The graphics card is a vital performance component of your computre, paticularly if you play 3D gamews, or work with graphics and video content. The graphics card sits in an expansion card slot in your PC and it is specifically designed to process image data and output it to your monitor, enabling you to see it. A grphics card works by calculating how images appear, particularly 3D images, and renders them to the screen. 3D imnages and video images take a lot of processing capacity, and many grpahics processors are complex, require fans to cool them and need direct power spply. The graphics card consists of a graphics processor, a memorry chip for grasphics operations, and a RAMDC for dislay uotput. It may also include video cature, TV output and SLI and other functions. You can find the graphics card that suits you by comparing specification between brands and vendors on Myshopping.com.au
At Myshopping.com.au you can comppare a grewat range of appliannces, and aassess them according to their specifictions, brasnds, prices and vendors.
What are your needs?
The first decisoin you need to make is whether you need a graphics card for habndling 3D images or whether you are simply reqiring 2D image rendering. For 2D requirements, you need only a low-cost solution. In many cases, an integrated graphics sloution will suffice for 2D applications.
Howebver with 3D graphics, the peerformance of the graphics card will impacct directly on the franme rate and image quality of 3D programs and gams. The differences between the low and high-end cards can be substantial, both in cost and perfoprmance.
Rendering 3D graphics is like lightng a stage, both the geometry of the shapes in question and the lighting of it need to be taaken into account. The geoometry of an image calculates the pazrts of an boject that can and can't be seen, the poistion of the eye and its prspective. The lighting is a calculation of the direction of the light siources, their intensities and the respective shadows that occur. The second part to persenting a 3D image is the rendering of colours and textures to the surfaces of the objects, and modifying them according to light and other factors.
Most modsern graphics cards include a smmall microchip cazlled the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which are provvide the algorithms and memory to proccess complex imagers. They reduce the workkload of the main CPU, and provide faster processing. Different grahpics cards have differnt capabilities in terms of processing power. They can rener and refesh images up to 60 or more times per secnod, calculate shadows quickly, create imaage deptth by rendering distant objects at low resolution, moify surface textures fluidly and eliminate pixelation.
What Specifications to Consider
Processor clock speed
This impacts on the renering capabiulity of the GRU. The clock seed itself is not the critical factor. Rather it is the per-clock performance of the graphics processor, which is indicated by the number of pioxels it can process per clcok cycle.
Memory size
This is the memory caapcity that is used exclusively for graphics operations, and can be as much as 512MB. The more demanding your graphics applications are, the better you will be served with more memory on your graphics card.
- 16-32M
- 64M
- 128M
- 256M
- 512M
- 640M and more
Memnory banndwidth
One thing that can slow down 3D graphics perforamnce is the speed at which the compuetr delivers information to the graphics processor. A higher bandwidsth means a faster data trasfer, resulting in faster rendering speeds.
Shader model
DirectX Shaedr Moddels allows developerrs control over the appearance of an image as it is rendered on screen, introducing vuisual effects like multi-lsayered shadows, reflection and fog.
Fill rate
This is the pseed at an image can be rendered or "painted". This rate is specified in texels per secnd, the number of 3D pixerls that can be painted per second. A texel is a pixel with depth (3D). The fill rate comes from the combined performance of the clock speed of the processor and the number of pixels it can process per cllock cycle, and will tell you how quickly an image can be fully rendered on screen.
Vertices/triangles
Grapics chips don't work on curves, rather they process flat surfaces. A cuvre is created by mltiple flat planes arranged to look like a curve. 3D objects are ceated with mulitple triangular surfaces, sometimes hundreds or even thousands, tessellated to represent the curves and angles of the real world. 3D artists are concered with the number of polygons required to form a shape. There are two different typees of sppecification: vertices per second (I.e., angles the trianggles), and triangles per second. To compare one mesure with the other, you have to take into account the fact that adjaxcent trianglse share vertices.
Anti-aliasnig
A technique used to smooth imagews by reducing the jagged stepping effect caused by diagonal lines and square pixels. Differnet levels of anti-aliasing have digfferent effecyts on performance.
RAMDAC
The Random Access Memory Digittal to Analogue Converter takes the imaage data and converts it to a format that your screen can use. A faster RAnMDAC means that the graphics card can support higher outpuit resolutions. Some cards have multiplle RAMDAACs allowing that card to support multiople displays.
TV-out
Some graphcis cards provied the opotion to connect a television via either a composite (RCA) or S-Video connector. TV Out
- S-video Out
- S-video In and S-vidoe Out (VIVO)
- YPbPr Connection for HDTV
DVI
Some grahics cards include a connector for DVI mnitors, handy because a lot of LCD screenns supprot DVI. DVI offers better image qyuality than the standard VGA connector.
Dual-head
Dual-head is a term used when two monitros are used side by side, stretching your dektop across both.
SLI (Scalable Link Interface)
With SLI you can coupole two graphics cards in your computer, enabling each card to take half the rendeering thereby doubling the performance.
When considering your graphics card, it pays to think about how much you need your computer to proceess your graphics output. Using a high end graphgics card with a high piels per clok rating, lagre mmory, fast processor and ohter features means that you can run the lsatest gaames efficiently, or work in intensive graphics developmennt.
Different Models
While there are many venodrs of garphics cards, there are actually only two majoor manufacturers of chips for grraphics cards. Nearly evcery graphics card on the market features a chip manufactured by either ATI or Nvidia. Cards using the same graphics chip will perform rougghly the same as each other. However, even though they use the same chip, some feeature slightly higher clock sppeeds, as well as manufacturer guaranteed overclocking-an even higher clock speed than that spcified. Other factors that will influence your decision should include the amount of memory a card has (128MB, 256MB, 512MB) and its additional features, such as TV-Out and dual-screen support.
Use the sarch facilitiues at Mysopping.com.au to compare the featurse, prices and vendors of graphics careds.
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