Video Memory greater than supported

[Qwright10]

I own an Intel Core i5-4440 which supports a maximum of 2GB if video memory. I’m planning on buying a Graphics card with 4GB or more of video memory (NVIDIA GeForce Gtx 1080/1070 or AMD RX 460/480/580). I’m saving up for a better CPU that supports more video memory. Will the graphics card work with my PC? Will only the maximum amount of video memory supported by the CPU be used? Please help me!!!

[Rune]

Just get the best graphics card you can afford in your budget for what you want to do. When using the GPU, your iGPU memory limit won't matter.

[Jessekiller101]

the 2gb supported video memory is for the intergrated graphics your chip has. The vram on your gpu has nothing to do with that so using a 4gb graphics card would work just fine.

[Qwright10]

Just now, Rune said:

Just get the best graphics card you can afford in your budget for what you want to do. When using the GPU, your iGPU memory won't matter.

What does the maximum supported memory mean then?

[Kenjo]

2 minutes ago, Qwright10 said:

I own an Intel Core i5-4440 which supports a maximum of 2GB if video memory. I’m planning on buying a Graphics card with 4GB or more of video memory (NVIDIA GeForce Gtx 1080/1070 or AMD RX 460/480/580). I’m saving up for a better CPU that supports more video memory. Will the graphics card work with my PC? Will only the maximum amount of video memory supported by the CPU be used? Please help me!!!

Before evil people answer you i will, 

The max supported Vid memory reported by the CPU is for the Integrated GPU in the CPU, basically the IGPU can max use 2gb of your System memory as graphics memory it has nothing to do with a discrete gpu´s memory capacity.

You can safely purchase ANY Discrete GPU that has more than 2gb Video memory since those two have no corrolation to each other

 

[Qwright10]

Just now, Jessekiller101 said:

the 2gb supported video memory is for the intergrated graphics your chip has. The vram on your gpu has nothing to do with that so using a 4gb graphics card would work just fine.

Oh. I understand now!  It’s how much ~system~ memory is available, not how much the GPU can have. Thanks sooo much for helping me!!

[keskparane]

28 minutes ago, Qwright10 said:

Oh. I understand now!  It’s how much ~system~ memory is available, not how much the GPU can have. Thanks sooo much for helping me!!

I'm not sure you have quite got your head around it yet.

 

An igpu is an intergrated graphics processor unit that is built into the cpu. Since the cpu doesn't have ram built in (ignoring cache memory) the igpu needs to use system ram. It can only use up its limit (in this case 2gb), however often it won't use that much. Typically you would go into bios and configure the minimum & maximum amounts of ram that the igpu can or will use. Point being that just because the igpu has a limit of 2gb and it is available doesn't necessarily mean it will be allowed to use that much.

 

A gpu (or discrete graphics card) will come with it's own ram. It does not use the system ram.

 

edit: I should add I have never really fully investigated this and I could be wrong on some of the max limit stuff.