How To Choose The Best Affordable Graphics Cards For You?

In this post, I will outline some tips that will help you choose the best affordable graphics card for your needs, and what the things to look for and things to avoid.

Generally speaking, there are multiple simple ways to get a nice deal by using simple tricks, like getting a high end model from last year, or getting one based on the resolution you plan to run your games at.

One very important thing to look for an affordable graphics card, or any graphics card in general, is to avoid comparing the cards based on the amount of VRAM memory each card contain. Having more memory can be useful for performance in some cases, but there are other aspect that are more important, like the bandwidth. And the type of memory can dictate on how much bandwidth it has (among other things).

I will talk about each of these ways in details below.

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Get A High End Model Of Last Year, It Is Way Better Than Getting A Low-End One

The first thing may come to your mind is to get a low-end one. Since those tend to be cheaper, and they can be more suitable to what you want to do, which is true. However, buying a high-end graphics card from last year, or the year before, can give you more performance. Even if that high end model cost a bit more than the current low-end one, the difference in performance can be surely worth it.

One thing to need to check out in such older card is the power consumption, since some of these cards needs more power than low-end ones. Many of them require to take power directly from your power supply unit (PSU). The part responsible for supplying your graphics card with power. So you need to upgrade that as well. For example. GeForce GTX 980 Ti requires a 600 watt power supply (according to GeForce website).

Know Which Resolution You Plan To Run Your Games At

You can get a more affordable graphics card by getting one that runs your games at your screen resolution. If your screen has a 1920 X 1080 resolution, or 1080p as it is known. Then getting those cards made to run games at 1440p or higher is overkill. You could save tons of cash to get a card made to run games at 1080p, even on high settings.

An exception to this is in case you plan on getting a high-resolution monitor, in which case getting a higher graphics card is totally okay.

Consider Getting A Used Graphics Card

Since many hard-core gamers tend to upgrade their cards often, getting a used graphics card is a good way to get an affordable one. If you are lucky, you could get one with the warranty with it. I have made a detailed post about this here.

Just make sure to avoid the deals that are too good to be true, check the seller rating, and try to have a graphics card with a transferable warranty whenever possible.

If You Are Buying A Graphics Card For Photoshop, Don’t Get A High-End One, If Any

In case you want an affordable graphics card not for gaming, but to benefit from some of the GPU acceleration features in Photoshop, like scrub zoom, you don’t need the most powerful card for that. There’s even a chance your current graphics card will suffice. In case Adobe increased the GPU support for Photoshop that it became totally worth it, you then could upgrade your graphics card to benefit from that.

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If You Have An Old CPU. It Won’t Keep Up With Modern Graphics Cards

While adding a new graphics card can breathe a new life into your computer, especially if all you do with it is to play games. There’s a limit to how much your computer can benefit from the new card. There are many Youtube videos that shows you top-of-the-line GPU along with a very old CPU. There was a boost in performance, but that performance can’t be compared to running the same Graphics card with a much newer CPU.

Don’t Compare Graphics Cards Based On The Amount Of Memory (VRAM)

While the amount of memory can be useful when comparing the graphics card, it is a common mistake people do, as it is not the most important factor at all. It is the bandwidth, which is the first thing people tend to compare cards for. Of course you could get a graphics card with more ram, then that’s great.

And Finally

There are many factors in choosing the most affordable graphics card. I tried my best to highlight the most important factors that helps you choose one to yourself. Knowing what you want and what to look for is the key that will prevent you from getting a graphics card.

For that reason, I hope this post helped you find the most affordable graphics card, and see you again in another post.

See Also:-

• Buying a used graphics card, is it worth it? What if it was overclocked or used for mining?
• Learn Photoshop CC With Pictures