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Popular myths about graphics cards that aren't true.

Updated on July 2, 2013

While browsing Yahoo! Answers or random forums, I often see many people suggesting very pointless and overpriced graphics cards. Or "experts" saying ridiculous things and bragging how their lousy $40 video card fluently runs newest games at maximum settings. If you don't know much about computer hardware, then there is high chance that you accidentally "upgrade" your current video card to slower one. You can avoid this by reading this article about video card myths that are not true.

"Amount of video memory is most important"

When you are shopping for a graphics card, then don't pay too much attention to the amount of video memory. It is not the most important thing about video cards. Huge load of graphics memory doesn't compensate weak GPU on the graphics card.

"NVIDIA GT 520 is better than NVIDIA GT 430" etc.

Not true, people think that newer generation video cards are always better than the old ones. But usually difference isn't very big, sometimes latest generation is just updated old. Many years older 8800GTX is much faster than GT 520, even if it doesn't support DirectX 11.

"Video cards over $50 are waste of money"

Some may think why should anyone pay $200 for NVIDIA GTX 560 when you can get GT 520 for $50, there can't be big difference. It may be true if you only are a casual gamer, but you need the over 6 times faster GTX 560 to play demanding games at high to max settings.

"Cards in SLI/Crossfire have double performance"

This is mostly not true, its rare when a game utilizes both cards 100%. In some games there is not a big difference between 1 and 2 graphics card setup.

"Low-end GPUs with lots of VRAM are awesome"

Don't be fooled, 2GB HD 5450 for just $70 seems to be an awesome deal, but it isn't. Loading crappy graphics card with tons of RAM doesn't make it faster, quite the opposite. 512MB version of the same card is usually faster, because it uses RAM that has higher clock speeds.

"Reading reviews is pointless, just see specs"

Wrong, looking at the specs is pointless, unless you are comparing video cards of same generation and family. Always check out reviews comparing cards that you are interested in.

"Old video cards have low power consumption"

Older graphics cards can be very power hungry, more powerful HD 5870 also consumes many times more power than HD 6450. Newer and faster can be much more energy efficient.

"Latest low-end graphics cards are powerful"

No, lowest end graphics cards of the newest generation aren't good for gaming and they don't have good performance for price. You can often find older but faster cards for less. AMD HD 6450 and NVIDIA GT 520 are good examples, faster HD 5570 / GT 430 cost only $10 more.

"AMD (or NVIDIA) is more durable"

Not true, there is no difference. Well, there is no information or proof about it. Although there are graphics cards models and series that die faster than others.

"GeForce GTX 580 is newer than GT 520"

No, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 was launched many months before GT 520. Faster cards are usually released before the cheap and slow ones.

"NVIDIA is bad, AMD is good (or vice versa)"

Both brands have strengths and weaknesses.

"DDR5 video cards don't work with DDR3 systems"

Not true, memory types don't need to match on graphics card and system RAM. GDDR5 video cards would be useless, DDR3 is currently the latest mainstream system memory type.

working

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