Video Card

[shinji]

I'm planning to replace my crappy video card. I found some 2 GB video cards. The problem is, one 30$ and the other is 450$. I want to buy it in the lowest price. Is there any difference between a 30$ 2GB and 450$ 2GB video card?

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Seriously? If one looks like this and the other one looks like this, you have to ask if there is a difference? =p

 

[shinji]

Seriously? If one looks like this and the other one looks like this, you have to ask if there is a difference? =p

I mean... Is it a good idea to buy the cheap one? Because I don't want to buy the cheap one if it has a lot of bugs and stuff.

 

[The_wand_mirror]

I mean... Is it a good idea to buy the cheap one? Because I don't want to buy the cheap one if it has a lot of bugs and stuff.

Do i have to use pictures of cars to make it clear to you? I'm not being mean or anything but if you would just think like a normal person you could obviously guess that something that costs that much more is also that much better.

So no, don't buy the 30 dollar one, buy one from at least 120 dollars or up. If you really like graphics buy one from 200-300 and if you are a fanatic buy one from 300-1000 (yes thousand =p) There won't be that much difference anymore though (compared to cheaper ones) with high-end performance cards that cost over 300, although the 690 GTX costing 1000 dollars/euros beats everything that is cheaper. (That thing runs battlefield 3 on ultra at 120 fps)

 

[shinji]

Do i have to use pictures of cars to make it clear to you? I'm not being mean or anything but if you would just think like a normal person you could obviously guess that something that costs that much more is also that much better.

So no, don't buy the 30 dollar one, buy one from at least 120 dollars or up. If you really like graphics buy one from 200-300 and if you are a fanatic buy one from 300-1000 (yes thousand =p) There won't be that much difference anymore though (compared to cheaper ones) with high-end performance cards that cost over 300, although the 690 GTX costing 1000 dollars/euros beats everything that is cheaper. (That thing runs battlefield 3 on ultra at 120 fps)

Thank you for the advice. I won't buy the 30$ one. I'll buy something that is at least 130$.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I'm planning to replace my crappy video card. I found some 2 GB video cards. The problem is, one 30$ and the other is 450$. I want to buy it in the lowest price. Is there any difference between a 30$ 2GB and 450$ 2GB video card?

You are aware that there is more to graphic cards than the amount of video memory they have? Specificly the processor part of them which actually produces the graphics.

Infact, Video Memory quantity has virtually nothing to do with graphic card performance. You either have enough of it in which case the bottleneck is the GPU or you do not have enough of it in which case the memory will bottleneck (as it will have to start using system memory which has bad access characteristics from the GPU).

700 MB is more than enough to run SC2 on ultra at a reasonable resolution without it being bottlenecked.

I advise comparing the graphic card processors. A good way to compare is the Floating Point Opperations Per Second (FLOPS) value given to each GPU. The higher that value, generally the better the card will perform.

You may notice that the 30$ card has 1/50th of the FLOPS performance of the 450$ card or atleast a similarly huge difference.

 

[Ralle]

It also depends on the game which card performs better. But I am quite certain that the $30 model is many times slower no matter what game you throw at it.

 

[Edhel-dur]

Can't you link both the cards here so we can take a better look?

But I agree with DSG, my HP laptop has a 1gb ATI Radeon which isn't better than my 5yr old 512mb GeForce Nvidia 8600 gts.

You should at least google those respective video cards for feedback.

 

[Ralle]

I like to get an overview of cards and their performance from this chart http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html