Buying a Graphics card

Haydos_69

Haydos_69

New Member
hey, i understand all bout motherboards, ram, cpu, ect. but i dont know wat to look for in the graphics cards. Wat do all the stats about them mean, like wat is better than wat. if u could give me some basic knowledge it would be really helpful.

thanks
 
The numbers are the most important.

Nvidia - number of number and first number is the series:

9xxx
2xx
4xx
5xx

etc

second number is the family, with higher being better performance:

9500GT, 9600GT, 9800GT
GTS250, GTX260, GTX270, GTX280, GTX295 etc

AMD:

First number is the series:

3xxx
4xxx
5xxx
6xxx

etc

second number is the family, again, higher being better:

54xx, 55xx, 56xx, 57xx, 58xx etc

Third number, higher is better:

5770 better than 5750
6970 better than 6950 etc

5xx are the latest Nvidia cards, 6xxx are the latest AMD.

As for which is the best to look for, that would depend on what your budget is
 
Also important to know is how the card is cooled, price/performance ratio, what wattage it requires, has the right input for your monitor type, processor number, memory size/bandwidth/bitrate, shader count, what technologies it supports(sli/crossfire, eyefinity, physx, etc), single or dual slot, and which type of motherboard slot it's compatible with, and what kind of cable is needed for the power supply.
 
Russ88765 said:
Also important to know is how the card is cooled, price/performance ratio, what wattage it requires, has the right input for your monitor type, processor number, memory size/bandwidth/bitrate, shader count, what technologies it supports(sli/crossfire, eyefinity, physx, etc), single or dual slot, and which type of motherboard slot it's compatible with, and what kind of cable is needed for the power supply.
Click to expand...

I think most of those aren't important.

I like to know how this stuff works out of interest, from a consumer standpoint though, I couldn't care less about it. If card A outperforms card B, but card B has loads of technology jargon (aka. marketing crap), it wouldn't make me go for card B, I would rather have the performance of card A. And for heat, that isn't too much of an issue, so long as it isn't so hot that it affects other component temperatures.

Motherboard slot doesn't matter, only PCIe cards are manufactured now, the last AGP was the 4650 if I remember correctly. There are a few PCI cards, but pretty much every motherboard now and in the last 5 or so years has had at least 1 PCIe x16 lane, so that shouldn't be an issue unless OP is using a stoneage computer.

The only things really are the size of it - if you need a single slot cooler, if you have a case that will only take low form factor cards, if you have a small case that can't take very long cards, you will need to cater to that, but everything else, just look at budget and then benchmarks for cards in your price range and go for the best
 
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