I'm planning on swapping out a 1x2 RAM card in my PC for a 1x4 and adding a low-profile GPU to it. It's the only way I can possibly afford to game on PC for now. But I don't need a semi-killer $300 GPU to play most modern games, right? What matters when choosing a GPU? Mainly the VRAM, right? I mean, a dollar more and I break the bank for me, so it's either this, with 2gb VRAM , or nothing... |
Nope. VRam has little to nothing to do with performance - no worries, common mistake. Obviously you'd like more, but it doesn't directly impact performance. The nVidia naming scheme is GTX NXM N=generation, X=skew, M is normally a 0 but some mobile GPUs slightly better then one skew but worse than the next highest skew are labeled 5 for the M digit. For Nvidia it's not really worth buying anything under the 50 skew (I.E. 750, 650, etc..) because you lose out on some of the bang/buck at that point. You should be able to play most games with a 750 or higher, you won't need to spend 300$ on a card unless you want to max out or close to max out more demanding games.
It's explained here (though he uses an AMD card as an example):
[YOUTUBE]watch?v=sph6cjJeRdI[/YOUTUBE]
I suggest you pay a little extra and buy a 750 or preferably even a 750Ti for the best performance at the low end price range (~100$ for the 750 and ~130$ for the 750Ti)
If you're willing to pay more it may be worth investing in a 760 or wait a little longer for the 960 to come out (which is soon...ish? Apparently?)
750:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-027-_-Product (100$ w/MIR)
750Ti:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814487025 (130$ w/MIR)
760:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-556-_-Product (195$ w/MIR)
Here's a graph of performance for the 400-700 series:
http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_174083838.jpg (Unsupported image host)
Unfortunately I'm not as familiar with AMD cards, they are often times a bit less expensive than competing nVidia cards but their performance varies and they're known to get a bit hotter than nVidia cards; again, varying by card.
Your best option to gauge which card to buy is to look up benchmarks for current generation cards, and pick the one with the best price/performance for the games you'd like to play. Youtube has many videos with benchmarks so look there if you need help.
Also: Ensure that the graphics card you pick fits in your case. If your case is small, I'd skip out on the 760 completely unless you can find a Mini ITX version or something.