Ask Maximum PC: Which Videocard Should I Buy?

Posted 05/25/2011 at 1:16pm | by Loyd Case

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It’s really the question I dread the most. Possibly because it gets asked the most - via Twitter, through email and in online forums, everyone wants to know: “What graphics card should I buy?”

This question is often unaccompanied by any additional information, like system specs, what apps are being run and how much money is in the budget, which makes finding an answer rather complicated.

So today we’ll be walking through the process of answering that age old essential question: what graphics card should you buy? To answer that question, we first need to answer some other questions.

What Do You Want to Do?

Take a close look at your applications. This is the most important question you should ask yourself. Let’s run down a few scenarios. After we talk about what you want to do, we’ll discuss potential hardware issues and budget.

Hard Core PC Gamer.

PC games are more graphics intensive than ever, so upgrading your graphics hardware can mean a boost in both performance and eye candy. This is particularly true if you’re running a GPU that doesn’t support the latest graphics API. On the AMD side, that means you’re running a Radeon HD 4000 series or earlier; on the Nvidia side, it means you’re running something pre-Fermi (i.e., 200 series, 9000 series or earlier.)

HTPC Enthusiast.

Let’s say you’re really into home theater, and have a spiffy home theater PC. Assuming you’re interested in only light duty gaming at best, what GPU is best for you? If you’re running the latest Sandy Bridge (Intel 2nd Generation Core architecture), like the Core i3 2100T, you may not need a new GPU – Intel HD Graphics works well with home theater applications, particularly with the most recent drivers. You can even run 3D Blu-ray with Sandy Bridge Graphics

However, if your system is running an older CPU, a low-end discrete graphics card with a good video encode/decode block, like the passively cooled XFX Radeon HD 6450, might be ideal. These types of cards use very little power, do a great job with video encode and decode and can even perform GPU assisted transcoding with the right application.

A fanless, entry level GPU makes for great home theater PC graphics.

Content Creator.

If you’re into photo or video editing, or make heavy use of professional 3D apps, a GPU upgrade can mean a considerable increase in both performance and productivity. Professional graphics cards are considerably more expensive than the consumer version, yet often offer lower performance in games. The professional graphics market values different features, like efficiency, software customization and validation across a range of pro apps.

Nvidia and AMD professional graphics cards may be better suited for pro applications, but could be slower for gaming.

In some cases, though, you can get away with a consumer card. Adobe, for example, supports a handful of Nvidia-based consumer GPUs in its CS5 suite. But check to make sure the hardware you’re considering and the software you use will play well together.

Everyday Desktop User.

Maybe you, or the person who will be using the system, just uses it for “normal” stuff – you know, office apps, web surfing, light duty graphics chores. Modern integrated graphics, like AMD’s upcoming Fusion desktop CPUs or Sandy Bridge graphics may be good enough. However, like the HTPC enthusiast, users with older CPUs may want entry level or even midrange discrete graphics cards.

That’s because modern office applications increasingly have visual components. Microsoft Office uses Direct3D in charting modules. WebGL is becoming increasingly important in web-based apps. GPU compute is becoming more common in video transcoding and photo editing. There’s no need to get a killer high end GPU, but a solid midrange card based on Nvidia’s GTX 560 or AMD’s Radeon HD 6850 would be good, long term solutions.

Now that we’ve looked at application profiles, let’s think about supporting hardware.

PC System Considerations

Once you know what your application goals are for a new graphics card, it’s time for a dose of hard reality: the system you have may limit your graphics performance.

Let’s say you’re running on an old Core 2 Duo E6600: dual core, no Hyper-Threading, 2.4GHz. It’s running in a P965-based motherboard with the venerable Nvidia 8800 GT. You want to upgrade to some of that DirectX 11 goodness you’ve heard about. So you plop down some hard coin for a pair of eVGA GTX 580 SC graphics cards.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Dropping that much GPU horsepower into an aging Core 2 Duo system is -- simply put -- a waste of money. Even though most modern games tend to be highly graphics intensive, a pair of high end GPUs running in SLI or CrossFireX mode will spend a lot of time waiting on the CPU to finish some task.

In an ideal world, you want a balanced system. You don’t want the CPU to have to wait for the GPU or vice versa. Actually achieving system balance tends to be a shifting goal, however. Even if the applications mix is hard core PC games, some are more graphics intensive than CPU intensive. Others are heavily weighted towards the processor. Our hypothetical Core 2 Duo user might do better to upgrade to something more modest, like an Nvidia GTX 460 1GB card or Radeon HD 6850. Alternatively, if she really has the budget for a high end SLI rig, compromise a bit, get a midrange card and upgrade the motherboard, CPU and memory.

Another key consideration is the powers supply. That Core 2 Duo E6600 rig probably doesn’t have the PSU juice to run a pair of GTX 580s in SLI mode. That means a PSU upgrade. What seemed like a simple GPU upgrade suddenly becomes more costly.

That Core 2 Duo example is fairly simplistic, but more complex technical issues can also rise up to bite you. For example, those spiffy new Z68 motherboards running Sandy Bridge processors sound fabulous, but you’re still limited to a total of 16 PCI Express lanes for graphics in most of the mainstream solutions. So if you want to run two or more graphics cards, then you may be limiting GPU performance, particularly at very high AA and shader settings. There are exceptions, like Gigabyte’s GA-Z68X-UD7 board, which incorporates Nvidia’s Nforce 200 PCI bridge chip, which adds more PCI Express lanes for graphics. Limits on PCI Express lanes probably isn’t an issue with dual midrange cards, but if you plan on plopping in a pair of Radeon HD 6990 cards (assuming you can actually find two of them for sale), the additional PCI Express lanes might prove useful.

This Gigabyte board is one of the few Z68 boards with an Nforce 200 chip, supporting more than one PCI Express x16 slot.