nVidia

nVidia was founded in 1993 by two Sun Microsystems engineers along with microprocessor designer Jen-Hsun Huang. As their success in the computer graphics industry grew, they began to absorb many smaller graphics card companies, until ATI was practically the only competitor left. In addition to graphics processors, nVidia produces PC chipsets, digital media playing software and processors for wireless communication. nVidia cards are used in popular video game consoles Xbox and PlayStation3. Unlike ATI, which sells its graphics cards directly to consumers, nVidia graphics boards are sold to other manufacturers who produce nVidia video cards.

When it comes to nVidia graphics cards, the make to know is GeForce for gaming. If you need your best video output for games and you’re working with nVidia, you want a GeForce card. If design or digital content creation is your thing, you may need a Quadro card.

ATI

ATI Technologies, which began as Array Technologies Incorporated, has been pioneering graphics cards since 1985. They are particularly renowned for their groundbreaking work in 3D accelerator technology. In 2006, ATI was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and renamed AMD Graphics Product Group. However, due to brand recognition, the video cards still retain the name ATI. ATI’s counterpart to the nVidia GeForce is the Radeon video card.

nVidia vs. ATI

So which is better? Ask ten computer graphics experts and you will get ten different answers. On some level, this is a matter of personal preference. However, many experts agree that nVidia cards tend to have more memory, while ATI cards tend to be faster, and this usually means that nVidia cards are preferable for gaming while ATI cards are better for other video functions. That being said, many ATI Radeon cards are still ideal for gaming purposes, and many people feel that ATI cards provide a better cost-to-value ratio. If you get a video card with a sufficient GPU and enough memory for your needs, you very likely will not even notice a difference between an ATI Radeon card and an nVIdia GeForce card.

Also, ATI cards are red and nVidia cards are green.

Low-Cost Gaming Video Cards

If you’re looking for a decent card but don’t have a lot of money to spend, try the Radeon HD 4650. These relatively cheap video cards consistently rate high in performance while providing an excellent upgrade from a motherboard that uses integrated graphics. For just a bit more in price, you’ll find the nVidiaA GeForce 9600 GSO will probably meet your gaming needs. You’ll discover an exciting gaming enhancement as well as a video card that can deliver flawless graphics when playing HD movies and Blu-Ray discs.

Mid-Price Video Cards

In the medium pricing range there are several quality graphics cards to meet your needs. The Radeon HD 4850 1GB offers excellent performance for most games. As this card becomes harder to find, the Radeon HD 4750 and 4770 will be great alternatives for just a few dollars more. The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is another excellent mid-range choice. With versatility in resolution, memory and performance, this video card packs a powerful punch in the gaming world without breaking the bank.

High-End Video Cards

If you’re looking for a high end graphics card and have the money to pay a bit more for your product, try the Radeon HD 4890 in CrossFire configuration. If you have a CrossFire motherboard, this is a great choice that outperforms many other cards. The GeForce GTX 295 is another excellent choice with speed and power for your graphics needs. The Radeon HD 5970 is another powerful card, considered the fastest on the planet. If you’re willing to pay, today’s graphics cards provide resolution, power and a visual experience that has to be seen to be believed.

Keep in mind that when you make your graphics card choice, you’ll want a product that will serve your needs over time. You might not consider performance an issue today, but your needs could change at any point. As computer capabilities become more complex and use more of the resources at hand, you might want to consider an upgrade to prepare for more usage. Finding a graphics card for your computer doesn’t have to be a chore. With a little research, you can find the right product and enjoy the visual clarity you want or need.

ATI Radeon Video Cards

The mainstream flagship line of graphics processors from ATI is the Radeon family of video cards. Utilizing cutting edge microprocessor technology and impressive memory and speed, they run the gamut from budget low-end units to top-of-the-line, high end GPUs. From casual gaming and image manipulation all the way up to high definition media rendering and graphics modeling work, they can handle most anything that you throw at them. A decent Radeon HD 5450 will cover light computing loads. For the average computer user, an HD 5570 or 5750 would likely suffice for the majority of tasks.

High End ATI Video Cards

At the upper end of the market, the Radeon HD 5980 is tough to beat in performance terms. There is also the Crossfire arrangement which is a direct response to nVidia’s dual Graphics Card SLI offering. It allows users to implement from two to four ATI graphics cards simultaneously, to maximize output for applications that require a lot of computing power, or for supporting output to multiple monitors. For those who are looking for a more “all-in-one” graphics card solution, the appropriately named All-In-Wonder Video Card combines a typical graphics card with a TV tuner card that’s ideal for home multimedia center PCs.

Older ATI Video Cards

If you have an older PC that you’d like to reinvigorate with a suitable card, the now discontinued Rage and Mach series of ATI video cards can add some pep to your computer. Models such as these that are now considered somewhat obsolete have the advantage of being far cheaper as they’re no longer in high demand.

Newer PC models require advanced Radeon chips to deliver high performance graphics. Whether you’re retooling an aging computer or maxing out a brand new one, ATI video cards deliver incredible value and reliability for a very reasonable price. As far as bang for your buck is concerned, they’re a tough product to beat.

1. ATI Radeon High Definition 5870

ATI’s Radeon 5800 chipsets represent some of the most significant leaps in video card overall performance found in quite a long time. The High Definition 5870 has very comfortably taken the top spot with regard to single-GPU overall performance, as well as holding its own versus most of the dual-GPU cards available on the market. The High Definition 5870 offers one gigabyte of GDDR5 plus a central clock velocity of 850MHz, in addition to complete support for Direct X Eleven. It’s bigger than your standard video card and will take up two slots inside your computer system. Although you will find cheaper cards that will most likely get the job done, this card is fairly reasonably-priced for the amount of value it delivers.

2. ATI Radeon High Definition 5850

The second card introduced in Radeon’s 5800 collection is the High Definition 5850. Even though slightly slower than the High Definition 5870, it’s got the majority of the same functions, including Eyefinity, DX11, super-sample anti-aliasing, high-definition multimedia interface bit-streaming, and one gigabyte of GDDR5 memory space. In addition to being more affordable than the High Definition 5870, 5850s need much less energy and also are usually not as long. Similar to the GTX 285 in speed, these cards are a fantastic offer at the moment, however, they are selling fast.

3. ATI Radeon High Definition 5970

Radeon’s dual-GPU beast would be the High Definition 5970, which appeared in the later part of 2009 and quickly established itself as the fastest video card in the marketplace.Using the HD 5970 is nearly equivalent to operating two High Definition 5870s in CrossFire, although motherboards and memory space are not clocked as fast, mainly to help keep energy usage under control. The card may draw close to 300W, and also offers both the 6-pin and an 8-pin reliable connector. The actual High Definition 5970 makes use of a single PCB, and the end result is an extremely long external card which will only go with your larger towers. There is sufficient processing with this card for the biggest computer monitors, however, this card will generally come in way above the typical video card budget.

Your Gaming Video Card

Download the proper drivers needed for your card. Next, make sure your motherboard is compatible for the type of card that you want. (PCIe video cards won‘t work with AGP or PCI slots).You will want to take into account the amount of memory the card holds. Video cards usually hold from 128MB to 4GB. 256 MB is considered the minimum requirement for most games today. However, 512 MB is rapidly becoming the standard.

Gaming Video Card Frame Rate

One of the most important aspects of searching for a video card is frame rate, which basically denotes how many frames can be displayed by your system per second. Most people and websites use this as the basis for how good a graphics card is, which is understandable, considering this determines how fast the visual information is displayed. The faster the frame rate, the more expensive the card. Having the proper chipsets for your gaming experience is a good idea as well. Two major companies make 3D graphics cards for the public ( independent companies develop them, too, but these two publishers are more widely known). ATI and nVidia are the leaders in gaming video cards. Some games play better with ATI and others play better with nVidia. Another point of interest is the amount of power the card uses. Gaming video cards are made to use a lot of power. Some even come with external power hookups.

Gaming Video Card Price

A category which is most important to consumers is usually price, which will vary widely among video cards. An example of a great deal for a lower end video card might be the BFG GeForce 9600 GT at $79. It has 512MB of memory and plays High Definition and DirectX Microsoft games. If you’re looking for a higher-end model, the BFG GeForce GTX 295 at $474 has 1792MB and runs with the power of two 200 series GTX’s. It’s basically quadruple the power of the 9600 video card. It’s important to know what kind of gaming you are going to want to do when you search for a new card. That will determine a lot of the other factors. Games that require very high resolution will require a more expensive card for the complete playing experience. Whatever you do, always make sure your gaming video card is compatible with your system and preferred games.

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.

In order for a computer to display a video, the video itself must be in some sort of digital format. Most of today’s camcorders do this already, they save their movies in the form of a digital video or DV file. This file is transferred to the computer’s hard drive by connecting a USB or IEE1394 Firewire cable to the camera and computer and downloading the file contents.

However, analog video, which is basically any video that is stored in a form other than a digital file, must be converted to a digital form that the computer can understand. This is done by the use of a video capture card.

In essence, a video capture card transfers the analog video to digital video by taking several pictures of the movie each second. For standard U.S. movie capture rates the capture card takes approximately 29.9 digital pictures per second. When the movie is played back on a computer or DVD, these pictures are displayed at the same rate having the effect of moving pictures or motion video.

Types of Video Capture Cards

There are several different types of video cards based on how they connect to the computer and what functions they perform. Some computer graphics cards, that is the cards that are responsible for the display on your monitor, actually have video capture hardware built into them so they can perform both functions. Other popular types of video capture cards capture the file in various compressed formats.

The MPEG format for example, provides high quality video at a much smaller file size, but it requires a “Compression-Decompression” or CODEC process. For many computers, performing this task in addition to taking 29.9 high quality pictures per second is too much of a workload for the processor resulting in a variety of performance problems. Capture cards with the CODEC “built in” perform this process before the file is loaded into the computer, alleviating the performance load on the CPU and providing for a high quality digital video.

Types of Video Cards

There are several different types of video cards, one of which is a 3D graphics card. This card will suit most average gamers and computer users. It will give you the smooth graphics you need and want for your gaming and internet needs. At one time there were very few options on the types of cards you could purchase. PCI, which stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect, is an older type which was slowly replaced with the AGP. AGP stands for Accelerate Graphisc Port which can go from 1X to 8X acceleration with only a few changes made to your computer. However, there is a new type that has been developed in the last few years which is the newest and best type of slot. These are the SLI (Scalable Link Interface) this type of slot will accept both PCI and AGP cards to be inserted into the same computer system which allows the gamers to experience better graphics and is pretty much a dream come true for the true gamer out there. The price on these cards start at around $30.00 for the PCI cards but goes up sharply for the newer and more sophisticated SLI cards. Always consider the cheaper card before spending more money on the more expensive cards. Less means more in the case of the cheaper video card.

Are cheap video cards worth the money? Yes, they are worth it. You can get a decent video card at a decent price that will fulfill all your gaming needs and with the money leftover you can buy more games for your computer. The video card that you buy will make any game perform better and will make you very happy that you chose to purchase the new card.

Having a card that can seamlessly support all of your computer activities is the most important factor when you go shopping for a video card, with cost being a close, almost equal, second. All video cards allow you to surf the web, read email, watch normal video (no HD, high resolution or anything else fancy) and perform all other minor tasks that don’t tax your computer’s resources. But for the more complicated computer functions and programs you may be into, you’re going to need a card built to handle the stress. A good way to find such a card is to look up online reviews by people who have the card or type of card you are looking for. If you’re into video editing and animation then you will want to find forums that are built and run by people with similar interests. This way you can learn from their experience and failures.

Consider Cost Before Buying a Video Card

The cost of the card that you eventually purchase is second in importance to how well it functions. Depending on your financial situation, it may be a close second but functionality will always be slightly higher on the list. This is because certain cards simply cannot perform some of the tasks that are required to edit video, run high resolution or run 3D models, your system would stutter and slow down heavily or just lock up entirely. Sometimes you’re just going to have to shell out the cash necessary to get the video card that you need and then make the card last as long as possible.

Due to constant advancements in the field of computer hardware and software, technology that is new today will quickly become outdated and eventually antiquated. Finding a video card that is supported by monthly driver updates and fast, accurate customer service will prevent you from wasting your money on a video card that quickly losses its edge and functionality compared to other cards. Again, this is where an online forum dedicated to video cards comes in handy because you may find posts that compare the video card you have to another card you are considering buying or an update to the card you have compared to the latest patch. Reviewing these kinds of posts can prevent you from making a costly financial mistake or jumping to an update that does not benefit your card for the purposes you use it for.

Here’s a synopsis of their anaylsis, you can read the full story here

Some great AMD launches last month, including some new products targeted towards different types of users:

• Radeon HD 5450
• Radeon HD 5570
• Radeon HD 5830

Of these 3 video cards, only the 5570 and 5830 serve a gamers purpose, although from a gaming standpoint only the Radeon HD 5830 stands out.

The price is around $250 (street price may be lower – see graphics card pricing)

On other Radeon cards, Tom’s offers some great advice on the mid-range Radeo HD 5850 price to performance ratio – “with no real competition, the Radeon HD 5850 is actually getting even more expensive. It’s now around $320, when only a month ago some of these cards were selling for $290. The ultra high-end Radeon HD 5970 has even skyrocketed to $700.” Sounds like we should give that one a miss!!

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