วันศุกร์ที่ 30 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2554

An Overview of Graphic Card Features

There are literally hundreds of different graphic card choices for consumers, and in order to make the best possible choice it behooves them to be well informed. To that end it is important to explore the ever expanding feature set found on modern graphic cards.

The easiest place to start understanding the modern graphic card is in its interface. The interface describes where the graphic card plugs into the motherboard and is usually a PCI-Express for Graphics (PCIE-G) slot unless the graphic card and system in question are fairly old, in which case the interface will be some flavor of Advanced Graphics Port (AGP). PCIE-G interfaces only come in two varieties: X16 and X16 2.0, while AGP comes in X1, X2, X4, and X8 varieties.

Memory Card

In the case of AGP, the higher the multiplier (the last digit) is, the faster the communication speed, and thus the greater potential for higher performance graphics. PCIE-G slots only come on in two variants, the 2.0 spec being twice as fast as the normal PCIE-G slot. Again, the faster the ability to transfer data from the system to the graphic card, the greater the potential performance that they can produce.

Of course, that is potential and not actual performance. Lower performing graphics cards destined for PCIE-G 2.0 spots may not be able to offer significantly better graphics performance than high-end AGP X8 graphic cards. In order to determine actual performance one needs to figure in the memory size and speed, as well as the performance of the graphical processor.

The memory performance comes from both its size and speed. Size of graphic card memories are usually measured in the MegaBytes (MB) at the time of this writing, but it seems likely that GigaBytes will become the dominant standard in the early to mid 2010s. In essence, the more memory a graphic card has, the less frequently it has to make requests for assistance from the significantly slower system memory, often called RAM. It may help to equate memory to a desk size, and processing tasks to pieces of paper all written in the same font; the larger the job, the more pieces of paper, and the higher quality images, the larger those pieces of paper will be. Once the desk has become inundated with paper, one has to find someplace else to put the papers, and swapping them in and off the desk takes time. Therefore, a larger memory pool on cards (or desk) would be ideal.

Of course, having all the memory in the world is useless if the memory is only marginally faster than the main system memory. Memory clock speeds combined with how much they read and/or write at the same time (bandwidth) are both important factors for determining memory performance of any graphic cards. The faster the memory and/or the greater the bandwidth, the better the memory subsystem of the graphic card is likely to perform.

The actual graphics processing core (GPU) will also play a major factor, both in terms of speed and capabilities. New graphical standards require newer GPUs that support them.

An Overview of Graphic Card Features

Related : หางานเชียงใหม่ My Product Hotel in Thai blu ray player panasonic

0 ความคิดเห็น: