Most graphics cards will state their minimum or recommended PSU wattage on the box or on their specifications page online, but it can vary from 450W all the way up to 750W.

Remember to switch off your PC’s power button (as pictured above). Best graphics cards Sure, some CPUs might have integrated graphics that you can use to play games with, but they’re nowhere near as powerful as a discrete (or dedicated) GPU.

Best PC games Nvidia’s new RTX 3070 GPU, for example, recommends a 650W power supply unit, while the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 recommend you have one that’s at least 750W. If your needs are as simple as minimal photo editing, light gaming, streaming live videos, and browsing the web, then the graphics system that was integrated into the processor should be enough. Make sure the display output side of your graphics card is facing toward the end of your case, and push your GPU down into the slot. You’ll need to remove some of these so you can get to your graphics card’s display outputs. You might want to give it an extra shove, just to make sure. The other one is designed to deliver maximum precision and stability and is optimized for 3D rendering workloads. AMD have detailed instructions on how to do this, but at time of writing Nvidia haven’t been quite as forthcoming about this. For instance, if your monitor has HDMI, DVI, or VGA ports then make sure that the graphics card also has one or more of those ports. You’ll probably want to thread the connector through to the back of your case for this if you’ve got the space, routing it back round the main side using the appropriate hole down the side of your motherboard that’s closest to your graphics card’s power connector. Only a high-end graphics card can render QHD 1440p resolution and a higher 120 fps frame rate. Use the thumbscrews you removed earlier to secure your graphics card back in place. If in doubt, consult your motherboard manual to find out the exact running speeds of all your PCIe slots. Katharine writes about all the bits that go inside your PC so you can carry on playing all those lovely games we like talking about so much. Such workloads are widely used in multi-platform application programming to render 3D graphics in several professional applications including Siemens NX software and Solidworks. This will always be the fastest PCIe x16 slot on your motherboard, and will result in the best performance. Tasks such as word processing, web viewing, and emailing are not going to require a graphics card to perform. This is a small plastic clip on the right hand side of the PCIe slot, and should just about be visible underneath your graphics card – see below.