was no DLSS here either.

Measurement series for the Geforce RTX 3060

As a nice bonus, there are also measurement series for the Geforce RTX 3080, which is equipped with 12 GiByte memory as standard and which has been limited to 8 GiByte – which then makes 128 bits and a third less than standard. The same soft mod is used via custom BIOS. Here the incision is not quite as severe. In the worst case, 18 percent less performance can be determined. Percentage not much; in detail, a few frames can make the difference here. Cyberpunk achieves 69/55/51 fps with 12 GiB and 58/48/45 fps (AVG/1%/0.1%) with 8 GiB in Full HD, ray tracing and DLSS.