Graphics Card

Graphics cards are capable of producing 3D graphics at a much faster rate than CPUs, which make them ideal for gaming and video rendering.

If you are building a system for gaming, it is recommended that you devote the largest chunk of your budget towards getting the most powerful graphics card you can afford as this will have the greatest impact by far on your gaming performance.

Graphics cards connect to the motherboard via PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) ports.

Recommendations (Opinionated)

Budget

GTX 1660 Ti - This is more competitively priced than the RTX 2060, but lacks RTX and DLSS. Performance is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1070.

RTX 2060 - Also a solid budget option, but higher priced than the 1660 Ti. Performance is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1070.

Radeon RX 5700 - Great value card for 1440p. Priced the same as RTX 2060 with performance of 2060 Super.

Mid Range

Radeon RX 5700 XT - Great value card for 1440p. Priced the same as RTX 2060 Super with performance between 2070 and 2070 Super.

ZOTAC AMP! RTX 2070 - This is kind of overpriced but it is considered a mid range option. Unfortunately Nvidia has jacked up the prices on their cards this generation.

High end

ASUS ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti - The best, horribly overpriced consumer grade card and the best aftermarket cooler. The Strix is efficient at cooling and a very silent cooler relative to the competition. The fans turn off completely at low temperatures.

(I'll finish this later - Sabine)

This section was last edited on 22/08/19.

Nvidia vs AMD (Opinionated)

The two main competitors in the graphics card market are Nvidia and AMD. Nvidia has the highest performing GPUs at the high end (by a significant margin), but AMD usually has more competitive offerings around the mid range and low end.

Nvidia cards tend to be more power efficient and generate less heat.

As of the new RTX 2000 series, Nvidia cards have more specialised hardware for video encoding which significantly improves their performance in this regard over AMD.

Nvidia and AMD have counterparts for some of each other's software (Nvidia ShadowPlay = AMD Radeon ReLive, Nvidia Surround = AMD Eyefinity etc.). However in some cases they differ:

• For adaptive sync, AMD Freesync works well on any monitor with HDMI/DisplayPort. Nvidia GSync used to require specialised, expensive GSync monitors, however this has changed and GSync is now available to use on non-Gsync monitors. Unfortunately it is a bit of a dice roll which unsupported monitors Gsync works well on.
• Nvidia Ansel (a game screenshotting tool) has no counterpart on the AMD front.
• Nvidia's new RTX technology has no counterpart on the AMD front.
• Nvidia's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is similar to AMD's RIS (Radeon Image Sharpening).
• Nvidia's Ultra-Low Latency Mode works essentially the same as Radeon Anti-Lag.

This section was last edited on 22/08/19.

Coolers

Coolers consist of a heatsink and fans that dissipate heat from the GPU, memory and other components on the card. It is recommended that you buy a card with a good cooler if you wish to overclock, as overclocking creates higher temperatures.

It is recommended that you avoid "blower" graphics cards, which include the reference design cards produced by AMD, and NVIDIA (before the RTX 20 series). These are usually the first releases of any new card. They use a blower style cooler in place of the usual open air cooler that aftermarket brands ship with. These are typically far less effective and often result in higher temperatures and louder noise.

It is only recommended that you use these cards for multi GPU setups where all the cards are located very close to one another, as blower style coolers dissipate heat towards the back of the case instead of all around, which would mean just blowing heat towards each other in these setups. (Multi GPU setups are not recommended for gaming, as most games cannot utilise more than one GPU effectively).

Drivers

Installing the latest drivers are essential for running a graphics card at peak performance. Driver updates often optimise the performance or power efficiency of a card.

Overclocking

Just like CPUs, graphics cards can be overclocked. An average overclock can increase framerates in games by around 10%.

Overclocking a card too much can cause instability and crashes. Overvolting the card can stabilise an otherwise unstable overclock, but will increase the heat generated by the card. At a certain point thermal throttling (decrease in performance caused by high temperatures) will counteract the performance gains from overclocking, so having a good cooler will allow you to overclock further before this limit is reached.

Setting up a custom fan profile can help to lower noise at lower temperatures or increase cooling at higher temperatures.

The recommended overclocking software is currently MSI Afterburner.

After overclocking a card, it is essential to test that your overclock is stable using benchmarking software such as Unigine Superposition or 3DMark Time Spy. Be sure to run these for at least half an hour and watch out for any artifacts (visual glitching) or crashes and instability.

Undervolting

Lowering the voltage on GPUs (while maintaining the same clock speed) can improve performance, heat, noise and power draw.

Typically AMD GPUs benefit much more from this than NVIDIA ones.

Graphics Processing Unit

The graphics processing unit, or GPU is responsible for performing the bulk of graphical operations.

GPUs differ from CPUs in that they tend to contain vast amounts of weaker cores compared to CPUs which only have a few cores, although each of them are very powerful. This difference means GPUs are great for tasks that can be performed in parallel, such as graphical operations.

Video RAM

Video RAM, or VRAM is specialised memory located on the card, dedicated to storing image data such as textures and shaders.

Having sufficient VRAM is essential for running higher resolution textures in games without incurring a drop in framerate.