A video card has Grahical Processing Units (GPU's) installed on them. They also have memory. The GPU is a lot like a CPU except it is designed to process grahpics or video signals. The newest version of the GPU and most memory on a video card will mean a faster more capable video processing signal. This is why one of the easiest and least expensive ways to increase the performance of your computer is to upgrade the video card. There are many different companies that make video cards but their are mainly only two leading brands of GPU manufactures. These are ATI and NVIDIA . Of these two chipset manufactures there are several different classifications, and classifcation levels of of use, for instance, desktop, workstation, server, gamer and notebook. The manufactures catagorized their chipsets or GPU's by by these classifcations and subcatogorized them further into top of the line, or latest, gaming systems, and work stations or server computers graphics. The GPU manufactures use lables to define the use of their processors. For instance ATI uses Radeon for their desktop processors and FirePro, FireGL, and Fire MV for their workstation GPU's. NVIDIA uses GeForce for there destop versions and Quadro for their workstation units. As you probably guessed the work station units are more expensive for both brands. The starting price on a new video card is around $35.00 for desktop machines and $140.00 for entry level workstations. The price on the cards will top off around $500.00 for the newest desktop card and can go into the thousands for the latest version of workstation graphics card.
TYPE OF VIDEO CARD TO USE:
The first thing you will need to do before upgrading your video card is to find out if your computer has a video slot and if so what kind of video card your computer uses. You can open up your machine and look inside to see if it has a video card slot available or you can go to the manufactures website to see if your computer has a video slot and what kind it is. You will need to be sure what kind of video card you need before buying a new one or replacement. You can do internet searches using the model number off of the motherboard to find out for sure what kind it is. If your computer has the video cable connected up around where the mouse, keyboard and USB ports are, you have integrated or built in video and might not have an availabel video card. If your computer does not have a video card slot then youw will need a PCI video card to upgrade. If it has and AGP slot, you will need an AGP card. If it has a PCI Express 16 or PCI X16 slot you will need a PCI Express card. PCI and PCI express cards different cards and should be considered as such.
Most proprietary computers or the less expensive computers have an integrated video card. Even though these computers have Onboard or Integrated Video, they still might have a PCI slot available for expansion. Before you buy ask if they have available VGA Slots such as a PCI Express 16 slot or an AGP 8X slot. If they do have one of these slots, then you can upgrade your computers video later. If the motherboard does not have an AGP or a PCI Express slot available you might be able to use a regular PCI card, but using a PCI video card will mean it is less responsive.
By upgrading the video card, you help free up system resources which in turns helps speed up your system, because the Video Card GPU will be doing what your computers CPU was doing.
If you plan to upgrade from your onboard video by installing a new video card, you may need to make changes to the BIOS. There are different settings for onboard video in the BIOS that need to be disabled or enabled, when your system already has an Integrated Video Card. You may need to consult with a technician to completely understand what settings to change in the BIOS, and how to find them.
TV ON YOUR COMPUTER
You can make it so your can watch TV while cruising the Internet, or you can make your computer into a TV Channel Receptor and connect directly to your TV. You will need to upgrade your video card to include TV In and TV Out. Happauge is one of the easiest adapter cards that you can use on your computer to make it TV ready. Haupage should be fully compatilbe and tested for Windows XP. Another card that is widely used for TV production on your computer is the ATI All In Wonder.
If you want watch movies on your computer you can add a DVD ROM and by movies on DVD's.
With the advent of the Windows Media Center Edition , Window's Vista Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate you can add a TV Recepction Video Card and watch tv from your computer. In fact, you can use your tv for your monitor. These programs allow you to record your favorite shows directy to your computers hard disk drive and play them back like a TIVO machine. The programs also make it so you can do some limited video production, and use your computer like a stereo. Of course if you use your computer for stereo you will want to have good speakers. You will need the right speakers for this though. See Sound Card and Speakers for more advice.
STUDIO VIDEO PRODUCTION
You can turn your computer into a professional digital video production studio just by adding a video production card and the software provided with the MATROX RT.X100 . The Matrox RT.X100 comes with software that is designed for Video Production by Adobe. The RT.X100 card might cost more than your computer. If you just want to do basic video production you can buy a less expensive
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