Install a new graphics card for the desktop

Whenever a new system or improve an existing one, what most people consider the top of the list is very good graphics. The video and graphics located in the heart of computing and entertainment experience. Before you begin, you need to know what kind of slot in the PC for video. The first room off the power supply is usually the PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) expansion slot. It is visible from the other slots (usually PCI). You need to remove part of the computer to access the expansion slots and to check whether the video is in slot 1. Then you need a new graphics card for the purchase. There are numerous connections in the market and many (such as PCI Express or PCI), which can be confusing. For most PCs, the video is a PCI Express version. Note that the PCI slots are not compatible with PCI Express-cons. If you are choosing a new graphics card, there are some things to consider about the best price:

• GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) or not? GPUs have computer chips in the graphics card itself.
• Size of memory - more than the best memory on the graphics card
• Speed ​​of Memory - DDR3 (double data rate) is twice as fast as DDR2
• External ports - HDMI transmits audio and video, while DVI / VGA is the standard for monitors
• The size of the expansion slot (some computers have slots for half-height design)

Once the graphics card only a matter of opening the office in the field expansion slots and card replacement in the first slot is accessed with its new acquisition. Installation is easy, even for beginners, because the manufacturer provides detailed instructions.
Do not be surprised if your system requires additional updates.

With the commissioning of the system of self-identification of the graphics card and try to find the driver. In Windows, this may or may not identify your new graphics card but do not worry. Once the system boots can go, you and the video driver, select [Start> Control Panel> System> Hardware> Device Manager] will bring up a list of all drivers. Select [Graphics] and click the list item. [Update driver] in this menu option and follow the Add New Hardware Wizard. After everything is complete, you can on the desktop and select a video resolution or provider's control panel (such as ATI or NVIDIA) to configure the screen.

Choosing a Good Graphics Card

A top-of-the-line graphics card is easy to spot. It has lots of memory and a fast processor. Often, it's also more visually appealing than anything else that's intended to go inside a computer's case. Lots of high-performance video cards are illustrated or have decorative fans or heat sinks.

But a high-end card provides more power than most people really need. People who use their computers primarily for e-mail, word processing or Web surfing can find all the necessary graphics support on a motherboard with integrated graphics. A mid-range card is sufficient for most casual gamers. People who need the power of a high-end card include gaming enthusiasts and people who do lots of 3-D graphic work.

A good overall measurement of a card's performance is its frame rate, measured in frames per second (FPS). The frame rate describes how many complete images the card can display per second. The human eye can process about 25 frames every second, but fast-action games require a frame rate of at least 60 FPS to provide smooth animation and scrolling. Components of the frame rate are:

• Triangles or vertices per second: 3-D images are made of triangles, or polygons. This measurement describes how quickly the GPU can calculate the whole polygon or the vertices that define it. In general, it describes how quickly the card builds a wire frame image.
• Pixel fill rate: This measurement describes how many pixels the GPU can process in a second, which translates to how quickly it can rasterize the image.

Overclocking Some people choose to improve their graphics card's performance by manually setting their clock speed to a higher rate, known as overclockings. People usually overclock their memory, since overclocking the GPU can lead to overheating. While overclocking can lead to better performance, it also voids the manufacturer's warranty.

The graphics card's hardware directly affects its speed. These are the hardware specifications that most affect the card's speed and the units in which they are measured:

• GPU clock speed (MHz)
• Size of the memory bus (bits)
• Amount of available memory (MB)
• Memory clock rate (MHz)
• Memory bandwidth (GB/s)
• RAMDAC speed (MHz) 

The computer's CPU and motherboard also play a part, since a very fast graphics card can't compensate for a motherboard's inability to deliver data quickly. Similarly, the card's connection to the motherboard and the speed at which it can get instructions from the CPU affect its performance.

The Evolution of Graphics Cards

Graphics cards have come a long way since IBM introduced the first one in 1981. Called a Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA), the card provided text-only displays of green or white text on a black screen. Now, the minimum standard for new video cards is Video Graphics Array (VGA), which allows 256 colors. With high-performance standards like Quantum Extended Graphics Array (QXGA), video cards can display millions of colors at resolutions of up to 2040 x 1536 pixels.

Creating an image out of binary data is a demanding process. To make a 3-D image, the graphics card first creates a wire frame out of straight lines. Then, it rasterizes the image (fills in the remaining pixels). It also adds lighting, texture and color. For fast-paced games, the computer has to go through this process about sixty times per second. Without a graphics card to perform the necessary calculations, the workload would be too much for the computer to handle. 

The graphics card accomplishes this task using four main components:

• A motherboard connection for data and power
• A processor to decide what to do with each pixel on the screen
• Memory to hold information about each pixel and to temporarily store completed pictures
• A monitor connection so you can see the final result

Graphic Card

information about graphic card  

The images you see on your monitor are made of tiny dots called pixels. At most common resolution settings, a screen displays over a million pixels, and the computer has to decide what to do with every one in order to create an image. To do this, it needs a translator -- something to take binary data from the CPU and turn it into a picture you can see. Unless a computer has graphics capability built into the motherboard, that translation takes place on the graphics card. 

A graphics card's job is complex, but its principles and components are easy to understand. In this article, we will look at the basic parts of a video card and what they do. We'll also examine the factors that work together to make a fast, efficient graphics card. 

Think of a computer as a company with its own art department. When people in the company want a piece of artwork, they send a request to the art department. The art department decides how to create the image and then puts it on paper. The end result is that someone's idea becomes an actual, viewable picture.

A graphics card works along the same principles. The CPU, working in conjunction with software applications, sends information about the image to the graphics card. The graphics card decides how to use the pixels on the screen to create the image. It then sends that information to the monitor through a cable.