Video Cards - What are they?

A video card is a graphic accelerator card. This is a hardware that generates output to a display. Video cards have components like graphics processing unit (GPU), video memory, video bios, and RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital to Analog Converter) which defines its performance. The GPU is a microprocessor on the video card that optimizes the 3D rendering and handles all the video instead of using the computer processor.

The video memory also called VRAM, it’s on the video card itself if its is not a integrated video card, which is terrible because the performance is cut in half and you won’t be able to play good games, but it is good if you are on a budget and not much to spend. The memory capacity is up to two gigabytes (GB). The memory speed is based on DDR2, GDDR3 and GDDR4. GDDR4 is the newest technology which ATI has first came up with. ATI has better hardware technology than NVIDIA but their drivers aren’t the best. They improved a little bit now that they are together with AMD.
Video BIOS or firmware is a program that controls the video operations and lets the video card interfere with the computer or the motherboard. It controls all the voltages that is given to the GPU and other components. The voltages may be adjusted for better performance, but be careful, don’t mess with that if you don’t know what you are doing. If you don’t have proper cooling or you increase the voltages too much you may fry your video card. Also, if you lower the voltages you downgrade the performance. Overclocking its not good if you plan to hold on to that video card or processor for a long time because it cuts its life in half. The RAMDAC transforms the digital signals form the computer into analog signals so the monitor or the display will recognize them.

Video cards have different interferences. If you plan on buying a computer or upgrading the existent, don’t just buy any video card. It may not be supported by the motherboard. The first one is PCI which stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect, but it doesn't have a good performance. AGP or Accelerated Graphics Port is used for 3D computer graphics but it is becoming less common in computers today. The newest one is PCIe and PCIe 2.0. It was introduced in 2004 by Intel. This is not a bus like the others, its structured around point to point serial links also called lanes. The new PCI-Express 2.0 doubles the speed to 16GB/s which is important for the newest games that require very high performance graphics cards. PCIe 3.0 was announced too, it will double the existing 2.0 bandwidth. Also, it will have enhanced data signaling, and much more. The release date will be sometime in 2009.
SLI and Cross Fire are solutions to link two or more video cards. They are two competitive brands NVIDIA and ATI. For this you would need a SLI or Crossfire compatible motherboard and two or more identical supported video cards.

So which one is better? Many argue that NVIDIA, just because they have been used to it from when they were kids. But this doesn’t mean that ATI isn't good. ATI, most of the time, has better technology, but they had to work on their software. Ati video cards are usually used for multimedia programs rather than games, but they are also very good for games. SLI and CrossFire might be the same, depending on the cards you are using. And you may use your favorite brands to build an ultimate computer with SLI or CrossFire which will serve you as the best tool to play Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and many other, on very high settings. If you are an absolute gamer choose ATI because it’s the best there is out there. Two 4870s X2, which have two GPUs each, will make your American Dream become real.