How to choose a graphics card

To date, the market is leading twomanufacturer of video adapters: ATI and nVidia. Generally, companies that produce video cards are much larger and in stores there is a huge assortment of their products, but they all lose significantly to two giants. And it's not just the price / quality ratio, but also the health of the devices.

The fact is that most manufacturersa variety of "hardware" for PCs are oriented when releasing their products on ATI and nVidia. In this regard, when installing a video card from lesser known companies, it may conflict with other equipment and software.

Therefore, we recommend choosing equipment from ATIor nVidia. By and large, the devices of the last generations of these two companies are practically the same from each other. Yes, in comparison, one can find small advantages and disadvantages for each of the companies, however, they are so insignificant that it can be neglected. So you will have to choose only by the price and characteristics of the card itself, and not the manufacturer.

What to look for when choosing a video card

There are several basic characteristics of the video card,which should be guided by the choice of equipment: a series of chips (the "fresh" series, the more powerful and more expensive the device), the amount of video memory, the number of frames per second and the requirements for the system. The first three parameters are responsible for the performance of your video card.

Accordingly, if you are planning to purchasevideo card for the passage of the most modern games, then the chip in it should be the last series, the amount of video memory 2 and more GB, and the number of frames per second tends to 100. The last parameter should be treated with special attention, since some video cards require power unit power not less than 450W, if your unit produces less power, then the equipment will not work.

What video card to choose for creating a design and video editing

Most often when working on creating a design orvideo monitors use widescreen monitors with a resolution of at least 1920 * 1080 px or even two monitors at the same time. In such conditions, high frame rates or a large amount of video memory are not required. However, the video card must be equipped with additional DVI outputs (for connection of a second monitor), and also, for video operations, inputs for connecting analog video sources (for example, a video camera).

Thus, to work with graphics and videothe devices from the middle price category with chips from ATI (Radeon 5xx-6xx) or the third series from nVidia (GeForce 4xx) are best suited. You can, of course, take more expensive equipment, however, this will be a waste of money.

What kind of video card to take for games

If you are going to purchase a video card forpassing games, then the first place goes FPS (frame rate), the amount of video memory and a series of chips. In order to determine all these indicators, it's enough just to look at the system requirements of those games that interest you.

So, for not very powerful games (for example,strategies), as well as those that were released two or three years ago, there will be enough video memory in 1GB and FPS 60 and a chip of the middle or penultimate series. In the event that you prefer to play at the maximum graphic settings in this year's hottest novelties, we recommend purchasing the latest series chips with a maximum video memory and a frame rate of about 80-100.

At the same time, we recommend not to forget about therequirements of the video card to the system. And we are talking not only about the power supply unit, but also about the motherboard. It should also be noted that such video cards, immediately after the release, are very expensive, and after half a year or a year they lose significantly in price.