10 Things you should know before buying a Video Card
Selecting a video card upgrade can be an intimidating task.
Unless you've kept up with all the GPU announcements and performance
reports, it's practically impossible to know which cards are worth
buying.
Graphics processing units, like CPUs, improve year after year, and
that means there's a staggering selection of graphics cards available
to choose from and retailers just love to place obsolete cards right
alongside the latest and greatest. If you're not careful, you could
very well end up paying a lot of money for technology that's already a
generation behind. Here are 10 things you need to know about video
cards before shopping for one.
1. Memory isn't everything
Here's the deal. You need a video card that has a decent amount of
memory to play games at high-resolution with quality graphics settings
enabled. Good video cards usually have lots of memory because all of
that GPU horsepower will go to waste if you don't have enough memory
space.
However, the video card manufacturers know that novice buyers look
at memory size as one of the main comparison points between different
cards, and that's why it's very common to see cards with cheap GPUs
sporting 256MB or even 512MB of memory, which is sort of like dropping
a 110-horsepower engine into the body of a muscle car. The underpowered
card might have some of the right numbers on the spec sheet, but its
poor performance will show once the gaming starts.
2. It's all about the GPU
Memory is important, but the real heart of the video card is the
graphics processing unit. When you're browsing through video card
names, the most important thing to look for is the GPU type, since that
little chip is responsible for all of the video card's 3D performance.
Today's best GPUs come from Nvidia and ATI, but it's not enough just to
buy a video card with a "Nvidia GeForce" or "ATI Radeon" GPU. You also
have to pay attention to the model number since Nvidia and ATI label
all their cards from the sub-$100, entry-level cards to the AU$800
high-end monsters with the same GeForce and Radeon brand names. Higher
model numbers are better, but you should also pay attention to
additional modifiers at the end, such as GT, GS, GTX, XT, and XTX,
since they often reveal important shader and clock-speed information.
Study a few video card reviews or game performance guides to get
familiar with the current models to see how they compare.
3. Pipelines, shaders, and clock speeds
You could look at a GPU's clock speed and the pixel pipeline count to
get a rough idea of the card's performance level in the early days of
3D acceleration. Today's GPUs have evolved to do much more than
brute-force pixel processing. Lighting and other effects that used to
take several pipeline "passes" can now run though a shader program to
get the same results with fewer passes and less wasted work. GPUs now
have specialised processing units dedicated to crunch through complex
vertex and pixel-shader programs. Shader units might become an
important specification to watch in future video cards as games become
more shader-intensive. ATI has recently started reporting the number of
shader units it has assigned to each pixel pipeline in its Radeon X1900
XTX line.
For the time being, you can still judge current GPUs by the number
of pixel pipelines they have. GPU manufacturers also report vertex
pipelines, but we haven't seen any games that bottleneck at the
vertex-processing level yet. Entry-level cards usually have four pixel
pipelines. Midrange cards have 8 or 12 pipelines, and high-end cards
have 16 or more pipelines. Higher clock speeds are always better, but
if you're choosing between pipelines or clock speeds, it's usually
better to select more pipes over more MHz. Having eight pipelines
running at 400MHz is much better than having four pipelines running at
500MHz.
4. Windows Vista and Direct3D 10
Microsoft plans on shipping its newest Windows operating system,
Windows Vista,
in early 2007. The new OS will feature DirectX 10, an updated
collection of functions that software applications can use to access
various system resources, including the 3D graphics card. The new
version of DirectX incorporates a new version of Direct3D designed to
streamline the graphics pipeline by reducing CPU overhead and moving
more work to the GPU. Windows Vista will still work with current
DirectX 9 video cards, but you'll need a DirectX 10 video card to run
DX10-enabled games at the best settings.
We expect Nvidia and ATI to ship their first DX10 cards in the
second half of this year, but you don't need to rush out and get one if
you're afraid of game-compatibility problems. Game developers
understand that it will be several years before the DX10 installation
base surpasses the DX9 installation base. All games, including Vista
exclusives Halo 3 and Shadowrun, will be DX9 and DX10 compatible for
several years after Vista's arrival.
5. It's (almost) always a good time to buy
The fierce competition between Nvidia and ATI has rewarded us with a
fast 3D technology development cycle. The GPU manufacturers release a
new line of chips every 12 to 18 months, which results in a steady
stream of increasingly powerful cards with more and more features.
Manufacturers also tweak designs to increase clock speeds and add new
features to refresh product lines several months after the initial
architecture rollout. Since many new features are forward-looking, such
as H.264 high-definition video acceleration and advanced Shader Model
support, it might be a year or two before the actual content becomes
widely available.
It's always a good time to buy if you don't have to get the best
card available. Video card prices fall quickly since new product
introductions constantly push older or slightly less powerful hardware
into more affordable price ranges. The worst-case scenario is buying a
high-end card right before Nvidia or ATI release a new line of GPUs,
but even then, you still end up with a very powerful card that will
have no problem running the games you want to play for a very long time.
6. You don't need to spend AU$800
The newest top-end cards ship at AU$800 or more, but you can always
find several high-performance cards in the AU$350-AU$500 range. This
price range usually offers the best performance for the dollar because
it includes a mix of current-generation enthusiast-level cards as well
as discounted high-end cards from the previous graphics generation.
Check out pipeline and clock speed specifications when comparing two
cards from different technology generations. If the specs are roughly
the same, go with the newer card since it'll have support for more
advanced features. Newer chip architectures are also more efficient so
you'll get more performance out of the same number of pipelines.
7. Do you have the power?
System power requirements have become a major concern now that video
cards have grown into strong, power-sucking behemoths. Video card
manufacturers print the power-supply recommendations on the side of the
box. The printed number is often slightly higher than actually
necessary since it accounts for poor power-supply quality and
overloaded systems. Mid- to high-end single cards usually require a
400W or 450W power supply. Requirements for dual-card setups such as a
CrossFire Radeon X1900 XTX configuration start at 550W.
8. AGP and PCI Express
Since its introduction two years ago, PCI Express has replaced AGP as
the standard graphics slot in currently shipping systems. PCI Express
offers two to four times more bandwidth than AGP, and almost all new
video cards come in the PCI Express format. The GPU manufacturers throw
a bone to AGP system owners once in a while with a new GPU like the
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS, but all the best equipment comes out for PCI
Express first.
If your PC system is more than two years old, it probably has an AGP
slot. Upgrading to PCI Express will be expensive since you'll need to
replace the motherboard, CPU, and memory, but if your system is more
than two years old, it might just be the right time to upgrade your
entire PC anyway.
This is the video card buyers bible i wll send the other 2 things you should know in a comment...as well as some nice pics and articles.....
I hope this helps...good luck...thanks for rating my effort.....The Fang.
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