Video Card Shopping Tips as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2014-05-07
·
855 words · ~4 min read
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shopping for a PC graphics card you will be bombarded with misinformation mostly
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people aren't intentionally misleading you mostly usually they just don't
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understand what they're selling but you're the one who ends up getting burned the biggest misconception is this
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no you cannot compare performance by looking at specifications take these
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cards in completely different price brackets for example this 4 gig graphics
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card is only about $100 but no it is not
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an amazing deal compared to this this 4 gig one for $11,000 sure they're both
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GeForce they both have direct X11 their clock speeds are similar and the RAM
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amount is the same but the $1,000 card
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is easily more than an order of magnitude faster than the $100 one
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because these cards use different design architectures here's an analogy a modern
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loaded semi can travel around 1,400 M on a single tank of fuel in 2009 Ford's
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Fusion Hybrid traveled around 1,400 M on a single tank of fuel these are similar
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specs and they're both interesting facts but they have nothing to do with each
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other a semi has a 200g fuel tank runs
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on diesel and Carries an enormous load while that hybrid has a 175 gallon fuel
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tank runs on gas and electricity and carries around one dude another flawed
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method of comparing specifications is to compare across different graphics
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processor manufacturers this chart is interesting sure but I also have another
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big word for it that starts with i because it cannot conclusively tell us
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which of these is better than the other it just doesn't work that way and that's
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not to say that looking at specs is always a total waste of time when
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comparing products based on the same design architecture and with similar
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specifications to each other relative performance can sometimes be inferred
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but even this should be done with great caution so at this point you're probably
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getting frustrated how do we actually compare performance real games you want
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to know how they actually run on the card that you're looking at this
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information is definitely out there we do graphics card reviews on the Linus
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Tech tips YouTube channel but it's important to find a review that covers
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the games that you want to play with gear that's realistic for you for
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example if you have a 1080p monitor don't buy based on a review where the
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cards were tested at 4K resolution but there's great news aside from my other
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channel there are literally hundreds of sites that review graphics cards a few
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of my favorites in no particular order also linked in the video description are
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hardware con.com and on.com and PC p.com
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okay so now you're sitting there saying fine lonus but what about all the stuff
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besides performance stability heat output power consumption and other
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software features these are all important to me too well there's a ton
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of information out there about that stuff too but it's a little outside the
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scope of this video and I know it can be overwhelming but the odds are excellent
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that if you CH go charging into a typical PC Hardware Community asking
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questions like who do you think has the best drivers AMD or NVIDIA you're going
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to start an argument so at least let me point you in the right direction Direction in my mind at the time of
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filming this AMD's key advantages are true audio project mantle and great
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multim monitor support with their ifinity technology NVIDIA's key
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advantages are game stream GeForce experience with Shadow play and g-sync
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which makes undesirable effects like leg due to vsync and tearing due to high
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frame rates disappear and I guess if you want to game in Stereo 3D then 3D Vision
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would also be an advantage for NVIDIA now I'm going to try to update this
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video with annotated links to my own explanations of these Technologies but
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it might take me a while so in the meantime you can head over to linch
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tips.com our community forum is I believe friendlier than most so you can
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seek additional clarity about these features speaking of features our
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Techquickie thanks again for watching guys don't forget to share this video if
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