If Intel, AMD and Nvidia’s statistics are correct, you’re probably using a computer and graphics card that are several years old. For PC gaming, video editing, …
If Intel, AMD and Nvidia’s statistics are correct, you’re probably using a computer and graphics card that are several years old. For PC gaming, video editing, animation and other heavyweight graphics-intensive activities, that’s just about forever. A lot’s changed in the last several years, so chances are you’re no longer using a modern card — much less the best graphics card out there — with new technologies like smart resolution upscaling or ray-tracing acceleration. And games and software used by creative folks for applications like 3D tools and video editors haven’t gotten any less demanding. Even if you just need the basics for streaming video or surfing the web, the best graphics card can make your system feel snappier by improving the acceleration of video decoding or redrawing your screens faster, especially if you had previously used a budget GPU. With a Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptop or iMac, you can even upgrade the graphics using an external graphics processing unit (an eGPU with its own power supply) or a dedicated graphics card. For color work, however, Nvidia finally made your old GeForce card a little more useful: As of version 431.70 (released July 29, 2019), the Studio branch of its drivers opened up true 30-bit color support for Photoshop and other Adobe applications. So no more shelling out megabucks for a Quadro workstation card just for the extra bit depth.
