Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > [Solved] Graphics Cards?
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markestey   10-17-2009 at 07:32:34 PM

I'm looking for a graphics card for some video editing and noticed that when looling for cards, ie. 4870, that there are several choices like 512, 1 gig and 2 gig models. Some even seem the same, but the price is different. Why so many models?

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Best answer from jerreece
Capitalism. :) Seriously. There are several manufacturers that make video cards for nVidia and sometimes even for ATI. Each company wants you to buy THEIR version of the card. They do this by having different prices, slightly overclocking/altering clock speeds, different amounts of memory, etc. Sometimes some versions will have aftermarket coolers on them, which in some cases can mean a cooler running video card.

 

Generally speaking, most good video cards today have 1GB of DDR3 or DDR5 video memory. If you want to do any video game playing on your PC, I'd get a 1GB card.

 

As for video editing, I really don't do any of that so I'm not sure about the video card's affects there. Seems to me that most 'consumer' software uses the CPU for that still?

 

I usually don't/won't spend extra money just for a video card that is slightly overclocked. It's usually a bit more money, and hardly much performance difference.

 

I'd imagine there's not much point in a 2GB video card at this point (at least for current gaming).

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jerreece   10-17-2009 at 11:39:14 PM
Best answer

Capitalism. :) Seriously. There are several manufacturers that make video cards for nVidia and sometimes even for ATI. Each company wants you to buy THEIR version of the card. They do this by having different prices, slightly overclocking/altering clock speeds, different amounts of memory, etc. Sometimes some versions will have aftermarket coolers on them, which in some cases can mean a cooler running video card.

 

Generally speaking, most good video cards today have 1GB of DDR3 or DDR5 video memory. If you want to do any video game playing on your PC, I'd get a 1GB card.

 

As for video editing, I really don't do any of that so I'm not sure about the video card's affects there. Seems to me that most 'consumer' software uses the CPU for that still?

 

I usually don't/won't spend extra money just for a video card that is slightly overclocked. It's usually a bit more money, and hardly much performance difference.

 

I'd imagine there's not much point in a 2GB video card at this point (at least for current gaming).


Message edited by jerreece on 10-17-2009 at 11:39:46 PM
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JackNaylorPE   10-17-2009 at 11:54:53 PM

Didn't I just answer you in an another thread earlier today. :) read this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2428.html

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markestey   10-17-2009 at 11:56:32 PM

jerreece, Great explaination. Thank you!


Message edited by markestey on 10-17-2009 at 11:58:22 PM
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