How to choose the Right Graphic Card

Modern Graphic Cards are intimidating pieces of hardwares with a lot of stuff packed under their hood. Though they are tiny maybe huge even these days but they all come with a lot of confusion making it really very difficult to buy the right one.
So today we'll take a look at a few things that will help us choose the right graphic card for our PC. Before we proceed let me tell you come key features that are the basics of a graphic card:

• A DDR5 memory GPU is always better than a DDR3 or DDR2, higher the number means that faster is the processing of that card.
• Greater the Clock speed faster and better the card, a 810Mhz GPU is better than a 675Mhz one.
• Connecting your graphic card through the HDMI port to the monitor is a better option than VGA or DVI port.
• Brands like AMD/ATI have a series based production so the higher the first two digits in their graphic cards the better & latest the card will be like AMD HD6450 is an older and slower card than AMD HD7970. So always look at the series like HD6XXX, HD7XXX etc

Now that we are clear with the basics lets look at the most important points. Here are six important ones:

1. What types of games do you play?
2. What other applications do you run?
3. What is your budget for a graphics card?
4. What is your monitor's display resolution?
5. What is your PC's performance level?
6. What is the Power Supply?

1. What Types of Games Do You Play?

   Some types of games demand more of a graphics card than others do. Here are rules of thumb that generally (but by no means always) hold true.
   If you play First Person shooter games like Crysis
   
   3 or Resident Evil 6 then these games demand a lot of video memory and push the GPU to its extent when running in all their glory and at high-ultra high settings. So a decent mid-range Graphic Card in the price range of Rs 5000 to Rs 8000 or definitely a High-end graphic card is recommended.
   
   Strategy games like DOTA or Command and Conquer, online free to play games or casual games like Angry Birds don't really need much of a graphic card so you can settle for an entry level graphic card for these.
    

2. What other applications do you run?

   GPU-accelerated apps are becoming more common. The earliest use of GPU acceleration for consumer applications was for video transcoding. Applications such as CyberLink's Media Expresso have added support for additional graphics hardware and application programming interfaces (APIs) over time.
   Latest software like Photoshop CS6 uses OpenGL for most of its rendering and GPU compute for accelerating the filters in the blur gallery, putting more load and hence increasing the need of a decent GPU/Graphic Card. Windows8 and Office 2010 and above need a solid Graphic Memory to work at their best.
   Modern Browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and IE9 use the GPU to accelerate 2D page rendering
   So, f you use your GPU for nothing more than accelerating Windows and Web browsers, modern integrated graphics such as Intel's HD 4000 (included with all mobile Ivy Bridge processors) and AMD's Radeon GPU integrated into all A-series processors are good enough. But if you do more-demanding work, you may want a discrete graphics card. Even then, however, for most normal desktop use, you don't need to spend a bundle; a card priced at between Rs 3500 and Rs 5000 is definitely good enough.
    

3. What is your budget for a graphics card?

   Economic reality may constrain even the most discriminating hardcore gamer. Unless you have a deep pocket, you'll need to balance your desires versus your wallet. Look for discounts and sales, both online and retail. And bear in mind that your monitor may strongly affect your graphics card choices.
    

4. What is your monitor's display resolution?

   If you have an older, 1680x1050 pixel monitor, an entry-level Rs 3000-Rs 5000 card is the most you'll need, even if you enable performance-sucking features such as antialiasing. 
   But today 1920x1080 pixel resolution monitors are getting common so if that id your case then go for a mid-range Graphic Card at minimum or defintely a high-end one costing somehwere Rs 8000-Rs 12000. 
    

5. What is your PC's performance level?

   If you are running an old PC with a Celeron or Athelon II CPU then upgrading to a new Graphic Card, no matter how high-end, would only increase the performance slightly as the GPU would still be waiting for the CPU to process and pass on the commands. An ideal GPU is a total waste of money.
   Also if your motherboard is still with a PCI-E 1.0 slot then spending anything more than Rs 4000 on a new Graphic Card would be a waste of money so just save some money instead to buy a new processor along with a new motherboard to support your new GPU better and make full use of it instead.
    

6. What is the Power Supply?

   You should always buy a Graphic Card that has a matching power requirement as that of your PSU. A GPU working under low power will lead to downgraded performance and will put an extra load on itself as well as on the other components by conflicting with their allocated power quota. In worst cases it can even damage your whole system.
   So always choose a Graphic Card in accordance with your PSU or ugrade your Power Supply instead before buying a new Graphic Card is they don't match.
   
   
   

   NOTE: The best GPU or Graphic Card manufactureres are Sapphire, ATI, Nvidia, MSI or AMD. Anyone except these are cheap but come with a substandard performance, bad or no technical support atall. So always go for anyone of the above mentioned brands.

   For any more information and assistance feel free to contact and comment, your problem would be solved ASAP.

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