It works very well for me. VRAM on my GTX 1080 stays around 4GB constantly. I mean, it fluctuates but the memory leak definitely isn't present. At least it doesn't seem to be. If you install DXVK, you may get some stuttering at first because it is creating its own cache file but it'll clear up. Performance seems to be the same, too. I've used DXVK for other games, it's a great mod but requires trial and error as it won't work for everything.

Has anyone contacted GOG about this? it's obviously a problem with their build :/

I've since tried it myself and can report DXVK works on my system as well. Everything is stable, VRAM and RAM issues all gone, performance is the same/as expected.

Good to hear. DXVK is kind of an awesome mod, I used it on the original version of Outer Worlds and it completely cleared up the stuttering/hitching it was constantly doing.

The problem appears to be with the 1.6.1179.0.8 SkyrimSE executable file that is in the 0.1.3905696 GOG version - that is the only offline installer available - and is the latest of the two versions that is available through GOG Galaxy.

According to the UESP, the only change that was made for the 1.6.1179 version was to change the version number to differentiate the GOG version from the Steam one.

However, clearly something went wrong and introduced this memory leak.

Because, if you install GOG Galaxy and roll back to the only other available version (0.0.3895161), you will get an exe with the 1.6.1170.0.8 version number. And no memory leak. You can then take a copy of that SkyrimSE.exe file and copy it into an installation using the offline 0.1.3905696 installer, and you will also get the game with no memory leak.

The timestamps on the files that get changed by the update show a few additional changes - one of which is clearly shown by a change to the file size (HearthFires.esm from 3885KB to 3886KB). Since there is no changelog we cannot know what has changed - so we have the choice to use all of the older files that changed between 0.0.3895161 and 0.1.3905696, or just the exe.

The main point is that the exe is where the memory leak is, and replacing it with the older one will fix it.

Thank you very much for this information LoRez. It didn't even occur to me the possibility of attempting to rollback!
That said, the major downside of this is that SKSE (script extender) does not support GOG's Skyrim 1.6.1170

So, right now we either opt to play "vanilla" (or non SKSE mods) while rolling back to a previous game version or use DXVK if desiring to install mods that require SKSE.

Does on my GOG 1.6.1170:)

dizet