Question Replace Graphic Card = clueless

BigJohnx13

Commendable
Jun 22, 2019
17
3
1,525
Please advice in laymans terms. I'm clueless when it get to PC and related stuff.

I need to replace my graphic card on a ECS gt 41 T R 3 motherboard , Do mostly work related stuff on PC and children play some games (shooting and driving) on it . Can get the following graphic card but doesnt knows which one is best. I have an option between these for very cheap. Not interested in buying an upmarket gaming card.

GeForce GT 7 - 2 GB, DDR 3
GeForce GT 7 - 1 GB, DDR 3
Geforce GTX550t - 1GB , DDR5

Which performance parameters do i need to take into consideration, The GB or DDR and how to I determine which spec is priority to choose from

Thanks in advance










 
Which 700 series GT cards (710-740) are you looking at?
Personally I'd stay away from DDR3, as it's very slow memory and will perform poorly. The GTX 550Ti is an older card but will out perform the GT 700 DDR3 cards. Only 1GB of RAM is low, but I'd take 1GB of DDR5 over 2GB of DDR3. Hope this helps.
 

BigJohnx13

Commendable
Jun 22, 2019
17
3
1,525
Thx for answer

"but I'd take 1GB of DDR 5 "

My motherboard have only DDR3 memory. I'm I correct to assume the graphic card memory have nothing
to do with the onboard memory.
 
Thx for answer

"but I'd take 1GB of DDR 5 "

My motherboard have only DDR3 memory. I'm I correct to assume the graphic card memory have nothing
to do with the onboard memory.

The graphics card memory is separate from the motherboard memory. GDDR3 is a lot slower than GDDR5. That is your video card graphics memory. Video card memory is tuned for the kind of memory access your Video card needs.

This is kind of going to get complicated, but stick with me. It will make sense in a second:

So lets say your video card is drawing a scene and it's trying to draw the sky. Well it will try to find that sky texture on the video card memory first. The faster the better. However if you have a small amount of video card memory, it's possible that your video card will not have that sky texture loaded into video memory. So the Video Card will go out to the system and ask for that sky texture from the motherboard memory (which is almost always larger) This is WAY slower than having it local on the video card because system memory is slow.

So when picking a video card (when looking at memory)
  1. Get the fastest video memory your can (GDDR6 > GDDR5 > GDDR3)
  2. Get the largest amount of video memory you can (4GB > 2 GB > 1GB)

If you have 2GB or less video card memory, stick with low detail or small textures in the game settings. And limit your res to 720p or 1080p with low details.
 

RobCrezz

Expert
Ambassador
Basically, ignore the cards specs. Rely on reviews and benchmarks. You really cant determine a cards performance based on it specs alone, because the underling architecture can differ greatly.

I would look for a used GTX 750. Should be cheap, low power usage and fairly decent performance.