When to Upgrade a Graphics Card?
Upgrading your GPU is a natural part of being a gamer and sooner or later all of us will have to go through this process. For some, unfortunately, the time of upgrading your GPU is near and we will tell you what are some clear signs you should start planning for a GPU purchase.
Low FPS in Games
The main sign that it is time to part ways with your old GPU is low FPS in modern (or even older) games. When the main component responsible for framerates in games cannot keep up with its main task it is time to retire it.
A usual indication that your GPU is running out of breath is when it cannot even keep 60+ FPS in a game of your choice. In less demanding games or competitive eSport games, your GPU should be able to push at least 144+FPS since these titles are optimized for low usage and high FPS.
You can try stretching what your GPU can do by achieving some hardcore overclock but then you should be careful with operating temperatures and not frying your component altogether.
Unfortunately, modern games are advancing fast, and overclocking is just a band-aid solution for the lack of processing power that will inevitably catch up to you.
Signs of Failure
Another situation in which you should be planning for an upgrade even in situations when your GPU can still maintain decent FPS is when said graphics card is displaying signs of failure. These will happen randomly even if you keep your card clean, re-paste it often, or even mod it for extra cooling.
The first signs of failure are usually just small artifacts when gaming, maybe some weird colors here and there, but these signs usually progress further into black/blue screens and even restarts. Usually, GPUs that are close to failure cannot maintain a stable OC and often fail during stress testing or benchmarking.
A lot of these hardware failures are not related to the user but there are also situations where the GPU got damaged because it got dropped or installed incorrectly, etc. Fixing hardware failures on a GPU is a complex task that is most likely not worth your time unless you are a qualified specialist, therefore, buying another GPU is the most sensible next step.
Lack of Features
A less common situation when you might need to upgrade is when your GPU is operating fine and is outputting decent FPS but it lacks some sort of feature that you must have 100%. For Radeon GPUs, this might be the lack of a streaming encoder that is making it hard for you to continue your hobby. In this situation you might want to move to an Nvidia GPU that has NVENC encoding that is light on resources and produces a high-quality image.
Another example of a forced upgrade is when you want something like RTX, Reflex or DLSS features but your current Nvidia GPU is an older generation that does not support said features. If you must absolutely have these features and the budget is not exactly an issue for you, you might consider upgrading your GPU.
If you do not fall in any of these categories yet then you can keep using your GPU without paying much attention to what other people are doing since your hardware is accomplishing what you need it to do.