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Gaming - Which Graphics Card is Best for you?
Jack Kinnerly • 7 July 2023
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Gaming is massive worldwide. From fortnight to city Skylines, if you want to game, you’ll need good graphics. But what does that mean?? The graphics card in a computer, processes and calculates images which it then sends to a display / monitor for us to see. The better the graphics card, the faster it processes those images and the better the display we see.
This is the important part…… graphic cards come in two forms. Integrated or Dedicated.
Integrated GPU’s aka Graphical processing units aka graphic cards, as the name suggests are integrated into the main processor chip which connects to the motherboard. The good news is that most modern processors will come with integrated graphics, meaning a more expensive and dedicated card is not required. This is important because the majority of computer users do not game and therefore don’t require the huge performances a dedicated card will bring. However, integrated GPU’s do have a disadvantage. Their performance is limited, often to office or general computing needs. This isn’t to say you cant play games using an integrated GPU, you can, but performance is limited.
Dedicated GPU’s are a completely different animal. They slot into the motherboard with their own RAM, circuitry and processing power and are only limted by the price you can afford. Budget cards range from £50 to well over £1000 plus for the very best gaming performance.
If you are a gamer, you will want to spend your hard earned money on a dedicated video card. The more you spend, the better your gaming experience will be.
One final note – You cannot, we repeat, cannot change the GPU in a laptop, this is currently not possible, whereas in a desktop, upgrading I always a possibility as new and better games come onto the shelves.
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20 years ago this wouldn’t have been a question you’d have asked. Why? Laptops simply were unaffordable to the average consumer. Desktops at the time were heavy like concrete blocks, wiring everywhere, attached to a CRT monitor, you know, the square large screens that took up the whole desk space. A few years passed and the first laptops started to appear in the shops and rapidly there was brand new technology to get excited about. So, we all know what a laptop is, this isn’t the place to go into all of that but there advantages and disadvantages to both.
Technology moves fast in the IT sector and hard drives, where all your digital content is stored, are no exception. Having the ability to access your data at greater speeds, not only increases productivity but enhances the whole PC experience. We no longer have toto go and make a cup of tea after turning your PC on, a well built modern computer system can now be ready to use within seconds of powering up. So how did we get there……. In technical terms its very complicated but lets break it down in simple terms. So why is the hard driver speed so important. Well its where your operating system is stored and run from. You know Windows…. The heart of your computer. As well as Windows, all of your programs / Apps are also stored here plus all of your personal data. So Documents, photos, video, Music and so on. When I started in this business hard drive technology was slow compared to todays options. IDE integrated drive standard was the best thing since sliced bread for its day. Hard drive speeds are generally measured in MBps. Next came SATA, 1 then 2 all the way to SATA6, and this standard also used a different cable to connect, a much smaller cable into the main computer board. By the way SATA standards for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. In terms of physical size, IDE and SATA drives look pretty much the Same and fitted the same way into a computer case. AND THEN came the SSD, or as we commonly refer to it, the Solid State Drive. Solid because, unlike the moving parts in the old technology, the storage medium in SSD’s are solid. Just like the USB Pen drives most of have used and are using to transfer files. SSD are smaller and about 10 x quicker than the older SATA technology. Replacing your old hard drive for a SSD is the best upgrade one can make to a computer in modern times. Initially however the cost of these drives were high, the trade off being downsizing to lower storage capacities, commonly going from 1000GB down to 256GB. If you were to go out an buy a computer today, most will now have a Solid state drive installed and are now, very affordable. Finally we get to the newest technology and wow, the speeds just getter quicker and quicker. NVME or Non Volatile Memory Express rocks up at around 10 x quicker and again are now very affordable, however design and interface has changed significantly and these new drives require the newest motherboard technology. In basic terms they are a micro chip which just slots into the motherboard, no cables required. As a point all our new desktop systems come with this capability as standard. Once you’ve used this type of system, you'll not want to go back that’s for sure. Most NVME drives run around 3500MBps, compare this with the older IDE devices of around 10MBps. Blistering performance guaranteed. From pressing the power on button to desktop, 5 seconds. Now that’s progress.
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