rc said:
Hello group,
Just a quick question regarding video display cards. Is there anything
specific I should look for or guard against or match to when looking to
purchase a video card for a computer? Thanks.
The slot connector on the video card, should match the slot
on the motherboard. Use an AGP video card with an AGP motherboard,
a PCI Express video card with a PCI Express motherboard. The motherboards
may also have an ordinary PCI slot, but that is the slot of last
choice, due to its low bandwidth. AGP 8X is ~2100MB/sec bandwidth.
PCI Express can be 4000MB/sec bandwidth. Desktop PCI is only
133MB/sec, so is a lot slower. This is most visible, when a large
pixmap is being moved around the screen, without the benefit of
any acceleration features.
Really tiny computers, may need a "low profile" card, as the
regular cards won't fit in the available space.
Some of the high power "3D gamer" cards, can be 10 inches long,
which may not fit the available space inside the computer case.
In some cases, a hard drive bay may interfere with a long
video card.
Cards need DC power. The high end cards may need a couple hundred
watts of DC power. Many computers lack sufficient power for such
a card. A new video card may need a new power supply.
You also want faceplate connectors on the video card, that can be
connected to the monitor. Cheap modern LCDs might have DVI. A
CRT might use a VGA connector. Perhaps an AV receiver, an LCDTV,
or other multimedia device, might have an HDMI input. Or an older
TV might want S-video, composite, or even a component (YPrPb)
interface. So you want to analyse all potential display devices,
to decide what features you want on the video card faceplate.
*******
It is usually better to describe what problem you're trying to
solve, what kind of machine (make and exact model number) it is
going into, what display types you'll be driving, to get more
focused advice. There is a lot of trivia to know about.
http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html
Paul
