If you\u2019re scratching your head wondering which is the best to do, you\u2019re not alone \u2013 it’s a lot to absorb.<\/p>\n

A few of the things you\u2019ll want to consider are:<\/p>\n

\n
• Size<\/strong>. You may be running with a large ATX case, so size won\u2019t matter. But size does matter when a larger graphics card will take up two adjacent PCIe connections. This becomes an issue with smaller, micro-ATX cases.<\/li>\n
• Connections<\/strong>. What connections do you need? Older monitors will require a DVI-D connection, but you may need multiple DisplayPort options to accommodate support for multiple monitors. HDMI and DisplayPorts are pretty much standard in all newer graphics cards.<\/li>\n
• PSU<\/strong>. Can your current PSU support the required PSU by the graphics card? Since a graphics card is known to hog energy, you may need to upgrade. You’ll also want to consider your connectors. You may need two 8-pin connectors, but your PSU doesn\u2019t have two, so you\u2019ll need to upgrade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  Keep in mind that at the high-end, you may have 5% – 10% differences in cards for a 20% higher price. You need to justify these costs. If you play MMORPGs, you may not need to spend more on a card that is faster because you won\u2019t be able to utilize the excess power.<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  A few things to keep in mind:<\/p>\n

  \n
  • Clockspeed<\/strong>. The clockspeed may not mean much, or it may. Overclocking is especially important because it will produce more speed and require more energy. Some manufacturers, especially MSI, allow for impressive overclocking speeds that keep the card stable and allow you to reach the same performance as those cards that offer the 10% increase we discussed a paragraph ago.<\/li>\n
  • Cores<\/strong>. Cores matter when all things are created equal, but if there is real-time ray tracing or games that don\u2019t support multiple cores, they may not matter much.<\/li>\n
  • Noise<\/strong>. A lot of newer cards will keep noise to 0 dB when they\u2019re at lower loads, making them very quiet. But when they run, the noise production may be very high.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    There\u2019s also warranty and support concerns. Cards, when they\u2019re defective, will often go bad within the first few months, meaning a year warranty will suffice. But there\u2019s always the benefit of a longer warranty so that you can return the card if an issue happens a year or two into usage.<\/p>\n

    Support is equally as important because a lot of manufacturers have support that never responds. They’re horrible at responding (when you call no one ever picks up the phone), and even getting an email response is near-impossible.<\/p>\n

    I also recommend checking out benchmarks online.<\/p>\n

    Benchmarks will help you compare different cards to see how they perform for your favorite games. Oftentimes, you\u2019ll find that the manufacturer difference for some cards is 10% better for around the same price (when you\u2019re choosing the same card model, but from one of the various manufacturers available).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Do you really need the best graphics card on the market? Will you be fine running the GTX 1070, or do you need something more powerful like the RTX 2080 Ti? If money is no issue, go with the best graphics card possible. But if you have the best graphics card, you\u2019ll also need the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/cop17-cmp7durban.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}