4 Vs 8 GB GPU VRAM and how it relates to regular RAM?

[Nacho98]

Curious, what benefits are truly gained when going from 4 GB to 8 GB on the GPU?

Also, is there any swap interaction between system RAM and GPU RAM like there is between system RAM and SSDs? Meaning, with respect to general use of memory for normal, non graphics intensive memory use, is a system with 16 GB system RAM plus 8 GB GPU RAM more memory capable than 16 GB system RAM and 4 GB GPU RAM, or would the two systems be identical?

 

[leman]

Curious, what benefits are truly gained when going from 4 GB to 8 GB on the GPU?

The data has to be in GPU RAM so that GPU can access it while offering high performance. The GPU can also read data from system RAM (kind of), but it will be much slower. So if your GPU-based workflow needs a lot of data (e.g. large compute problem, GPU processing of high-res video/image data etc, volumetric data, games with high-res textures), having 8GB can dramatically impact performance as GPU won’t need to swap the data in and out

Also, is there any swap interaction between system RAM and GPU RAM like there is between system RAM and SSDs? Meaning, with respect to general use of memory for normal, non graphics intensive memory use, is a system with 16 GB system RAM plus 8 GB GPU RAM more memory capable than 16 GB system RAM and 4 GB GPU RAM, or would the two systems be identical?

The GPU will use system RAM as swap, but your computer won’t use GPU RAM for general purpose(aka CPU) data.