How to Choose the Best Video Cards in Building a PC
A video card purpose is to convert digital signal from your computer into a visual display that drives your monitor. There are 2 leading manufacturer that produces the best video cards in the market today. These 2 are NVidia and ATI Radeon but there are also other manufacturers that produce closer to the quality of them and use the same chipset as the 2.
Which one is better of these 2 cards? Both of them are great performing card, having a good support and very dependable. Some prefer the NVidia and others are ATI. Either one of these card fanatic users never tries the other once it became their favorite and satisfies their own needs. There are important things to consider in choosing the best video cards in building a PC.
The chipset
GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) is the processing chip of the Video card. ATI and NVidia has their own series of GPU that determines their own capabilities and which is the most recent available in the market.
The bus interface
The bus interface is a slot that connects the video card on the motherboard. There are 2 types of bus interface that are being use in video card which is the AGP and the PCI-Express. AGP is the older and its speed ranges from 2x – 8x in which the 8x is the fastest. AGP is slower compared to the newer PCI-E bus interface. AGP is nearly phasing out and the PCI-E is now the new platform in video card especially in graphics applications.
The display interface
Display interface is the connector that is being use to interface with the monitor. There are several connectors available such as:
VGA – is an interface that connects the CRT monitor and some older LCD monitor. This is for an analog signal output which is nearly phasing out in the market.
DVI – Is the standard interface that connects digital signal into a digital output display such is LCD monitor.
Dual channel DVI – A graphics card having a 2 DVI interface connector that is capable to connect 2 LCD monitor.
TV out and S-Video – This port is used to connect into your TV or HDTV.
The size of memory
The amount of memory installed in your video card greatly affects the quality of your display. It also determines the display resolution capabilities. This means that the higher memory size of your video card the better.
The types of memory
The type of memory used in the video cards determines the speed of your display. There are 3 types of memory that are being used the DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 and DDR3 by far is the best of them. There is a newly released memory which is used only for video cards it is called the GDDR3. The main advantage of this is that it generates low power consumption and less heat.
The verdict
An excellent graphics cards can cost you more if you go for the latest version available in the market. But in a few months there is a great price drop on these items. You may also consider other great performing cards out there that don’t cost you that much if the budget is your major concern.
