A general Graphics Card Question - The "Specs"

[ATB]

Ive done some homework on Graphics cards, but am still no where near an expert.

I have a question.

It SEEMS that there are THREE MAIN FACTORS which should be considered when deciding which Graphics Card to purchase, and they are: correct me if I am wrong

1. Speed
2. Amount of RAM
3. (and my question) FRAME RATE

Speed, Amount of RAM, and Frame Rate

So my question is - where are these "Specs" located? Or HOW do you determine the (specifically) Frame Rate of a Graphics Card? (and all three but its easy to find out how much RAM there is... but Frame Rate - no so much).

Am I on the right track here in my thinking?

How do you determine/find out the Frame Rate of a Graphics Card?

Heres a random selection as a reference:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127741

Here I see a "core clock":
Core Clock1137 MHzBoost Clock1198 MHz

Memory Size2GB

Memory TypeGDDR5

Where is the Frame Rate located?

If Ive gotten ahead of myself and missed something please feel free to correct me.

Again any help / explaining would definitely be appreciated.

ty

 

[Adrian B]

Ive done some homework on Graphics cards, but am still no where near an expert.

I have a question.

It SEEMS that there are THREE MAIN FACTORS which should be considered when deciding which Graphics Card to purchase, and they are: correct me if I am wrong

1. Speed
2. Amount of RAM
3. (and my question) FRAME RATE

Speed, Amount of RAM, and Frame Rate

So my question is - where are these "Specs" located? Or HOW do you determine the (specifically) Frame Rate of a Graphics Card? (and all three but its easy to find out how much RAM there is... but Frame Rate - no so much).

Am I on the right track here in my thinking?

How do you determine/find out the Frame Rate of a Graphics Card?

Heres a random selection as a reference:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127741

Here I see a "core clock":
Core Clock1137 MHzBoost Clock1198 MHz

Memory Size2GB

Memory TypeGDDR5

Where is the Frame Rate located?

If Ive gotten ahead of myself and missed something please feel free to correct me.

Again any help / explaining would definitely be appreciated.

ty

Ty,

Frames Per Second (fps) differ depending what use you are putting your computer too. If you play games then some games will be much more graphics intensive and will run slower typical fps rates. Changing settings and resolutions will have an affect too.

The main starting point is to consider what you need the graphics to do. If you are using DAW programmes for music then HD4000 or similar will be fine. If you wish to do intensive 3D modelling or watch YouTube videos then your requirements will be quite different.


Adrian B

 

[ATB]

Ty,

Frames Per Second (fps) differ depending what use you are putting your computer too. If you play games then some games will be much more graphics intensive and will run slower typical fps rates. Changing settings and resolutions will have an affect too.

The main starting point is to consider what you need the graphics to do. If you are using DAW programmes for music then HD4000 or similar will be fine. If you wish to do intensive 3D modelling or watch YouTube videos then your requirements will be quite different.


Adrian B

Thank you for your input.

But I really and "literally" want to know HOW to figure out the specs on any graphics card I come across - because if I know how to do this than I can decide for myself which cards interest me.

I am assuming that fps (frames per second / frame rate) is analogous to Samples Per Second (Sample Rate) in digital audio which I have some (not alot) experience with. If so frame rate is very important to me.

I really want to be able to look at a GPU/Graphics Card and know the frame rate.

The three things that I find most important are
GPU speed
RAM (in the graphics card)
Frame Rate

This seems to me to be the only way to really determine the performance of a graphics card.

Again, any input would be appreciated. thank you!

 

[Dschijn]

Hi,
you are trying too hard to understand which card is fast. If you stick with (e.g.) Nvidia you can guess the speed by the model number:

760
770
780
Titan

The difference in a model type is most of the time very little, maybe 5%. That difference is because manufacturers are clocking their cards higher as the reference card by Nvidia.
So, the best option is compair the Nvidia specs with the manufacturer specs.
BUT the specs are not the only way to compair, because the cooling is also important to the clock speed. That may sound weird, but the chips are throttling if the get hotter than 80°C. That only happens to cards in the reference design.
That is is a reason that good 780 cards are faster than a Titan, because Titans are only available in the reference design and start to throttle.

Also, you can't compair specs of different models like 770 vs 780. The 770 is using high speed memory, which is faster than the memory of the 780. But of course the 780 is faster!

FPS: Frames per Second are the result of the calculation of the GPU+CPU. There are too many variables like resolution, quality settings, MSAA and the game itself.

If you want to compair different manufacturers, just google their "name + review".