The choice of a video card for a personal computer comes down to determining the tasks that it should perform.
The most important indicators of a video adapter include the frequency of the graphics processor, the bit width of the data bus from the video controller to the processor, the amount of memory and its frequency, and the presence of video outputs. It is also important what version of shaders the video card supports in hardware. The higher all these parameters, the better the adapter will be, but the cost can reach crazy numbers.
For standard tasks, work in office applications, the Internet and watching movies, it is enough to take a video card with weak performance costing up to $ 50. Typically, such an adapter is equipped with 1 GB of GDDR2 RAM and a processor up to 600 MHz. Such budget cards are presented by the brands both GeForce and Radeon. But it should be said that now new films extracted, for example from Blue-Ray discs, can be displayed intermittently on such cards.
For games, video editing, you will need a more powerful video card capable of handling high resolutions. The price range of such adapters is very wide, starting from $ 100. The main thing in such video cards is hardware support for shaders and DirectX, the more expensive the card, the higher version of shaders it supports. The best option for today's games is a graphics card with support for Shader 5 and DirectX 11. For $ 100, you can buy a card with 2GB of GDDR5 RAM and an 800 MHz processor.
For professional work with 3D graphics and environmental modeling, a video card for games is not enough. Programs such as 3ds MAX and other 3D processing packages require adaptability to 3D computing from adapters to work properly. These specialized adapters cost a lot of money, starting at $ 3,000 on average. They are mainly used in large 3D modeling firms.
Today the video card market is dominated by two manufacturers - Ati and NVidia. Ati mainly promotes the Radeon brand, while NVidia promotes Geforce. There is no big price difference between them, as, for example, in the case of Amd and Intel processors, so which manufacturer to choose comes down to individual sympathy.
