Solved What to look for in a GPU

Just out of curiosity and as I do not know much about graphics cards what are the main simple things to look for in a graphics card.

I'm not a gamer so I can't speak to the exotica of gaming GPUs, but I suppose a simple metric is memory size. 4GB is probably the minimum you should have and unfortunately, prices for GPUs > 4GB go up exponentially. I have a lowly Nvidia GTX-1650 (4GB) and it's fine for my non-gaming use.

Another thing you might want to look for is the connectivity to make sure your can connect your monitor(s) to whatever ports are available on the GPU.

Rob

Thanks, Rob that is just what I was thinking, and like you, all I need is a good resolution on my 4K monitor connected to my main desktop machine and for that, I have an Asus GTX 1050 Ti and what I get is great screens. I asked because my other desktop only has an Asus TGX 650 with 2GB of RAM in it and I was just wondering whether to put back in the GTX 650 TI which has 4GB RAM and which I removed because a problem arose where it worked loose due to poor fixation by the case plastic clips that held it in (now screwed down) it but obviously, I am not going to gain anything from that because the monitor on that machine is a 1920x1080 res one. So I will leave as is especially because many of the YouTube videos I have watched deal with gaming rigs and the heavily priced GPU's.

Like any component, with a gpu one has to consider one's needs. Exactly how are you going to be using it.

Price-they can go into the thousands of dollars.

Ram- it depends on what you are using it for as to how much you need.

Space-You have to buy one that will fit in your case. GPU’s produce a lot of heat. This heat output is displayed in the TDP value, which plays a large role in deciding on a suitable GPU. If your TDP value is high, your computer will require more fans to properly distribute heat. Since fans require additional space and power, TDP value makes a difference.

Power-think about whether or not your power supply has enough 8-pin or 6-pin connectors for your graphics card and whether your power supply is big enough to handle the card.

And if you're a gamer other things like clock speed, bus width, and shader cores come into play. All that is above my head as I don't game.

Your NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a great entry level card. I believe it has 4gb ram which is more than suitable for the average user so unless you user certain applications or games that require more GPU ram, IMO there's no reason to change it.

Thanks glasscutter well actually I took out the GTX650 Ti (4GB RAM) and replaced it with a plain GTX 650 with 2GB RAM as I described to Rob in my previous post and I shall leave it because the machine is only a backup for my main desktop. But thanks anyway for your advice - really appreciated.:)

Graphics card are a hard thing to make decisions on what to get. First and foremost, for standard basic things like displaying applications, playing YouTube, etc....any modern video card should do that fine. That holds for 1080p, 2160p or 4k.

If you are a gamer, there are 3 big things to consider.

1. What resolution are you planning to play at.
2. Are you the type that wants everything maxed out graphically or will you reduce a setting here or there to make it more playable, or reduce load on your video card.
3. What type of frame rate are you trying to push to your monitor, and do you have a high frame rate monitor.

A lower end video card, (eg. Nvidia 3050 or 3060) can easily handle 1080p, or 2k with most things pretty welll maxed out and depending on game will return around 100FPS.

When you start wanting to run a game at 4k, with everything maxed out, to a high frame rate monitor and you want to get 140+ FPS, this is when you really should be looking at something like an Nvidia 3080 or 3080TI.

If you are going to be anywhere in between those 2 examples, a 3060TI/3070/3070TI would fit the bill great.

While video RAM does help, for nearly any gaming setup (aside from 3+ monitors displaying the game), I cannot in good faith ever recommend an Nvidia 3090 for gaming. Even though it has 24GB of memory, versus 10GB in anything below it, you almost guaranteed aren't getting any improvement in real life gaming. You just get bragging rights for having an absurdly expensive video card.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, PParks now I get what you mean but what gets me is they talk about clock speeds, RAM, Direct X support, etc. That is what I find a tad confusing. Now I am not a gamer as I can never get a hang of running a game I just am interested in getting a good quality output for my monitors especially the 4K one. I do have what I think is good quality on the screens for my desktops one having an Asus GTX 1050 Ti in the main machine which the 4K runs off of and an Asus GTX 650 on the backup desktop and I do have a spare Asus GTX 650 Ti that I am keeping for a spare and was seeing that it has double the RAM of the GTX 650 but have now decided to leave the plain 650 in as the screen is quite acceptable. As I said I have watched many YouTube videos but they all concentrate on what is good for gaming and were not sufficiently simple enough for me to understand how these devices work.
But again thanks for your reply it is much appreciated.

For basic 4k usage, the clock speeds and amount of VRAM and speed isn't going to make any difference. And the direct X support isn't going to make any difference here either. Those items are pretty much only important for gaming, hence the reason you aren't going to find much discussing those factors for basic 4k viewing. Thr quality of your monitor is going to have the biggest impact to your visuals here, in my opinion.

Thanks, pparks I understand now.

Bare in mind something of that age may lack the related HDMI/DP port with regards to some HDR configs. Just something to think about. I believe gtx900 and up support it no problem depending on cable use etc.

An empty wallet. Sorry I could not resist.

Something else to be aware of is how much power does it use.You may need to upgrade your power supply to handle the bigger power draw of a higher tier GPU.

Yes Eddie I have a good Corsair HX 650 watts in that machine which is more than enough for what I use it for but thanks for your input mate. Oh and by the way, my main machine has a Corsair HX1100 watts in it and that is only because the supplier had it on offer at the time so I could possibly power both machines off of it eh?!