You may be looking at your CyberPower gaming PC and wondering, “How much VRAM do I have?” or “How much VRAM do I need for gaming?” . It’s important to know what hardware you have in your computer. This will inform you about what sort of performance you can expect in the games that you purchase. Let’s detail what VRAM is, how to find out how much your graphics card has, as well as it’s impact on gaming performance.
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What is VRAM?
For gamers not in the know, VRAM stands for Video Random-Access Memory, it’s the RAM that is in your graphics card. Just like its non-V counterpart, it acts as a temporary storage site for data used for graphics rendering by your GPU. This fast onboard memory allows the video card to make use of this data immediately, which allows you to see those beautiful graphics on screen.
How do I Find Out how much VRAM I have?
To determine the amount of VRAM in your system, there is a couple methods. First off, in Windows you can check VRAM by going to Settings > View Advanced Display Info, then click on “display adapter properties”. This will pull up a window that contains information about your graphics card. It will say the chip type, for example if you have a RTX 4060, it would say “GeForce RTX 4060”. Below that you will see “Dedicated Video Memory” which will have the amount of VRAM your GPU has displayed in MB.
Another route would be doing a quick Google search for your graphics card if you know what model you have. You’ll most likely have the manufacturers web page for the graphics card in your search results. Go there and view the specifications, it will tell you how much GPU memory the card has.
Yet another option would be to check your sales order from our website, which will include the amount of VRAM your graphics card has. If you purchased on of our prebuilt systems for a retailer like Best Buy or Amazon, then simply look at the label on the box. The amount of VRAM will be listed next to the name of the graphics card.
How much VRAM do I need for Games?
There is no doubt that VRAM is crucial for gaming performance. Not having enough can mean poor performance that includes blurry textures and choppy frames. As games have become more demanding, we are seeing more and more instances where even 8GB is not enough for some modern titles. A recent example that comes to mind is the PC port of the Last of Us Part 1, which struggled on 8GB GPUs. Sure games that are struggling to run on 8GB cards can and should probably be better optimized during development, but it is important to point out that you can avoid these kind of issues with cards that have more VRAM.
Thankfully more than 8GB is becoming more commonplace, and 12GB should be viewed as the recommended minimum amount of VRAM for 1440p or 4K gaming.
Does more VRAM mean better performance?
VRAM alone is not what makes a graphics card deliver great performance. Modern architecture and technology improvements of newer graphics cards will almost always deliver better performance than previous generations. Additionally, GPU manufacturers are aware of the increasing demands of VRAM, so newer cards do often feature adequate amounts of VRAM for today’s games. Just keep in mind that having more VRAM is becoming increasingly beneficial. Thankfully graphics cards seem to be keeping up with this tend.
Congratulations you can click away from this article as a more knowledgeable gamer. You can now learn more about your PC and make more informed buying decisions when it comes time to upgrade your graphics card or get a new CyberPower gaming PC.
For our selection of AMD Radeon powered gaming pcs, visit here. If you are opting for team green, NVIDIA GeForce RTX powered gaming PCs are found here.
