QOTW: How much RAM must your next graphics card have?

[ET3D]

I will likely never buy a discrete card again for home use.

[Agrippa]

My next purchase will have a minimum of 6GB, but 8GB would be optimal. Either ought to do for my next monitor, which in all likelihood will be a 3440x1440 model.

[Danzio]

I will likely never buy a discrete card again for home use.

Why? Not being an arse here, just generally curious.

[Percy1983]

I would say 4-6gb as my 7950 currently has 3gb.

[cheesemp]

3gb at a guess? I love gaming but parenthood is expensive so I have even less cash for gaming... My next card will be low end or another hand me down.

[scaryjim]

tbh, it's questions like this that lead to products like this and this and even worse, those GT 430 4GB cards where the memory was so slow that it'd be quicker to paint the textures on the screen BY HAND than drag them out of memory.

I believe both NVidia and AMD have pushed cards recently with less memory on a narrower bus, but using intelligent compression algorithms to demonstrate that you don't actually need more memory, you just need to use it more cleverly. While top end cards will always be in an arms race for bigger numbers, I'd be amazed if most people wouldn't find a 2GB R9 285 more than adequate for their gaming needs....

[ET3D]

I will likely never buy a discrete card again for home use.

Why? Not being an arse here, just generally curious.

I moved largely to playing on Android. We (my wife and I) bought a laptop with a GeForce 860M a few months ago, and that should serve any PC needs if I have them, and would probably not be replaced for quite a few years (previous laptop lasted over 6 years before we felt the need for a replacement). I can't predict that far, but I imagine that APU's / mobile chips will be powerful enough for my needs by that time. The HTPC currently has a weak discrete GPU, but will likely move to an APU if I ever upgrade it.

But answering this, I realised that I was thinking only of myself. There's a chance that my kids might want some more hardcore gaming, latest AAA titles, that kind of stuff, in which case I'll buy them a PC with a discrete card or a laptop with a discrete chip. But I imagine it will be quite a few years before this happens, and I really don't know what gaming will be like by that time, or what they will want.

Also, who knows, maybe I'll get caught by the VR or AR craze, once these become more established.

It's hard to tell, that's why I'm not completely sure I won't buy another card. But keeping the current trend, it's unlikely to happen. I'm sure tablets will just get more powerful and more games will run nicely on them. I'm currently enjoying Knights of the Old Republic on my tablet, and I have some more good games lined up (Final Fantasy IV, Baldur's Gate 2, Broken Age soon, and quite a few more). Can't see myself running out of tablet games to play.

[KeyboardDemon]

tbh, it's questions like this that lead to products like this and this and even worse, those GT 430 4GB cards where the memory was so slow that it'd be quicker to paint the textures on the screen BY HAND than drag them out of memory.

You make an excellent point.

[Moogly]

6GB+ for high end and 4GB for mid level graphics cards.

This.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Probably at least 3GB.

[Badbonji]

Probably 8GB, as I won't be upgrading for a while.

[shaithis]

Who knows? I highly doubt my next purchase will be any of the current cards, so I really have no clue how much the next (or next again) cards will have.

[anselhelm]

4GiB makes sense as a minimum. My 2GiB 6950 is still working perfectly for all the games I'm currently running. The max resolution I'll need for some considerable time will be 1920x1200.

[cps1974]

well I play @ 1080p and most of my card's 4GB is being used in some heavily modded titles I play so I'd guess 6GB, 8GB and 12GB

[borising]

I think that 4GB for desktop and 6GB for laptop users would be ok for any kind of gaming/work/...

[cps1974]

TLDR: Right now, I wouldn't buy less than 4GB. I am looking, and that is what I am looking for.


I think it only really matters if you like to keep a graphics card for a long time.

If you are going to ebay in a year and upgrade, then just look at the benchmarks vs cost right now.

My GTX460 is 5 years old and I am starting to feel I need to upgrade. When I bought it I spent I think an extra £25 to get a 2GB version rather than the usual 1GB version. I can't imagine the 1GB version would have lasted me this long. At the time the 768MB cards were excellent value and benchmarking only just below my 2GB card, but I expect that wouldn't have lasted me long at all.

If you want to play at 1440p then you do need more vram. If you want to play at 4K, well you are probably upgrading next year anyway

does your board/psu/case support SLI? I had 2 x GTX 460 1GB in SLI - they scaled so well in SLI - I think most titles I played scaled around 90-95% so I was very happy!