Graphic card knowledge help

jinkazuya

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Feb 23, 2010
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Well...That's a a simple question which might or might not be worth discussing...But I just wanna confirm if what I have learned so far can be applied to the real concept of graphic card.

I am just wondering if the graphic card has more ram, the more pixels and color or depth of color it will display right or does it have to depend on how fast the GPU is when you choose a video card or graphic card?

Don't talk about any other factors that affect it...Just focus on the graphic card for now.
 
When a graphics card has more ram it can store more information, pixels, color depth and so on for the GPU. (therefore at higher resolutions there is gain in additional ram)
The GPU is on the other hand governs the speed of the card. Its bandwidth and speed communicating with the other components of the system is the decisive factor on graphics card speed.
 

jenkem

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comparing specific specs of graphics cards to gauge their performance doesn't always work. like, a 4670 with 1 gb isn't really better than a 4670 with 512 mb because it's not really powerful enough to take advantage of all of it. but yeah, like rollie said more memory is favorable when playing at higher resolutions.
it's best to just read through a bunch of reviews/benchmarks and familiarize yourself with nvidia and ati's naming schemes if you want to get a good idea of how different cards compare
 

jinkazuya

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So to confirm, with more ram of the graphic card, that means it will store more info and more pixel and color depth, so the display will look more crisper and better right?

So is it the GPU that control the speed of the graphic card or there is another factor that affects the effect such as no jagging, smooth edge(with anti-Alas or something)? Does the ram also affect the speed of the graphic card just like the regular RAM of the moboboard does?
 

microterf

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Think of RAM as information you already know. You can access it VERY quickly, and the more capacity you have, the more you can store and have access to. For idiots like me though, I have to go to google to get more information than someone who is smarter than me would. The more RAM you have, the more it can hold for immediate access (Textures and such for Graphics cards), and that's less accessing the hard drive to get the textures.

So although it will not make anything "look better" it will allow faster performance. But to be honest, it's the GPU that will really your performance will depend on. You will really hit the performance wall there way before Memory (unless it's a very high end card at huge resolutions), a good example to look at is the benchmarks of the 2GB 5870, it doesn't perform any better than the 1GB version except maybe when you get to 6 screens.
 

jinkazuya

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So what part of the graphic card that actually affects the display or the resolution(or the output that provides crispy picture)?

For instance, if we want fast access, we first look for the cache, with more cache, the CPU can fetch data faster, and next the ram and then the harddisk and so on.

For calculation, the more gb or hz the thoroughput the CPU has, the faster it will be?

But I just don't know about the graphic card. If we want more resolution and crispy picture, what factors of the graphic card that determine this? I know it isn't the ram of the graphic card to begin with.

Because when you choose the graphic card, first of all you have to look at its spec, which helps decide which one to buy...But for crispy and better pic, I just don't know anything about it.