Graphics Card Buying Guide

If you’re planning on buying a new rig or simply upgrading but don’t know which graphic card to choose, here’s an in-depth graphics card buying guide to help you out!

What do I need to pay attention to?

The first thing you need to consider while buying a Graphics card is that it should have atleast 1GB memory.
Note: Higher the memory, stronger is the card… While this is true, in most cases it actually isn’t.
Here is a list of things which you should consider while buying a graphic card.

Memory Size

Let’s start off our graphics card buying guide with one of the most important attribute: MEMORY. It is assumed that higher memory means better performance, but this isn’t true all the time. More memory is used if you have multiple displays or play games at very high resolution. In most cases, or if you have a single monitor, 1GB is more than enough for your tasks.
Consider these two cards – HD 6670 2 GB VS HD 6770 1 GB for the game Far Cry 2

Here the HD 6670, despite having more memory i.e. 2 GB, performs lower than the HD 6770 which has 1 GB memory.

Type of Memory

There are two types of memory used in Graphic cards nowadays, i.e. DDR3 and DDR5, DDR5 being the faster one. You should always get the DDR5 model despite the price difference between them because there is a performance difference between the two.

Your Monitor or Display Size

Depending on your monitor size and resolution the card has to be selected. If you have a large monitor with high resolution you will require a high end card. Also if you have multiple monitors you will require a high end card. Also it will be a waste of money if you plan to buy a high end card for a 17” display.
Others things to consider will be -
Does the monitor have HDMI, DVI or VGA connections? Nowadays most of the cards have all the above three but if you have a HDMI connection in the monitor its better you buy a card which supports HDMI.

Brands

There are two graphic card manufacturers AMD and Nvidia. One of the most common question one faces is which should I choose AMD or Nvidia.. Choosing the right brand is a pain, but the card model decides the performance and not the brand. Here is an article that compares AMD and Nvidia.

Naming scheme

The graphic cards are named in such a way that buy the name one can identify whether it’s a low end, mid end or high end card.
Let’s start with Nvidia’s naming scheme the first number is the series number like incase of the graphic card GTX 660, 6 is the series number. Each series has its features like which Direct X it supports, die size  etc. The newer series is always better than the older one. The next two numbers i.e. 60 in this case, determines the performance level of the card higher the number greater is the performance. If you want performance you should go for higher number and latest series or higher number and slightly lower series because a card say GTX 570 will outperform GT 650 even though GT 650 is of the latetst series. Nvidia graphics also have GT,GTS or GTX prefix before the number which also determines the performance of the card.

ULTRA = enthusiast high end

GTX = mid to high end
GTS = mid-range good price / performance
GT = low mid-range
GS = low
LE = entry level extremely low end

AMD’s naming scheme is also almost same. Consider HD 7870, here the first number i e. 7 gives you the series number. The remaining two numbers tell you about the performance level i.e. higher the number, higher is the performance. All have a HD prefix.
Here is a performance comparison of most modern cards (Credits Tomshardware)
The graphic cards are arranged in descending order of their performance