Anyone new to gaming PCs (or PCs in general) will be inundated with a ton of hardware components and technical gibberish. You should quickly notice that there are PCs available in stores both with and without a dedicated graphics card. In this article, we explain what a graphics card actually is, why you cannot do without it in the case of a gaming PC and what the best models are at the moment.
What do you need a graphics card for anyway?
A graphics card is supplied with data by the processor and uses this to calculate the image for the monitor. The more complex the displayed images are, the more performance is required of the graphics card.
Some PCs rely on a graphics unit that is already integrated in the processor. However, this is about office calculator. Because if you work with Excel all day and only watch a video on YouTube from time to time, the performance of the integrated graphics unit is easily sufficient.
However, who his PC also use for gaming wants, there is no way around an independent graphics card. Only a dedicated graphics card delivers enough performance to be able to display current games smoothly. Especially if you want to play in high resolutions.
Which manufacturers are there?
The graphics card market can currently be divided into three areas. There are graphics cards from Nvidiavon AMD and recently also from Intel. At Nvidia, the gaming GPUs run under the name “GeForce”, at AMD under the name “Radeon” and at Intel the gaming series is called “Arc”.
If you are now looking for a specific graphics card, let’s take a current one as an example GeForce RTX 4080, you will find countless variants from different manufacturers (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, etc.) in stores. However, all these variants are based on the same graphics chip from Nvidia and differ only in terms of the cooling concept and the clock frequency. As far as pure performance is concerned, it doesn’t matter too much which variant you ultimately choose. Where GeForce RTX 4080 is written on it, GeForce RTX 4080 is also inside.
What is ray tracing?
Anyone who deals a little more with current graphics cards will quickly find that all three manufacturers advertise a feature called ray tracing. In short, ray tracing can be used to physically simulate a virtual interplay of light, shadows and reflections in the background. As a result, developers will no longer have to resort to plastic tricks in the future, which ideally enables more realistic images. The following video shows what this can look like:
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However, the feature can only be used in games that explicitly support ray tracing. And the selection isn’t that big yet. However, this is likely to change in the coming years. In addition, ray tracing is very performance-hungry. If you want to use the feature, you have to accept losing some FPS in return. As of now, Nvidia offers the best ray tracing performance on the market. Followed by AMD and Intel in third place.
What technical data should you know?
Basically, there are three important indicators to determine the performance of a graphics card: the units of accountdie clock frequency and the video memory. To put it simply, the good old rule of thumb “the more, the better” applies here!
However, arithmetic units and clock frequency should never be considered separately from each other, since the two key figures work more or less hand in hand. As a rule, graphics cards with many processing units have a lower clock frequency than graphics cards with few processing units – nevertheless, the former deliver better performance. Sounds unnecessarily complicated again – luckily there is an easier way:
„Benchmark‘ is the magic word. Gaming benchmarks show how many frames per second each graphics card can compute in certain games. Anything above 40 frames per second (FPS) is generally considered “smooth gaming experience” – for shooters it should be at least 60. As an ambitious eSportsman, 144 FPS and more are usually aimed for. Significant benchmark results can already be found online for all relevant graphics cards. However, since several factors are also involved here, we will go into more detail in the next section.
Image: ALTERNATE
How much does a good graphics card cost?
Of course, whether a graphics card is good or bad depends on your own preferences. And here we are again with the gaming benchmarks. Because these are usually in three different resolutions specified. There are benchmarks for Full HD (1920×1080 pixels), for WQHD (2560×1440 pixels) and for UHD (3440×2160 pixels). The higher the resolution, i.e. the more pixels are displayed, the greater the demands on the graphics card.
Therefore, you should make the purchase of the graphics card primarily dependent on the desired resolution. if you have one Full-HD-Monitor owns, then you can get a graphics card for around 200 to 300 euros that allows you to play current games smoothly and with high graphics settings.
WQHD-Monitore on the other hand, require graphics cards worth 400 euros or more. To one UHD-Monitor To be able to max out, you can double the price again.
The raw processing power of a graphics card is no longer everything these days. Modern graphics cards usually also have useful ones Upsampling Technologies, which help to get more FPS. Nvidia calls the function “DLSS”, AMD “FSR” and Intel “XeSS”. The games are first rendered in a lower resolution and then scaled up to the desired resolution by an AI-supported algorithm. Depending on the quality level, this is the best compromise between performance and appearance. Nvidia actually goes one step further. The third generation of DLSS, which can only be used with the RTX 4000 series, also brings a “frame generation” with it. The AI automatically generates additional frames and slides them between the images calculated by the graphics card. This is also a very decent performance boost.
What is currently the best graphics card?
If you’re looking for the best possible performance, you’ll end up with one GeForce RTX 4090 by Nvidia. This is currently unrivaled at the top, but with a price of around 1,800 euros it is not necessarily intended for the mass market.
Image: ALTERNATE
The next best graphics card from the high end is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080. With a price starting at 1,300 euros, it’s not exactly cheap either, but it also delivers excellent performance and is well equipped for the future thanks to its 16 gigabyte video memory.
AMD also has a genuine high-end graphics card on offer. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is currently the strongest model from the manufacturer and is roughly at the level of a GeForce RTX 4080. As far as pure computing power is concerned, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is even slightly stronger. She only has to admit defeat when it comes to ray tracing.
What are our value for money tips?
If you don’t want to spend that much money or generally don’t have such high demands on your gaming PC, we have our price-performance tips for you here:
In the Full HD range, we currently recommend one Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060. The brand new entry-level graphics card is available from around 330 euros, has 8 GB of video memory and does not shy away from current AAA games such as “Hogwarts Legacy” or “Cyberpunk 2077”. It also masters classic eSports titles such as “League of Legends”, “CS: GO” and “Valorant” with sufficiently high FPS. An additional highlight is the support of the DLSS 3 upsampling technology, which enables noticeably more FPS for selected games. The counterpart of the competition is a AMD Radeon RX 7600. Although it has a slightly weaker performance to offer, it is available from 290 euros.
If it goes in the direction of WQHD, we recommend at least one Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti or one AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT. The former offers better (ray tracing) performance and, thanks to DLSS 3, can tickle the maximum performance out of the games. The competing model from AMD scores with a larger video memory. The prices of the two graphics cards are currently a little over 400 euros.
If you want to play smoothly in UHD or 4K, you have to start a little higher. All graphics cards from one are suitable here Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and one AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. Prices start at around 900 euros.
Special case Intel: Intel hasn’t been in the graphics card market for long. The first own GPU series was only released last year. The current top model, the Intel Arc 770, has enough power for WQHD gaming. Unfortunately, the graphics cards still have to struggle with certain teething problems. Not all games run 100% smoothly and the ray tracing performance also leaves a lot to be desired. As of now, Intel can’t quite keep up with AMD and Nvidia – but that can of course change in the future.
What graphics card do you need for VR?
That depends entirely on the VR headset used. For example, if you use an Oculus Rift S, the one Refresh rate of 80 Hertz has, you should fall back on a graphics card that also at least 80 frames per second can calculate in the desired games.
One is enough for classic VR titles like “Half-Life: Alyx”, “Beat Saber” or “After the Fall”. GeForce RTX 3050 respectively one Radeon RX 7600. Basically, the same applies here: the better the graphics card, the better the resolution in the end. As is well known, there are no upper limits.
What is there to consider when installing?
If you want to assemble your PC yourself, or at least swap the graphics card, there are a few things you should keep in mind. On the one hand, high-performance graphics cards are comparatively large. So you should enough space have in your case. You can find the exact dimensions of the graphics card on the respective product page. On the other hand, the power supply should have enough power to be able to supply the graphics card with power even under load. In a gaming PC, the power supply should always at least 500 watts deliver, depending on the graphics card possibly a little more. The currently most powerful models even require up to 1,000 watts in combination with the rest of the hardware. Finally, you should check whether all necessary connections available. This is usually only a problem in combination with very old mainboards/monitors.
Anything unclear? Then ask us your questions in the comments and we will try to help 🙂
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