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Most important video card specs?

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dave2849

Member
Eventually I will build my own gaming rig but I don't quite understand how to compare video cards. I always see specs including core clock, effective memory clock, stream processors, shader clock, CUDA cores, etc., but I don't understand which specs are the most important.

So, basically, when choosing a video card for any machine, what are the most important specs to consider?
 
Really, specs don't mean anything to the average joe. Just look at the benchmarks for the games that you like, choose which ever card performs the best for the price bracket that you are looking at.

Those of us that know like to argue back and forth about what is better and why. But for the real world, it basically comes down to what plays the game that you like the best.
 
Benchmarks are the only way.
The specs you listed are only useful for determining a particular manufacturer's changes once you already know what you're looking at. Like if a manufacturer releases an overclocked or underclocked card, or one that uses slower memory than the reference design.

Just come by the General Hardware forum when you're ready to buy. They do builds all day long, so they'll hook you up.
 
All those things add up to the most important figures in a video card:

Texture Filrate
Pixel Filrate
Bandwidth

SPECIALLY bandwidth.
 
Check out AnandTech's GPU Benchmarks.

They can be accessed via the main page. Just below the search-box, you see "BENCH". Click on it. Then find the "GPU 2012" icon, and click it. Then play with the drop-down menus to see different results for different games and different resolutions.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/378

This should give you an idea how different cards perform. That is much more useful than looking at raw stats.
 
RavenSEAL said:
All those things add up to the most important figures in a video card:

Texture Filrate
Pixel Filrate
Bandwidth

SPECIALLY bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Texture fillrate on the 7970 and 680 is more than twice the speed of that on the 580 due to have twice as many TMUs as well as being clocked much higher, yet neither the 680 or 7970 are twice as fast as the 580. Heck, the 580's texture fillrate is a good deal lower than that of the 6900s, and even the 5800s had a higher texture fillrate.

Pixel fill rate also really doesn't do anything for us because the 580 is basically on par with the 680 and even the 7970 in that regard, if not superior, due to having 48 ROPs vs. 32 ROPs. Yet the 580 is clearly slower.

Same goes for bandwidth. The lower speed GDDR5 + 384bit architecture on the 580 matches the higher speed GDDR5 + 256bit of the 680, both of which are much slower than the high speed GDDR5 + 384bit on the 7970. Yet the 680 is pretty much the fastest and doesn't really suffer from relative lack of bandwidth.

These specs really don't do much for us without understanding the underlying architecture.
 
dave2849 said:
Eventually I will build my own gaming rig but I don't quite understand how to compare video cards. I always see specs including core clock, effective memory clock, stream processors, shader clock, CUDA cores, etc., but I don't understand which specs are the most important.

So, basically, when choosing a video card for any machine, what are the most important specs to consider?
Click to expand...

The specs like core/memory clocks and no of cell/stream processors are important because some manufacturers have different sub-models using the same gpu in the same family. Like the many mid-range Nvidia 460/560 models. It helps to differentiate between the models so you don't get conned into buying the wrong item. Much like cars with diff engine options

Some manufacturers also have their own sub-models which may feature lower clocks, less power phases, less/lower rated components, cheaper slower memory - so let the buyer beware.

You don't have worry so much about bandwidths and fill rates if you aren't interested in the details since reviews will do the leg work for you and will tell you how the diff models stack up.
 
Look for the larger numbers. Something like a 9999GTXFTMFW with DDR10 is most likely going to be good. Bonus points if the 17 year old genious at Best Buy pulls it out from behind the glass and tells you it is "the best".
 
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