Is 1GB VRAM enough for 3 monitors (no gaming)?

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jmcyang

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I'm building a Ryzen system but won't do any gaming. Is 1GB VRAM (nVidia GT 740) enough to run 3 monitors (no gaming - just windows desktop)?

Two of the monitors will be 1080p and the third will be 800x600.

(How much VRAM *do* you need for 2-3 monitors just in the desktop, generally -- out of curiousity?)

Thanks.
 
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Darkbreeze
I've easily run 3x 1080p displays in Windows 7, 8.1 AND 10, on client systems using nothing more than a GT 720 with 1024MB of VRAM on many occasions. It will be totally fine and I would have no concerns at all about it so long as there is no gaming involved. If there is gaming, then it would need to be on only one of those screens and you would want a minimum of a GTX 750/950/1050 or equivalent tiered AMD card if the gaming screen was 1080p, regardless of what the other screen resolutions are. Obviously, higher end cards will increase the capabilities on this kind of configuration when gaming is involved.

For non-gaming, it's almost a non-factor in it's entirety so long as there is at least 1GB of VRAM. The more important factor is the...
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Techron

Techron

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You should be fine. Since you are running two 1080p displays and one 800x600 display which has a lot less pixels compared to 1920x1080.

However, generally for three 1080p displays we recommend a graphics card with 2GB of VRAM for smooth running. So, if you can buy the GT 1030 as it is a much newer gpu and has 2 gigs of vram and most importantly should be almost identical in price to the 740.
 
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Darkbreeze

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If you are not gaming, then that card should be just fine. Keep in mind though that at least one of your monitors will likely need to be connected via an analog or displayport connection.


The first two monitors can connect to the graphics card with any display output on your product: HDMI, VGA, DVI or DisplayPort.

The third (or greater) display must be connected to the graphics card via DisplayPort.

If your monitor does not have a DisplayPort connection, you will need an active DisplayPort adapter for it.
 
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Darkbreeze

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That largely depends though on how old his motherboard is. If it is old enough that it has a legacy bios, rather than a UEFI bios, it will not work with 900 or 1000 series Nvidia cards, nor will it work with newer than 200 series AMD cards in most cases.
 
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jmcyang

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Thanks. By "smooth running", do you mean that three 1080p displays is in fact using system RAM sometimes, just for 2D?

For the 740, I'm trying to get a cheap used one on eBay, and hoping that would be cheaper than what 1030's seem to be going for. But prices seem to be going haywire even for 740's - some are going for $300+ on eBay, though I haven't investigated what's going on with that yet.

 
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jmcyang

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If the first is DVI, and the second is DVI/HDMI, will it work if the third is VGA?

Or are you saying one of the three needs to be DisplayPort regardless, if running all 3 simultaneously?

(As to mobo, it will be a new system, so 1030 is OK.)

Thanks.
 
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Techron

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Yes three 1080p displays mean 6 million pixels. So it almost overflows the 1 gig of vram. But since your setup equals to slightly over 4.6 million pixels. So 1 gig of vram is definitely enough for you. If you find a used 740 for cheap buy it. Just remember to check if it has the appropriate display outputs for your monitors as mentioned by darkbreeze.

 
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jmcyang

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Thanks so much, for breaking it down in detail. Didn't really mean to force you to break it down -- it was my fault for not reading your first paragraph well initially, before editing my post -- but I appreciate that you did, it's much clearer now. I'll go for the cheap 740, then.

 
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SkyNetRising

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Your math is so wrong.
1080p frame buffer used vram at 32bit color depth is ~ 8MB (1920x1080x32/(8*1024*1024))
So 3 screens can be driven by 24MB vram card.
If additional settings like tripple buffering, antialiasing, z-buffer, stencil are used, then vram requirements are increased.

Anyway - 1GB vram card is plenty to drive 3x 1080p screens.
$

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/video/modesBuffer-c.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-myths,3694-5.html
 
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Techron

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I see. The articles helped me understand the problem with my math and I learned a lot too. So thanks for that.

From the Debunking article, if we assume he is running Windows 7 with the Aero theme he would have 3X140=420 MB usage at idle. So ~512 MB VRAM would be plenty. But for Windows 8.1 he would have 258X3=774 MB usage at idle. That's a sharp spike. Wonder what the usage is like for Windows 10. Of course, this is assuming a set-up of 3 1080p displays.

 
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Darkbreeze

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I've easily run 3x 1080p displays in Windows 7, 8.1 AND 10, on client systems using nothing more than a GT 720 with 1024MB of VRAM on many occasions. It will be totally fine and I would have no concerns at all about it so long as there is no gaming involved. If there is gaming, then it would need to be on only one of those screens and you would want a minimum of a GTX 750/950/1050 or equivalent tiered AMD card if the gaming screen was 1080p, regardless of what the other screen resolutions are. Obviously, higher end cards will increase the capabilities on this kind of configuration when gaming is involved.

For non-gaming, it's almost a non-factor in it's entirety so long as there is at least 1GB of VRAM. The more important factor is the external clock issue with triple monitor displays that don't allow for three simultaneous outputs without using DP active adapters. Lack of DP outputs on the graphics card or monitor can be a problem without them. If you have multiple DP on a given card AND the monitors, then it is a non-issue but for older monitors and cards, it can be.
 
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jmcyang

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Thanks darkbreeze.

Sorry for my delay in getting back. I looked at several GT 740 cards and hadn't settled on one (some of them had information on the manufacturer website saying they support 3 simultaneous monitors, with VGA, DVI and HDMI ports; they might have been somewhat exceptional).

I then found a GTX 750 (hoping final bid price won't be too expensive) which I can't make heads or tails of, it's not listed anywhere. It has a VGA, a DVI and HDMI (no DP).




Are you saying that, if one of the ports isn't DP and instead you have VGA, one should still assume (unless given explicit info otherwise) that the card won't drive all three outputs simultaneously (e.g. the VGA doesn't mitigate that) - that it's still pretty rare?

Thanks again.

 
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