Graphics processing units, or GPUs, are at the heart of these cards, and their sheer physical size and transistor count–some models have in excess of 4 billion transistors–help explain why they consume so much power and require sophisticated cooling systems. Their primary audience appears to be serious PC gamers, who use an arcane jargon of their own: frame rates, VSync, antialiasing. Many require two power connectors and beefier-than-average power supplies. Most of them are double-wide, occupying two expansion-slot spaces, even though they use only a single physical slot.
Modern graphics cards are intimidating, hulking beasts in a world of increasingly tiny PC components.
