VIDEO CARD

What is video card?

Video Card-The video card is a circuit board
that contains all the necessary circuitry for
displaying the picture or images and graphics
on your monitor.

Function of Video Card

Video Card is a computer chip you usually insert into
your computer via a AGP slot inside of your
computer (usually the same thing a sound card is in)
the purpose of which to process images. if a computer
does not have a video card the computer has to split
the processing power between everything. but with a
video card, the card processes the video instead of the
computer, so you have better performance and better
graphics on pretty much anything.

Types of Video Card

PCI or Peripheral Component
Interconnect Express- is the most
current, and fastest, of the video cards.

Picture of PCI Express

AGP Video Card

AGP or Accelerated Graphics Port is based
on PCI, but is designed especially for the
throughput demands of 3-D graphics. Rather
than using the PCI bus for graphics data,
AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point
channel so that the graphics controller can
directly access main memory.

Picture of AGP Video Card

PCI Video Card

PCI or Peripheral Component

Interconnect cards-are to slow
to play any of the more
advanced video games, or to
show video

Picture of PCI Video Card

How Does A Video Card Work

Receiving Information from the Motherboard
Video cards are put into a computer's CPU and are linked
to both the monitor and the mother board. When graphics
software is run or a game is played, the computer sends
information to the video card that is take in by the card's
graphics processing unit, or GPU. This data is in binary
form, and the GPU converts it into analog form, which can
be read by monitors. GPU's have different speeds and
strengths depending on the make and model. Mediumrange video cards have a GPU that can run games for
casual players, but more powerful GPUs are needed to run
larger games and also are important for those working
with heavy graphic images on other software.

Sending Information to the Monitor

A monitor cord runs from the video card to the
computer monitor. Some video cards have dual ports
so that they can hook up to two monitors and
operate with both at the same time. The converted
data is now in binary form and is sent to the
computer screen, where first it is transferred as a
series of lines and grids. This is for 3D imaging, a
necessary step not needed for 2D images. Next, the
pixels are colored and shaded to match the
information received and they cover the grid to
create a 3D image. For 2D images, the information
immediately starts to color pixels and put them
together to form a picture.

Video Card Brands

(Graphics processing unit (GPU)
AMD (no longer ATI)
Intel
Matrox Graphics
Nvidia
PowerVR
SiS
Via (S3 Graphics division)