Different Card Types

Video cards come in three different connector types: PCI, AGP, and PCI Express. The slots all look different and are easily identifiable from each other.

PCI these connect into the often white slots of your Motherboard, they have been common on motherboards since the early 1990's they replaced the ISA standard.

AGP Often brown connectors were introduced as they allowed four times the bandwidth over PCI. Most AGP video cards are now designed to work only with the newer AGP 2.0 and 3.0 standards.

PCI Express often shortened to PCIe is the latest technology designed to replace AGP and work with the main board systems to allow larger amounts of bandwidth to be transferred which results in a new level of graphics and system performance.

$60 - $1200 !

Choosing a new graphics or video card can be daunting, with so many products and decisions to make. Should you go for the card with more memory? How do you tell which one is better than the next?

 

The product ranges produced by various makers all use a graphics chip from either ATI or NVida. To make deciding easier you can normally separate the various options into one of three categories:

Top End / Heavy Graphics / Game Usage - High specification cards with plenty of memory and fast processors providing plenty of power for games or other intensive applications. These cards often include extras such as TV/Video In/Out, DVI connectors, support for several monitor display. Prices in this section would be over $200+ (cards can cost upwards of $900)

Mainstream / Occasional Gamer - General applications and some gaming. If your system is fairly recent you may not need to change your card. However some of the newer games do require more powerful specifications. For guidance you should view the minimum specifications on the back of the game. Most cards include S-Video, TV Out connectors as standard. Prices $70 - $150 for mid-range cards.

Value Cards - Ideal for general Office and Internet applications. Running graphic intensive games are unlikely to run at a useable rate with these cards as the processor and memory is not rated enough for those tasks.