Simple Graphics Card Question

[Putter]

Hi, I seem to have misplaced a link, I'm not sure how. This link outlined the various graphics card specs with a full explanation of what the spec meant, what amount of the spec in question was required to be good, and how important it was.

Hmmm, that probably wasn't clear, but basically (I believe it was scanned out of a magazine) it had all the different specs (Core Clock, Memory Clock, Memory Size, Memory Bus, Interface etc.) and listed what they meant in layman terms. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, or could post a link to somewhere else (google/wikipedia aren't in my favor, maybe someone else will have luck), or even could go over what these all mean that would be awesome. Normally I wouldn't make a whole post about this but I kinda need it.

Thanks.

 

[Addis]

The core clock refers to the clock speed at which the core GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) operates at. Generally, when you're comparing cards of the same generation and type, higher clockspeeds are better.

The memory clock refers to the clock speed at which the VRAM operates at. The VRAM is the memory in which the graphics card stores data for processing, as before, higher clocks are better. The core clock and memory clocks do not necessarily run at the same speeds.

Memory bus usually defines the width of the VRAM bus. The larger the bus width, the more data can be transmitted through the bus in a given time. This is usually not a great factor when comparing graphics cards.

Interface is the actual method of connection between the graphics card and your motherboard. The old interface was AGP, and was used in the pre nVidia 6 series era. However, it is now completely obsolete, and a new faster bus is now used. It is called PCI Express, (not standard PCI, which is very different). PCI Express has a much greater bandwidth, and nearly all new motherboards and cards use this interface.

Now, although the above are important, they should not be the main factor in deciding which graphics card to buy. Instead, you should look at benchmarks of the cards, and see how they perform in different scenarios. There is a lot more to the card than the specs reveal, and so you should take a look at sites like [google]Anandtech[/google] and [google]HardOCP[/google] for more information.