Graphics cards literally power all the fancy, colorful visuals that we see on screen – whether we are gaming, using the OS or video editing. Some people build their computer around the GPU, sometimes spending 50% of their budget on just the GPU. And who can blame them? PC games nowdays require so much VRAM and GPU resources that it’s best to focus on a good GPU.
This section is where I publish any and all articles relating to graphics cards.
Some motherboards are badly laid out, or just too small for massive, modern GPUs. This means that your graphics card might be blocking access to one or more other PCIe slots, making it impossible to plug in another PCIe expansion card like a USB card, WiFi PCIe card or a PCIe networking device. I actually … Read more
Powering our GPUs (graphics cards) used to be EASY. If it was a low or mid range card, you could just stick it into the motherboard’s PCIe slot and it would be solely powered by the 75 watts the motherboard would supply to it. When cards got a bit more powerful, you could then supply … Read more
The PCIe slots on motherboards can be a bit confusing. It would be SIMPLE if they were all full length x16 slots that each gave full x16 speeds, but unfortunately they do not. Some PCIe slots are full length, but only run at x4. Other PCIe slots DO run at x16… but only if you … Read more
There are LOADS of different brands (makers) of graphics cards: I can think of MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS, Palit, PYT, Sapphire and Zotac off the top of my head. There’s probably a dozen or so more, too. Then you have NVIDIA’s direct GPUs too, which they call the Founder’s Edition cards. Do all these brands actually … Read more
Here’s a terrible tech tip. If you’re not sure whether the graphics card has gone into the PCI express slot correctly or not, just give your computer a good shake upside down. If it doesn’t fall out, then it’s secure! This video is also available to view on:
It’s really easy to accidentally UNDERPOWER your graphics card by using a split pigtail cable (also called y-splitter) for 2 or 3 of the PCIe connections on the GPU. Unfortunately a PCIe cable can supply as little as 150 watts from your PSU to the GPU, resulting in too low power being supplied to some … Read more
GPU shopping can get confusing, especially because there are two types of ‘current gen’ memory (VRAM): GDDR6 and GDDR6X. Is one better than the other, or is it just marketing? Well it turns out that GDDR6X definitely is better than GDDR6, but not by a massive amount. Plus only NVIDIA sell GDDR6X cards after an … Read more
Okay, I’ll admit it: whenever I build a PC, the cable management ends up resembling Medusa’s hair first thing in the morning: What’s worse is that I sometimes leave it that way for months (sorry!). However having good, organized cable management brings a number of benefits: from better case airflow to calming our OCD tendencies! … Read more
So you’ve just installed your shiny new graphics card – congrats! But after booting into Windows, you soon notice a problem: the music and audio cuts out a lot, or it keeps going out of sync with the on-screen footage. While this is a frustrating side-effect of a GPU upgrade, it’s often easy enough to … Read more
PC cases are getting smaller at a time when GPUs keep getting bigger, often resulting in people needing to buy GPU riser cables to squeeze everything into their PC build. But if you’ve started having bad performance or FPS rates, you might be wondering whether your riser cables are to blame. Let’s dig into whether … Read more
