Surely you have heard many comments about the amount of VRAM that is sufficient for each resolution. And surely you thought that with 8 GB of this graphics memory it could be enough for video games at high resolutions. For example, that an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 with 8 GB of VRAM could be perfect for gaming at 1440p…
Well, it seems that it is not entirely like that, and that there are nuances to consider 8 GB of VRAM sufficient for 1440p or 4K resolutions. And all this comes from an analysis that Daniel Owen has done on his YouTube channel, where he shows that more memory is needed.
How much VRAM do I need for each resolution? (what was thought until now)
When choosing a graphics card, one of the things to consider is the amount of ram memory who owns that card. How fast a GPU can work and also the size of the resolutions it could handle will depend on this dedicated graphics RAM.
For example, until now I’m sure you had in mind that:
- 2 GB of VRAM: enough to play well at 720p or HD resolutions
- 2-6 GB of VRAM: enough to play games with 1080p or FullHD
- 4-8 GB of VRAM: enough to play games at 1440p or 2K
- >8 GB of VRAM: enough for 4K
You may also be interested in knowing how much cache memory do I need for the CPU?
Where is the catch?
Before continuing, one thing must be clear, and they are the factors that affect to the space used in VRAM when the GPU is working. And these are:
- monitor resolution: the higher the monitor resolution, the more VRAM will be used to process a frame.
- game type: Some video games, due to their characteristics, do not use as much VRAM memory as others. For example, Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft use less VRAM than video games like Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds or Middle Earth: Shadow of War, to name a few. And it depends on the quality of the graphic details. That is, the more details the frame has, the more data will have to be stored in VRAM.
- game setup: Of course, the graphics configuration or quality also affects the amount of VRAM used. It is not the same to render at a low quality than at a high quality.
That is to say, while in the references of the previous section only resolutions are taken into account, you also have to consider the type of game and the configuration used. And this is what Daniel Owen has been able to demonstrate with his tests…
The proof
The test performed by Daniel Owen It was made with the following hardware gaming configuration:
- AMD Ryzen 7700X CPU
- Corsair H150i lite fan
- ASUS ROG Strix X670E-a motherboard
- Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000 CL36 32GB RAM
- Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD
- Corsair ICUE 5000T RGB Case
- Thermaltake 1650W Toughpower GF3 Power Supply
- LG C1 48″ OLED Monitor
- Logitech G915 TKL Keyboard
- Logitech G305 Mouse
Daniel Owan started testing the video game Resident Evil 4 Remakeand with a graph NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB, which couldn’t even run the game without crashing, unless the graphics settings (medium-low) are changed to reduce VRAM usage. And this is something negative, since the GPU of that model would be enough to run this title…
After that test, Daniel went on to use one of the most recently released video games, Hogwarts Legacy and Forspoken. And it was also a problem as you can see in the video. This means that as game developers release new titles with 1440p in mind, this is going to become a problem for older generation graphics cards with 8GB of VRAM.
We recommend reading our guide on the best graphics cards.
And not only that, but any next generation GPUEither an AMD Radeon RX 7000 Series or an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series launching with 8GB (or less) will have these issues as well.
Conclusion on the amount of VRAM sufficient
As final conclusionIt must be said that as illustrated in the tests carried out in the video, 8 GB of VRAM is simply not enough for gaming at 1440p resolutions in newer AAA titles, although it can be for other previously released titles. In other words, point 2 of the previous section should be taken into account.
