I want to learn how to evaluate video cards for what I do, as I'm going to be buying on the used, slightly older market and will need to be informed to make a good price / performance decision.
I do light gaming (Endless Legend, Skyrim, Crusader Kings II and other such Paradox titles as well as that graphically intense Dwarf Fortress); photo editing, currently with Photoshop (considering a move to Linux), often stitching many frames together for panoramas; and I want to learn GPU parallel coding and virtualization. I do not yet calibrate my monitors, but it is something I plan to start doing in the near future.
I'm using two monitors right now, one at 1280 x 1024 and the other 1920 x 1080. I am planning to add two 1920 x 1080 monitors and retire the old 1280 x 1024 one. When I do that, I plan to run the current widescreen monitor sideways as a 1080 x 1920 device for easier reading of text based web pages and other text documents.
So, given my uses and especially for panoramic stitching, what GPU benchmarks should I be most interested in? Is system RAM the most important aspect of panoramic stitching or does video RAM have an impact (I think video RAM is strictly related to total desktop resolution)?
Lastly, when comparing a case when two older cards are cheaper than one newer card, do I just multiply the older card benchmark by 1.87 to compare the two cases or is there a better way to compare this situation?
Thanks!
I do light gaming (Endless Legend, Skyrim, Crusader Kings II and other such Paradox titles as well as that graphically intense Dwarf Fortress); photo editing, currently with Photoshop (considering a move to Linux), often stitching many frames together for panoramas; and I want to learn GPU parallel coding and virtualization. I do not yet calibrate my monitors, but it is something I plan to start doing in the near future.
I'm using two monitors right now, one at 1280 x 1024 and the other 1920 x 1080. I am planning to add two 1920 x 1080 monitors and retire the old 1280 x 1024 one. When I do that, I plan to run the current widescreen monitor sideways as a 1080 x 1920 device for easier reading of text based web pages and other text documents.
So, given my uses and especially for panoramic stitching, what GPU benchmarks should I be most interested in? Is system RAM the most important aspect of panoramic stitching or does video RAM have an impact (I think video RAM is strictly related to total desktop resolution)?
Lastly, when comparing a case when two older cards are cheaper than one newer card, do I just multiply the older card benchmark by 1.87 to compare the two cases or is there a better way to compare this situation?
Thanks!
