Give yourself a visual treat, with this fine selection of goodies…
It’s remarkable how much improving the look of your system can make it feel like something new and exciting. You might not have changed the internals much, but your desktop is the main point of contact you have with a desktop computer. Upgrade that and it’ll seem as though everything old is new again.
This means two things: finding a new monitor and ideally a graphics card to go with it. Both are expensive components, but they’re worth the money: you’re guaranteed to appreciate their performance every time you switch your PC on. In this piece, we’ve looked at the various monitors and graphics cards available to help you find some of the best deals. Follow our advice, and in no time at all, your computer is going to look better than ever!
Graphics Cards: What To Look For
Graphics cards are essentially separate processors that sit inside your system handling nothing but the graphics output. The GPUs on graphics cards are able to perform the complex calculations required to create certain effects and 3D geometry that would otherwise be running on your CPU in addition to everything else. If you’re a gamer, the leap in performance offered by even a basic graphics card makes them instantly worth buying. And if you’re not a gamer, you’ll still see performance benefits (though admittedly not as keenly).
Like processors, graphics cards are divided into two main camps: AMD (which produces the Radeon line) and Nvidia (which produces the GeForce line). Unlike CPUs, there’s no clear division between the two manufacturers. Nvidia cards tend to be a little more expensive and faster, but also run hotter. Radeons are more efficient and better value. But those are only general rules; it could equally be the other way around, depending on the model.
Graphics card architecture means there’s rarely any point buying anything other than something from the latest generation or two of cards, because they’re usually less expensive, better value and better-performing than any of their predecessors. Currently, that means buying either a Radeon R7 200 or R9 300, or GeForce 700 or 900-series card. The first 10-series GeForce cards, following the 900-series, are available but they’ve only just been released and are still prohibitively expensive, so we wouldn’t recommend those just yet!
A quirk of the graphics card industry is that rather than making the cards themselves, AMD and Nvidia produce ‘reference’ designs, which are then copied by manufacturers (such as MSI and Gigabyte). Individual manufacturers can modify the reference designs, leading to slight differences in performance and feature sets even between cards of the same model number.
Within lines it’s easy to tell which cards are good and bad, because the higher the card’s model number, the better it is. Clock speed and RAM quantities are worth looking at if you want to compare two similar-looking cards, but it’s only much help if they’re already the same model.
Radeon Deals
Budget: Sapphire Radeon R7 250 (£70)
It’s priced well and based on fairly recent architecture from 2014, so you could be forgiven for wondering what’s wrong with the Radeon R7 250 to make it so cheap. And really, there’s nothing. It’s economical on power, drawing all that it needs from the PCI bus, and it can shut down unused cores to save power when not in use. It’s also faster than its closest Nvidia equivalents, which is mostly the case at the low end of the market. 1GB of RAM is maybe a little low, but we’d say that’s only going to be a problem for the kind of highend gaming you wouldn’t do on a £70 graphics card anyway. Crucially, this card is substantially better than most of Intel and AMD’s on-board GPUs, which means it’s definitely worth buying even if you’re looking to run a budget gaming system. Go any cheaper and you’ll see very little improvement. Indeed, it’s actually worse than the Iris Pro 6200 GPU found on Skylake Core i7s!
Mid Range: Asus STRIX R9 380 (£154)
The R9 380 is about a year old at this point, and that’s pushed its price down, so it has a great balance of affordability and newness. This is the 2GB version of the card (which again, is going to be adequate for all but the most ridiculously high-end demands), but a 4GB version is available. Unlike the R7 250 (and like other cards at this level), it’s a double-height card, so compact and mini-ATX systems may not have the necessary room to accommodate it.
As for why you should specifically choose the Asus Strix line for this card over the others, we’re attracted by its low noise levels. The company boasts that the DirectCU cooler has a 0db fan, so you can play in complete silence at low-loads, and that even at high loads the card runs 20% cooler and three times quieter than the reference design. Hard not to be attracted by that, really.
High End: XFX Radeon R9 Fury 4GB (£350)
At £350, the R9 Fury from XFX is a good £50 cheaper than some of the others in its range, but the brand is strong and the card tests reliably, so we think that the saving more than offsets the extra speed some of the bigger brands offer. It’s capable of 6K resolutions with 4GB of high-bandwidth memory, and it can process VR environments without lagging or tearing, thanks to LiquidVR technology. Power-wise it’s a pretty hungry piece of hardware: you’ll need a good 750W PSU to keep it going, but on a high-end system that’s the kind of requirement you have to live with.
For reference, XFX clocks its card at 1000MHz, while Gigabyte’s factory-overclocked version is a whole 1% faster, at 1010MHz. Admittedly it has a slightly better cooler, so if you’re into overclocking, it could be worth it, but if you’re just happy to have a fast card and don’t want to push it any harder, we’re confident that this card is the better deal.
GeForce Deals
Budget: EVGA GeForce GT 740 Superclocked (£74)
The GeForce GT 740 is about as slow a graphics card as you’d want to put in even a budget system, assuming you’re building it new. Again, it doesn’t quite trump Intel’s Iris Pro 6200 GPU, but it’s much faster than basically any other integrated chip around. The price difference between this card and the Radeon R7 250 is negligible, but if you’re looking for a good deal, the GT 740 is slightly better – not least because it has 2GB of RAM even at this price.
EVGA’s version further improves the card, with an overclocked GPU running slightly faster than the reference design. Although it’s not technically double-height, it is still pretty chunky, so you might prefer a smaller card. Other than that, there’s very little we can’t recommend about it at this price. The extra GB of RAM makes it worth your time, and even if you’re not a gamer, it supports video up to 4K. As entry-level cards go, we’d be more than happy with it.
Mid Range: Gigabyte GTX 960 OC 2GB (£160)
The GTX 960 is slightly less powerful than the Radeon R9 380 overall, so if you’re choosing to buy one, it’s worth going for an overclocked model like Gigabyte’s. The doubleheight card features a custom WindForce dual-fan cooler and a 1216MHz clock speed, so it’s a formidable piece of gaming hardware – though almost the exact opposite of the quiet R9 380. Although it only has 2GB of RAM, like the GT 740 card we just looked at, it’s worth pointing out that this is the faster and more efficient GDDR5 memory. You will need a 400W power supply, but on a midrange system that’s far from an unreasonable ask. Although it is double-height, it’s worth pointing out that the card itself is fairly compact; it’s shorter than many graphics cards and largely devoted to funnelling heat out of the way. This makes it especially good if you’re trying to get some formidable gaming capabilities into an otherwise tight system. A solid all-rounder.
High-End: MSI GTX 980 4GB (£415)
Frustratingly, if you want a highend GeForce card, there’s almost nothing between the £320 price (which isn’t that much better than a GTX 960) and the £400-plus prices of the GTX 980. If you want a card that competes with the Radeon Fury X, this is where you have to go, and if you’re already north of £400, the MSI GTX 980 is the one to go for. It has 4GB of GDDR5 memory, VR-ready firmware and a powerful Armor 2X cooler. We’re not sure the performance is worth £65 more than the Radeon equivalent, but in fairness that price is particularly low. Other Radeon Fury cards are much closer in their pricing to this card, so don’t dismiss it purely on the basis of that. It’s not that this deal is bad; it’s that the XFX Fury is a particularly good one!
Monitors: What To Look For
Choosing the best monitor isn’t just a matter of finding the biggest screen for the least money. It’s also necessary to consider the other qualities it possesses, all of which contribute to the performance, cost and aesthetics of a new screen. Casual users may want to look for built-in technologies such as memory card slots, USB hubs and integrated speakers. Those using their PCs for multimedia purposes, such as watching TV or movies may prefer high brightness and contrast capabilities. Gamers will want low response times, while media professionals will look for good colour replication.
Everyone should look for a high resolution, which offers a sharper picture, and the minimum resolution for a modern system should be 1920 x 1080, which allows full HD video in a 1:1 ratio with the panel. If you’re building a high-end system, 4K support is the order of the day, but don’t be surprised if you have to pay through the nose for it.
Unlike most hardware lines, a high-priced monitor isn’t necessarily the best or most suitable for everyone. The most important component of a monitor is its ‘panel’ – the technology that makes up the actual screen. There are two major types of LCD panel, both of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. TN panels are the cheapest and most common, but also lowest quality (although they do have good response times), while IPS panels have the best colour replication and image fidelity, but are by far the most expensive. It’s all relative, of course; there are good TN panels and bad IPS panels. The trick is finding the right compromise to make.
Monitor Deals
Budget: Samsung S22D300HY (£90)
It’s now possible to get a decent monitor for under £100, and while many of them are incredibly basic, the 21.5” Samsung S22D300HY has an HDMI port, meaning you can get a full package, 1080p monitor for an incredibly good price. As well as benefitting from Samsung’s deserved reputation for highquality screens, this monitor also has a tilt ability that allows you to adjust its orientation – something cheap screens often lack. Add to that a game mode, magic upscaling and an off timer, and it’s clear that this isn’t a no-frills package. Objectively. it’s not fantastic (it’s got a huge bezel and a TN panel), but at this price it feels like a purchase more than worth making.
High-End: BenQ BL2711U (£480)
Realistically, if you want the best screen around, it needs to be 27” and support 4K resolution, and that’s hard to find at anything until £500. But it does exist, and the BenQ BL2711U is proof of that. As well as DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort inputs, it has built-in speakers, full 4K support, and colour and definition designed to meet the demands of high-fidelity professional applications. There are four USB 3.0 ports, a low blue-light mode for nighttime use and a fully adjustable stand. As monitors go, it’s pretty much the last word in desktop computing – but for this price you’d expect nothing less.