Figuring out how much VRAM you need depends on how much VRAM you have, and the games and apps you want to run. Here’s how to figure it all out.
Just like your PC’s system memory, graphics cards and laptop GPUs have their own memory, called VRAM (video RAM). Just like RAM, not having enough VRAM can cause performance problems; Many of the latest games are demanding more and more, making it impossible for gamers to play their games at the highest settings. How much VRAM you have will depend on what GPU you have, and how much VRAM you need will depend on the applications you use.
But how much VRAM do you need, really? Let’s investigate.How much VRAM do I need?
Graphics memory is mostly important for gaming, but there are productivity and professional workloads that benefit from masses of VRAM too. More is better for most graphically intensive tasks, but you don’t necessarily need to go out and buy the best graphics card with the most VRAM. In fact, some lower-end cards with lots of VRAM are still slower than higher-end cards with less.
You can play most games, even most modern games, with 8GB of VRAM, so really that should be the lowest you go if buying a new graphics card. However, modern games that are built for the Xbox Series X/S and PS5, regularly exceed 8GB of VRAM even when playing at 1080p. That means that if you have a GPU with only 8GB of VRAM, there will be some new games you can’t play, even with a powerful graphics card from a recent generation like an Nvidia RTX 2080. Even the Nvidia RTX 3080 which was one of the fastest GPUs in the world just a couple of years ago is showing signs of struggling in some modern games because it has “only” 10GB of VRAM.
