GPU Memory Question

[MahtXL]

Always wondered why or how a card billed as 2GB would have 4 gigs of anything on it. I realize my 2 gigs of vram is reflected in the image. But what on earth is that 4 gigs for, and what is it doing on a "2GB" card?

[DeViLzzz]

"Your GPU can, if needed, use as much as 1149mb of system memory as video memory. It's not completely reserved for that purpose. If that much video memory isn't needed then it is used as system memory."

This was taken from a post in this Steam thread - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1901722 (post #2)

[EvilWiffles]

That might be shared memory. Like how an iGPU uses RAM for it's memory.

[Geekazoid]

Always wondered why or how a card billed as 2GB would have 4 gigs of anything on it. I realize my 2 gigs of vram is reflected in the image. But what on earth is that 4 gigs for, and what is it doing on a "2GB" card?

GPU.PNG

That's actually the shared system memory or RAM that windows uses to give just an extra bit of video RAM in case it's needed. It doesn't mean the your GTX 760 has 4GB of GDDR5 memory on it. Windows does this on every PC, as far as I know.

[MahtXL]

Strange things afoot i tell ya.