How much video RAM is needed for a nongamer?

trents · Jul 29, 2016

In researching this question, I cannot find any information that is not directed toward the gaming crowd.

For a nongamer who just does pedestrian things like surfing the net, playing streaming video and occasionally av transcoding, how much video RAM is really needed to operate efficiently at 1080p on a 24" monitor? Honestly, in my experience I can't see much or any difference between using a Raedon 5450 with 512mb and a 280x with 3 gb. The most graphics intensive thing I do probably is a train simulator once in a while. Right now I'm just using the IGP and can't see any fall off in what I do.

niven · Jul 29, 2016

512 MB seems enough for 3d Blue-ray.
I don't think the screen size has anything to do with this, 1080p is always 1080p, it is the pixels size that changes.

ATMINSIDE · Jul 29, 2016

Depends on the monitor resolution, but anything in the 512MB+ range is plenty for 1080p.

EarthDog · Jul 29, 2016

trents said:
In researching this question, I cannot find any information that is not directed toward the gaming crowd.

For a nongamer who just does pedestrian things like surfing the net, playing streaming video and occasionally av transcoding, how much video RAM is really needed to operate efficiently at 1080p on a 24" monitor? Honestly, in my experience I can't see much or any difference between using a Raedon 5450 with 512mb and a 280x with 3 gb. The most graphics intensive thing I do probably is a train simulator once in a while. Right now I'm just using the IGP and can't see any fall off in what I do.

Its been a while, but, what does an iGPU default to? Last I recall 256MB. That seems low these days, so I would say for a complete non gamer, 512MB would be plenty.

Since nothing you do is GPU intensive, it makes sense that you don't see a difference between the 5450, iGPU, or the 280x. Its desktop/2D, there isn't a 'faster' about those things really when it comes to GPUs.

trents · Jul 29, 2016

I appreciate the input.

I've got a GTX 650Ti 1gb DDR5 that should be quite adequate then for what I do. I put my R9 280X OC in my Hackintosh because of its out of the box compatibility with OS X.

jaymz9350 · Jul 29, 2016

I just checked my iGPU mem usage, max 400MB. I use it for pretty much everything but gaming (monitored through Afterburner which is always running to monitor my 970s folding)

How much video RAM is needed for a nongamer?

trents

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