Friday, November 9th 2007

How Much Graphics Memory do You Really Need?

As monitors get bigger, run at higher resolutions, and video games require ridiculous amounts of graphics memory to run at respectable settings, both AMD and NVIDIA have shoved more and more graphics memory into their cards. However, how much is enough? The folks at YouGamers did some serious tests, and discovered some interesting facts about VRAM. While AMD and NVIDIA both want you to think that humongous amounts of VRAM will magically make your games run at 1920x1200, YouGamers discovered that quantity is not what really matters. If you want to run the most stressful games at the highest resolutions possible, you will see much more benefit from getting faster graphics card memory, or simply a faster graphics card. You can read the full investigative article here.
Source: Nordic Hardware
Add your own comment

30 Comments on How Much Graphics Memory do You Really Need?

#26
hat
Enthusiast
How much graphics memory do I need? Well, 16 Gabillionbytes seems sufficent for Crysis. :roll:
Posted on Reply
#27
imperialreign
I wonder how much longer until one of the two GPU camps gets the bright idea to have DRAM slots on the cards that would use say . . . notebook memory or something equally as small. Then, they could sell their cards with a 256MB stick at base level, and offer upgrade sticks up to 1GB - in the various DDR2, DDR3, DDR4 flavours, too.

It's a crazy idea, but in the GPU wars - crazy ideas seem to yield the best gain over your competition.
Posted on Reply
#28
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
i know its proper writing, but to tell truth the guy needs to get to the point instead of drawing it out ya know.
Posted on Reply
#29
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
imperialreignI wonder how much longer until one of the two GPU camps gets the bright idea to have DRAM slots on the cards that would use say . . . notebook memory or something equally as small. Then, they could sell their cards with a 256MB stick at base level, and offer upgrade sticks up to 1GB - in the various DDR2, DDR3, DDR4 flavours, too.

It's a crazy idea, but in the GPU wars - crazy ideas seem to yield the best gain over your competition.
Because they wouldnt make the money they do now if they added modularity to the boards, they would also have to adhere to jedec standards
Posted on Reply
#30
yogurt_21
lol 8x aa, what about the 16x aa on the 8800's and the 24x aa on the 2900's? easiest way to test is to monitor your system memory at different resolutions, if you notice a spike at a certain detail level, you've run out of video memory and are now running on system.

overall, it really depends on the card as to how much is really enough, i will say that the 1gb 2900xts will run 24x aa much better than the 512's, and the gtx and ultra have a bit of an advantage over the newer cards coming out (8800gt, gts rv2, etc) when it comes to an increase in details.
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Jan 9th, 2025 12:54 EST change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts