Are you worried about how to buy a graphics card for gaming?
You can play almost every game on your PC with the integrated GPU or the old graphics cards but at a balanced graphics settings. And to enjoy the real thrill & chill of gaming, you must install an RTX or AMD powerful graphics card.
These GPUs will help your processors give you the desired performance that you need while playing high-end games like Cyberpunk, Control, The Witcher 3, etc. The popular and powerful GPU available in 2022 is Nvidia RTX 30 Series. Nvidia RTX 30 series has RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090.
I have recently upgraded my GPU to MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio. Previously I had RTX 2080 super card. After using it for almost two months, I would say MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio is the best rtx 3080 card you can get for under $1000. Alternatively, you can also get Asus Rog Strix RTX 3080 OC edition.
While most users think that graphics cards are generally for gaming but that’s not the fact. Graphics cards are necessary for handling all the graphical tasks of your PC or laptop. Thereby, it helps graphic designers, animators, VFX artists, and content creators to do thor day to day work alongside gaming.
However, if you’re a gamer or you want to build a PC for gaming, and got confused about how to buy the right graphics card, we are here to help you out. In this article, you will understand how you can choose the best graphics card for gaming.
1. Form Factor
When purchasing a graphics card for your gaming PC first you have to look at the form factor or the size. Always make sure that your card is compatible with the motherboard of your PC. Since we’re looking for how to buy a graphics card for gaming purposes, you need to go for a full-height graphics card with two or more expansion slots.
2. Graphics and Memory
For gaming and graphics designing or other high graphical work, you should buy a GPU with a minimum of 6GB to 8GB (RTX 2060, RX 6000+) memory for 1080p gaming. However, if you want to enjoy the experience of 4k gaming, you must buy 10GB or more graphics cards (RTX 3080, 3090) will be the best choice.
3. TDP
Thermal Design Power identically identifies the measurement of heat dissipation. And it also estimates how many watts or power your GPU will draw while working. If you’re using a 400 watts PSU and overclock your CPU at 95 watts and GPU at 250 watts, you must upgrade our power supply. Hence, if you want to overclock your CPU and GPU you’ll need to have a powerful PSU for sufficient power supply.
4. Power Connectors
Power connectors are a very crucial part of a graphics card. All good graphics cards for gaming draw more than standard power (75W) which you’ll get for the x16 PCIe slots. And to cope with that amount of power, these cards require a supplemental power connector with 6 to 8-pin varieties. Thereby, you will need a power connector that offers supplemental connectors otherwise you’ll have to upgrade the adaptors but that is not good for long-term usage.
5. Ports
Since all the monitors nowadays come with HDMI and DisplayPort ports, all the graphics cards provide these two display connector ports for display output. Most of the good graphics cards come with two HDMI ports along with three DisplayPorts. If you like gaming with multiple monitors then choose the maximum number of ports. However, for better display quality, HDMI is always recommended.
6. Clock speed
Although not very important but still you should consider looking at the clock speed while purchasing a graphics card for gaming. You should know that some GPUs offer to overclock while others don’t even though they are from the same category (Ex: RTX 3080). However, your graphics card’s performance also depends on the cooling system, core counts, memory speed and architecture.
7. AMD or Nvidia
If you are struggling to find the best GPUs in the current market, there is no way you haven’t stumbled on the question of whether to choose AMD or NVIDIA. Since both of these companies provide various useful software, cooling features, overclocking and other amazing functions, it becomes often difficult to choose the right one. And these two GPU giants give licenses to other companies including Asus, MSI, EVGA and otters to sell their graphics cards in the market.
However, if you look at your niches and budget, it would be easy to pick the perfect one for your PC. For budget gamers, AMD is the best choice. The Navi RX 5000 series of AMD has given a neck-to-neck competition with the Nvidia cards.
The NVIDIA graphics cards are highly capable of loading high-end games thereby, if you’re a heavyweight gamer, you should go for the Nvidia graphics cards.
More: Things To Consider before buying RAM
Conclusion:
Do You Need a Graphics Card for your PC? You won’t need a card if you are doing only basic tasks such as browsing and watching movies. You will need a card if you are doing some graphics-related card or if you want to play high-settings games.
