If you're new to PC gaming or haven't paid attention to how graphics cards work (we've all been there).. or if you say this often; My CPUS seem FASTZ! why no GOOD GRAFIX?? bad feelz! haha
There is a simple way to remember all this graphics card junk.
Shaders.. MOAR shaderz!!
2000+ shaderz + decent other core parts + decent Vram (2GB/3GB/4GB/MOAR!)
Means you can pace at a decent frame rate.. Crossfire and SLI for each card doubles many of these things but not all. SLI scaling is something beautiful these days.. I haven't tried Crossfire but AMD guys seem to keep complaining about the drivers and with my new, 280x I can see why, with gimped features. ...lovin' the 3GB Vram & 2048 shaders though.
Each of the 2048 shader cores has a clock rate just like your CPU.. speed them up and the PC finds it easier to create the game.
These days I would recommend no less than 1024 shaders for any medium 1080p gaming build. but really you should be thinking about trying to get around 1500+ & 2GB of Vram for a medium build.
Rob mentioned James' GTX 660ti 3GB, that's a great card, and he's correct, these days Vram is sooo important for many games, simply put: the shaders and AA (detail) are what you see, the Vram is how quickly it is loaded. there's more about bit bus but thats for another day.
If you dial up the settings to maxout, everything's going to slow down becuase that takes a lot more work.. so less shaders means you put lower settings and everything will work as it should. or overclock the shaders you have..but be careful you don't burn down your house or fry the card or go on holiday to the seaside for a decorative hat.
left the PC on battlefield!
paused!
Of course there's loads more factors but these days as long are you have a reasonable CPU (current gen for AMD and Intel) and 8 to 32GB of RAM (I recommend 16GB @ 1866mhz) you should be G2G.. SSD doesn't hurt either. but HDD 7200rpm yes will run games fine.
peace
Dava
MOAR RAMZ!!
