88 PCWorld OCTOBER 2019FEATURE GRAPHICS CARDS: REFERENCE VS. CUSTOM
or $20 more than reference pricing, though
you’ll often need to spend more than that if
you want more advanced features or plan on
serious overclocking endeavors.
Spending more usually doesn’t get you
much more actual in-game performance,
however. Modern GPUs tend to push as hard as
possible out-of-the-box under any decent cooler.
Custom cards come in a wide range of
form factors, for better and worse. If you want
single-slot designs, shorter boards for mini-ITX
boards, or beastly triple-slot cooling solutions,
custom graphics cards are the only way to fly.
But because of that variability, you’ll also want
to check a custom card’s physical dimensions
before breaking out your credit card. Nothinghurts worse than buying a new graphics card
and discovering it doesn’t quite fit in your PC.FIND THE BEST GPU FOR YOU
Of course, before you can select which custom
graphics card to buy, you need to know which
GPU you should buy. A basic 1080p monitor
and an ultra-fast 4K display require very differ-
ent hardware to game on. Start your journey
over at PCWorld’s guide to the best graphics
cards for PC gaming (go.pcworld.com/pcg).
We have battle-tested, no-nonsense buying
advice for every budget and display resolution,
complete with links to our comprehensive
reviews for each GPU.
Happy gaming!The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5700 includes both a metal backplate and a dual-BIOS switch for its $10
premium over reference cards.