Confused, Need Info

[lellz]

Hey so i'm looking through graphics cards for upgrade, and i'm looking at the Nvidia range, GTX540, 560 t sort of thing...
my problem is that when i compare to my current, the engine clock is slower and memory clock is slower , same RAM and they all claim like factory overclocks and stuff, but i don't understand what i am supposed to be looking at if not the clock speeds...

the only thing that i see going up is things like CUDA core, memory interface i want to understand why this is, i would like to know what to look for when i am searching cause everyhting i know cept graphics, also i don't see shader clock speeds in lower end graphics cards like mine....help me out thanks

also in high end graphics they all use same sort of casing and cooling ...what is that...with the little disc, i've always wondered what makes it so much better

 

[rolli59]

Generations of GPU's are not directly comparable on clock speeds or specifically between ATI (AMD) and Nvidia which use different architectures to reach similar results.
High power cards produce more heat and therefore need better cooling.

 

[lellz]

sorry but that didn't really answer my question at all, even when i look at GTX 560 compared to 570 and the core clock is lower and memory clock stays same, so what am i supposed to be looking for
also about the cooling i asked what it was and how it worked, i know all high end graphics card use it cause of more heat

 

[k1114]

Specs really mean absolutely nothing and should not be what you're looking at. What you should be looking at is benchmarks of games. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-560-amp-edition-gtx-560-directcu-ii-top,2944.html


Just to give some more info and to "answer" you questions: clocks are pretty straight forward so I won't go into that. VRAM only matters for res but an underpowered card could still perform the same with different amounts of vram. Cores(stream processors for amd) is probably the biggest factor in performance as the gpu will be able to handle more information at the same time even if it has slower clocks, the same way 2 people get more work done than 1 person. Older gpus have pixel shaders, pretty close in what they actually do but I won't get into specifics for this.

Also when comparing different generations the microarchitecture can make a difference. Newer architectures tend to be more efficient and powerful, meaning if the cards had all the same specs except different architectures, most likely the newer one is faster (there are exceptions). There's way too many other things that affect performance. Another reason why all this really doesn't matter, who cares what's the clocks or # of cores, how it performs in game is everything.

 

[rolli59]

sorry but that didn't really answer my question at all, even when i look at GTX 560 compared to 570 and the core clock is lower and memory clock stays same, so what am i supposed to be looking for
also about the cooling i asked what it was and how it worked, i know all high end graphics card use it cause of more heat

Benchmarks is the only way to choose between cards http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_560_TOP_Direct_Cu_II/27.html
Here is an article about (third party) coolers that probably explains it better than I can in few words http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2010/05/19/graphics-card-coolers-investigated/1

 

[lellz]

Best answer selected by lellz.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey