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The EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti video card 1. Overview First up, let's see what we have to understand when we speak of video cards. Understand each of these concepts will allow you to make better purchasing decisions.
2. Chipsets
Video card chipsets come from two developers who dominate the market - nVidia
and ATI. Over the years, I've had video cards from both of them and I must say
my preference is still for nVidia based cards. Of course, some 3D games or
applications will run a little better on one chipset than another - so you
should do some research on their websites before you decide which chipset to
buy. 3. PCI-Express
The next point you need to understand about video cards is the the Peripheral
Component Interface (PCI) - which describes a standard way to connect the
graphics card to the motherboard. These days, video cards are based on the PCI-Express
standard - a new and faster form of PCI. If you're hunting for a video card, PCI-Express
support is a must. 4. Onboard Memory
Most graphics cards now come with at least 256 MB of onboard memory. This
onboard memory is critical for storing video information so that your CPU in the
desktop is freed up to do other stuff in the system. More memory is of course
always better - but it raises the price of the card. Video cards with 512 MB and
1 GB memory onboard are now extremely commonplace too. 5. Framerates
What's a framerate? Well, framerate is an indication of how many frames per
second your system can display. Usually, 3D gamers will swear by the framerate
of their system because it proves, for that 3D game, how fast their system is. 6. DirectX
Microsoft DirectX (DX) is a software required to run a game displaying 3D
graphics. Most new video cards will support the latest version of DirectX (now
into DirectX version 11). You'll want to buy cards like these as far as possible
- because most 3D games will require the latest version of DirectX to be
supported on your video card.
Those luscious graphics in Crysis 2 come alive with DirectX 11 7. Power Consumption
Remember that most video cards designed for gaming require a considerable amount
of power. You need to have additional power connectors on them and you can
be sure they eat up quite a bit of wattage from your PC power supply. If you run
your cards in SLI or Crossfire configuration (i.e. run dual video cards in your
system for gaming), then you really need a big power supply. 8. Intended Usage I guess when you buy a video card, one important consideration is what the computer is going to be used for. Casual Computing. If you use your computer mainly for word processing, web browsing or watching a DVD movie, then you fall into this category. Certainly, any choice of video card will work in this case. The only exception to this is high definition video such as Blu-ray. For this, a good video card to display HD video is important. Graphic Design. Those users who do graphic design or video editing will need good video cards. Most good computers displays can support 2560 by 1600 resolutions these days - meaning your card, ideally, should also support those resolutions. Remember that for extremely high resolution displays, you will also need to have dual-DVI or DisplayPort connector on the graphics card. If you use Photoshop a lot to meddle with images, I'd recommend to have at least 512MB of dedicated memory on your graphics card. You may even want to consider 1GB or more of video memory. Light Gaming. A "light gamer", in my opinion, will play games that like Solitaire, Tetris and Farmville mainly. They don't use any 3D acceleration very much or only play 3D games once in a blue moon. In this case, there is no need to get very high-end cards - get a budget video card instead. Serious Gaming. In this category, we're talking about the ultimate
gaming system or video editing machine. For users here, you need a top-end video
card that can all the current 3D games and applications on the market with
acceptable frame rates, assuming all graphic detail features are turned on.
Top-end video cards
should also fully support DirectX 11 and have a at least 1GB of memory. Conclusion In summary, you should always
understand the above factors before you head out to purchase a video card. You
should also consider your computing needs. Video cards, especially the latest models, tend to be
prohibitively expensive. If you only need to do general computer stuff, then
don't shell out cash for the high-end cards. Go for some of the cheaper video cards P.S. If you're looking for a good video card, I recommend the EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti. It will run all the 3D games you throw at it and is not overly expensive.
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