It’s All About the GPU
We’ve talked before about the concerns and pitfalls surrounding buying video cards. You’ve got to know your system, you’ve got to know your performance needs, you’ve got to know the price ranges, and you’ve got to know what the state-of-the-art is. You don’t want to shell out a bunch of money for the wrong video card, so assuming you already know the basics, here are some tips on getting the most bang for your buck.
GPU Beats Memory
When it comes to computers, we’ve all been trained to look at memory. How many MBs are we talking, that’s what everyone wants to know, whether you’re talking about a CPU or a peripheral. Memory is definitely important when it comes to video cards, but more important is the GPU, the graphics processing unit. Think about your eyesight. Your brain has millions of receptors allowing you to differentiate even infinitesimal differences in texture, color, shape and size in the world around you. Now close your eyes. How much good are all those receptors doing you? Having a ton of memory with a poor GPU on your video card is like being an eagle-eye with cataracts.
Did We Mention the Importance of GPU?
Remember, if you’re looking for high 3D performance in a video card, you’re looking at GPU. If you’re not a video card industry insider, you’ll definitely want to choose from one of the “big two,” nVidia or ATI, but not all nVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon cards are high performance GPU models. You can probably guess that the more expensive cards tend to have the most powerful GPUs
GPU Modifiers
You’ll also want to keep an eye on the pixel pipelines. The more pixel pipelines, the more powerful the GPU. The basic cards tend to have 4, while the more powerful ones have 8 or 12, and the real monsters have 16 or more. Also keep an eye on clock speeds. The more mHZ, the better, although if you’re choosing between pixel pipelines and clock speeds, look at pixel pipelines first.
Direct 3D11
Direct 3D11 is the latest evolution in Microsoft’s Direct X API (application programming interface) collection. To optimize your computer’s graphics capability, you should keep an eye out for video cards that are designed to support Direct 3D11.
Again, keep in mind that not all computer users will need top of the line video cards, and the most advanced graphics cards can get fairly expensive. Have a good idea of what your computing needs are regarding graphics and how well the various video cards meet those needs before going out and making a big investment.
