Understanding the Hardware : Graphic Cards

Selecting the Graphics Card is always crappy task. You always seems to stuck between Nvidia & AMD Chipsets, right ? It's totally obvious, both are equally dope !
You compare two graphics Card of your price range & buyout the one with greater specification units, right ? But, that's not the way Graphics card is to be bought .. Bit of education on Hardware can help you a lot in selecting the Graphic card.

1) INTERFACE :
Interface of the graphics card mainly decides the compatibility of chipset with motherboard or not.

PCI Express 2.0 - Decade ago, PCI slot uprooted the AGP Generation graphics card due to its very high data bandwidth rate. You see PCIe 2.0 x16 in the specification, right ? The x"unit" (eg x4, x8, x16) determines number of available lanes (bandwidth limiter). In most of New Gen GFX cards x16 Lanes are used.

PCI Express 2.1 - There is almost no difference between 2.0 & 2.1 other than debugging & troubleshooting fixes which were covered for next gen 3.0 slot migration.

PCI Express 3.0 - PCIe 3.0 x16 slots are for massive Bandwidth than that comparing to 2.0/2.1 version. Let's say mathematically it's 100% faster than 2.0/2.1. With PCIe 3.0, the advancement in Graphics has improved like in atmospheric graphics, smokes, environment rendering, etc.
So, If your motherboard supports PCIe 3.0, then GO FOR IT !

Compatibility - People seems always troubled in compatibility issue. As far as your motherboard supports the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot ,you surely don't have to worry about PCIe 2.0,PCIe 2.1, PCIe 3.0 & PCIe 4.0 . All PCIe x.0 graphics cars & slot are inter-compatibile. (Means If your motherboard has PCIe 2.0 x16 slot & you bought GFX card supporting PCIe 3.0 x16, it means it will support motherboards with PCIe 2.0 x16, PCIe 2.1 x16 & PCIe 3.0 x16 but not PCIe 4.0 x16 .. hope you getting the point)

2) MEMORY :
The more the better, but again it's not everything. The memory won't help you if your GPU is slow. Let me make it simple, GPU is Engine & Memory is Fuel ... You won't attain speed until Engine works fast. So, Do Take a look in Core Clock along-with Memory Clock.
Graphic Card with Higher Core clock works pretty faster than the one with Higher Memory clock.

3) SHADERS :
There are three sub types Pixel shaders, Vertex shaders & Geometry shaders.

Pixel Shaders - Pixel shaders processes the simple color, highlighting & depth handling. It doesn't care about the background, it's only aim is to work on single pixel that it is intended to do.

Vertex Shaders - Calculates the location of vertices & positions of 3D locations alongwith rendering 2D co-ordinates.

Geometry Shaders - It is probably used in advanced graphics rendering after the work of vertex shaders & Pixel shaders get completed. It mainly focuses in complex rendering of high detailed 3D images & real time 3D rendering.

4) Power Supply :
Be sure sufficient supply is available to the card else it won't work as intended, it might result in stop working. 450W to 500 W for Midrange cards are good .. High end cards needs more power supply & apart from that Cooler Cabinet too.

5) Graphic Card & Monitor :
How to choose the Graphics Card suitable for your requirement ? You don't have to spend 18k Bucks in Graphics Card if you owe 720p 19" Monitor, It's totally useless spending additional bucks over such high-end card when your monitor is old-school.
If you own full HD monitor 1080p & you don't have any Price barrier, Go for High end beast. It's always a fun playing games with Highest details in Full HD monitor.

6) Respect the Benchmark :
Do check online for Benchmarks comparison of Graphics card that you can find in TomHardware website. They ain't fake.

Am I Missing something ? Suggest me ... I'll add Asap 😀

Replies

  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    First of all - great article. One of the aspects in choosing the graphics card is its size and the heat dissipation. I totally agree with the importance of monitor capabilities; this is often ignored by most of the GPU buyers.

You are reading an archived discussion.

Related Posts

how can i make a forklift which powered by aircompressor..??? if it is possible to make in low cost as compare to hydraulic forklift..???
An interesting introduction to digital personal monitoring by Gary Wolf at his talk at TED@Cannes. Apps, mobile monitors and much else beside monitor every aspect of a person's daily life...
I want key genertor for this . please help me out
We started to get addicted to western culture, It starts from our dress,food etc.. There is also a thought among many of them, western culture, portraits them as modern people....
hiii friends.......i want the.clear idea.and.differences between the capacitance,inductance,reluctance. and also the difference between the resistor and diode... and.what will happen if we replace the diode with resistor