Female: I was learning about upgrading my computer and I was told that this was before you came along and I had to get a video card because I am already upgrading, so if you upgrade one part, usually you have to upgrade the next part which is also the video, and whoever was on the phone with. They obviously knew I did not know what the heck I was looking for; right and the guy told me to get the radian card.
And then the next guy when I got it I came back and I was trying to install my own memory, this is scary that I was doing this. They keep telling me to add more things. As I started doing the memory, they were like, you need o do this too because the memory will not run so good if you do not do this.
So, the second guy I was in the phone with, he is like, he did tell you to buy radian did he? And they were just so like opposite views of the video card. The video card was such a big deal.
Male: MD, Intel and video ATI, windows Mac it is all…
Female: They were just like loving their own and hating the other and that is absolutely like no in between.
Male: That flip-flops. There was a time that I love video because I have the best driver support, fastest video card out there and then ATI got together. And as far as windows are concerned, ATI is far more stable.
Female: What does that mean?
Male: It works better. Windows works better, but on Linux and video actually works better than ATI. This story comes out of a question that horrific one asked a couple of weeks ago about finding a low budget video card, so we started talking about what a video card is. Basically, it helps you on your video on the screen, and video cards are actually very important beyond game. Gamers care more about video cards because the better video card the faster it runs.
But now, Vista is shifted there is a lot more 3D acceleration happening. It is not just the size of the monitors it is the resolution of the monitors. There are a lot of pixels that the computer has to be able to manage and the higher the video card is going to be. I had to make sure that before I have this monitors before I got this monitors that the video cards will be able to support it.
Female: I have a question, so if you upgrade your video card and you get this awesome video card because there is so much more information being transferred, do you have to also have an equally fast processor or do you have to upgrade the processor when you upgrade the video card, because it does not have to move that information?
Male: Yes, well the beauty of the video card is that it uploads a lot of that working…CPU does a lot of computer, it does the processing and it figures everything out. Having a video card, having this extra hard work it takes a lot of the load off of the CPU and it puts in to the video card. So, in theory, you can upgrade your video card without having to upgrade your CPU at the same time. And that being said, of course the faster the CPU goes the faster your system is going to be more responsive it is going to be. So now, it is getting to the point where hard drives are typically the bubble like because it is physical media.
If you got a processor honestly, if you got something that is a Pentium four or above, the video card is going to be able to take advantage of a faster CPU but, you do not have to really upgrade your CPU at the same time you upgrade your video card.
The question that is driven towards a budget video card and the way video card is get whatever you can afford to get. And that has always been the same thing for any part of your computer. Get what you can afford to get.
Female: Even if you are going to have to upgrade in six months, because you are setting changes again…
Male: Gamers are the only real computer users who care about upgrading their video cards every six months. The average person, when they buy their computer, the video card that comes with it they are just happy with it.
And that being said, my dad was playing a lot of Microsoft flight simulator and he was not getting very fast, the graphics were slow, and it turns out that his computer had a video card that was built into the computer itself or on the mother board.
And so, what we did was we got a newer video card. It did not cost too much but that was a better experience for him in what he was trying to play a faster, and a better game for flight simulator.
Now, how do you decide if you go in video or ATI or even Intel for the video card? That is what web is good for, because you can search for bench marks. Specifically bench marks against the thing that you are trying to use. So if you are doing a lot of AutoCAD work doing a lot of 3D rendering certain video cards is going to work better than others.
And if you are doing a lot of gaming certain video cards are going to perform better. But then, there is also the component and software, software is a big deal. Like I said, and video is not working very well.
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