Graphics card

Nvidia GT 1030 vs AMD RX 550: What’s the difference? Which is better?

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Competitive PC video gaming no longer requires a very expensive hardware configuration. Both Nvidia and AMD are now offering graphics cards retailing for under 100€ which are powerful enough for gaming in 1080p.

Beginning with its GT 1030, Nvidia has been more focused on improving the efficiency of its graphics cards than their raw performance characteristics. AMD has also adopted a similar strategy for the design of its two newest graphics cards – the RX 550 and the RX 560 (which belongs to a slightly higher product line). But what can these graphics cards be used for? In addition to being well-suited to building small media-center computers (that can be placed under a TV), these graphics cards are also ideal for entering the world of competitive PC gaming without having to spend hundreds of euros on hardware.

In fact, the majority of competitive PC games are very highly optimized and do not require a powerful hardware setup in order to be played. The main consideration with this type of game is ensuring a constant, and sufficiently high frame rate (in order to allow players to follow all of a game’s action without their computer lagging).

Among the most highly competitive PC games are, of course, Overwatch, Starcraft 2, and Heroes of The Storm as well as League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Not to mention Hearthstone which can even be played on an iPad.

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Nvidia RTX at a glance: Should I upgrade my graphics card?

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Nvidia RTXThe new Nvidia RTX graphics cards mark a quantum leap. We explain what they are capable of and whether you should upgrade your graphics card.

It’s not every day that new graphics cards are announced. The last generation already arrived a good two years ago, which means that video games have never seen technology such as real-time raytracing. These are exciting times for all graphics nerds. That’s why we would like to take a closer look at the Nvidia RTX and find out what the new generation is capable of.

Nvidia RTX

The reflections of the light rays can be seen in a raytracing demo.

What can the new RTX cards do?

To answer this question, we will first look at the pros and cons of the new Nvidia graphics cards. The new technology in the RTX cards is called real-time raytracing. It has never been used in the video gaming field due to the required computing power simply being too high. With the new Nvidia RTX cards, raytracing can now also be used for video games.

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Geforce RTX 2080 Ti, 2080 & 2070: Prices, Release, Raytracing Games and more

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Nvidia has introduced the gaming graphics cards Geforce RTX 2080 Ti, 2080 and 2070. They offer real-time raytracing from 639 euros. Nvidia provide a list of all raytracing games.

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The Geforce RTX series offers a new cooler in the Founders Edition with the RTX instead of GTX lettering. Pictured: Geforce RTX 2080 Ti.

We summarise the most important information about the release and prices of the new Nvidia graphics cards Geforce GTX 2080 Ti, 2080 and 2070. The co-founder of Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang, introduced the GPUs of the Turing generation on Monday evening in Cologne, Germany, just one day before Gamescom 2018. The gaming graphics cards are coming on 20th September 2018 and have been available for pre-order since the unveiling of the cards.

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Guide: How Much VRAM Do I Need for Gaming? Is 2GB or 4GB VRAM Enough?

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graphics card We will analyze how much memory a graphics card needs in order to play current and future titles with no problems. 4, 6, or 8 GB?

We will analyze how much memory a graphics card needs for both current and future games.

Buying a graphics card can be complicated, and the manufacturers often are partly to blame for using a nomenclature that can easily confuse those who are not initiated.

Which is most powerful, and NVIDIA 980 or 1050? You who read Omicrono frequently surely know that the first one is more powerful, but someone who doesn’t know anything about it will see that one has a number bigger than the other, and will come to the wrong conclusion. Believe me, it has happened more than once.

Memory, a way to attract illiterate buyers

graphics card With memory, something similar happens; it’s a number, so our brains have learned that bigger is better. So we go to the store looking for cards that have the largest amount of memory possible, making bad decisions that will cost us more money in the future.

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Our readers speak: Mid-range or high-end graphics?

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When we assemble a PC or update an existing configuration we have the option of choosing high-end or mid-range graphics cards, a decision that can end up being rather complicated , especially if we have a decent budget.

The decision is important because it affects not only user experience when it comes to playing our favourite games, but also the upgrade cycle which we will be subjected to.

If we opt for a high end graphics card it is very likely that we won’t have to upgrade for up to four or five years if it our monitors native resolution doesn’t change. On the other hand if we chose a mid-range graphics card it’s is very likely that we will have to upgrade sooner (between two and three years).

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Best Budget Graphics Cards 2017 Between 200 and 400 dollars: GTX 1060 3GB vs GTX 1060 6GB vs RX 480 VS RX 470

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We faced off the representatives of Nvidia’s and AMD’s mid-range to evaluate their performance and quality/price ratio.

The best cards between 200 and 400 dollars

Usually the launch of new graphics cards make glances go towards the high-end, to those outrageous numbers, monstrous frame rates or resolutions within the reach of very few, but it is in the mid-range, where the vast majority of buyers aim for because it is where the best price/performance ratio on the market is, in that range between 200 and 300 $. That is why we are going to highlight and face off with one another representatives from both Nvidia and AMD in the range: the GTX 1060 6GB, GTX 1060 3GB, RX 480 8GB and RX 470 4GB.

The contenders

On the green brand’s side, we have 2 versions of the same card, the GTX 1060 in its 6GB and 3GB models, but they are not exactly the same card as we can see below.

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Guide: Which processor is the recommended minimum for each graphics card?

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One of the things that most worries new users when setting up a new PC is the known theme of the bottleneck caused by CPU, something understandable considering that each graphics card can have certain requirements and need a processor or greater or less power.

First of all I want to clearly and extensively clarify what exactly this bottleneck caused by CPU is, as it is a fairly broad topic and not everyone has a solid understanding, even after the publication of this article which I undoubtedly invite you to review.

A bottleneck means that one or more components offer a lower performance than other elements in the system, and when they are working at the same time, they slow or limit their full potential. This is the simplest definition I can give you.

In the case of the CPU it is the processor that ‘feeds’ data to the GPU, and if the GPU ‘pulls frames per second’ faster than it receives information from the processor it will be slowed down and it won’t be able to work at its maximum capacity. This clarifies exactly what a CPU bottleneck is.

Different levels of bottlenecking

First of all, I want to make something clear that appears not to have been properly understood in the previous article, there are many levels of bottlenecking within the same type of bottleneck, and they can be ordered and differentiated according to their severity.

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Best Graphics Card 2017: Advice and tips for buying

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On the March update, we highlight the price decrease of the GTX 1080, which finally cost less than 600 dollars.

There are also news within the mid-range, with the 8 GB RX 480 having a much more attractive price and the 4 GB Gigabyte RX 460 costing only 120 dollars.

Graphics Card

We updated our list with the best graphic cards, adding some models that have gone down in price. There are news on all the three ranges, and among those we highlight the RX 460 by Sapphire with 4 GB GDDR5 for less than 130 dollars, the GTX 1060 by EVGA for less than 240 dollars and the GTX 1080 by MSI which costs less than 520 dollars.

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Guide: “obsolete” graphics cards that still perform well

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Technology advances and changes very quickly, but certainly one of the areas that is most affected by this fact is the graphics card, since new releases occur quite frequently and the feeling of being “outdated” is noticeable even if we only have a generation behind.

But do not worry, it is normal since each new generation of cards introduces changes that make people think that their card is useless and needs to be upgraded, but the reality is very different, since the same card will continue to perform as well as it did a few months ago.

And what about those with old graphics cards? That is a good question, and to answer we’ll be making this guide, in which we will talk about the generations of graphics cards that have become “obsolete”, at least in theory, and we will see the ones that are still capable of performing well today.

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