graphic card buying guide; Everything you need to know

If you are looking to assemble a gaming case or a suitable case for specialized software in fields such as film editing and 3D model design, using the right graphics card is very important. will find. Simply put, for these types of applications, the graphics card is more important than the processor. But in the meantime, the process of buying a suitable graphic card is very confusing and difficult for many users. To buy a graphic card, you need to consider several variables such as the type of monitor you use, the size of the case and the desired settings for games, and these variables increase the complexity of the purchase. We will simply discuss the most important criteria that you should pay attention to when buying a graphics card.

• 5 signs that indicate the imminent death of a graphics card

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• Keep some budget for buying a CPU. If you spend a significant part of your budget on a high-quality graphics card and you can't get a good CPU Although your system may perform well in benchmarks, the reality is that you probably won't be able to get high framerates in a gaming environment.
• Compatibility with monitor resolution. From normal graphics cards in the market, a problem with running games They do not have 1080p resolution and frame rate between 30 and 60 frames per second. But if you are looking to run a game with 4K resolution or close to this resolution with high graphics settings, you should use flagship and high-end graphics cards. Therefore, before buying these types of expensive graphics cards, make sure of the features of your monitor so that you can take advantage of the maximum functionality of a graphics card.
• Considering the refresh rate of the monitor. If the monitor It supports a 3-digit refresh rate, so you need to buy a powerful graphics card to take advantage of this feature. On the other hand, if your monitor offers 1080p resolution and 60Hz refresh rate and you don't intend to replace it for a long time, then buying a very powerful and expensive graphics card for such a monitor does not make sense at all.
• Ensuring power and case space. Before looking for a suitable graphics card in the market, you should first see if there is enough free space for it in your computer case. On the other hand, having enough power for the graphic card is very important and you should pay attention to it.
• Don't rely too much on overclocking. If you are looking for better performance. Buy a more powerful graphics card. Usually, graphics cards do not perform miracles when overclocked, and most of the time they provide better performance between 5 and 10%. So don't expect too much from an overclocked graphics card.

Nvidia or AMD? h2>

Nvidia and AMD have dominated the graphics card market for years. Although Intel has recently entered this market to become a competitor for these two companies, the graphics cards made by Intel have not yet entered the market widely, and of course it is not clear when they will enter the Iranian market. Therefore, we will not deal with Intel graphics cards in this article.

Also, we should note that recently AMD and Nvidia have released flagship graphics cards of the RX 7000 and RTX 4000 series respectively, but of course only RTX 4090 is currently available in the Iranian market. Astronomical prices are sold and mid-range and low-end models of this series of graphics cards have not been introduced yet. Therefore, the reality is that many users cannot afford RTX 4090, and for this reason, in this buying guide, we will compare the RX 6000 and RTX 3000 series.

Nvidia uses ray tracing technology for the RTX 2000 series. Ray tracing unveiled. Therefore, RTX 3000 series cards use the second generation of this technology. On the other hand, AMD started using this technology for the RX 6000 series for the first time in 2020 and has less to say in this regard than Nvidia.

In the diagram above, you can see the performance status of 6 famous and heavy games based on ray tracing technology using different graphics cards. It should be said that for some users, this technology and the effects that games provide using it are very important, but on the other hand, for some users, this feature is not very important.

Also, we should not forget the DLSS technology. which is used in the second generation RTX 4000 series. This technology uses machine learning. You can increase the frame rate of the game to have a more interesting experience. Although AMD graphics cards use the same technology, the fact is that Nvidia has more to say in this field.

• What is the difference between laptop and computer graphics cards?
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How much budget have you set aside?

Graphic cards available in the market are sold in all kinds of price ranges. For example, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GAMING OC 24G graphics card is sold at a price of around 62 million Tomans, which, of course, due to the fluctuations in the currency market, the price of graphics cards, like other components, fluctuates a lot. The new GeForce RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO 24GB graphics card is priced at around 80 million Tomans in the Iranian market. Such a price is not low at all for residents of advanced and rich countries, and naturally only a limited part of users can buy these models in Iran. The fact is that if you need such a high level of hardware power due to your field of work, then your income is probably very high and you have no problem paying this cost. But in general, 99% of users do not need such a high level of hardware power.

On the other hand, we can point to, for example, RTX 3080 Ti GAMING OC 12G, which costs about 32 million Tomans, which is only cheaper than RTX 3090 Ti. It works about 15% weaker. The RX 6900 XT graphics card is currently priced at around 40 million Tomans, and the RX 6700 XT 12GB is sold at a price of around 16 million Tomans. Of course, as we said, the price of hardware parts in Iran changes very quickly like other products. Therefore, according to the budget you have, you should see whether the cost of the graphics card in question is worth paying more or not.

Which features are more important for buying a graphics card?

• Graphic card memory capacity: Critical. This characteristic is very important, and for this reason, look for a graphics card with at least 6 GB of memory, and of course, we recommend that you use 8 GB or more to run the game in 1080p resolution. Also, if you want to run different games with the highest settings, you will need more memory.
• Size: Very important. Before buying a graphics card, you should see if there is enough free space in your computer case or not. Therefore, pay attention to the length, width and thickness of the desired graphics card. Even if a graphics card only occupies two slots of the motherboard, you should see how big the heatsink and fan used for it are. So if you're using a Mini-ITX motherboard, you should look to buy a mini graphics card, which is usually 205mm or less in length. However, although some graphics cards are placed in the mini category, they are longer.

• Thermal capacity: Important. Thermal power simply tells how much electricity a graphics card needs to provide proper performance. For example, if you use a 400-watt power supply and an overclocked 95-watt processor and want to buy a 250-watt graphics card, then you have no choice but to buy a new power supply. In general, 600 watts of power is enough for many graphics cards, but if you are looking to use very powerful graphics cards, you should consider more powerful power.
• Power supply connectors:need power supply connectors, which are provided in two forms, 6-pin and 8-pin. For example, the RTX 30 series uses a 12-pin connector, which can be used by using an 8-pin to 12-pin interface. If your power supply does not use the necessary connectors, it is better to replace it because alternative solutions to solve this problem are not suitable in the long term.
• Ports: Critical. Some monitors have an HDMI port and others use a DisplayPort port. Meanwhile, old models use DVI port. In the meantime, we should also mention a limited number of monitors that use the USB-C port to pass DisplayPort signals. Therefore, before buying a graphics card, you should see which port your monitor uses so that you no longer need to use the interface.
• Clock speed: Somewhat important. Among cards that use the same graphics processor or GPU, some companies increase the clock speed to such an extent that this can lead to a 3-5% increase in the framerate of games. Of course, the clock speed alone is not very important, and we should also mention the memory speed, the number of cores and the architecture used. Also on the other hand It should be noted that if two cards use the same graphics processor, the use of a better fan usually has a greater effect than the clock speed.