Cheap Video Cards
Chaintech GeForce 6600GT 128MB PCIe w/TV & DVI Out
Cheap video cards are becoming more widely available as technology moves on, with top models costing ever more. The job of the video card, often called the graphics card, is to deliver the picture produced by the computer to the screen. This may seem like a fairly simple task but it can become very complicated. But for most people there is not too much that you need to know to make a wise choice in deciding on the video card or graphics card that will meet your need. And cheap video cards will do for most people.
What Computer Video Cards will I need?
Which computer video cards you need will vary depending on the applications you plan to do.
Nowadays, with many motherboards, the computer video cards built in. These will usually sharea portion of the main memory with the computer, and can actually support very good 2D graphics as seen in most office and desktop applications like word processing and web browsers. The ability of these processors on the motherboard has gotten so good that if you don’t plan to play many 3D games or use any specialised applications like CAD a lot, then they will more than do for your graphics needs.
Connect3D Radeon 7000 32MB DDR AGP w/ TV Out
The most important factor for an everyday, office application computer video cards is the ability to be able to produce the optimal screen size and resolution. Making sure your chosen card can produce at least 75MHz@your-chosen-screen-resolution is important to keep a sharp picture. With LCD monitors, as low as 60MHz might be acceptable because of their resistance to flicker, but I still recommend 75MHz. The screen resolution usually depends on the monitor size. The bigger the monitor the more stuff you want to fit on it.I run my 19inch monitor at 1280×1024 which gives me the size I like. 800×600 on my monitor results in huge icons in windows.
Much of the confusion with video cards is caused by the ever increasing demand of computer gamers. 3D computer games require an immense amount of power to bring their environments to life. For this reason graphics cards can now cost over $500. This is compounded when you factor in that new technologies like SLI allow two cards to work together to do the graphics work.
So is it worth having a 3D graphics card?
As a general rule I would say “No” but it depends largely on what you do with your computer. Even ofice applications like picture editing listening to digital music and surfing the net don’t need them, you don’t even need them to watch DVDs.
A 3D graphics card will improve your graphics. It will make them smoother and allow you to run very high refresh rates. Everyday graphics will improve, but the most advantage will be seen in 3D applications, like 3D modelling and 3D gaming, as these programs will use the card’s built in features.
As long as your graphics card can support the screen resolution you hope for at 75MHz or more, I think it’s fine.
If your needs include specialised applications like Computer Aided Design or video editing, there are specialised cards from both ATI and nVidia that are optimised for programs like AutoCAD, 3DSMax, Maya, Softimage and others.