Memory and video memory

Say I get a notebook with 6GB ram but only 1GB of video memory, will it cause a dip in performance?

The video memory is a subset of ram right? But how much of video memory do one need exactly? 1GB or 2GB?

Are you able to compensate for the smaller video memory by having more RAM?

Would appreciate the information. Thanks!

 

If you have a discrete gpu - 1GB video RAM is more than enough unless you're driving two 30" 2560x1600 pixel monitors.

If you have an integrated gpu - it will share the system RAM (some igp implementations up to ~4GB worth).

Your performance is not based on the system ram vs. the video ram.

Your performance is based on the cpu vs. the gpu (specifics are very important here).

Only with an integrated (igp) gpu will more system RAM help.

If using a discrete gpu with a 'small' amount of video RAM, more system RAM will not make the gpu any more powerful than it already is.

FYI, a modern, discrete 1GB video card in a notebook today is going to be near the top of the performance specs.

Hope this helped?

 

1GB of video memory is plenty, and it's dedicated for use ONLY by the video card, that is if it's a dedicated card.

If it's integrated it shares memory with the main system pool of 6GB.

And if your dedicated card needs more than the alloted 1GB, then it has provisions in the driver that specify it can take X amount of your system RAM. Usually that figure is only 256-512MB though, and is very very rarely used, if its ever used at all.

 

You can get a 1GB card in a few 64-bit and 128-bit cards, that's not going to make it any better than those same cards with 512MB or even 256MB in most cases. Numbers don't mean much without a context. If you want to know what's your bottleneck, you need to tell us what types of things you'll be doing on your computer (specific programs, games, etc.) and your general system specs (32-bit OS? CPU model? etc.)

 

Thanks for the reply guys.

Actually I am still on the search for notebooks.

Was looking at the specs of the Dell XPS 15. It allows for upgrade of the memory to 8GB RAM. But depending on the processor chosen (i5 or i7), the Video memory can only be 1GB or 2GB. Which explains the question I asked.

Basically, I am just an average user who needs a notebook for games, movies, and normal day2day usuage...

By the way, how do you tell whether the GPU is integrated or discrete? Integrated ones can save more power, am I right?

Was looking at these two options for the XPS 15:
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 420M with 1GB graphics memory (standard)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 435M with 2GB graphics memory.

Are they discrete or integrated?

 

Both discrete.
But the 420M only comes with the arrandale cpu (dual core i3,i5,i7) which has its own integrated on die gpu. Hence you have switchable graphics (optimus) available.
The 435m comes with the clarksfield (quad i7) cpu does not have an integrated gpu, so optimus will not work.

 

Ok those were some really deep terms.

So basically, I will not get nvidia optimus if I go for the 435M right? I can only have it with the 420M. The only difference is the amount of power consumption and heat emission?

 

The 435m should offer slightly better performance in applications which exclusively use the GPU core. What exactly are you going to be using this laptop for?

 

What games will you play and what programs do you use day-to-day? How serious of a gamer are you, what resolution do you plan on playing at and what settings would you like to play at? From what you wrote so far, you don't need more than 4GB of system memory but you might want a more powerful GPU than offered by Dell depending on how you answer my above questions.