Computer Video Cards

How do you go about choosing the right video card?

Computer video card Depending on what you're building your computer for, the video card, or cards, can be a critical piece. If you're building a basic computer, and the motherboard you select has a built in video card, you probably don't need to worry about looking for one. If, however, you're building a higher end computer, or you plan on watching DVD's (and really care about the quality) on your computer or doing video editing, you will probably need to purchase a separate video card.

There are three bus types available for video cards: AGP, PCI, and PCI Express (called PCI-E or PCIe). AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) was the preferred slot type for video cards beginning in about 1997. As of 2004, AGP started being phased out in favor of PCI-E slots. Most motherboards have standard PCI slots that can be used for various cards, including video cards. PCIe is currently the fastest bus type for video cards and I highly suggest using this type of card.

The basic rule of thumb is, the more video memory the card has, and the faster the GPU (Graphics Processor Unit), the better (and usually more expensive) the card will be.

Using multiple video cards

Computer video card Using multiple video cards increases the overall performance and visual quality of your video subsystem. It does this by decreasing the amount of "work" that each video cards does. To do this, alternating video frames are processed by each card and then merged, or rendered, together and output to the monitor. There are basically only two chipset manufacturers that support multiple video card technologies: ATI and NVIDIA. ATI calls their technology CrossFire, and NVIDIA calls their technology SLI. If you're going to use multiple video cards, the motherboard you select has to be compatible the video chipset that you want to use. The specifications on the motherboard will say either CrossFire support or SLI support. The motherboard will also have to have at least two PCIe x16 card slots to accommodate the multiple video cards.

When you build your computer you don't have to start with two video cards. You can start with one card and then add more later as long as you make sure that you buy the main, or primary, card first. One thing that I like about NVIDIA's SLI is that the cable that connects the video cards together is a small ribbon type cable that is installed inside the computer case. ATI uses an external "Y" type cable that connects the two cards together and also connects to the monitor.

For more information on video cards utilizing ATI chipsets, click here.
For more information on video cards utilizing NVIDIA chipsets, click here.