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Computer

Video Card

Information

A video card also called a graphics card it's a piece of hardware that controls and processes the graphics on a computer through a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).

GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) is the processor of the card. It processes data sent by your CPU and converts them into images and/or graphics. It can efficiently handle, construct and render video information sent by system.

There are three types of connections:

PCI

The worst type of connection for your video card, this connection is only used if your motherboard didn't came with AGP or PCI-Express, but I don't recommend buying this type nor would it be easy to find it in a store.

AGP

Right now, this type of connection is fading from the computer industry, as the new and faster PCI-Express becomes more widely available, but this connection is still used on some relatively old motherboards.

PCI-Express

The best type of connection for any video card, it's fastest and believe it or not, it can be cheaper than some AGP, now that newer video cards don't come with the AGP connector.

You need to take these connectors in consideration whenever you are going to install the computer power supply.

Choosing a Video Card

Selecting the best video card suited for you, it's a rather simply task:

How much money are you willing to spend

Basically, for a low end video card you'll have to spend less than $100, for a mid range $100-250 and $250+ for a high end card, this is an approximate, you can find a good deal over EBay, TigerDirect or your nearest store in which my numbers can be lower.

Do you have the Power Supply to support it

Your computer power supply must be able to give your video card enough watts to keep it running efficiently.

Is your motherboard compatible

You need to check your motherboard and see if what kind of connector does your motherboard has, PCI-Express, AGP or PCI.

Will my CPU create a bottleneck on my video card

How much RAM should I choose

People tend to think that the more RAM the video card has the better it is, well this is sometimes wrong, if the video card has 1gb of ram but has an inferior GPU (processor), it will only really use about 128-256mb effectively, it's basically a marketing trick for people who think this way.

How do you tackle this?

Simple, think about the GPU, the model, 250 GTX for example, first then look at the RAM.

Brands to choose

There are only two good cards for computer on the market, ATI and Nvidia, both of them are pretty good but they have their differences.

Nvidia

Nvidia is one of the leading companies in the video card industry, it is the most supported by games, but be prepared to pay more for an Nvidia than an ATI card.

There is one trick to for know what kind of video card are you buying without having to memorize all of these models.

The first number always tells you about the series of the card (if it's old or a new series).

The second number will always tell you if it's a low, mid or high end card. 1-3 means a low-end card, 4-6 means a mid-range card and 7-9 means a high-end card.

The third and/or fourth number will tell you a bit more about the card.

The most important digits are the first two,
for example
if it's a 9800 GT card then the 9 means it's the series number 9(below the 2xx and 1xx cards) and the second number (8) tells us that it's a high-end video card

If it's an Nvidia 250 card, the 2 means it's series 2 (after 9 Nvidia started with 1 instead of 10 so it means it's newer) and the 5 means it's a mid-range video card

ATI

ATI is the competition of Nvidia, the only competition but a fierce one. ATI cards performance are comparable to Nvidia, but their technologies seem to have less support in games and applications. However they are cheaper and always recommend them if you don't have the money to spend on an Nvidia.

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