Video Cards - Should I Upgrade?
In this article I will discuss the basics of a video card and easy ways in determining what is good for you and what you should look for when purchasing a video card or new computer.
The Nvidia 9600gt is the upcoming video card for computers scheduled to be released in late February 2008 or Early March. This component allows better video processing on your computer. Although it is not the primary factor in determining the performance of processing video it does play a part. The other two major parts of the computer that play a part in processing video would have to be the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and the RAM (Random Access Memory). If this is your first time coming across these terms or you feel that they need a better explanation consider relating a computer to your brain. The CPU would represent the speed at which you think in all areas, the RAM would represent how much you can think about at a given moment, and the Video Card would represent how much visual content you can handle.
Thus, if you consider upgrading your video card, first consider where your CPU and RAM are at because it is one of those three components that bottleneck your computer (like a weak link on a chain). There is the other computer component that plays a role and it is the hard drive. The hard drive by some people is considered the primary bottleneck in computers today. But it truly depends on how you look at it. The hard drive is what stores data. And if you consider the first load of a program, OS, or game slow then it is usually your hard drive that is to blame. After the first load the data of your program should be located on your RAM, processing through your CPU and video card.
Now how do we determine what is the best configuration of a computer should be? It ultimately depends on how much computer power you need and what are you doing with the computer? If you are processing video in gaming, video editing, or watching high definition videos, you may want to consider a good configuration.
If you are a gamer I would personally recommend getting a good video card which may come at big cost. If you want the best price-performance ratio within the current Nvidia video card series I would recommend the 8600gt which has been shown to have great performance and it will support DX10 games which are games that run on Windows Vista. Although personally I would end up using Windows XP because I believe it has better performance and quality as of now.
Second is determining what slot type you have on your motherboard. Is it an AGP or PCI-express slot. Make sure when you purchase a video card to get one that corresponds to the right slot type. Older slots are AGP and newer ones are PCI-express which contain more channels or video processing bandwidth.
If you want to view examples of computer configurations visit youtube and watch videos on the games you would like to play. For example search for “Oblivion 8600gt” This should give you videos of the PC game Oblivion played on an 8600gt. While in the page, watching the video you can usually see the configuration of the computer that is running that game. You may see something that says Intel or AMD. Those are brand names of a CPU. You may also see numbers with the abbreviation “GHZ” at the end, which is the speed of the CPU.
Now where do I purchase a new videocard? There are many sites out their and I would investigate them but the majority of people I know of that purchase computer parts go to www.newegg.com or www.tigerdirect.com which are both great places in purchasing computer parts.
Remember to get a video card that corresponds with the slot on your motherboard. If you are unsure contact the manufacturer of your computer or search Google images of AGP and PCI-express to see what the slots look like. It is possible that you have a name brand computer that has neither AGP or PCI-express such as Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. that has what is called integrated video which means that the video card is on the motherboard. If you plan on becoming a gamer or processing a fair ammount of video get a new computer with NO integrated video. Integrated video slows down your computer. It pretty much steals from your CPU power and RAM which is not good if you want great computer performance.
Continue to investigate other people's computer configurations on Youtube to see which one will suit you. They may discuss FPS which is frames per second of a game. The higher it is, the better the computer his processing that video.
