If you want to purchase a new video card, you need to know which connector the old card is equipped with. Today there are video cards with two connectors: AGP and PCI-Express. The AGP connector is considered obsolete, but video cards are still found with it. The PCI-Express slot is the newest. If your video card has a PCI-Express connector, this means that if your motherboard supports connecting two video cards at the same time, you can buy an additional card and increase the power of the video system.
It is necessary
- - A computer;
- - ATI Radeon or NVIDIA video card
- - Catalyst Control Center software;
- - AIDA64 Extreme Edition program
Instructions
Step 1
If you have an ATI Radeon series graphics card, you can find the card slot using the Catalyst Control Center software. It is included on the disk along with the drivers. If this app is not already installed, please install it.
Step 2
After installing the program, right-click on an empty area of the desktop and select Catalyst Control Center from the menu. In the window that appears, check the "Advanced" item and click "Next". In the next window, in the upper left corner, find the arrow and click on it with the left mouse button. In the menu that appears, select the "Information Center" component. Then click on the "Graphics Hardware" tab. Next, in the "Element" section, find "Graphics Bus Capabilities". On the contrary, in the "Value" section, the type of connector of your video card will be written.
Step 3
If you have an NVIDIA video card, or you do not know the model of your graphics adapter, use the computer monitoring and diagnostics program - AIDA64 Extreme Edition. Download it from the Internet and install it on your computer. Run the application.
Step 4
After starting the program, you will see two windows. Find the Display component in the left window. There is an arrow next to the component. Click on it with the left mouse button. In the list of devices that opens, select "GPU". Further in the section "Properties of the GPU" find the line "Bus type". In the "Value" section there will be information about the connector of your video card.
Step 5
If your video card is out of order and you need to know the type of connector in order to urgently replace it, accordingly, you cannot turn on the computer. In this case, you can find out its connector on the motherboard. To do this, disconnect the computer from the electrical outlet and remove the cover of the system unit. The type of the video card will be written near the connector to which the video card is connected, namely: AGP or PCI-Express.
