Is it worth upgrading my graphics card?

Hi folks,

Not being a gamer, graphic cards have always bewildered me a bit, so wondered if anyone could please offer me some advice on whether my graphics card should be upgraded or left alone?

My current card is a HD 3450 (256MB), and my main uses of the PC, apart from the usual web/office work is a bit of video editing and photo manipulation. This is done in 64bit Vista, though I will be moving to Win 7 when I get 'round to reinstalling next, and the card is powering a 22" 16:10 screen.

Is there any benefit in moving up the graphics card ladder a bit? :confused:

Many thanks...

Well seeing as you say you only do "a bit" of video editing and photo manipulation, an upgrade isn't really necessary. However a 22" does benefit from increased memory on the card but for your application I don't think you really need it all that much.

The only benefit I see is that if you work with massive files in video editing and photo manipulation, the time spent on "loading", or whatever the technically term to describe the time lag when you edit/manipulate/add a filter or something, would be shorter.

However I really don't see an upgrade benefitting you that much, especially as there aren't any problems.

W7 won't use much more resources in terms of your graphics card either.

So in the end, my answer is no, there's no point in upgrading.

I see no reason to upgrade your graphics card unless you want to buy a newer one which supports ATI Stream or Nvidia CUDA which can support GPU acceleration of certain applications. However,IIRC the HD3450 should support ATI Stream as the HD3000 series IGP can support GPU accelerated flash playback.

Yep, no need.
And the memory will have little effect too, to drive a desktop at 1680x1050x32bit you need the grand total of 64mb of video card memory.

Well I take back what I said then haha. (About more memory)

Thanks for all your replies folks - much appreciated. :)

As I said, these mystical GPUs have always confused me, and it's good to be reassured that I'm not losing out with my cheap old card.

Thanks again for your help! :cool:

for video editing and photo manipulation lots of ram is more beneficial than a newer gpu ,if your editing big files

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Yep, no need.
And the memory will have little effect too, to drive a desktop at 1680x1050x32bit you need the grand total of 64mb of video card memory.

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Vista and 7 will cache previews of Windows etc on the graphics memory so it will be a lot more than this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ta2

Vista and 7 will cache previews of Windows etc on the graphics memory so it will be a lot more than this.

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true, but only if you're running areo, even then 256mb should be fine.

Agree with others no real need to upgrade Gfx card.