All about Graphics Card, RAM, Core. The graphics card (also known as GPU) in your PC or laptop is one of the most important components, and while GPUs are primarily used by gamers to drive cutting-edge graphics at ultra-high resolutions, they can play a huge role as well. for creative professionals (or hobbyists).
So how important is a graphics card or GPU? Well, for starters, if your PC or laptop didn’t have one, you’d have a hard time using it as you wouldn’t be able to connect a monitor and interact with the computer! This is why almost every computer has a GPU.
There are also two main types of GPUs one is embedded and the other is dedicated. An integrated graphics card is when the graphics processing unit is essentially built on the same chip as the processor (CPU).
Almost all modern processors come with integrated graphics, and these have many benefits. For starters, it means you don’t have to worry about getting a GPU as there will already be one with the CPU.
Table of Contents
Step by Step Guidelines of Graphics Cards
Integrated graphics are also more compact and consume less power than dedicated graphics cards, making them ideal for thin and light laptops. Most laptops will use integrated graphics.
Buying a PC or laptop that uses integrated graphics is usually cheaper than buying one with a dedicated graphics card. Integrated graphics are primarily manufactured by Intel and AMD for their respective processors.
Modern MacBooks and iMacs made by Apple now run on the company’s M1 chip, which also combines CPU and GPU.
However, while the integrated graphics are fine for everyday use, they are not powerful enough to handle modern games and advanced 3D applications. They may also have trouble playing high-resolution videos.
So if you’re looking for more power, you’ll want dedicated graphics (aka discrete graphics). These graphics cards snap into your PC motherboard.
And can give you a huge improvement in graphics performance, and is made by Nvidia and AMD, the two biggest names in discrete graphics.
Dedicated graphics are not only more powerful but can be purchased separately, which means you can upgrade your PC with them in the future.
This is a great way to future-proof your PC and ensure it can keep up with your creative workloads throughout the years.
Certain laptops (especially gaming ones) also come with discrete graphics cards, giving them the kind of performance you’d normally expect from a desktop computer.
Buying a dedicated graphics card can have a huge impact on your creative work, as 3D rendering, video editing, game design, and animation all benefit from the added power.
What are the Most Important Specs of a Graphics Card?
One of the most important specifications of a graphics card is the amount of video memory (also known as VRAM) it has. The memory of a video card is dedicated to graphics tasks and stores image data for quick access.
Part of this includes the Z-buffer, which includes information about the depth of objects in 3D space from certain perspectives, and is used in computer games and to create CGI effects for movies.
While all of this may seem quite complicated, as with standard RAM, the more VRAM a graphics card has, the better it generally performs. Modern graphics cards range from 2GB to 24GB for Nvidia’s flagship GeForce RTX 3090.
The latest generation of video memory is GDDR6. Choosing a GPU with lots of GDDR6 memory (or the faster GDDR6X) is a sure way to ensure brilliant performance.
Another important specification that you will see thrown in when it comes to graphics cards is their clock speeds. This speed, measured in megahertz (MHz).
Essentially tells you how fast the graphics processing unit can render graphics; therefore, the higher the MHz, the faster the graphics card will be, and the better it will be for gaming and rendering.
Many people get even more performance from their graphics cards by overclocking. This is a complex process that involves forcing the GPUs to run at higher clock speeds.
Only people who know what they are doing should try. Okay, but if you want a free boost to your GPU performance, it may be worth looking into.
There are apps from GPU manufacturers that make overclocking your graphics card relatively easy and safe. Many GPU manufacturers also sell factory overclocked versions of their cards that come out of the box already overclocked.
They are usually identified by “OC” in your model name. The outputs of a graphics card are also important, as it determines what (and how many) displays it can connect, and what resolutions they support.
All modern graphics cards must have at least one HDMI port. This is a universally accepted port that makes it easy to connect any modern monitor, TV, or projector.
Most HDMI ports support resolution up to 4K (3840 x 2160) at up to 60Hz. HDMI 2.1 can support 4K at 144Hz and up to 8K (7680 x 4320) at 30Hz.
There is also DisplayPort, another popular video output port, which supports 4K up to 120Hz and 8K at 30Hz. The Dell UltraSharp UP3218K 8K monitor can also use two DisplayPort connections to run 8K at 60Hz.
Some GPUs still come with VGA and DVI connections, although these are showing their age these days and are mainly used to connect older monitors.
Some GPUs also have USB-C connections, which can also be used to send video signals. By looking at each of these specs, you can get a good idea of the kind of performance you can expect from a graphics card and choose the one that best suits your needs.
What Exactly Does a Graphics Card do?
The work of a graphics card is complex, but its principles and components are easy to understand. In this article, we will look at the basic parts of a graphic card and what they do.
We will also examine the factors that work together to make a fast and efficient graphics card. Think of a computer as a company with its art department.
When people in the company want an artwork, they submit a request to the art department. The art department decides how to create the image and then puts it on paper.
The result is that someone’s idea becomes a real, visible image. A graphics card works on the same principles. The CPU, in conjunction with software applications, sends information about the image to the graphics card.
The graphics card decides how to use the pixels on the screen to create the image. Then it sends that information to the monitor through a cable.
Creating an image from binary data is a demanding process. To make a 3-D image, the graphics card first creates a wireframe from straight lines.
Then rasterize the image (fill in the remaining pixels). It also adds lighting, texture, and color. For fast-paced games, the computer has to go through this process between 60 and 120 times per second.
Without a graphics card to perform the necessary calculations, the workload would be too much for the computer.
The Graphics Card Performs this Task using main Components:
1. A motherboard connection for data and power.
2. A graphics processor (GPU) to decide what to do with each pixel on the screen
3. Video memory (VRAM) to store information about each pixel and temporarily store completed images
4. A monitor connection so you can see the final result
5. Next, we will look at the processor and memory in more detail.
A graphics card or GPU is an electronic circuit that your computer uses to speed up the process of creating and rendering computer graphics. Like a motherboard, a graphics card is a printed circuit board that houses a processor and VRAM.
It also has an input/output system (BIOS) chip that stores card settings and performs memory, input, and output diagnostics at startup.
However, a GPU is specifically designed to perform the complex mathematical and geometric calculations that are necessary for rendering graphics. Some of the fastest GPUs have more transistors than the average CPU.
A GPU produces a lot of heat, so it is usually located under a heat sink or fan. The integrated chips differ slightly in that they do not have their VRAM and have to draw from the same RAM pool as the CPU.
This distinction can cause your system to run out of memory while gaming with an integrated GPU. In addition to its processing power, a GPU uses special programming to help it analyze and use data.
You Need to See Before Buying Graphic Card
1. Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), which smooths the edges of 3-D objects
2. Anisotropic filtering (AF), which makes images look sharper
3. Real-time particle and physical effects
4. Multi-screen displays
5. High frame rate video output
6. Ultra high definition video with many millions of pixels
7. GPU accelerated calculations
Each company has also developed specific techniques to help the GPU apply colors, shading, textures, and patterns. As the GPU creates images, it needs a place to store complete images and information.
It uses the card’s RAM for this purpose, storing data about each pixel, its color, and its location on the screen. Part of the VRAM can also act as a frame buffer, which means that it contains entire images until it is time to display them.
Video RAM typically runs at very high speeds and has two ports, which means the system can read and write to it at the same time.
Modern video cards plug into a PCIe x16 expansion slot. Small form factor computers with integrated graphics, such as laptops and mini desktops.
May not come with such a slot. However, graphics cards can be connected using an expensive alternative device called an external GPU.
How to Buy Graphics Card?
Getting the best graphics card is not difficult in today’s date if you are looking to buy the best gaming PC or want to build a PC on your own. The graphics card is even more important than the CPU.
Unfortunately, the process of figuring out how to buy a GPU can be intimidating. There’s a lot to consider, from the type of monitor you’re using. Here are the things to keep in mind when buying your next GPU.
Note that, as of this writing, stocks of the latest Nvidia 30 series cards and AMD 6000 cards were extremely limited. (As in, practically non-existent). Frankly, even the older generation hardware is overpriced and out of stock.
Some Tips to Get Your Best
Save some money for the CPU. If you spend all your money on graphics and don’t go for one of the best CPUs, your system may score well in synthetic benchmarks, but it won’t do as well in actual gameplay (due to lower minimum frame rates).
Match the resolution of your monitor. Many conventional cards are sufficient to play 1080p resolutions at 30-60 fps, but you will need a high-end card for 4K resolutions or close to resolution at high in-game settings on the most demanding titles. So be sure to pair your GPU with the best gaming monitor for your needs.
Consider your update frequency. If your monitor has triple-digit refresh rates, you will need a powerful card and processor to reach its full potential.
Alternatively, if your monitor maxes out at 60Hz and 1080p, it doesn’t make sense to pay more for a powerful card that pushes pixels faster than your screen can keep up.
Do you have enough power and space? Make sure your PC case has enough space for the card you are considering and that your power supply has enough watts to spare.
Along with the correct type of power connectors (up to three 8-pin PCIe, depending on the card). A good way to know
If you are getting a deal is to check the introductory price or MSRP of the card you are considering before purchasing.
Tools like CamelCamelCamel can help separate the real deals from the fake markup and discount deals.
But keep in mind that in recent months, due to supply issues and increased demand, the newer cards have been priced well above their MSRP.
Don’t get double cards, they are not worth it. Gaming support for multi-card SLI or CrossFire setups has been on a downward trend for years. Get the best individual card you can afford.
Adding a second card is often more troublesome than it’s worth. Don’t count on overclocking to dramatically increase performance.
If you need better performance, buy a more powerful card. Graphics cards typically don’t have a large amount of overclocking headroom, typically only 5-10%.
Which Graphics Card is Better?
The best graphics card may be an elusive beast right now, Just a few months ago, it was impossible to get a new GPU, but the struggle might be over soon.
And while the price of GPUs fluctuates a lot as supply and demand balance out, we have some best graphics cards if you’re still struggling.
1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
Okay, right now the RTX 3080 is weird as pigeon tabs, but there’s no question that Nvidia’s new RTX 3080 is the best graphics card around today. It represents a huge boost to generational performance over the previous RTX 20 series.
That’s impressive when compared to the RTX 2080 or 2080 Super, but when you consider that this $ 699 nominal card can not only match but vastly outperform the $ 1,200 RTX 2080 Ti comes home.
What stands out from our tests is the difference it makes in ray tracing performance. The first generation of ray tracing capable cards required such a huge frame rate sacrifice that most people avoided turning it on, but that is no longer the case with this generation.
When you can now get ray tracing performance that exceeds the frame rates you would get from the top RTX 20 series card when running without it, you know this is an entirely different beast. And hey, the RTX 3080 can run Crysis.
Nvidia has accomplished this by adding one more full load of CUDA cores to the mix on this 8nm GPU and updated Tensor cores (for added DLSS goodness) and second-gen RT cores to do with ray-traced beauties.
The RTX 3080 may need quite a bit more power (you’ll want at least an 850W power supply) and will be easy to come by, but this is the most desirable graphics card out there today. Which I suppose is also the reason why it’s so hard to come by.
2. AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
As a red team alternative to Nvidia’s high-end graphics cards, there have been few thinner than the RX 6800 XT. A highly competitive card that comes this close to its rival, with a nominal performance.
Differential over the RTX 3080, is truly an enthusiast card worth considering for any PC gamer with 4K in mind.
It’s a tough decision between him and the RTX 3080, but the latter brings AMD to the post with the finishing touches to the RTX.
The RX 6800 XT is $ 50 cheaper, offers high 4K performance and a considerable increase in VRAM compared to the RTX 3080.
However, it is easy to argue that an additional $ 50 spend on the RTX 3080 is money well spent. – A small price to pay for a higher 4K.
Performance greatly improved ray tracing and DLSS. All are available today and with two years of developer support in the bank.
However, we are still big fans of what AMD has managed to achieve with the RX 6800 XT, a return to form for Radeon Technology Group.
That injects much-needed competition into the GPU market and offers a red team-worthy alternative for any. high. -End of construction of PC for games.
3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
The best value amp to date, the RTX 3060 Ti, is closely related to the RTX 3070. They both use the same GA104 GPU (the RTX 3060 Ti has fewer SMs enabled), with the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory in one device. 256-bit. bus.
While it’s 17% less capable on a core count, the RTX 3060 Ti makes up for it with some judicious GPU Boost clock rates.
That partially explains why the RTX 3060 Ti can be within 17% to just a single digit of the pace of the RTX 3070, despite operating with a silicon disadvantage. Not bad for a $ 399 card (if you can find it for that price).
If you haven’t done the math yet: At $ 399, the RTX 3060 Ti is 20% cheaper than the RTX 3070, so the performance per dollar goes up with the tiny graphics card.
That is why we love him so much; It’s a great GPU for the full stack of resolutions and has decent ray tracing ability to boot, courtesy of second-gen RT Cores.
If the RTX 3080 or RTX 3070 seem out of reach, the RTX 3060 Ti is certainly a decent substitute. Perhaps the most impressive thing about this graphics card is how it compares to the 20-series generation.
4. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
Perhaps the only high-end Ampere that comes close to a reasonably affordable price, the RTX 3070 is also impressive in its ability to match the higher-end Turing graphics card, the RTX 2080 Ti, for less than half its price.
At $ 499, that’s still a significant sum either way – we’re talking next-gen console equivalent prices here, but it’s not an exorbitant sum compared to the superior graphics silicon of PC games today.
In return, you are given a 4K-capable graphics card that doesn’t require too many tweaks to reach playable, if not high, frame rates. And it will crush it at 1440p, no question about that.
Its gaming performance credentials are certainly impressive, but what makes the RTX 3070 our pick for the PC gaming connoisseur is the entire Nvidia ecosystem that underlies the current RTX stack.
DLSS is a nice trick to improve performance, with only a nominal loss of clarity, and other features like Broadcast and Reflex go a long way towards sweetening the deal.
5. AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
The RTX 3090 may not have been challenged on the higher rungs of graphics performance at launch, but it wouldn’t be long until AMD assembled a rival in the RX 6900 XT, or ‘Big Navi’.
The RX 6900 XT hopes to bring down the best of Ampere from its perch high above and send it spiraling back to Earth.
And it comes a bit close too, with 4K performance a bit off the pace of the RTX 3090, and all for a third of the asking price. For that reason, it is simply the best buy for any PC gamer with no ulterior motives of the pro-creator variety.
But there’s a reason it’s not number one in our graphics card guide today, and that’s simply because it’s not much better than an RTX 3080, and sometimes not at all.
It’s another $ 300 on top of the price of the RTX 3080, and I’d expect better performance on raster and ray-traced workloads. However, inevitably its ray-tracing acceleration lags behind the competition.
But the RX 6900 XT comes with guarantees that the RTX 3080 can’t do, like its 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which is 6GB more than the 10GB of GDDR6X memory (faster) on the green team card.
With that in mind, for raw gaming only, the RX 6900 XT is a cheaper alternative to the RTX 3090 that remains a victim of its extreme price.
6. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
This colossal graphics card is extremely powerful, but it fits Titan’s credentials much more than GeForce’s. It is not built with the average gamer in mind.
Instead, it’s aimed at creative professionals and accelerating compute-intensive applications, and that’s why it doesn’t come with its average price tag either.
As immense in price as in stature, the question on everyone’s lips is: Is it worth it? For the players, no. It’s just not much faster than the RTX 3080.
But for professional creators, for whom time is money and where shorter render time has a direct correlation with how much they can earn, that’s where the RTX 3090 comes into play.
It’s for that reason we’ve placed this card near the bottom of our list, but since we know that PC gamers will undoubtedly spend ungodly amounts of cash to save face and secure bragging rights, it’s still worth mentioning.
After all, it’s the most powerful gaming graphics card on the planet right now, whether it’s a great deal or not.
7. AMD Radeon RX 6800
As the only one of the AMD RX 6000 series cards to be released without undermining a direct Nvidia Ampere rival, the straight RX 6800 feels like it’s almost been left adrift.
It’s a weird situation because historically we’ve always wanted to recommend the second string of any Radeon release.
If you were to spend that much money on a new GPU, the extra $ 70 would be worth it. The RTX 3070 also offers Nvidia’s broad gaming ecosystem.
While ray tracing can be seen as a luxury, DLSS is a great performance-boosting feature that has yet to be matched by AMD.
AMD tends to release main series cards in pairs, one with all the power of the new GPU and a daughter card with a slightly reduced rear chip. They typically perform at a similar level for much less money.
Except for this moment, the performance gap is relatively large and the price difference is not large enough to negate the problem. You also have the RTX 3070 priced at $ 80 lower than this RX 6800 card.
Sure, the RX 6800 sometimes outperforms the cheaper Nvidia card, but for the money, you will surely want the only slightly more expensive RX 6800 XT because it is much faster.
But it must be said; the RX 6800 remains a powerfully impressive card outside of the ramifications of its place in the pile. This makes the $ 1,200 RTX 2080 Ti look bad.
What is RAM?
RAM (Random Access Memory) is the internal memory of the CPU for storing data, programs, and program results. It is a read / write memory that stores data until the machine is running. As soon as the machine is turned off, the data is erased.
Primary memory
RAM access time is independent of address, meaning each storage location within memory is as easy to reach as other locations and takes the same amount of time.
The data in RAM can be accessed randomly, but it is very expensive. RAM is volatile, that is, the data stored in it is lost when we turn off the computer or if there is a power outage.
Therefore, a backup uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is often used with computers. RAM is small, both in terms of physical size and the amount of data it can hold.
RAM is of two types:
1. Static RAM (SRAM)
2. Dynamic RAM (DRAM)
Static RAM (SRAM)
The word static indicates that memory is holding its contents as long as power is supplied. However, the data is lost when the power goes out due to its volatile nature.
SRAM chips use a 6-transistor matrix and no capacitors. The transistors do not require power to prevent leakage, so there is no need to update the SRAM regularly.
There is additional space on the matrix, so SRAM uses more chips than DRAM for the same amount of storage space, increasing manufacturing costs. Therefore, SRAM is used as a cache and is very fast to access.
Static RAM characteristic Long life, No need to update, Faster, Used as cache, Large size, Expensive, High power consumption.
Dynamic RAM (DRAM)
DRAM, unlike SRAM, must be continually updated to maintain data. This is done by placing the memory in an update circuit that rewrites data several hundred times per second.
DRAM is used for most of the system memory as it is cheap and small. All DRAMs are made up of memory cells, which are made up of a capacitor and a transistor.
Dynamic RAM characteristic Short data lifespan, Needs to be continually renewed, Slower compared to SRAM, Used as RAM, Smaller in size, Less expensive Lower energy consumption.
What is Core?
A core, or CPU core, is the “brain” of a CPU. It receives instructions and performs calculations or operations to satisfy those instructions. A CPU can have multiple cores.
A processor with two cores is called a dual-core processor; with four cores, a quad-core; six-core, Hexa-core; eight-core, octa-core. As of 2019, most consumer CPUs feature between two and twelve cores. The workstation and server CPUs can hold up to 48.
Each core of a CPU can perform operations separately from the others. Or, multiple cores can work together to perform parallel operations on a shared set of data in the CPU cache.