Video Cards have always been the core elements of a gaming PC. The computer can work without it, however, the monitor won’t turn on, and most importantly, you can’t play your favorite games on your desktop PC. Some gamers say that the graphics card is the “heart of the personal computer”.
Graphics cards are one of the most expensive elements of a gaming PC too, along with the CPU. However, it is even more expensive than a central processing unit. While a fast, Intel i7, with the latest technology, would cost around 400-500 dollars, a high end graphics card would cost even more, around 700-800$. It may seem to be much, however, it is worth it. The video card will not only provide you the most beautiful graphics in game that you have ever seen, but you will see a significant performance boost while playing video games on your PC. It is a great investment too, since if you really buy the newest tech, high end graphics card, you probably don’t want it to be changed for at least 2 years. If you would decide to change it in 2 years, you would realize later that it is a waste of money, since your graphics card is still a beast, no need for a new one.
The Core
Similar to the CPU, the core uses the same manner for performance measuring, cores and clock cycles, the measuring unit is in Hertz. If the graphics card is the heart of the PC, then we can say that the GPU is the heart of the video cards. It consists of transistors, which form stream processors that are functioning as mini GPUs. A high end graphics card has millions of transistors and at least hundreds (if not thousands) of stream processors. When you consider buying a video card, always check how many of these parts they have and how fast are they, since it majorly affects a graphics card’s performance. Maybe “majorly affects” wasn’t the best word for here, a video card’s performance DEPENDS on the GPU part.
Memory
Graphics cards use GDDR5 memory, which is based on the DDR3 RAM that is used in computers, but it is even faster than that. The worst video card comes with at least 2 GB RAM, while a high end one has at least 6GB, maybe more than that. When considering to buy a GPU, always check out how much memory does the device contain. Since, if you buy a pretty fast graphics card with millions of transistors, the latest technology, however, it only contains 512MB or 1GB RAM, you will realize later that you have wasted your money on that. Even the 2 year old games won’t run on your PC, or at least on high graphic, so you have to do every gamer’s nightmare, lowering the graphics when playing a video game. To avoid that, remember, always think before buying something. It is the number 1 rule in our world.
Nvidia Vs Amd
However, cards are manufactured by various different companies, such as Gigabyte, Zotac, there are only two GPU manufacturers who only build the processing unit part of the graphics card and then distribute it to OEM manufacturers. They provide software support to their end customers, though by making drivers for the hardware.
So, the two competitors in the GPU industry are AMD and NVIDIA. AMD has grown to be a huge company during the years, since the company is also participating in another competition in the gaming industry against Intel, in the area of CPUs. NVIDIA is a big company too, however, they only make GPUs and some consumer electronics, such as the NVIDIA Shield Tablet.
When comparing these two devices, we should state that none of them is better than the other. It is always the end user’s taste, which will decide who’s the clear winner (when he buys the product). Nvidia’s cards are always more expensive than AMD’s, although, they are similar in performance. However, NVIDIA provides much better software support for their users, so there are much less bugs in games. NVIDIA users get less bugs too, because of the partnerships between NVIDIA and gaming developers.
