How to Choose the Best Gaming Graphics Card
The graphics card is one of the primary components that affects how games perform on your computer. When building or upgrading a computer, selecting the best graphics available will ensure great performance. What constitutes the best graphics card is relative to your computer's hardware, your budget and your gaming habits.
- Difficulty:
- Easy
Instructions
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View your motherboard specifications to determine your upgrade options. The type of expansion port (PCI-E or AGP) on the motherboard limits your graphics card options. If you're not sure what type of graphics card is supported by your motherboard, download a system benchmarking utility such as SiSoftware Sandra, NovaBench or CPU-Z.
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Establish a budget for the card. If money is a concern, a mid-range card that may not be the fastest, but can play all games at medium or higher settings is ideal. If money is not a concern, a single high-end graphics card will provide fast performance at the highest resolutions for at least two years.
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Review what type of games you are most interested in playing. Casual, browser-based games don't require much power as detailed DirectX 11 games. First-person shooters such as "Call of Duty" and "Battlefield" require at least a mid-range card to provide a visually appealing experience. A mid-range card also offers the performance required for multi-player sessions.
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Select a brand. NVIDIA and AMD are the two primary graphics card manufacturers. Both companies offer low, mid and high-end cards.
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Research computer hardware websites such as newegg.com and tigerdirect.com for the best deals. Compare and contrast graphics card features, along with prices.
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