Video cards, otherwise known as graphics cards, display adapters, video adapters, or graphics accelerator cards, give a computer the ability to display graphics and video. They also allow videos and 3D computer games to run smoother. A computer’s video and graphics performance is not fully controlled by the video card, however. The computer monitor also plays a role on how images are rendered onscreen.
Video cards offer a choice of resolutions and color palettes and some come with their own video RAM to aid the computer in storing images. High-end video cards have more features such video capture, TV output, and can allow the use of multiple monitors simultaneously.
A computer motherboard can sport one of four expansion slot standards for video cards: PCI, PCI-X, AGP, and PCI Express. In this way, video cards can be roughly classified into these four types.
* PCI
PCI, also known as PCI Local Bus or Conventional PCI, is a popular standard for many expansion cards including modems, network cards, and sound cards. It used to be a popular standard for video cards as well but server bandwidth requirements increased well beyond PCI’s capacity. Still, there are PCI video cards available for those PCs that do not have any AGP or PCI Express slots.
* PCI-X
PCI-X, also known as PCI eXtended, was developed to address the higher bandwidth requirements of certain devices such as Gigabit Ethernet. PCI-X graphics cards can run at clock speeds that are four times as fast as PCI cards. Otherwise, PCI-X is very much like PCI in terms of design.
* AGP
AGP, otherwise known as Accelerated Graphics Port or Advanced Graphics Port, is a high-speed interface that is dedicated to video adapters. An AGP video card can be connected to a computer motherboard via an AGP slot. Compared to a PCI video card, AGP cards can facilitate faster electronic communication and better accelerate 3D computer graphics.
* PCI Express
PCI Express, otherwise known as PCIe, PCI-E, or Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, is the latest standard for video cards. PCI Express video cards supplant AGP, PCI-X, and PCI cards in terms of speed and sport a different design.
One edge of a video card fits exactly into one of these four slots in a computer motherboard. Your ability to use a certain type of video card is very much limited by your computer motherboard. To use modern PCI Express video cards, make sure that your motherboard supports the PCIe standard.
