How important is your graphics card’s VRAM?

AMD has officially launched its RX 480 GPU, offering both a 4GB and 8GB variant of the card.

While comparisons to Nvidia’s cards are inevitable, it also gives us an opportunity to look at how much of a difference 4GB of VRAM really makes to your gaming performance.

Recent benchmarks posted by Eurogamer pitted the two cards against one another as well as other recent GPU releases. Check them out below:

1920×1080 Test
1920×1080 (1080p)	RX 480 4GB	RX 480 8GB	R9 390 8GB	GTX 1060 6GB	GTX 970 4GB
Assassin’s Creed Unity, Ultra High, FXAA	50.4	50.8	48.6	58.2	51.3
Ashes of the Singularity, Extreme, 0x MSAA, DX12	45.9	47.7	52.1	45.9	40.5
Crysis 3, Very High, SMAA T2x	68.8	70.1	75.4	78.7	72.5
The Division, Ultra, SMAA	53.6	54.8	49.8	56.6	50.2
Far Cry Primal, Ultra, SMAA	57.1	58.7	65.1	65.6	56.2
Hitman, Ultra, SMAA, DX12	71.4	73.2	75.6	65.8	59.0
Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ultra, SMAA, DX12	59.8	61.2	66.6	75.1	69.7
The Witcher 3, Ultra, Post AA, No HairWorks	60.5	61.2	55.6	68.4	60.7

2560×1440 Test
2560×1440 (1440p)	RX 480 4GB	RX 480 8GB	R9 390 8GB	GTX 1060 6GB	GTX 970 4GB
Assassin’s Creed Unity, Ultra High, FXAA	31.0	33.8	33.7	37.4	32.7
Ashes of the Singularity, Extreme, 0x MSAA, DX12	40.7	42.7	46.2	41.2	35.9
Crysis 3, Very High, SMAA T2x	41.8	43.1	48.7	47.7	43.8
The Division, Ultra, SMAA	38.1	39.0	37.8	39.9	36.1
Far Cry Primal, Ultra, SMAA	40.7	42.3	46.7	45.0	39.6
Hitman, Ultra, SMAA, DX12	52.2	55.0	56.8	48.1	41.5
Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ultra, SMAA, DX12	41.7	43.0	46.0	49.2	46.1
The Witcher 3, Ultra, Post AA, No HairWorks	43.5	45.3	42.9	48.2	31.9

It is immediately apparent that the difference between the 8GB and 4GB cards is almost negligible.

In games like Assassin’s Creed Unity (playing at 1440p) there may be a slight stutter as the card uses its allocated VRAM, but this would appear to be the exception rather than the rule.

“In the vast majority of scenarios, you’re looking at only a one to four percent advantage by investing in the more expensive card. In terms of the actual gameplay experience that’s delivered, the two versions of the product hand in very similar returns – certainly not enough to justify the 8GB model’s additional $40.”

This ties into other benchmarks, which all highlight minimal gains from VRAM (even when going from 2GB to 4GB), especially if you are willing to sacrifice playing on high rather than Ultra settings.

We can see these benchmarks changing as newer games naturally demand more of your GPU, but for the time being, don’t expect massive gains from higher amounts of VRAM.