How to Choose the Best Graphics Card

How to Choose the Best Graphics Card

In order to choose the best movie card, it's important to look at how you use your pc. If your pc is devoted to word handling and Web exploring, you don't need an expensive, high-end movie card. If you're a serious player looking for a high-performance movie card, you should seek a card that measures in the top of its class in requirements and includes the built-in storage needed to keep everything running nicely.

Know the Competition

The two most popular movie card chipsets are NVIDIA's GeForce and ATI's Radon. When you shop for a movie card, you aren't looking at NVIDIA and ATI as companies, but rather as the

form of chipset inside the movie card. You'll discover that a single manufacturer may offer both types of chipset, as each is better in certain types of programs. For example, graphics-card maker ASUS offers both NVIDIA design cards and ATI design cards. Other companies, such as Sapphire, offer one chipset exclusively.

Which one is better? It comes down to a number of factors. Some design cards work better with certain pc processor chips, while others perform better in certain movie modes. For example, video games enthusiasts believe that ATI movie cards work better in computer systems with AMD processor chips, since AMD owns ATI.

Choosing a chipset is largely a matter of subjective preference. If you're looking for a movie card to play your favorite video games, check those movie social game playing applications' Web sites. Activity designers test their products with multiple design cards before releasing them and can usually give players an idea of which design cards work best with their video games and which ones are likely to have problems. If you can't figure out which card is best from a specific game site, run a Web search for design cards and the sport you want to play. Game-review sites and people on online forums all have an opinion, and odds are high that you will discover some feedback for the efficiency of particular design cards with your favorite game.

AGP, PCI, PCI Communicate x 16-What's it all Mean?

AGP, PCI and PCI Communicate in all their variations are ways to label the form of movie card that your pc's mother board accepts. Every mother board is designed with a position to accept a specific form of movie card, so your first step in shopping is to determine what position kind your mother board uses. You'll often discover this information in your pc's user guide, under Specialized Specifications.

Most computer systems made in the past few years have some variation of AGP or PCI Communicate, usually followed by a number designating rate. PCI Communicate is the fastest, followed by AGP and then PCI.

Some computer systems support two design cards slots for ATI CrossFire setups. The benefit of CrossFire is that a pair of design cards renders pictures more quickly than a single card, allowing the pc to handle more complex and graphics-intensive programs without slowing down. If you're looking for a movie card for a high-end program, look for a PCI Communicate 2.0 x 16 movie card or two ATI cards in CrossFire configuration, if your program can handle it. If you're not into game playing or movie modifying, these high-end design cards are probably overkill.

Get Enough Graphic Memory

Dedicated design cards come with built-in movie RAM. Dedicated movie RAM makes it possible for your pc to perform quicker in general, because the movie card uses movie RAM instead of your pc's RAM to render design. This process frees up RAM for other operations and allows your pc to run more efficiently.

If you're just looking for a budget movie card in a pc devoted to word handling and exploring the Web, a movie card with 128MB of movie RAM is perfectly acceptable. If you're looking for a high-end movie card for game playing or movie modifying, more storage is better. At the very least, those programs require a movie card with 256MB of RAM. If you can afford more, a movie card with 512MB of RAM runs almost all the video games currently available and delivers a noticeable efficiency increase when you're modifying movie.

DirectX and OpenGL

If you're a player, you know those terms. Even if you're just a normal pc user, you've probably heard of DirectX. This collection of small programs provides a library of tools that designers can use to improve the appearance and handling of design on Windows-based computer systems.

Many basic programs require a minimum edition of DirectX to function. Newer software requires a minimum of DirectX 9.0, so regardless of whether you're an enthusiastic player or just a regular pc user, look for a movie card that can handle DirectX 9.0 or higher.

OpenGL is a program for making 3D pictures. Therefore, OpenGL is important to players and people who use 3D extensive programs, such as engineers and architects who use AutoCAD. The newest edition of OpenGL is edition 2.1, and many design cards include this edition. If your game requires OpenGL or OpenGL 2.0, make sure your movie card includes this functionality.

Clock Speed, Pixel Sewer lines and Flow Processors

These requirements get into the realms of minute technical information for ultimate pc geeks. Time rate may refer either to the chipset's clock rate or the storage clock rate. Pixel pipelines are an aspect of 3D picture making. Flow processor chips help the movie card to transfer information quicker.

With all these requirements, more is better. If you're looking at two movie cards that seem identical (for example, two AGP ATI Radon movie cards with 256MB of RAM) and these cards have significant price differences, odds are high that one of them has better technical requirements than the other.

In general, only players and advanced 3D modelers will need to pay attention to these requirements. More pixel pipelines provide more channels for design information, which connections 3D making specifically. Flow processor chips affect the flow of information from the movie card to your pc and can increase the display rate of any form of picture. The core clock and storage clock measure the handling connections of the design chip itself and the built-in storage, respectively. Faster connections will provide quicker real-time making for the most demanding programs, such as graphically extensive video games and high-definition movie.