This article will discuss the various factors you should consider when buying a video card, so you can make a better buying decision.
Your gaming video card will be responsible for producing the dazzling 3D graphics and effects seen in the latest computer games. A better graphics card makes for a better 3D gaming experience, so gamers should choose the best video card they can afford.
AGP or PCI Express
There are two ways to connect your graphics card to your motherboard, via an AGP or PCI Express slot.
Generally, a motherboard will only support one these slot types. So you need to make sure which it is before looking for a video card.
AGP has been the norm for a long time now, but it is old technology.
PCI Express is the new kid on the block, and it’s only a matter of time until it completely takes over from AGP. The benefit of PCI Express is that it can handle a greater data throughput than an AGP slot.
PCI Express offers performance of up to 4X faster than the fastest AGP slot. It’s relatively new technology, and it isn’t being used to its full potential yet. Although, we predict that games released in the next 1-2 years will make full use of PCI Express technology.
Another advantage of PCI Express is you can connect more than one video card to your computer. This is impossible with AGP, a motherboard can only ever have one AGP slot.
If you’re simply upgrading your gaming computer with a new video card, you should check whether your motherboard supports AGP or PCI Express, and then choose a card accordingly. Don’t worry if your motherboard has an AGP slot. Even though it’s not the latest technology, AGP is going to stay around for a long time. Many of the best video cards come in AGP versions.
On the other hand, if you’re building a new system from scratch, you have the choice. We recommend choosing a gaming video card with PCI Express, and a motherboard that supports it. As we said before, the games of the future will soon harness the power of this new technology, leaving AGP in the dark. So by choosing PCI Express now, it will save you the upgrade later when AGP becomes obsolete.
Also, don’t confuse PCI Express with PCI. A long time ago you would connect your graphics card through a PCI slot on your motherboard. This is very slow compared to todays standards, and is completely outdated.
AMD ATI or nVidia
Very much like the CPU market, there are two companies that dominate the world of gaming video cards, AMD ATI and nVidia. They make the best video card chips in the world. AMD ATI is responsible for the Radeon series, while nVidia is behind the GeForce line of cards.
Although AMD ATI and nVidia make the graphics card technology you see in all the latest cards, they don’t actually sell them themselves. They license their best video card chips to companies such as Digital Alliance, HIS, XFX, GeCube, Saphire, Asus, and ABit (just to name a few) who then sell their own variants on the original technology.
Understanding the Specs
Below are some brief explanations of the different aspects of a graphics processor. If you get caught up in all this technical talk, do not worry. You don’t need to understand all the details in order to make a wise purchase on your gaming video card.
Clock Speed
The clock speed of a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) determines the number of pixels it can process per cycle. But just like CPUs, the numbers can be a little misleading. A faster clock speed does not always result in better performance.
Onboard Memory
Video cards come with on-board memory to be used solely for graphics operations. The minimum on a graphics card these days is 256MB, although 1GB is becoming quite common. Some of the best gaming video cards have a huge 2GB of on-board memory.
But be aware that ‘the more the better’ isn’t always true. If the software you run doesn’t need huge amounts of memory, then you shouldn’t spend money on more memory. If you compare a card with 128MB against one with 256MB, you would only see a performance improvement if you play a game such as Half Life 2, or Doom3, which requires lots of memory for its many large textures.
Memory Bandwidth
Memory bandwidth is the speed at which the GPU can talk with the on-board memory. It’s more important than the amount of memory you have on the card. The more bandwidth, the better. Graphics card memory comes in GDDR2, GDDR3, and GDDR5. The former is the fastest type of memory.
Fill Rate
The fill rate of a video card is the speed at which pixels are drawn onto screen memory. It’s usually measured in millions of pixels per second, and is an important measure of a graphics processor’s performance. The best gaming video cards on the market have fill rates as fast as 15 billion pixels per second.
Rendering Features
The speed and efficiency of the GPU isn’t the only thing that counts. The latest 3D games and software make use of advanced 3D rendering effects such as anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, bump-mapping, pixel shaders and much more.
If you run a game that was written with such features in mind, and your graphics card doesn’t support them, you will experience a significant performance loss, or at worst the game won’t run at all. The best gaming video cards on the market try to keep up with all the latest 3D rendering techniques in the software world.
Other Functions
Video cards provide other functions apart from rendering 3D graphics. For example, you can have high-definition output, output to a TV screen, or to multiple monitors. If you want such features, be sure to check if they’re listed on the box.
DVI: This is a higher-definition output used with newer monitors and some high-end TVs. Connecting to your monitor via DVI offers better image quality than the standard VGA connection. If you want to take advantage of DVI, buy a graphics card and monitor that supports it.
TV-Out: If you wish to display the output of your video card onto a TV screen, you will need a graphics card that supports TV-Out. Many of the best video cards on the market have this feature, aswell as budget-line cards. You connect your graphics card to a TV using an S-video connection. If you have an older TV with an RCA input instead of S-video, you will need an S-video to RCA adaptor.
Dual Monitor Support: If you want to split your video output across two monitors, you will need dual monitor support on your graphics card. This feature is useful for developers, engineers, designers, and multi-taskers who wish to view many different windows on their desktop at once. Usually, one output will be VGA and the other DVI.
HDMI: Is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It represents a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as Radio Frequency (RF) coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, and VGA. HDMI connects digital audio/video sources—such as set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, personal computers (PCs), video game consoles (such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360), and AV receivers—to compatible digital audio devices, computer monitors, and digital televisions. HDMI supports, on a single cable, any TV or PC video format, including standard, enhanced, and high-definition video; up to 8 channels of digital audio; and a Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) connection. The CEC allows HDMI devices to control each other when necessary and allows the user to operate multiple devices with one remote control handset. Because HDMI is electrically compatible with the signals used by Digital Visual Interface (DVI), no signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used.
Choosing Your Gaming Video Card
Now that you have a little background information on the features of a video card, you can start to make your decision on what is the best gaming video card for your needs.
Unfortunately, choosing a gaming video card is no easy task. There are so many different models and different varieties of each model, it can be overwhelming. AMD ATI and nVidia also have different naming conventions that can cause added confusion.
Selecting a gaming video card all depends on your needs and budget. The graphics card is perhaps the most important component in a gaming computer. Gamers should purchase the best video card they can afford. We have looked into the important issues that surround buying a gaming video card, so you should be ready to make a good decision based on your needs as a gamer.
FROM www.build-gaming-computers.com/gaming-video-card.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Definition_Multimedia_Interface
Very good article....
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