Question:
I need help understanding video cards.?
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
I need help understanding video cards.?
Four answers:
2012-11-21 19:16:00 UTC
No, Nvidia does not produce video cards themselves. They make the "guts" of the video cards, which they sell to other companies, who use them to make the video cards that they sell you.



But all these cards are referred to by the model of the Nvidia guts in them of course. Though a gtx 680 from one company may be clocked up higher than a gtx 680 from another company. And the amount of memory installed on the two cards may differ. And the number and type of interface connections may differ. But they are both gtx 680s.



The numbers are just Nvidia's weird little naming system for their video card guts. The gtx 6xx cards are the latest generation. Last year's cards were the gtx 5xx bunch, and before that you had the gtx 4xx cards.



The last 2 digits give you an idea of whether this is a budget, mid range, or high end card. Your gtx 690 is a damn high end card. your gtx 680 is not quite so high end. Your 650 is a bit of a cheapie.



Same for 5xx's and the 4xx's. This is why your 650 costs less than your 580.



There is no underlying reason for any of this, this is just how nvidia's been sticking the labels on here lately, the last few years. They may confuse us with a totally different labeling system later on.



The best way to get an idea of how different video cards stack up against each other is to look at benchmark charts on websites like anandtech.com and tomshardwareguide.com



What company makes the card isn't generally so important, except in terms of that company's reputation for quality and how difficult they are about rebates and so on. EVGA is considered pretty good. Actually I've had pretty good luck with most of them, even the cheap ones.



Main thing to look at is the model number of the nvidia guts, the clock speeds it comes with, how much memory it has, and what the outputs are and what the power reqs are. And how much it costs.
Dennis
2012-11-22 13:21:32 UTC
all chips in Geforce 4xx 5xx 6xx ext are made buy Nvidia. Some cards to not say Nvidia just to keep the name shorter. The number determines the power of the card. The first number determines the generation of the card. We are currently on the 6xx series. And the second number represents the level of power of it, the third is not used for this gen. A GTX 650 card is good for very light gaming, compared to a GTX 680 which is the top end single gpu card. The power of the cards go from GTX 650, 650 ti, 660, 660 ti, 670, 680, and finally the 690. A 690 has 2 gpu's, which you will only want to use if you are doing multi monitor gaming, in that case you would want to use 2 680'ss because you gain a little more performance for about the same price with more options available. Nvidia makes stock pcb's for some cards, which have blower fans in most cases such as this card.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127671



Some cards have custom pcb's which i would recommend as long as you are not custom water cooling, because you get extra performance and cooler temps in most cases such as this card.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127698



I would go with whatever 6xx card you can afford, unless you are doing more video editing then i would go with maybe an AMD card or 5xx series card because they perform a little better in that category.
Md.shagor Ahamed
2012-11-21 19:10:19 UTC
I don't know
?
2012-11-21 19:16:42 UTC
Nvidia makes the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and sells it to it's partners (EVGA, ASUS, MSI, etc...) these are referred to as reference cards.

Nvidia sells their own GPUs as OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) which is what you find in pre-bulit PCs (HP, Dell, Emachines)


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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