What is a Video Card - Explained
The video card has other names too, video accelerator and graphics adapter but fundamentally, they are a vital component of a computer that helps the computer to work well.
Basically, video cards are expansion cards that can be placed in the slots of the motherboard.
The slots are of different types such as PCI format slots and AGP format slots and so, it is imperative to find out which format the motherboard is supporting before buying a video card.
Video card is highly useful and in fact, utter necessity for those who are high end graphic users.
If the user is restricted to using only DVD movies, then a video card may not be needed and an integrated video card would suffice.
The cards generally come rectangular in size and has many circuits which processes the messages received, generates images and outputs the images on the computer monitor.
The video card consists of the graphics processing unit, video bios, video memory RAMDAC and output.
The GPU takes care of floating point calculations while giving out 3D graphics, the video bios acts as an interface between the software and other computer components, the RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital to Analog convertor) that transforms the digital data into analog form.
Modern motherboards use the PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect express) standard and only such are compatible with the motherboard and conversely, AGP cards will work only on motherboards that support the AGP standard.
Similar to the RAM used by the computer, the memory of a graphics card is expressed in megabytes and 512 MB is a good choice for playing computer games.
Generally, the modern motherboards have built in video cards that are of midrange and this is not enough for intensive video gaming and graphics.
So, a dedicated graphics card or a discrete graphics card that has more power has to be integrated into the motherboard.
As such, there are two popular brands of video cards Nvidia and ATI that have a convincing array of cards.
They offer the capacity to use up to four cards simultaneously in the system.
This would certainly give an awesome result as far as graphics is concerned.
So, it is highly essential to check for the compatibility of the motherboard with the type of graphics card and it is better to avoid low end graphics cards that would result in poor graphics.
The utility and need of card also depends upon the server being used, applications and gaming.
An ordinary graphics card would be enough for FTP server, and mail server.
For complex applications like video editing which need good screen resolution and image quality, XFX GeForceFX5500 would be essential.
But for hardcore gaming and real-time 3d games, 3D Radeon X850 XT platinum card that support graphic effects like anti aliasing, Z buffering would be required.
Basically, video cards are expansion cards that can be placed in the slots of the motherboard.
The slots are of different types such as PCI format slots and AGP format slots and so, it is imperative to find out which format the motherboard is supporting before buying a video card.
Video card is highly useful and in fact, utter necessity for those who are high end graphic users.
If the user is restricted to using only DVD movies, then a video card may not be needed and an integrated video card would suffice.
The cards generally come rectangular in size and has many circuits which processes the messages received, generates images and outputs the images on the computer monitor.
The video card consists of the graphics processing unit, video bios, video memory RAMDAC and output.
The GPU takes care of floating point calculations while giving out 3D graphics, the video bios acts as an interface between the software and other computer components, the RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital to Analog convertor) that transforms the digital data into analog form.
Modern motherboards use the PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect express) standard and only such are compatible with the motherboard and conversely, AGP cards will work only on motherboards that support the AGP standard.
Similar to the RAM used by the computer, the memory of a graphics card is expressed in megabytes and 512 MB is a good choice for playing computer games.
Generally, the modern motherboards have built in video cards that are of midrange and this is not enough for intensive video gaming and graphics.
So, a dedicated graphics card or a discrete graphics card that has more power has to be integrated into the motherboard.
As such, there are two popular brands of video cards Nvidia and ATI that have a convincing array of cards.
They offer the capacity to use up to four cards simultaneously in the system.
This would certainly give an awesome result as far as graphics is concerned.
So, it is highly essential to check for the compatibility of the motherboard with the type of graphics card and it is better to avoid low end graphics cards that would result in poor graphics.
The utility and need of card also depends upon the server being used, applications and gaming.
An ordinary graphics card would be enough for FTP server, and mail server.
For complex applications like video editing which need good screen resolution and image quality, XFX GeForceFX5500 would be essential.
But for hardcore gaming and real-time 3d games, 3D Radeon X850 XT platinum card that support graphic effects like anti aliasing, Z buffering would be required.
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