[SOLVED] How much vRAM do i actually need in 2021?

[SawmMawia]

I am planning on buying a graphics card but how much vram do i actually need?
For RAM,(from what i have heard)atleast 8gigs is minimum recommend and 16gigs is the sweet spot(for most users if you aint gonna do crazy editing and <expletive deleted>)
What about vRAM?
What's your minimum recommend and sweet spot?

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

This depends on what screen resolution/refresh rate you want to game, 1080p, 1440p, or 4K ! It also depends on the particular PC game being played as well. Not all games are VRAM hungry. 8GB is minimum these days given how AAA games are coded, but 12 GB or even 16 GB VRAM never hurts. Assuming you can afford these cards.

Like I said this all depends on the particular game/application being used. For 1080p having extra VRAM is going to be overkill, or just get wasted if you don't utilize it fully. But there are still exceptions to this as well. If you don't play very high graphic demanding PC games, mostly AAA titles, then there is no point in buying a GPU having a very high VRAM amount, imo.

But having extra VRAM these days never hurts though ! A bit more future -proof as well !

 

[alceryes]

Graphics designer? 16GB+
Gamer at 1440p? 8GB

Even 8GB may cause you to have to step down from max settings with the latest AAA games. Do you want to (attempt to) future proof for 4+ years? If yes, I wouldn't go any lower than 16GB. I'm referring to max eye-candy settings, of course. With the ability to keep all those delicious textures in VRAM. If you don't mind stepping down graphical settings then a 10/12GB card would be fine.

 

[David0ne86]

1080 8gb (4gb bare min)
1440 10gb (i would argue 12 in the upcoming years, especially since you'd be spending atleast 1.2k eu/$ for a 10gb vram gpu and i don't see you dropping another in 2/3 years) and 8gb bare min
4k 16gb (there's no point in bare min here as there's not really a card that could allow 4k with less than 16gb)

That's for gaming. Add 2/4 gb for design/3d modeling applications.

 

[alceryes]

Truthfully, I haven't seen that much difference between 1440p and 2160p in VRAM usage.

This is a good example video -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivbU8xjG0A


I won't argue VRAM allocated vs actually used because both 1440p and 2160p resolutions suffer the same argument. I've used Special K (Dirext X framework) to show that, at 1440p, Horizon Zero Dawn at max/ultra settings uses upwards of 9.5GBs VRAM within 20 minutes of playing in just the beginning tutorial area.

 

[Jacob 51]

I am planning on buying a graphics card but how much vram do i actually need?
For RAM,(from what i have heard)atleast 8gigs is minimum recommend and 16gigs is the sweet spot(for most users if you aint gonna do crazy editing and <expletive deleted>)
What about vRAM?
What's your minimum recommend and sweet spot?

If you want to game on 4k with all MAX settings, i'd suggest 16 GBs.

It also depend on which graphics card you are looking for.
Remember that the VRAM can bottleneck the graphics card and vice versa.
If your graphics card cannot handle ultra settings, then there is no need for more VRAM.


For example, if you put 4 GBs of VRAM on a GT 710, then it will go waste.
If you put 16 GBs on a 3090, it will not be enough for the future games.

 

[alceryes]

If you want to game on 4k with all MAX settings, i'd suggest 16 GBs.

It also depend on which graphics card you are looking for.
Remember that the VRAM can bottleneck the graphics card and vice versa.
If your graphics card cannot handle ultra settings, then there is no need for more VRAM.


For example, if you put 4 GBs of VRAM on a GT 710, then it will go waste.
If you put 16 GBs on a 3090, it will not be enough for the future games.

Yes. The GPU needs to have the right amount of VRAM for it's 'rasterization horsepower'.
The RTX 3080 is a perfect example of NVIDIA giving too little VRAM to make sure the card has a shorter-than-it-should lifespan. This card will definitely run out of VRAM before it's rasterization horsepower is used up.

The RTX 3060 (with 12GBs VRAM) is the exact oposite. It's rasterization horsepower will be used up way before it's 12GBs VRAM is fully utilized.

Yes, I know about the memory bus width. It should've been higher on the RTX 3080 (with the accompanying increase in RAM) and the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3060 should've never existed.

Note that I'm talking about AAA games, at very high/ultra settings, over the next 3+ years ONLY.

 

[Flayed]

I heard the cost of vRam has gone up quite a bit recently so I think they are regretting putting so much on some of the cards.

 

[Krotow]

Let take near future software requirements in account. To OP - get 16 GB (Kit of 2) and you will be fine.

 

[Third-Eye]

I am planning on buying a graphics card but how much vram do i actually need?
For RAM,(from what i have heard)atleast 8gigs is minimum recommend and 16gigs is the sweet spot(for most users if you aint gonna do crazy editing and <expletive deleted>)
What about vRAM?
What's your minimum recommend and sweet spot?

Display resolution doesn't really change the required VRAM as much as just increasing texture resolution. Unless the developers/artists of a game force certain texture settings requiring a higher VRAM card, 8GB is probably going to be fine when running 1440p-4k with medium to high textures for the next 2-3 years, but 12-16GB would be preferred for 3-5 years assuming your GPU is powerful enough to last in that time for the graphics settings you want.

Most people that want a card that will last for 2-3 years should be avoiding the RTX 3060 and RX 6600XT in favor of the 3060TI/3070 or RX6700XT as a baseline of performance without considering ray tracing performance. Ray tracing quality and performance is still probably 2-3 years away from really being worth using in everything new.