Computer Video Card

The world of computer video card always seems to be in a state of change when you look at computing world. The big rivals ATI and Nvidia battling it out to the be the biggest and the best at everything. Of course their are more than one type of computer graphics cards and I will show you the differences between parts of a computer and most other things you want to know.

When I stated their are different types of computer video card I meant they can serve slightly different functions in different environments. You can get one for your laptop computer, agp and pci video cards for you desktop computer. AGP video card technology is old and you may not even have a computer motherboard of that age. Lastly you can get a video capture card that will take audio and video data in from a DVD player or cable tv or video camera and push it through to your screen. Many people use it for these functions just to watch TV and movies or to do video editing.

Primarily graphic cards are just computer parts that grind on complex graphical data and outputs it to the computer monitor. The computer cpu could do all of this, but it would be way overloaded with all the data, but the graphically complex programs running today are just too big. A seperate CPU called a Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) and ram memory is on the video card to handle this. The CPU and the computer RAM has its own CPU cooler and fan to cool it down!

Different Parts of a Computer Video Card

I won't show a picture describing the main parts because they are simple and easy to see. Also most of the pictures I have of computer video card are covered models that hide everything. Basically the RAM memory are bloack rectangular shapped models on the outer edges of the video card. The GPU is in the center of the video card and should be the biggest thing their. It will be covered by a heatsink and fan in any of the latest models. The outputs are VGA and DVI and you may have inputs for firewire and composite cables.

Graphics Processor Unit (GPU)

Random Access Memory (RAM)

Video Graphics Array (VGA) Port

Digital Visual Interface (DVI) Port

Firewire Port

Composite Port

Video In/Video Out (ViVo) Port

Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Port

Advanced Graphics Port (AGP)

Graphics Processor Unit (GPU)

You are probably wondering what the difference is between a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a GPU. The difference lies in its function for the computer parts it interacts with. The rendering of graphics is not something a CPU can handle specifically. Certain mathmatical equations must be done that a GPU is made to handle. I believe that some of the latest and greatest GPUs work so hard they get hotter than the actual CPU. This is especially true if you are a hardcore gamer!

As I said before the biggest manufacturers of these graphic cards are Nvidia and ATI and that is because they create the GPU modules for all of the computer video card and 3rd party dealers will sell their own specific version of it, which I rarely buy. The biggest changes made are within the graphical rendering specifications of Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering. It seems like they are making these better and more complex each day.

Anti-Aliasing makes 3-D looks much better by making it smoother so you don't get those diagonal lines on a persons face when it should be round. Anisoptropic filtering just makes the complete image look clean and lifelike. Increasing the complexity and levels of these will slow your graphics card and the rest of your computer way down! Make sure you have exactly what you need to get the performance you need.

Random Access Memory (RAM)

The Random Access Memory works exactly as it does everywhere else. Since it is on a graphics card it stores pixels and full pictures until they are needed. They are super fast on many of the latest video cards today. If you are using an analog computer monitor then your graphics card computer ram works with the Digital to Analog Coverter (DAC) and makes RAMDAC and converts the digital data to analog for the computer monitor. I would suggest using a Digital LCD computer monitor for performance issues. They are fast, cheap and great quality. You just can't go wrong.

Video Graphics Array (VGA) Port

The VGA port is made specifically to go to analog computer monitors. I just said that you don't want an analog computer monitor, but if you have one this is what you would connect with. It is very simple to attach, but does not have the graphical performance of DVI.

Digital Visual Interface (DVI) Port

The start of DVI was a great thing me personally. I had grown tired of my crappy VGA computer monitor that flickered all the time and weighed about 110lbs because it was an old 23 inch MONSTER! Low and behold the LCD flat screen monitors came out and I gave a sigh of relief to finally have some space on my computer desk and now I have a huge bowing in the wood because of the weight! Digital input is way clearer and detailed than VGA and many of the viewing problems have been fixed completely.

Firewire Port

Firewire is just another type of data transport technology like USB that runs at a very high speed. It is mostly used for external and mobile devices, but has recently been used to input data from other sources.

Composite Port

Using Composite cables is great for transferring audio and video from one device to other. You may have seen these forever and not known what they are called. They have a red, White and yellow cable. The red and white cables are for audio channels. The yellow cable is for video. They have been around so long and perform so well they have become quite universal in the marketplace and quite useful for old and new machine data transfer.

Video In/Video Out (ViVo) Port

The ViVo port works just like everything else except it is one cable that takes things and and out. Most cable technologies only go one way, but ViVo has broken through that variable and can output to other computer video card or take data in. It is quite useful as an all around cable.

Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) port

PCI simply connects to computer motherboards through this port. It is a data transfer port that runs at very high speeds. Actually the PCI Express (PCIe) is the fastest PCI port available. Many other devices plug into the PCI ports like sound cards and network cards, but they do not currently need the speed of the PCIe port.

Advance Graphics Port (AGP)

This technology is old and obsolete. Matter fact I have one of the last computer motherboards that takes the computer video card for this technology. Luckily enough I have the fastest video card available for that time. It was only 6 years ago when I got it and now it is like an ancient myth. It works in the same way, but is just not feasible for most complex programs today.