Put it this way-if you're planning on checking your emails, hitting up your social media, and watching YouTube, you probably don't need to drop a thousand bucks on a high-end model.

Specs: Figure out if you need to splash a heap of cash on a high-end GPU or if an entry-level, more budget-friendly model will do the job.

Availability: The availability of your preferred GPU will also have a factor in your purchasing decision.These are mid-to-high end GPUs from the latest generation. What's your budget for a new GPU? Ignoring the inflated prices, you're still looking at $500 for an Nvidia RTX 3070 or $580 for an AMD RX 6800 XT. Price: The cost of a new graphics card is always going to come first and foremost.There are a few things to take into account:

But as prices slowly begin to fall back to respectable levels (don't hold your breath!), you might wonder how you go about choosing a graphics card for your machine. This information then whizzes from your graphics card to your monitor (via a cable, of course), where the images, lines, textures, lighting, shading, and everything else changes.Īt the time of writing, the world is still emerging from the global chip shortage that contributed to GPU (and other PC hardware) prices rocketing. In turn, the graphics card takes those instructions and runs them through its own processing unit, rapidly updating its onboard memory (known as VRAM) as to which pixels on the screen need changing and how. So, the CPU sends information regarding what needs to appear on screen to the graphics card. But, a modern graphics card is capable of processing a phenomenal number of instructions simultaneously, drawing and redrawing images tens or even hundreds of times every second to ensure whatever you're looking at, whatever tasks you're attempting to complete remains smooth. All of these things, from tasks that require tremendous computing power, like a video game, to something we deem 'simple' like opening a new text document all require the use of a graphics card.Įxpanding on this a little, your graphics card maps the instructions issued by the other programs on your computer into a visual rendering on your screen. A graphics card is primarily responsible for rendering images on a display, be that photos, videos, games, documents, your regular desktop environment, a file folder, and anything else.

Intel graphics card for gaming