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Video Card question

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by snuffy09

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when buying a graphics card whats most important?

i have always tried to even all the specs with a tad more emphasis on RAM type (ddr2,ddr3,ddr5) and stream processors (and obviously total ram)

In theory what is the order/priority of specs on graphics cards?

Interface
Core Clock
Stream Processors
Effective Memory Clock
Memory Size
Memory Interface
Memory Type

2 replies

by jamesrl

There are a large number of factors, and not always an easy comparison.

Interface:
I recall whent he first PCIe cards came out, and since the interface was supposedly 4x faster, we all thought we'd see a big improvement, but in some cases, older cards with the same GPU beat them in benchmarks.

Stream processors - one GPU type uses more, the other less, for the same performance.

Core clock, memory clocks, memory types - usefull when comparing cards with the same GPU, not so much when comparing cards with differing GPUs.

RAM - depends on the usage. If you are heavily into gaming or 3D rendering, you will use all the RAM you can get, so more is better. If not then you are often better off with a faster GPU and less RAM.

I know I haven't helped clarify anything.

I highly recommend www.tomshardware for information about video cards. Their "best card for the money series" is very enlightening.

James

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