Questions About vRam

[DWait]

Forgive my lack of knowledge on this topic. I am hopeful to learn more here. However, from my understanding, more vRAM is better. For example, a GTX 1060 6GB card is better than an RX 580 4GB card, in my mind. However, as I've shown friends, and people on the forum, a few possible builds I have been considering (A i5-8400 and RX 580 4GB build or a Ryzen 1500X and GTX 1060 6GB build), they have been telling me that the i5-8400 build with an RX 580 4GB is better. Why is that? How different are the cards and what makes less vRAM better for a system only running with 8GB of RAM? In my mind, the bigger the buffer between vRAM and RAM, the better which is why I assumed the GTX 1060 would've been the way to go. Someone care to explain to someone new to the space? I am trying to pick the best build for my budget and the video card clearly is a focal point I would think.

 

With that being said, which one would you guys recommend?

[Biggerboot]

The two cards trade blows.  It really comes down to the architecture more than the vRAM (vRAM has importance but benchmarks are king).

Because of mining, the price of RX cards are super high, at least compared to where they should be.  Usually the 1060 is the cheaper and more recommended card just due to how little RX cards there are in the wild, meaning their cost is due to supply and demand.

[SpiralTTGL]

Vram is the memory the GPU has for texture data and what else. And id also recommend the 1060 just because price and more vram

[TheBestFox]

One of the most important components of the graphics card is the GPU. The combination of high video memory and low processing performance does not give you better performance.