Ninja Sushi's Guide to Graphic Processing Units. What does it all mean?
Alrighty. Here is a quick guide to buying a GPU (Graphic Processing Unit/Graphics Processor Unit) I will break down what each part means and then sum up the 4 best GPU IMO on the market right now... and this some.
Reference Cards vs. Aftermarket Cards a.k.a. Retail Cards
Alright. So here is possible the biggest difference in all GFX cards. I will be using ATI Radeon as an example as it is much easier to spot a reference card vs. aftermarket. Let's take the newest cards out and use them. 7950 vs. 7970. All 7950 models are reference. Meaning they're stock from the factory as ATI intended with NO additions. Aftermarket additions could be any of the following and even all of the following. Better PCB, better heatsink and fans, pre-overclocked, etc, etc, etc. (PCB - Printed Circuit Board) *The back of the board... lol) Reference cards are good, but I always urge people to wait for the non-reference version as the perks given are much, much better.
RAM
Now you will notice that most cards out right now bounce between 3GB and 4GB of ram. This RAM is possible the most important thing about the GPU you want to buy. GFX card RAM - Random Access Memory - like CPU ram is extremely important when computing. The graphics card caches all volatile memory on the graphics card itself. All unit movement, shaders, shadows, colors, pixels, resolution size, EVERYTHING is stored on the GPU RAM. Without adequate ram you will notice a major decline in the performance of any games or GFX intense program you are using.
Core clock
Long story short: Core clock speed for a GPU is the same basic idea as for a CPU. It's how fast the GPU processes all task at hand. It is the speed at which a GFX card can run a 3D program and is derived from it's architecture. (More on this later.) So basically: The faster the CPU you have - I.E. i5-2500k vs. i3-2100 - the faster your computer can process a task. Same idea with a GPU core clock speed. 1000 MHz is better than a 900 MHz processor yet a 1084 MHz (EVGA 680) is faster than a 1000 MHz (XFX 7970) GPU. Core clock is important, but it is not the end all deciding factor like most people assume to believe.
Memory Clock.
Memory Clock speed is how fast the GFX card processes the RAM. More memory clock and more bus speed = more memory bandwidth. You may have 4 GBs of RAM, that is you can store 4096 MBs of data onto the onboard memory of the GPU, yet a faster memory clock means how fast the GPU can access this memory and process it. All GPU memory today is ran at DDR. Double Data Rate. This is saying that the GPU can read from and write to the RAM at twice the speed. 500 MHz of DDR is effectively 1000 MHz of memory clock.
Memory Interface
This one is pretty easy and most people will understand it. When describing memory interface I like to think of it as a major highway. The more lanes you have, the more traffic can flow through. The more memory interface you have, more data can flow through and be processed. 128 bit < 384 bit. etc. etc. etc.
Power consumption and wattage required - Here is a more indepth look at actually wattage vs. required/recommend wattage. http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic=264
Power consumption and wattage required are two different beast. When a company post benchmarks of their cards, they will often show a required wattage amount - say 500W required. This is a safety buffer and many factors play into this: Mobo, cpu, ram, heatsink, etc. play into this 500W buffer zone. In all actuality most GPU pull from the wall about 200 watts. (Not counting OCing, full load test, etc etc etc. Now, if you buy to 7970s and they both require 500W, this DOES NOT MEAN!!!! that you will need an 1000W power supply. An 800W will be plenty of power to power all your components as well as two 7970 in X-fire mode.
Interface
Pretty easy stuff right here. It's what PCI-e slot the card requires. All new cards run at PCI Express 3.0x16. Don't worry about this unless you have a very old computer in which you want to upgrade it. (Wise man once said! "Tis better to buy new, than upgrade old.")
Stream Processors vs. CUDA Cores. (Let the flame war begin.. jk jk)
So here is the low-low on Stream Processors vs. CUDA Cores. SP is ATI whilst CC is NVidia. Plain and simple. Don't even try to compare the two as you will be comparing apples to oranges. Basically speaking, SP and CC are the architecture of the GFX card itself. This is saying how the card processes, runs, retrieves data, etc. Hence why some ATI cards run games better than some NVidia cards where as some NVidia cards run games better than some ATI cards.
ATI Radeon vs. Nvidia GeForce
All preference. Some people are fan boys while others are benchmark fan boys. I myself love reading benchmarks. I don't give a damn who makes what! I just want the best item I can get for my money in my PC. Plain and simple! I think both companies excel at different points and both flounder at different points.
Card Size and Dimensions!!!
THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT STUFF!!! Seriously.. If you buy card that is too big for your case, you will need to do one of two things. Go back and get a smaller card or get a bigger case! Pretty simple stuff right there. Now this probably will never happen to anyone, but it's always a good idea to check before you spend your money. No one likes paying a restocking fee and a shipping fee because something doesn't fit.
Things that do matter!
Everything above and most importantly.... DISPLAY PORTS!!! Make sure your card and monitor both have matching display ports. Otherwise you will be buying either a new card, new monitor, or a converter, all which cost way too much money.
Things not worry about as the probably don't apply to your situation.
GDDR5, Power Pin Connectors, Stream Processors and Cuda Cores, RAMDAC, HDCP Ready, Item and Model #. If you don't know what any of this is, it doesn't matter or apply to you. Do not worry about it.
Personal Opinion Time
Here a few cards that I feel are the best in their field right now. (This is not including the pending GHz addition of the 79xx series.)
XFX 7970: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150586
MSI 7970: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127670
MSI 680: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127693
EVGA 680: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130794
Here is the easy version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 127-693-TS
If you have the money, go big.
Oh hey. Just upgrade to a 690. lol jk jk
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 0GTX%20690
Keep in mind the big thing you want to look for is the RAM. Because if your computing at 2560x1600 (in my case 2560x1440) and you run out of GPU RAM, then that game will in turn go to the file location on the hard-drive and start caching HDD space as GPU-VRAM (Little known fact). Hence why putting a demanding game onto your SSD is a smart idea in case you do run at of RAM. It's cheaper than buying another GFX card and still operates pretty darn fast depending on the RAID, and if you have it as SATA 6.0. But above all the 680 does have 1 GB of GPU VRAM over the 7970 which is a large factor. (Also! If you run at of VRAM, it is better to lower the settings or even your resolution as the game with run MUCH smoother than caching on an SSD)
Now does this 1GB and some minimal clock speeds out weigh the price tags of well under 500 bucks to over 600? No. A 4GB, 1536 cuda core, clocked at over 1GB memory etc, doesn't really warrant paying 100-150 bucks more. With that money you could put away to X-fire another card.
NOW! That being said. IF!!! and only IF!!! You have the money, and lots of it. NVidia is the way to go right now. The 680 is better than the 7970 regardless, etc, etc, etc, because it does at 1 more GPU-RAM than a 7970 and some of the EVGA cards clock the highest, etc, etc, etc.
So if money = pocket change, then just go out and buy 2 690s and profit. But yeah, trolling (PATROLLING... not trolling as in forum trolling.) around newegg, ncix, and other websites I find the XFX 7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation is THE - best - bang - for - your - buck.... at $460 bucks. Or if you are an Nvidia fan than the EVGA Superclocked 670 is also a very tempting offer. 4GB of GPU RAM and some pretty nice clocks, all sitting around $484. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130785
As always, I recommend someone correct me if I am wrong and add in anything I might have forgotten.
Alrighty. Here is a quick guide to buying a GPU (Graphic Processing Unit/Graphics Processor Unit) I will break down what each part means and then sum up the 4 best GPU IMO on the market right now... and this some.
Reference Cards vs. Aftermarket Cards a.k.a. Retail Cards
Alright. So here is possible the biggest difference in all GFX cards. I will be using ATI Radeon as an example as it is much easier to spot a reference card vs. aftermarket. Let's take the newest cards out and use them. 7950 vs. 7970. All 7950 models are reference. Meaning they're stock from the factory as ATI intended with NO additions. Aftermarket additions could be any of the following and even all of the following. Better PCB, better heatsink and fans, pre-overclocked, etc, etc, etc. (PCB - Printed Circuit Board) *The back of the board... lol) Reference cards are good, but I always urge people to wait for the non-reference version as the perks given are much, much better.
RAM
Now you will notice that most cards out right now bounce between 3GB and 4GB of ram. This RAM is possible the most important thing about the GPU you want to buy. GFX card RAM - Random Access Memory - like CPU ram is extremely important when computing. The graphics card caches all volatile memory on the graphics card itself. All unit movement, shaders, shadows, colors, pixels, resolution size, EVERYTHING is stored on the GPU RAM. Without adequate ram you will notice a major decline in the performance of any games or GFX intense program you are using.
Core clock
Long story short: Core clock speed for a GPU is the same basic idea as for a CPU. It's how fast the GPU processes all task at hand. It is the speed at which a GFX card can run a 3D program and is derived from it's architecture. (More on this later.) So basically: The faster the CPU you have - I.E. i5-2500k vs. i3-2100 - the faster your computer can process a task. Same idea with a GPU core clock speed. 1000 MHz is better than a 900 MHz processor yet a 1084 MHz (EVGA 680) is faster than a 1000 MHz (XFX 7970) GPU. Core clock is important, but it is not the end all deciding factor like most people assume to believe.
Memory Clock.
Memory Clock speed is how fast the GFX card processes the RAM. More memory clock and more bus speed = more memory bandwidth. You may have 4 GBs of RAM, that is you can store 4096 MBs of data onto the onboard memory of the GPU, yet a faster memory clock means how fast the GPU can access this memory and process it. All GPU memory today is ran at DDR. Double Data Rate. This is saying that the GPU can read from and write to the RAM at twice the speed. 500 MHz of DDR is effectively 1000 MHz of memory clock.
Memory Interface
This one is pretty easy and most people will understand it. When describing memory interface I like to think of it as a major highway. The more lanes you have, the more traffic can flow through. The more memory interface you have, more data can flow through and be processed. 128 bit < 384 bit. etc. etc. etc.
Power consumption and wattage required - Here is a more indepth look at actually wattage vs. required/recommend wattage. http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic=264
Power consumption and wattage required are two different beast. When a company post benchmarks of their cards, they will often show a required wattage amount - say 500W required. This is a safety buffer and many factors play into this: Mobo, cpu, ram, heatsink, etc. play into this 500W buffer zone. In all actuality most GPU pull from the wall about 200 watts. (Not counting OCing, full load test, etc etc etc. Now, if you buy to 7970s and they both require 500W, this DOES NOT MEAN!!!! that you will need an 1000W power supply. An 800W will be plenty of power to power all your components as well as two 7970 in X-fire mode.
Interface
Pretty easy stuff right here. It's what PCI-e slot the card requires. All new cards run at PCI Express 3.0x16. Don't worry about this unless you have a very old computer in which you want to upgrade it. (Wise man once said! "Tis better to buy new, than upgrade old.")
Stream Processors vs. CUDA Cores. (Let the flame war begin.. jk jk)
So here is the low-low on Stream Processors vs. CUDA Cores. SP is ATI whilst CC is NVidia. Plain and simple. Don't even try to compare the two as you will be comparing apples to oranges. Basically speaking, SP and CC are the architecture of the GFX card itself. This is saying how the card processes, runs, retrieves data, etc. Hence why some ATI cards run games better than some NVidia cards where as some NVidia cards run games better than some ATI cards.
ATI Radeon vs. Nvidia GeForce
All preference. Some people are fan boys while others are benchmark fan boys. I myself love reading benchmarks. I don't give a damn who makes what! I just want the best item I can get for my money in my PC. Plain and simple! I think both companies excel at different points and both flounder at different points.
Card Size and Dimensions!!!
THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT STUFF!!! Seriously.. If you buy card that is too big for your case, you will need to do one of two things. Go back and get a smaller card or get a bigger case! Pretty simple stuff right there. Now this probably will never happen to anyone, but it's always a good idea to check before you spend your money. No one likes paying a restocking fee and a shipping fee because something doesn't fit.
Things that do matter!
Everything above and most importantly.... DISPLAY PORTS!!! Make sure your card and monitor both have matching display ports. Otherwise you will be buying either a new card, new monitor, or a converter, all which cost way too much money.
Things not worry about as the probably don't apply to your situation.
GDDR5, Power Pin Connectors, Stream Processors and Cuda Cores, RAMDAC, HDCP Ready, Item and Model #. If you don't know what any of this is, it doesn't matter or apply to you. Do not worry about it.
Personal Opinion Time
Here a few cards that I feel are the best in their field right now. (This is not including the pending GHz addition of the 79xx series.)
XFX 7970: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150586
MSI 7970: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127670
MSI 680: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127693
EVGA 680: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130794
Here is the easy version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 127-693-TS
If you have the money, go big.
Oh hey. Just upgrade to a 690. lol jk jk
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 0GTX%20690
Keep in mind the big thing you want to look for is the RAM. Because if your computing at 2560x1600 (in my case 2560x1440) and you run out of GPU RAM, then that game will in turn go to the file location on the hard-drive and start caching HDD space as GPU-VRAM (Little known fact). Hence why putting a demanding game onto your SSD is a smart idea in case you do run at of RAM. It's cheaper than buying another GFX card and still operates pretty darn fast depending on the RAID, and if you have it as SATA 6.0. But above all the 680 does have 1 GB of GPU VRAM over the 7970 which is a large factor. (Also! If you run at of VRAM, it is better to lower the settings or even your resolution as the game with run MUCH smoother than caching on an SSD)
Now does this 1GB and some minimal clock speeds out weigh the price tags of well under 500 bucks to over 600? No. A 4GB, 1536 cuda core, clocked at over 1GB memory etc, doesn't really warrant paying 100-150 bucks more. With that money you could put away to X-fire another card.
NOW! That being said. IF!!! and only IF!!! You have the money, and lots of it. NVidia is the way to go right now. The 680 is better than the 7970 regardless, etc, etc, etc, because it does at 1 more GPU-RAM than a 7970 and some of the EVGA cards clock the highest, etc, etc, etc.
So if money = pocket change, then just go out and buy 2 690s and profit. But yeah, trolling (PATROLLING... not trolling as in forum trolling.) around newegg, ncix, and other websites I find the XFX 7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation is THE - best - bang - for - your - buck.... at $460 bucks. Or if you are an Nvidia fan than the EVGA Superclocked 670 is also a very tempting offer. 4GB of GPU RAM and some pretty nice clocks, all sitting around $484. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130785
As always, I recommend someone correct me if I am wrong and add in anything I might have forgotten.