Pc Video Cards

A common misconception with video cards is that if you don't game, you don't need to worry about having a good one.

While it is true that you don't need to worry about have a huge video card if you don't game, having a decent video card can still give your system a serious performance boost.

The thing to remember about video cards is that they handle everything displayed on your screen. Having a decent video card take an enormous amount of work off your CPU and it can free up a lot of system memory, both of which will give you greater performance.

The video itself will often be better quality and will respond faster.

The first two video cards on the right are older AGP video cards. These cards have been phased out in favour of the much faster PCIe cards, though they are still in fairly wide use.

The next video card shown is a newer PCIe card; it is much larger than the older AGP cards.

In fact, in some medium-sized towers it can be difficult or impossible to mount some of the larger PCIe cards.

When purchasing a video card you want to keep in mind a few important factors. The first is the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). Its speed and model will determine the overall performance and capabilities of the card.

The second factor to consider it the memory on the card. One with 512 MB is a good starting place, especially if you intend to game. Cards of this size have a low starting price.

Make sure that the length of the card will fit in your case; also check how many power connectors the video card requires and the type.

You should also check to see if the card recommends a minimum power supply size.

Perhaps the most important thing to double check is the socket type of both the card and your motherboard.

You don't want to buy a new card and find that your motherboad cannot accept that type of card.

A last thing that you should check is the card's connectors. If you look at the first two card pictures, you can see that both of these cards will accept analogue, digital, and S-video connections.

On the PCIe card you can see that it only has digital and S-video connectors. Many video cards do come with power and connection adapters, but you should always make sure you will have enough cables and connectors of the right type to make the card run in your system.

To the right are a few pictures of the more common types of adapters. The first two plug into the S-video connector on the video card and provide various connection for both digital and analogue TVs.

The next adapter is used to connect an analogue monitor to the video card's digital monitor connection.

On the newest video cards an adapter like this will almost always be your only option to connect an analogue monitor, as digital monitors are rapidly replacing their outdated analogue counterparts.