when i compare video cards....what should i be looking at??????

Question

i never know how to compare video cards....theres so many specs but i dont know which ones are most important

thnx!!

Answer 1

Compare frames per second on charts like this one:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html

Large amounts of RAM can be a waste and will often go unused. Processing speed, memory speed, memory bandwidth all factor to into the card's performance. At the link I provided above, try the chart for Dark Messiah. Notice there's a 256MB card that slightly outperforms a 768MB card even though both are GDDR3.
.

Answer 2

Most important:

Graphics Processing Unit
(Exe: Nvidia 8800Ultra)
Core Clock
(Exe: 700MHz)
Pixel Pipelines
(Exe: 16)
Memory Size
(Exe: 256mb [Recommended])
Memory Type
(Exe: GDDR3)
And Frames Per Second in games.

Answer 3

u deff. want about 256mb of ram and try to get one with a fan cooler on it this will help it from overheating the pci card i would suggest a geforce or ati card there the best out i have a 256mb geforce it coasts around 489.00 in the store

Answer 4

1. GPU architecture - more shaders or stream processors the better.
2. Core clock speed - 500Mhz or higher is better
3. On board memory clock speed - the higher the better. 256Mb ddr3 beats 512Mb ddr2.
4. DX version - DX10 is more "future proof".

Answer 5

its all about RAM. 256 minimum if u play 3d accel games.