Graphic Cards 101

[JBurnett]

I've attempted to learn how to 'read' a card by Googling, but I am sooo confused. Specifically here are 2 Nvidia 980 cards. http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GTX980-256bit-Graphics-04G-P4-2981-KR/dp/B00NT9USXI/ref=sr_1_15?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1433804301&sr=1-15&keywords=nvidia+gtx+980 and from your best performance for money page: http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00O4S9NY8?SubscriptionId=AKIAIEF7KZG4SSIJ7QQA&tag=toms_shopping_rev-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00O4S9NY8&ascsubtag=[site|thaus[cat|[art|[pid|B00O4S9NY8[tid|14338853156631463[bbc|LESPRIX#Ask 2 different companies yes, but what do all the numbers mean, besides the basic 9-8-0? Which card is better here and why by looking at all the numbers??

Then...will my motherboard even support this? Dell Studio XPS 8000 Motherboard X231R.

 

[Entomber]

the main meaningful difference between those two models will be the cooling solution (which you can search reviews for) and the overclock frequency.

the long numbers after the 980 are simply the model/series from that particular company, and the 04G/4GD5 indicates that it has 4GB of VRAM (GDDR5)

ACX 2.0 = ACX cooling solution by EVGA, revision 2
STRIX = cooling solution by ASUS

Higher OC frequency number = faster