Differences between multitude of GeForce520-550 models

Kernunos

Well all,

I am currently in the market for upgrading my graphics card and for the first time I was thinking of ordering online rather than getting it from a bricks and mortar store. My budget would be around 100-125 euros so nothing crazy. I was speaking to a friend in the know and he recommended something along the lines of a GeForce GTX 520-550. Problem is that I have not been looking into this stuff for years and it has bypassed my completely. I checked out Hardwareversand.de and it gave me around 10 different versions of that range of cards, some examples being:

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/1024+MB/47050/EVGA+GeForce+GTX+550+Ti+Superclocked%2C+1024MB%2C+PCI-Express.article

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/1024+MB/48627/Gainward+GeForce+GTX+550+Ti+Golden+Sample%2C+1GB+GDDR5.article

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/1024+MB/54410/Palit+Geforce+GTX+550+Ti+Sonic%2C+1024MB%2C+PCI-Express.article

Could people give me a bit of guidance into what exactly the difference is between this sort of stuff and whether it makes any real difference in performance?

Any suggestions or recommendations about suppliers or alternative models in this price range would also be very appreciated.

Skylinehead

This is far superior.

Kernunos

Thanks for the reply. What exactly makes it better though? Back in my day it seems that RAM was all you had to take into consideration.

Monotype

The Gainward vs Palit vs EVGA are the brands of cards. These are the people that you'd be going to if you had a problem with the card. The differences could be any of the following: cooling, overclocking, warranty, extra games in the box, software or sometimes the connectors at the back. Essentially you're getting the same card though.

The quantity of RAM on the card should not be used as a basis for the performance of the card. It usually makes very little difference except at higher resolutions. The speed of the RAM can have a considerable effect though so cards which are GDDR3 vs GDDR5 should be taken into account.

The 550ti is a bit overpriced and the 6850 is much better value alright. It's near impossible to compare cards on specifications nowadays - there's just too many variables so you are better off looking at how they perform in reviews. There will be also differences between cards in various applications so you can't always say that one card is strictly better than another if they are close.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/539?vs=541

Here's a list of 6850 vs 550ti results.

deconduo

Yeah the HD 6850 is far better than any other card at that pricerange.

Kernunos

Thats great, thanks a lot.

BostonB

Kernunos wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. What exactly makes it better though? Back in my day it seems that RAM was all you had to take into consideration.

It wasn't. Its mainly the chipset thats important.

If you want to see how different graphics cards, chipset perform, look at the benchmarks in the game or application you want to run.