How to Choose the Right Graphics Card: Things to Consider
A good graphics card is the backbone of any high-performance PC. The best graphics cards speed up your computer, improve its efficiency and make images, movies, and games look sharp.
It is important for gaming to Choose the right graphics card especially. As integrated graphics cards are rarely advanced enough to sustain billions of counts per second compared to today’s games. To help, we’re taking a look at the best graphics cards available and offering some handy tips to choose the right graphics card for you.
What is the right graphics card?
When your computer wants to display something on your screen, it does so by sending instructions (in the form of computer code) to the graphics card. The graphics card takes these instructions and turns them into signals that your monitor can understand and display.
The screens are made up of pixels, which are small lights in thousands of rows and columns on your screen. A full high-definition (HD) monitor has 1920 columns and 1080 rows, more than 2 million pixels! Much more calculations are required to determine which color to display in each pixel. Most PC gamers desire to play their games at a minimum of 60 frames per second (FPS).
This requires counting the color 60 times every second for every single pixel. Keeping up with the new game’s graphics demand, increasing its frame rate or screen resolution, or editing large video files requires an increasing number of graphics calculations. If you do not update it in a while, you can know that your video card is not ready for work.
Various type of graphics card
In modern days, there are various types of graphics cards available, so choosing the right graphics card is quite difficult. Modern PCs can use two types of graphics cards integrated or discrete. Almost all new CPUs (central processing units) now come with integrated, or built-in, graphics cards. These are good enough for most tasks less than editing HD videos or playing graphics-intensive games. For these objectives, a discrete video card is a must-have.
Discrete graphics cards are physically separate units from the CPU, and will not only have their own graphics processing units but will typically have their own fans, which will allow them to work at high speeds without overheating. They are more powerful and are considered the best graphics card.
What kind of graphics card do you have?
If you have a desktop computer, knowing which graphics card you have is as simple as opening the side panel when your PC is safely locked and looking inside. If you have a discrete graphics card, it will usually originate from the middle of your motherboard, which is the main circuit board in the center of your PC.
- You can also see through your operating system which graphics card you have which is especially helpful for laptop users.
- In the Windows Start menu, type ‘Control Panel’ (which you can access on your keyboard or through the Windows logo on the bottom-left of your screen) and press Enter.
- Choose ‘System and Security’.
- Then select ‘System’.
- On the left pane, click on ‘Device Manager’ and click ‘OK’ at the resulting prompt.
- All the graphics cards on your computer will be listed under ‘Display adapters’. If there is only one option, it is usually because you have integrated graphics. If there are multiple entries, it means that you have a discrete graphics card on your PC.
Another useful tool is specification – a system information tool to find out exactly what you have on your computer. It will not only tell you which graphics card you have, but provide information about your CPU, storage drive, memory, and more. This is especially useful when deciding which aspects of your system to upgrade.
Choose the right graphics card
Buying a new graphics card can be a daunting prospect, as there are so many options to choose the right graphics card. On the more expensive end, they run into several hundreds of pounds or dollars, so it is important to find the right one for you.
What to look for in a graphics card
The first thing to figure out while you choose the right graphics card is what you are going to use your graphics card for. Watching movies, even in ultra-high-definition 4k, as well as playing old games and light video editing is possible without problems on a budget video card.
Many popular online games such as Dota, League of Legends, Overwatch, PUBG, and Fortnite are also not graphics-intensive, so sticking to these games will suffice for you at least a mid-end graphics card. However, if you have a high refresh rate monitor, such as 144hz, you will want to make sure that the graphics card you get is powerful enough to run your favorite game at the respective frame rate. This is also true if you want to run the game at a higher resolution, such as 2560×1440 or 3840×2160 (4k) because there will be many more pixels to render.
For new single-player games and Triple-A titles, as well as heavy video editing, you’ll want to see mid to high-grade graphics cards. If your monitor has a high resolution (above 1920×1080) or a high refresh rate (above 60fps), then you may benefit from investing more in your graphics card or building your own PC from scratch. It is easier than ever to think!
Observe the compatibility with the rest of your system
While you choose the right graphics card, observe every aspect. A new graphics card may be slowed down by your graphics performance, your video playing software, games, or video editing programs along with other parts of your system such as your RAM and CPU. If you are building a new PC, or want to upgrade your current desktop, it is important to make sure that your graphics card is compatible with the rest of your system. A CPU is fast enough to have a graphics card, as well as a PSU (power supply unit) with enough power to feed them both. You will also want a slot in your motherboard that can support the graphics card of your choice.
It is easy to use speccy to find out which motherboard you have. Your motherboard model name will be listed under ‘motherboard’ and you can find out from Google which slots you have available for the graphics card. The viewing slot is called the PCI-E (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) slot. There will be a number attached to the slot, such as x8 or x16, indicating the size of the slot. Full-size graphics cards require an x16 slot, but smaller x8-sized graphics cards are also available.
You will be able to find out which PSU you have by opening the side panel of your desktop PC (while it is closed and disconnected from power). The PSU looks like a rectangular block and will be at the very bottom or very top of your desktop PC. It would be useful to know the model, brand, and most importantly wattage. You can then use the power supply calculator to find out if there is enough power available for the graphics card of your choice on your PC.
GPU
The critical calculation on the graphics card is done in the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). There are two great GPU manufacturers, AMD and Nvidia. You can hear or see people mentioning a graphics card by a GPU such as the Nvidia GTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 590.
Many different manufacturers make graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia’s GPUs, which is why you will see things like Asus Rogue 2070 and Gigabyte GeForce 2070. This can cause some confusion for those who are already unfamiliar with complex graphics card naming systems. However, as long as you stick to well-known brands, you are usually safe to ignore the graphics card manufacturer and focus on finding the card with the right GPU.
Memory Size
Just as CPUs use RAM (random access memory) to speed up their operations, GPUs require dedicated memory to perform their calculations efficiently. Memory will be built into the graphics card, and typically, each GPU is accompanied by a specified amount of memory.
Lower-end cards will come with up to 4GB of memory, while high-end cards can have up to 16GB. The amount of memory on your card only matters in situations where a lot of video data needs to be kept in memory for quick access. This is normally the case with extended high-definition environments, or in video games when editing very long or 4k video files. If you run out of video memory, the game or video editor will start to stutter because the objects inside the image have to be loaded each time it appears on your screen.
Memory type
There are several types of video memory, such as DDR4, GDDR5, and GDDR5X. All of these have a slight improvement in the previous type of speed. The latest version is GDDR6, the highest-end graphics card currently available, such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 2080. Generally, you should not worry about the type of video memory that your card has, as it will adapt to fit the design of your GPU.
Which graphics card is the best for your PC?
Before you randomly can choose the right graphics card for your computer consider a few things. There are many graphics card options and sizes available, but if you plan to play games or use video editing programs, you may want a standalone card from AMD’s Radeon or NVIDIA’s GeForce range. These cards are designed for PC gaming and will also have enough power to edit videos.
AMD vs NVIDIA
The best option to choose the right graphics card for your computer could be AMD and NVIDIA’s cards offer each other the Rough equivalent, for example, the AMD Radeon RX 580 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 both cost around £ 250 and offer the same performance, while the RX Vega 56 and GeForce GTX 1070 offer the price is around £ 450 and offers have increased performance for the money.
Most gamers and video editors want as much power as they can get from their graphics card, so the best way to choose is to first set your budget and then compare the cards you get from AMD and NVIDIA for that price.
A graphics card for 4k gaming and video editing such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2080ti – will set you back up to £ 1200, but for 1080p gaming, a £ 250 budget at 60fps will suffice and you’ll get a card like the GTX 1060. Sites like GPUboss are a great tool to help you make decisions, as they allow you to directly compare the features and power of two graphics cards.
How to purchase a new graphics card: consider other things
AMD and NVIDIA come with a new series of graphics cards every year or two, so it’s a good idea to follow the news on the topic for a while before making a purchase. This will help you avoid spending money on an expensive card just before an updated version appears. You may also want to keep an eye on general trends in graphics card prices. Prices skyrocketed in early 2018 due to the use of graphics cards in mining cryptocurrencies, but prices have since resumed.
The work to choose the right graphics card could be hectic and difficult. Current graphics cards from NVIDIA and AMD require a PCI-E slot on your motherboard, and almost always with a length of x16. You need to check which slot your desired card needs, and make sure that you have one of those slots available on your motherboard using the instructions in the previous section. The earlier types of graphics cards used traditional PCI or AGP slots, but the cards using these slots are now rare and have limited power.
If you don’t want to do PC gaming or video editing, then integrated graphics cards in Intelligent and AMD’s CPU will suffice. If you are thinking about buying a new laptop, you may also want to avoid those who advertise discrete graphics cards, as the cards will add weight and keep your battery in your daily computer usage without providing much in return.
Last Thought!
We hope that now you can choose the right graphics card with the help of this article. If still you are confused then contact our Technical support Team. They provide you with the right guidelines and prefer a suitable graphics card for you.
