Video Cards

The type of video card you choose, like so many other computer system choices, depends heavily upon what you will be doing with your system. We will point out several things you will want to consider when buying a video card without recommending any specific card or manufacturer.

AGP or PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI, is the current standard for connecting devices to your motherboard. Almost any motherboard you will find these days will have a number of PCI slots; these are referred to as expansion slots. PCI technology replaces the older Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) expansion slots; you can still use ISA cards with PCI, however. When PCI first came out, the standard way to connect a video card to your motherboard was to stick it in a PCI slot. The standard now for video cards, however, is the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) which is an interface designed specifically for 3D video cards and provides very significant increases in display speeds over PCI because of the intimate connection it has with your computer's RAM. You definitely want an AGP riser on your motherboard.

There is a third way to display video to your monitor: On-board graphics. Many pre-configured systems come with motherboards equipped with their own graphics cards that are integrated in the motherboard. While the newer ones use AGP technology, they tend to exhibit poorer performance than standalone video cards and thus I don't highly recommend them. If you do get a motherboard with onboard graphics, make sure it can be turned off via the system's BIOS so you can install your own graphics card in the future if desired.

How Much Power

If you're building a new system, you want at least 64 MB of video memory no matter what you're doing; you can get a 64 MB AGP video card for around $30 these days so there's no reason to get anything less. If you do any video editing, 3D graphics design, or hardcore computer gaming, you definitely want something more powerful; I'd suggest at least 128 MB, preferably 256 MB, of video memory. Try not to get the absolute top-of-the-line card because as we know the latest technology is always overpriced.

Dual Display

It's worth mentioning that if you have an extra monitor it's fairly easy to set up a dual display system. Modern operating systems usually have built-in support for this. There are two ways to set up dual display and they both involve video cards. The first way is to get a video card that supports dual display; there are several of these on the market. Although I haven't personally tested any of these dual display video cards, it's unlikely that they can provide the same performance as a single-display AGP card without a huge increase in price. Furthermore, many people who try a dual display system often find it to be less useful than they at first imagined. After all, we can only pay attention to one monitor at a time. For these reasons, if you really want to try a dual display system I'd recommmend using an older PCI video card to run your secondary display. A PCI card will be inexpensive and will get the job done and there should be no decrease to the performance of your primary display.

Reading this article is your first step in choosing a video card for your system; the next step is to shop around. There are plenty of internet resources reviewing specific video cards and comparing their prices and features. Stay tuned for our next article: Sound Cards.