What Graphics Cards Can Do Beyond Rendering

Graphics cards are the powerhouses that drive PCs, allowing them to render images on screen in real time. Originally designed to accelerate 3D graphics, they’re now used for more complex computations, like machine learning and AI. Today’s GPUs are also more programmable and powerful than ever before, expanding their capabilities beyond rendering.

Gaming
The best graphics card will turn your desktop into a gaming powerhouse, letting you play the latest games at a console-beating frame rate. The performance of a GPU will depend on how demanding your games are, but there are plenty of options to choose from that fit most budgets.

Video RAM
A crucial component of a graphics card, it stores the information and completed images that make up your computer’s display. The faster the VRAM, the better it can handle tasks like pixel-pushing in fast-paced games.

Although GPUs are primarily marketed as (and in many cases designed for) gaming, they provide benefits to users who don’t play games. Demanding editing applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro can benefit from the extra processing speed offered by GPUs. Other uses include scientific computing and cryptocurrency mining. With their parallel processing capability, GPUs can speed up tasks that require a large amount of data to be processed quickly. They also reduce the load on CPUs by handling repetitive calculations and freeing up processor time to work on other tasks. Lastly, GPUs can be used to add effects to videos. Graphics cards