Rank the attributes of a good Graphics card in order of importance.

[JButlerUK]

Can i just ask, when looking at a Graphics card what are THE MOST! important attributes, obviously i look at things like:

- Core Clock
- Memory
- Memory Clock

But what about:

- Processing Cores
- Shader Clock

Someone rank the attributes of a graphics card in order of importance. When i look at a G card what is the one thing i should ensure is top?

(this should be fun...)

GO!

 

[the1gooner]

Don't think I have ever looked at Core clocks and Memory clocks when choosing a card.

Generally I decide how much I want to spend and then get the best performing card for that money.

 

[Rik1254]

- Manufacturer
- Price
- Do any of my friends have it/ similar?
- Do reviews say that this will beat any of my friends?


Im sorry, but I never heard of any of the points you said.

 

[JButlerUK]

For example: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 SOC WINDFORCE 3X 1280MB

- Core Clock: 845MHz
- Memory: 1280MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 3800MHz
- Processing Cores: 480
- Shader Clock: 1690MHz

Out of those which are the most important to be looking at and why?

 

[Curunen]

I choose in this order:

- Price/performance ratio
- Manufacturer/Brand
- Colour scheme
- Temperature, noise levels and power requirement.
- Physical size and layout.

I don't choose much based on clock speeds.

 

[JButlerUK]

Ok lol, but could anyone explain what the bits in the spec actually mean?

 

[robin66]

It's Manufacturer, Warranty and price that I look for first, then things like core speed and such.

 

[HangTime]

The problem is that there is no hard and fast rule for deciphering the specs of a card - you can work out roughly what performance you should expect relative to other cards but the best thing is just to go by benchmarks.

Even the specs you have quoted don't tell the whole story, you are missing memory interface which is just as important as the memory clock - something with a 128bit bus is going to be a lot slower than 256bit for example.

 

[JButlerUK]

The problem is that there is no hard and fast rule for deciphering the specs of a card - you can work out roughly what performance you should expect relative to other cards but the best thing is just to go by benchmarks.

Even the specs you have quoted don't tell the whole story, you are missing memory interface which is just as important as the memory clock - something with a 128bit bus is going to be a lot slower than 256bit for example.

Explains a lot, thank you.

So what is the best card for £300 at the moment?

 

[arc@css]

Explains a lot, thank you.

So what is the best card for £300 at the moment?

Depends on what games you like, some favour AMD, some Nvidia. Overall I would say the 570 is the best card for that price point. The Asus is currently available at just over £250, and this I would pick over the Toxic (linked to below). However, I am not as sure I would still go for the 570 when compared with the MSI Lightning, whether the extra cash is worth it I am not certain as I haven't seen as many benchmarks as compared to some other models.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-250-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-123-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-274-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752



I personally go by (not necessarily in sequence) fps to price ratio, noise at load, power draw, appearance, reviews, benchmarks.

 

[JeffyB]

Lately all I ask myself is can I watercool it?

 

[SheepBeast]

it's kinda pointless to look at all the individual aspects of a card. they aren't comparable between AMD cards and nvidia cards, or even between different architectures from the same company. At the end of the day priceerformance ratio is the main factor you should care about, followed by heat/noise/power and manufacturer's warranty. Also the obvious things like PSU requirement, physical size etc need to be considered to make sure it's compatible with your current system.

 

[opethdisciple]

Proccessing cores, memory bandwidth and vram (and and of course price)

But of course you look at these in terms of Nvidia and AMD which differ due to architecture.

In that order.

 

[bhavv]

Its all about price / performance, and cards like the 4850, 5770, GTX 460 and 560 are the most recent winners, ESPECIALLY when you buy two

 

[Hotwired]

Performance
General Price
Model (which may be more or less than the general price)

 

[Dauthi]

Performance
Noise
Price
Brand/Warrenty

generally in that order for me.

 

[moogle]

Odd order but,


Looks (Don't the like the new style or should I say old 7900GTX style big fan coolers with heatpipes. Prefer the shroud covering coolers on standard cards)
Brand/Warranty
Price/Performance (Which effectively chooses the model)

 

[mmj_uk]

Noise
Driver support (you really need to have owned both to gauge this)
Performance

 

[JAGRocks09]

For example: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 SOC WINDFORCE 3X 1280MB

- Core Clock: 845MHz
- Memory: 1280MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 3800MHz
- Processing Cores: 480
- Shader Clock: 1690MHz

Out of those which are the most important to be looking at and why?

Havn't read the whole thread so I appologise if this has already been said.

I tend to look into specs a bit like this, but there is one main spec you are missing, Bandwidth, lots of cards might have lesser clocks but allot higher bandwidth so that is how a 5970 beats a 5770, even though the 5770 would have higher clocks.

Also is good to judge against what you are familiar with to compair using reveiws and benches against your current card, friends cards or cards you know to be very good.

 

[ChrisD.]

I go purely on benchmarks/owners views in here. Never look at clock speeds or the specs tbh?