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Graphics and Video Card Help

34 Responses (Add) | Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 1:51am

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I asked my chat room: “What kind of Video Card do you have?”. No matter what… I get asked this question constantly. Inevitably, someone wants to talk about Video Cards. “What do you have?” “What should I get?” “What is BEST?”

A video card, also referred to as a graphics accelerator card, display adapter, graphics card, and numerous other terms, is an item of personal computer hardware whose function is to generate and output images to a display. It operates on similar principles as a sound card or other peripheral devices.

The term is usually used to refer to a separate, dedicated expansion card that is plugged into a slot on the computer’s motherboard, as opposed to a graphics controller integrated into the motherboard chipset. An integrated graphics controller may be referred to as an “integrated graphics processor” (IGP).

Some video cards offer added functions, such as video capture, TV tuner adapter, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoding or even FireWire, mouse, light pen, joystick connectors, or even the ability to connect two monitors.

What’s the best video card? Well, it depends on what you’re going to be doing on your computer. Are you gaming? How graphics-intensive are your games? What’s your Operating System? There is no “best” video card. There is only a best for YOU, based on what you’re doing. I had an email from someone saying that he had asked the chat room what the best PCI card was to buy. Everyone threw out their suggestions, but it didn’t really help him. I can’t help him either in one respect. I can’t tell him what to buy, nor what is best with him. I can give recommendations… but that’s about it.

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34 Comments

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March 4th, 2008
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b.m.s.

March 2nd, 2008
at 7:35am

video cards are constantly upgrading and obtaining features and advancements second to cpu’s in terms of time of arrival. I am a moderate gamer but i don’t have much experience with gpu’s other than what I use now. Back in the day I ran my games on a geforce fx 5200. Then i held back a few years and skipped the 6 and 7 series and now have an 8600gt in my new pc. but i still can’t play crysis >:(

guest2424

March 4th, 2008
at 8:35am

You are right. You just eliminated the trouble I had with decided on a laptop computer. My choice is, get one for under $1,000 and don’t play games or edit video intensivly. My second choice is to spend $1000-$3500 on a laptop for gaming and editing. After hearing you and then talking to people, I realized, all I really wanted, was something portable to surf the net away from home on WiFi, something to do online chat, watch videos, watch youtube videos, play music, and maybe some old simple games. It would be nice to have a powerhouse laptop with a big screen, but it cost twice as much money, i could have 2 non-gaming laptops for the price of 1 gaming laptop, I could have one to keep at home, and one to travel with, and if the traveling one breaks, I have my backup one I can take out, or spend the money on buying a lot of extra rechargeable batteries, so i can use it for extended periods of time without plugging it in.

I will be sure to mention that Chris Pirillo assisted me in making the decision to buy “this” laptop (when I do) and that I am guaranteed to be happy, because I know exactly what I want now when I buy it, I won’t have a question or second thought hesitation at all.

Doug Clemans

March 5th, 2008
at 4:14am

I have been waiting for a capture card to become available to build my own HTPChd dvr with signal outs from my sat receiver (HDMI or component). Any word on the street. I have contacted the main players and they seem to have no plans for such an item.

woolf2k

March 5th, 2008
at 8:11am

go to Tom’s Hardware, the site periodically updates the best cards for the money. Helps alot when making a video card puchase.

Here is february’s article.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/04/best_cards_february_2008/

Mike41378

March 7th, 2008
at 11:30pm

Yeah, and it’s STILL cheaper than an 8800 Ultra! Nvidia like to overprice their products!

duncanyoyo1

March 10th, 2008
at 11:32am

nVidia GeForce 8500 GT

mostliberal

March 11th, 2008
at 4:20am

A year and a half ago I bought an ATI Radeon X1600 XT. It had 512 MB of RAM and ran at 400 mega hertz. It had problems from day 1 and 11 months later it got fried. It was within the warranty time period, but because I bought it online, it took so long to receive an answer, that by then the warranty ran out.

Chrijz

March 12th, 2008
at 5:35am

I like ATI HD3650 (and some passive cooled HD3850), because some of the models don’t have a noisy fan (they have passive cooling) and that it got video-decoding (h264/VC-1).

Chrijz

March 12th, 2008
at 6:01am

CanadianVandal: It depends what you mean by “best”. I think a silent graphics-card and less electricity-consuming that is ~20% slower than a noisy graphics-card is better..
The fastest are ATI HD3870X2 and Nvidia 8800GTX.

t3h0ne91

March 18th, 2008
at 4:45am

The most powerful Video out there is an Nvidia Geforce 8800 Ultra

severo16

March 19th, 2008
at 12:00am

No, its not. Its the Nvidia GeForce 9800GX2. :)

thepieman12345

March 19th, 2008
at 1:44am

the fastest was the 8800ultra then it was the ati hd 3870×2 and now its the nvidia 9800gx2

lodman

March 22nd, 2008
at 12:59pm

i have an onboard nVidia GeForce 6100

1337DementedOne

March 23rd, 2008
at 10:17am

intel900. blows egg water. can’t play css right

wiihome

March 25th, 2008
at 7:49am

nVidia 8600 FTW

whereami111

March 25th, 2008
at 2:12pm

Hey chris on each of ur computers it wood be a good idea to put ur system specs.

wolfwhite99

March 26th, 2008
at 5:07am

nvidia 9600 i ordered just came out

S161064

March 29th, 2008
at 6:36am

hi can you help.i put a nvidia graphics card in my computer and it did not work. so disabled it in windows now can not get my new graphics card to work just get black screen. so have to use intergrated graphics what computer came with. i have set bios to default setting and still does not work. can you help thanks steve.

NicolasLaBarre

March 29th, 2008
at 11:46am

Radeon 9250

wingscontrol

April 4th, 2008
at 3:45pm

ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 256MB

killgroup

April 5th, 2008
at 3:27am

“We’re all geeks!” Haha.

I have an ATI X1950pro, It does me very very well. I think its one of the best, if not the best DX9 card.

annoyedwithsignup

April 5th, 2008
at 5:57pm

ATI Radeon X1600 (128MB) in my iMac.

Tecato22

April 6th, 2008
at 1:06am

I have Radeon 9600PRO which perform with 42 FPS in Crysis!

ludpalmer

April 8th, 2008
at 2:04am

ATI Radeon Sapphire 2900 Pro

poptart951

April 12th, 2008
at 2:17am

I have nvidia 6200 AGP 8x. My computer has a 4x slot but this card fit. It has 250 mb. It is perfect for home computer use. I use it for video games that say 32 mb or higher on the back. This card makes it run really fast. The games say that i need 512 mb of ram but i have 256 mb of ram. This card maked it perform like 512 mb. Perfect for loading youtube videos.

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