10 Reasons You Need a New Video Card

• We all know the famous saying: Better to pay a 200% premium and be the first to boast about an additional 40 fps than to wait for a cost effective upgrade in a year.

• If you’re planning on sacrificing your bank account to the upcoming Steam summer sale, you must first construct a gaming altar worthy of Gabe’s divine grace. Daily deals cannot reach the heavenly percentages until your computer can render nirvana with zero dropped frames.

• You’ve been playing Oblivion for ten years, and while you’ve gotten used to the doughy, lopsided, and slime covered faces of the game, you’re ready to take the next step into the uncanny valley. It’ll be a different world living without integrated graphics, but you think you’ll survive.

• You recently recorded a bunch of shaky, unlit vacation footage on your iPhone 4, and you’ve convinced yourself that you need a supreme rig to run your pirated version of Premier.

• You are, without doubt, the world’s premier gamer. Insane reflexes, godly precision, and the ability to flame any noob in sight. Unfortunately, inadequate technology has oppressed you for decades. Now, with the latest video card, your immeasurable skill can finally reach its full potential. Like the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, historians will look back at your domination and call it the 8 Gig Age.

• All the other man-children on the internet are getting one.

• For years, you’ve pitted yourself against console gamers in an endless war of baseless insults and unconvincing screenshots comparing rendering distance. Despite your efforts, the idiotic Xbox owners couldn’t comprehend your vast superiority, but now, finally, you have the conclusive upper hand. Game Over, console fools.

• You’ve been trying to become the next Twitch celebrity for months, but your stream never gets more than a handful of empathetic friends. You deserve to be the best: each morning you stand in front of the mirror to practice your meme work. “Kappa,” you say. “4Head, Cringe, Mountain Dew, FeelsBadMan.” The only possible thing holding you back is the technology. This isn’t an upgrade, this is a lifestyle.

• Despite your best efforts, you’ve become infected with the E3 Hype Virus. There is no cure. Your only chance is to upgrade your computer months before your vaporware game is put on hiatus.

• A lifetime of poor decisions and taking the path of least resistance has led you to a point where considering the merits of a video card seems like a good use of your mind. Instead of questioning your time on earth, just think about how bitching your games will look.

– Ian "Salmon Season" Golding (@iggolding)