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A video card also called a display card , graphics card , display adapter or graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display such as a computer monitor. Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, emphasizing the distinction between these and integrated graphics.
At the core of both is the graphics processing unit GPU , which is the main part that does the actual computations, but should not be confused as the video card as a whole, although "GPU" is often used to refer to video cards. Most video cards are not limited to simple display output. Their integrated graphics processor can perform additional processing, removing this task from the central processor of the computer. Usually the graphics card is made in the form of a printed circuit board expansion board and inserted into an expansion slot, universal or specialized AGP, PCI Express.
Now the majority of modern video cards are built with either AMD -sourced or Nvidia -sourced graphics chips. Graphics cards weren't very useful for early computers, since they didn't have the capability to run graphic-based games or high-resolution videos as modern computers do now.
Early computers had very little processing power with the on-board integration compared to today's systems.
The graphics cards on these earlier systems ran at significantly lower power consumption, but at very low 2D performance. You would often be able to see the refresh rate of the monitor compared to today's high refresh rate monitors powered by Nvidia and AMD's new architectures.
Within the industry, video cards are sometimes called graphics add-in-boards , abbreviated as AIB s, [5] with the word "graphics" usually omitted. As an alternative to the use of a video card, video hardware can be integrated into the motherboard , CPU , or a system-on-chip. Both approaches can be called integrated graphics. Motherboard-based implementations are sometimes called "on-board video". The ability to disable the integrated graphics sometimes also allows the continued use of a motherboard on which the on-board video has failed.
Sometimes both the integrated graphics and a dedicated graphics card can be used simultaneously to feed separate displays.
The main advantages of integrated graphics include cost, compactness, simplicity and low energy consumption. The performance disadvantage of integrated graphics arises because the graphics processor shares system resources with the CPU. A dedicated graphics card has its own random access memory RAM , its own cooling system, and dedicated power regulators, with all components designed specifically for processing video images. Upgrading to a dedicated graphics card offloads work from the CPU and system RAM, so not only will graphics processing be faster, but the computer's overall performance may also improve.
As the processing power of video cards has increased, so has their demand for electrical power. Current high-performance video cards tend to consume a great deal of power. Providing adequate cooling becomes a challenge in such computers. Computers with multiple video cards may need power supplies in the — W range. Heat extraction becomes a major design consideration for computers with two or more high-end video cards.
Video cards for desktop computers come in one of two size profiles, which can allow a graphics card to be added even to small-sized PCs. Some video cards are not of usual size, and are thus categorized as being low profile. This can be fixed with a larger case that comes in sizes like mid tower and full tower. The larger the case, the larger the motherboard, the larger the graphics card or multiple other components that will acquire case real-estate. Some graphics cards can be linked together to allow scaling of the graphics processing across multiple cards.
This is done using either the PCIe bus on the motherboard, or, more commonly, a data bridge. Generally, the cards must be of the same model to be linked, and most low power cards are not able to be linked in this way. Cards from different chipset manufacturers, architectures cannot be used together for multi card scaling. If a graphics card has different sizes of memory, the lowest value will be used, with the higher values being disregarded.
Currently, scaling on consumer grade cards can be done using up to four cards. Nvidia's GeForce GTX video card has the ability to be configured in this four card configuration. Power demands must be known before a proper supply is installed. Video cards require a well vented chassis and thermal solution.
Water or air cooling are required for all video cards, with larger configurations needing water solutions to achieve proper performance. A graphics driver usually supports one or multiple cards by the same vendor, and has to be specifically written for an operating system. Additionally, the operating system or an extra software package may provide certain programming APIs for applications to perform 3D rendering.
In the third quarter of , AMD had a In economics, this industry structure is termed a duopoly. Intel's move to APUs may weaken AMD, which until now has derived a significant portion of its revenue from graphics components. As of the second quarter of , there were 52 AIB suppliers. Several AIB suppliers are also motherboard suppliers.
Video card shipments peaked at a total of million in By contrast, they totalled The sales of video cards have trended downward due to improvements in integrated graphics technologies; high-end, CPU-integrated graphics are able to provide performance competitive with low-end video cards. At the same time, video card sales have grown within the high-end segment, as manufacturers have shifted their focus to prioritize the gaming and enthusiast market.
Beyond the gaming and multimedia segments, video cards have been increasingly used for general-purpose computing , such as big data processing. In January , mid-to-high-end video cards experienced a major surge in price, with many retailers having stock shortages due to the significant demand among this market. A modern video card consists of a printed circuit board on which the components are mounted.
A graphics processing unit GPU , also occasionally called visual processing unit VPU , is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. Because of the large degree of programmable computational complexity for such a task, a modern video card is also a computer unto itself. A heat sink is mounted on most modern graphics cards.
A heat sink spreads out the heat produced by the graphics processing unit evenly throughout the heat sink and unit itself. The heat sink commonly has a fan mounted as well to cool the heat sink and the graphics processing unit. Not all cards have heat sinks, for example, some cards are liquid cooled, and instead have a waterblock; additionally, cards from the s and early s did not produce much heat, and did not require heatsinks.
Most modern graphics cards need a proper thermal solution. This can be the liquid solution or heatsinks with an additional connected heat pipe usually made of copper for the best thermal transfer.
It should also be noted that the correct case; either Mid-tower or Full-tower or some other derivative, has to be properly configured for thermal management. This can be ample space with proper push pull or opposite configuration as well as liquid with a radiator either in lieu or with a fan setup. The video BIOS or firmware contains a minimal program for initial set up and control of the video card.
It may contain information on the memory timing, operating speeds and voltages of the graphics processor, RAM, and other details which can sometimes be changed. The usual reason for doing this is to overclock the video card to allow faster video processing speeds, however, this has the potential to irreversibly damage the card with the possibility of cascaded damage to the motherboard. The modern Video BIOS does not support all the functions of the video card, being only sufficient to identify and initialize the card to display one of a few frame buffer or text display modes.
It does not support YUV to RGB translation, video scaling, pixel copying, compositing or any of the multitude of other 2D and 3D features of the video card. Around , the video memory was typically based on DDR technology. Video memory may be used for storing other data as well as the screen image, such as the Z-buffer , which manages the depth coordinates in 3D graphics , textures , vertex buffers , and compiled shader programs.
The RAMDAC , or random-access-memory digital-to-analog converter, converts digital signals to analog signals for use by a computer display that uses analog inputs such as cathode ray tube CRT displays.
Depending on the number of bits used and the RAMDAC-data-transfer rate, the converter will be able to support different computer-display refresh rates. These require a RAMDAC, but they reconvert the analog signal back to digital before they can display it, with the unavoidable loss of quality stemming from this digital-to-analog-to-digital conversion. Some problems of this standard are electrical noise , image distortion and sampling error in evaluating pixels.
Today, the VGA analog interface is used for high definition video including p and higher. While the VGA transmission bandwidth is high enough to support even higher resolution playback, there can be picture quality degradation depending on cable quality and length. Digital-based standard designed for displays such as flat-panel displays LCDs , plasma screens, wide high-definition television displays and video projectors.
It avoids image distortion and electrical noise, corresponding each pixel from the computer to a display pixel, using its native resolution. Included to allow connection with televisions , DVD players , video recorders and video game consoles. The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor , though it can also be used to transmit audio, USB, and other forms of data. Backward compatibility to VGA and DVI by using adapter dongles enables consumers to use DisplayPort fitted video sources without replacing existing display devices.
Although DisplayPort has a greater throughput of the same functionality as HDMI , it is expected to complement the interface, not replace it. In the following table is a comparison between a selection of the features of some of those interfaces.
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