Reasons why non-gamers should invest in GPU

Over a past few days, the hardcore gamers are buzzing about the new generation of the Graphics hardware that is going to be available in the market in a matter of days now. The Turing powered graphics card are called the RTX 20 series Graphics card with improved hardware and all features like Raytracing or the AI-powered DLSS, a new realm of graphics is about to begin for the gamers. But what about the other consumers is there any use of the GeForce Graphics cards for the consumers who are not gamers? Is it a rational decision to spend $1200 on a Graphics card but you will never fulfill the purpose of its creation? Let’s find out.

Contents

GPU

Let’s start with the core of the Graphics card called GPU. Just like CPU in your computer handles each and every task related to your computer and put other components of the computer to work GPU in a very crude form can be called CPU of the Graphics card. Precisely a GPU is a Graphics processing unit, and it handles all the Graphics related tasks in your computer. They are designed to handle huge amounts of data in a matter of seconds that is Graphics cards have a better memory than our computers. The best memory in our computer systems is the DDR4 memory with max 49Gbps speed while Graphics card is now moved to the GDDR6 memory with 616Gbps speed. You can judge by yourself.

GPU vs CPU

Due to better memory configuration GPUs can process files related to Graphics (usually the heaviest files in the games) in a matter of seconds while if you give this task to a CPU, the game may crash. Two companies are focused towards making the GPUs AMD (called team red) and Nvidia (called the team green) while if we only consider the high-end market Nvidia has an open monopoly here. One of the many reasons why the Nvidia Tesla GV100 is a $10,000 Graphics card. The prices of the GPUs start from roughly 100 dollars and go all the way up to your imagination (think ten grand). For people who are not interested in games, a low-end GPU would suffice. You may want to look at the battle of the 100 dollar GPUs.

Prospects

Since Nvidia and AMD are getting huge loads of profits through their Oligopoly in the mainstream market, another contender is here to try its luck for the third time in the GPU market. Yes, I am talking about Intel the CPU giant is looking forward to releasing its first discrete Graphics card in 2020. Although, it should be noted that most mobile CPUs of Intel come equipped with the integrated graphics which are only better than nothing.

Benefits of a discrete GPU for a non-gamer

Antonette Asedillo who is the supervisor of Computer testing at Consumer Reports says, “If you work with lots of photos or videos, a fast GPU is good for editing software. Tasks that take a long time on an integrated graphics chip can run much faster on dedicated graphics.”

Content creation

Starting with the content creation, plenty of the well-known editing software though primarily run on the CPU but the added benefits of the discrete Graphics can run these programs far more efficiently. The programs such as Adobe Photoshop (for serious photo editing), Lightroom (for more lightweight editing or image management) and the Premiere Pro (for editing and rendering videos) may use the GPU to get better results. They usually run on your CPU, but if you have a GPU in there you will notice that the animations are quicker, rendering times are lesser and the waiting time is a lot less than what you were getting from your machine earlier.

Web

We use the web more than any other utility provided by the invention of computers, and many web pages have different animations, images, and videos that require Graphics power. Even the integrated graphics of your CPU can handle these tasks with ease, but if you have a dedicated GPU, then you will see that images in the pages become clear faster and the videos have less jitter.

The videos over YouTube and Netflix are compressed to such a level that while playing the video the CPU decompresses the video simultaneously as you are watching, that’s why you face small jitters here and there. If you have a low-end GPU in your PC, then you will forget the small jitters especially at very high-resolution videos (4K videos). So, by adding a dedicated GPU, your web surfing will be a lot smoother than your past experiences.

Verdict

All in all, if you are not a gamer than spending $1200 on the Graphics card would not be the right choice (even for the gamers too). However, the addition of a low-end would make everyday tasks of your computing life a lot smoother easier and faster. So having at least a Graphics card in your machine would be better if you are a student who would like to watch the lectures at a high resolution or a content creator who wants less waiting times and more work.