Ati Video
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Many people that build their own computers do so for several different reasons. Primarily, they do it because they find it interesting, fun, and challenging. Another major benefit, however, is the ability to customize your PC to your specific needs.
A good number of people that build their own computers do so with gaming specifically in mind. The purpose of the new machine is important to know before you start out, because it will directly affect which components you select for the new system. For gaming computers, the single most important component is the video card.
Choosing the right card is very important, and can be a difficult decision. Though there are only two companies that produce Graphics Processing Units (GPUs,) there are literally thousands of video cards on the market. They vary wildly in both price and functionality, so the challenge is getting the best performance without wasting any money.
Why the Video Card is Important
Most computer games today rely on high-detail 3D graphics, large textures, heavy effects, and fast action. All of these features are very processor-intensive, and can slow down even the fastest system. This is where the GPU comes in.
A dedicated video card is able to offload the processing of 3D effects and rendering to the GPU, a dedicated piece of hardware optimized specifically for carrying out these kinds of instructions. The GPU is much more efficient than a Central Processing Unit (CPU) at calculating geometry and storing/loading textures. This makes performance in games much better and faster, as it also frees up CPU cycles to work on other things.
Connecting Your Video Card
For nearly the past two decades, there has been the question of what type of connector to select for connecting the card to your motherboard. In the 90's and early 2000's, motherboards often featured two different types of expansion slot connectors, AGP and PCI. AGP was the preferred connector for graphics, and motherboards almost exclusively offered only one AGP slot.
During the mid-2000's sometime, the PCI-e bus was developed, which offered four times the bandwidth of the AGP bus. At this point, standard PCI video cards were rendered obsolete, and the question became, "which slot type does your board feature, AGP or PCI-e?"
At the time of this writing, new developments have led to the PCI-e 2.0 bus, which now remains the uncontested standard for video cards. AGP is essentially deprecated, and though board still feature PCI slots, they exist only for connecting legacy devices.
The GPU: ATI or nVidia
As stated before, there are only two companies that produce mainstream video card GPUs: ATI and nVidia. These two companies, however, do not sell video cards directly. They sell the GPUs and architecture to third parties that then manufacture video cards to sell to the consumer. So essentially, you not only have to select a GPU company, but also a company that builds video cards. You should research specific video card manufacturers for yourself, but some notable quality builders are EVGA, XFX, and GIGABYTE.
With the GPU, there is really no clear-cut superior company. There are many that swear by nVidia, and others that claim they will only use ATI GPUs. Each company has its ups and downs, but their offerings, in terms of quality and features, are almost always very comparable. Research each GPU extensively and determine which offers specific features that suit your needs. If either of them seems sufficient, make your decision based on price.
When comparing video cards, be sure to take into account the GPU generation. GPUs are released in generations about once, sometimes twice per year, and are usually numbered incrementally. Typically a generation model number will be something like "GS 500 series" with individual card models looking something like, "GS 560," and, "GS 570." Higher numbers almost universally represent a newer or more advanced GPU, but each company follows their own model naming scheme, so make sure you understand the GPU naming scheme before drawing your conclusions.
SLI and Crossfire
Both nVidia SLI and ATI Crossfire are technologies that have been around for about five years, and accomplish pretty much identical goals. Both SLI and Crossfire allow you to connect multiple video cards (sometimes up to four) together to split processing load between GPUs and improve performance.
In order to run SLI/Crossfire, you must have two identical video cards that support operating in these modes, as well as a motherboard that supports them. SLI/Crossfire can be a great way to improve gaming performance, but also increases the cost of your system substantially, so you will have to decide if the performance gains are worth it to you.
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