Types of Radeon Video Cards
There are several different types of video cards that on the market today. Inside of a computer are slots that a video card can be attached to. There are three types of video card slots on the market. The oldest is known as PCI, then AGP and PCIe. The PCIe slot is the newest slot that has been released and is the fastest at the moment.
Modern Video Cards
Video card manufacturers, up until a couple of years ago, made cards available for every slot. Recently the PCI card has been dropped from production as it is too slow compared to modern cards. The frame-rate while playing video games, for example, is the lowest compared to AGP and PCIe.
ATI Radeon Video Cards
ATI Radeon cards come in different variations. The newest models are all HD-based models. If you have an HD-TV then you will experience the same sort of effect on your computer when playing games as you do when watching television. These newer cards come with a lot of memory. When purchasing a card, get one of the better ones that have at least 1 gigabyte of memory on it. The newer models also have crossfire technology. This technology allows multiple cards to hook into each other making the two cards work as one to boost the system’s graphics capability. One of the nice things about the new cards is that you can use an HDMI-cable to connect one to a DVD player or your TV. This allows you to watch movies or play games in High Definition on your TV through the video card.
Older Radeon Cards
If your computer is a little older, you will want to consider looking for a slightly older Radeon video card. Good video cards to look are the Radeon 9500 and higher. These are decent cards, but playing brand new games on the cards might be a problem, as not all new games support older type cards. The Radeon 9550 series is the bigger brother of the 9500 series cards.
Installing a Radeon Video Card
When installing the drivers for the older video cards you might see a different name displayed than the actual name of the video card . This is not a problem, as a lot of 9550 and 9500 cards are the same as an x1000 card after upgrading the firmware. Many of the cards will have a different name on the box along with the Radeon name. The name is the only difference as the cards are all the same.
Always install the driver disc that comes with the card. Sometimes there are problems when installing the disc. The solution for these problems can usually be solved by logging into the manufacturer’s website and downloading the newest driver from there.
