The graphics card is separate and apart from your computer's DDR3 RAM, so it can use whatever kind of memory it wants to without conflict. The DDR3 RAM plugs directly into special slots on your motherboard, but the graphics card connects via a PCIe slot. The PCIe slots are for varied kinds of expansion cards which are able to do everything from graphics to sound to modems to USB and just about anything else you could find on a PC. Of course when your graphics card craps out, you do have to replace it or use whatever onboard graphics you might have.
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Good luck.
I have a bit of a question, and it will make you laugh. For the past two and a half years, I've been running an HP Pavillion p6614f with a PNY GeForce GT 240 graphics processor. Two days ago, it decided to crash my whole computer. I removed it, and revived the unit, then promptly searched the web for the specs of this card. To my horror, I discovered that the GPU runs GDDR5 memory, but my computer runs DDR3. Question; what happens when you do that, because it seemed to work alright for a number of years, but now seems to be dead. Have I fried the GPU or have I just run out of luck? I may want to sell the thing to put money toward a more appropriate processor, which I've picked out already.
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