o properly compare the products in this guide and help you find the cheapest one, I have created a power rating, out of 100 points, which takes into account various aspects of the cards —bandwidth, texture speed, anti-aliasing, power raw processing, and others—, assigning a weight to each section as we believe it influences its power for games, in which the best of each section receives a score of 100. It may not be perfect, so I will continue to tweak the scale to adjust it to what they contribute to gamers.
The links of each card will take you to the data of the Nvidia reference card, but there you can see a complete list of models in the Related tab, with a breakdown of the price. What manufacturers usually modify in their versions with respect to these reference cards are the clock frequency to give it a performance boost, better cooling systems to raise frequencies, and others. If it arrives raised from the factory, the price also usually increases —it is generally indicated in the name of the card as OC—.
Due to the performance differences between architectures when using DirectX 11, DirectX 12, and Vulkan, this is obviously a guideline chart. In DX12/Vulkan the Radeons tend to do better, so they can be from a little to a lot higher in performance compared to the position shown in the graph. In other games, especially DX11, they can lose performance against the GeForce and fall somewhat or well below.
Graphics cards these days are generally quiet, thanks to more efficient heatsink designs and even better fans. Even so, there is a tendency to put very powerful but higher consumption graphics cards on the market, so in the end, they can be a bit noisy, like the RTX 3090 Ti when running at full load.
Single-fan mini versions are usually quiet on lower-power models like an RTX 3060, but more powerful models like an RX 3070 can be louder than a dual-fan model. These mini graphics cards allow for a slight clock boost and are at least as powerful as reference cards, but can be quieter in return. These basic models are recommended for those who do not plan to overclock or want to build a mini-PC.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
The graphics processing unit (GPU) is the chip that makes up the core of any graphics card. Both AMD and Nvidia use different architectures for them, but they maintain common features. For example, they include a large number of data stream processors ( stream processors ), also called shaders ( shaders ) or CUDA cores in the case of Nvidia GPUs. They are dedicated to executing the graphic instructions sent to them by the application that makes use of them and basically operate as arithmetic-logical units (ALU).
The execution of the instructions is done in parallel, so they are good for graphic design or computing tasks, and in recent years asynchronous execution has been introduced to take better advantage of idle moments that some of the shaders may have. It is done through graphics libraries like DirectX 12 or Vulkan.
In general, it is not possible to compare the data of cores and operating frequency between the GPUs of different manufacturers, and less the typical data of computing power that is given in floating point operations per second (FLOPS). In this section now NVIDIA GPUs always win over AMD ones, but it says nothing about the reality of gaming performance.
Memory
The type of memory used is not relevant for common users, and right now they differ in two different technologies. GDDR memory — graphics double data rate or double data rate for graphics — is currently available in GDDR5, GDDR5X, GDDR6, and GDDR6X versions.
They differ in consumption and maximum speed, and in the architecture of the graphics cards, this affects the memory bandwidth, which is calculated as speed per data bus. Therefore, if a graphics card has a 64-bit data bus and a speed of 12 GHz, it would have the same bandwidth as a 128-bit card at 6 GHz.
NVIDIA uses more advanced memory compression techniques than AMD and generally needs to move less information into memory, making it somewhat more efficient in its use of bandwidth. There is also HBM (high bandwidth) memory, which works at a lower speed but has a 4096-bit bus running from 1 GHz.
It has certain advantages when it comes to reducing memory access latency, for virtual reality applications or computation, but in games, it will not show significant differences. The most used by AMD has been the HBM2that works at about 2 GHz, but the RX Vega has not used it again in its Radeon RX, although it has in some Radeon Pro. The 3-4 GHz HBM3 is planned, although it is not designed for gaming graphics cards but rather for data centers.
connectors
The most common connectors on modern graphics cards are HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) and DisplayPort, although many of them also include the DVI (Digital Visual Interface) connector, especially the cheaper models. The first two also carry sound, with the advantage it has over monitors that include speakers by eliminating additional cables. Even if a card doesn’t have enough connectors of one type, there are a myriad of adapters between different formats that will prove useful and not too expensive. The VGA connector is now completely obsolete, although there are many monitors that use it.
To use 4K UHD resolution (3840 × 2160) and 60 Hz, a DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0 connector is required on the graphics card. The modern ones from AMD and NVIDIA include DP 1.4a and HDMI 2.1, which also allow other image formats such as greater color depth and sending high dynamic range (HDR) images on monitors that also have HDR. DisplayPort 2.1 is the most advanced standard that allows even 8K and 144 Hz with HDR.
There are also other less-used connectors, such as mini-DisplayPort, common for a while on laptops and AMD graphics cards, but which has fallen out of favor in favor of the USB Type-C connector with DisplayPort 1.2 Alternate Mode. There are adapters also for HDMI to USB Type C, DisplayPort to mini-DisplayPort, etc.
Buying advice
Before deciding on a card, you should take into account a few things:
- By power/price ratio, the range of 150 to 300 euros is usually ideal for FHD. Above that point, there are cards that are more suitable for playing at QHD and 144 Hz, for around 400 euros, and UHD and 60 Hz, for around 600 euros. To play at UHD and 144 Hz you have to go over 1000 euros. Many games include image scaling (FSR, DLSS, XeSS), so it depends on the titles you play, you can watch something more or less powerful.
- If you want a card that lasts two or three years at FHD and ultra quality, you should opt for one in the range of 250 to 400 euros -depending on prices-.
- About the CPU to accompany the card, if you look at a modern model it won’t be a problem. You don’t usually need any more than six cores for normal cards, which leads to processors of around 150 to 200 euros at most. In addition, at UHD most processors from six cores that are recent tend to take advantage of even the most powerful graphics cards just as well.
- Since graphics cards continually drop in price, in the case of many gamers it is better to buy one for 150 to 300 euros and change it after two to three years, depending on how demanding you are when playing at high or ultra, if well they are cards for FHD resolution. In this way, you can always play the latest news without performance problems. If you play QHD, the investment would have to be considered more, because something from 400 or 500 euros will be needed, and it is not an expense that can be made every two years.
- The prices and example products that I put are indicative. The component market changes in price from one day to the next, and it becomes difficult to keep all items up to date at all times. You can indicate any problem with them in the comments, or ask if you have doubts about whether a model that you have seen at a different price is a good purchase.
SUV (up to 150 euros)
The Nvidia GT 1030 is currently in this range, as well as the AMD RX 550. It is a sector with little variety. The RX 550 is more powerful than the GT 1030. You have to check the price of the cards from both companies before buying them to make the best investment possible, especially if there is almost no difference between the RX 550 of 4 GB and the one of 2GB.
GeForce GT 1030
The GeForce GTX 1030 is a low-end graphics card that can run graphics at 1080p with low quality in a large number of games, but in more demanding games it will be necessary to lower the resolution to play them with sufficient fluidity. However, in electronic sports games like Overwatch or League of Legends, it has no problem moving them to 1080p and high quality at 60 FPS, so it can be a good buy for less affluent gamers or those who are not so interested in quality. graphics but just play. Their video connections are usually an HDMI and a DisplayPort, and other models include a DVI-D, or substitute one of the above for it -or include one of each-.
There is a version of the GT 1030 with DDR4 memory instead of GDDR5, which should be avoided like the plague as it provides half the graphics performance of the GT 1030 with GDDR5. Be very sure that it includes GDDR5 when buying it.
