A video card is the one thing that will cost your computer the most if you are an editor or a gamer. A video card will mean everything to you especially if you are a gamer. You will want to get the best video card and the one that allows you to play your games flawlessly without lag and without your computer restarting. Video cards and graphics cards are the same thing so whoever thinks that they are different obviously doesn't know what they are talking about. So if you need a video card then you should visit newegg.com they have so many video cards and they are cheap as well.
The price of a video card can range anywhere from $25 to $900. Video cards come with a fan and their own processor so they know when to turn on the fan and start cooling down the graphics processor; they will also normally come with a heat sink on the chip so it can displace any unwanted heat from the chip while you are using it. You will want a video card that has at least 256mb of memory if not then you should get one that has 512mb so that you can play your games with ease. Most people these days are running an SLI ready motherboard which means that they can use two video cards at the same time without having to use two computers. This makes the speed of the video so much faster.
When you are buying or ordering a video card you need to be sure to get the right kind of video card that is compatible with your computer. If you have an AGP interface a PCI express will not be the right video card so you will have to send it back. The AGP slot has speeds of 4x and 8x where as the PCI slot has 4x, 8x, 16x and 32x so think about that if you had an SLI ready motherboard with dual PCI express video cards, that would be nuts and you would be getting the best picture quality in town.
You will also want to think about the brand of your video card you will either want to get an Nvidia or an ATI. Both types of cards are very good I use Nvidia just because I already had the software on my computer because that's the type of card my computer came stock with. It is harder to get the card to work and it will take longer to install if you bought a card different from your stock one. So if you open your computer and see that you have an ATI then you wouldn't want to go buy an Nvidia because it would take forever to get all the software off the computer to be able to upload the new software and use the new video card. So just use the brand that your computer comes with it's probably the best for it. |