I was thinking of buying a computer from walmart and wanted to buy a graphics card as well. How do I know it will work with that computer?
How do I know which graphics cards work with which computers?
Check the power supply requirements of the card against the computer's power supply, and check to make sure the computer has an expansion slot that matches the card - AGP, or PCI Express.
Reply:Santa-tude is right.
Reply:You would definitely have to do more research than rely on the information from the price tag.
Many lower end computer, to cut costs, will leave out the 16x PCI-x port. The best place to look would probably be online. The only other place I can think to check this out is the computer box itself. Look for something along the lines of graphics port or video card upgradeable or something else along those lines.
You may also have to ask.
Good luck!
Reply:Why don't you come back with a new thread, and tell us what computers at Wally World, you're looking at, and what you expect out of the graphics card? Is it for gamin'? Better go for a computer with plenty of processor power/speed, and it should have at least a PCI-Express x16 slot,and a 400+ watt power supply minimum. Walk through the gamin' isle, pick up some games you'd like to run. Look at the end of the carton for system requirements. Match these to the prospective computer you're looking at.
Reply:In addition to the first post, check to see if you have a low-profile desktop, or standard. What operating system you have (Some wal-marts sell Linux based desktops) and most importantly: How much you want to spend, and what you want to do with your card. Most desktops sold at wal-mart are low-end systems. They won't be great for gaming, so buying a high end game card would be a waste of money, and might even cost more then the entire system alone.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
How can you tell the difference between two graphics cards?
My dad is being stupid an saying that there is no way to tell when a graphics card would be better than another.
...i know that there is a way...but am not sure how to put it into words...
Plz be informative, clear, and understanding...10pts to best answer
How can you tell the difference between two graphics cards?
You have to look at all the specs of the entire card, and understand how they relate to each other. More memory doesn't make it a better card. A 1GB 8500GT will still lose every performance benchmark compared to the 512MB 8800GT. Just because its an Nvidia card doesn't mean its going to perform better then an AMD card. The same 8500GT would lose every performance benchmark if you compare it to the 3850.
For current cards, the things to look for are number of shaders, clock speeds for Shaders, Core, and memory, memory bus width, and core used in the GPU. Realize however that you can't compare stats directly if they come from different companies, or even different lines in the same company. AMD cards have many more shaders then Nvidia, but they are clocked much slower. (not to mention that AMD shaders work differently then Nvidia shaders.)
In some ways, you are each both right. Dad is right, you can't just look at two cards, or their stats, and know which is better. On the other hand, if you look at this stuff long enough, you will start to be able to tell how well something will perform if someone tells you the stats of the card.
Reply:The problem in explaining to your dad is I bet, he is not familiar with the technobabble of pixel shaders and frame rates or rendering capabilities. He probably just figures that if you have a good video picture its good enough.
The only real way you can tell what the performance is, is to use a benchmarking software that tests all of the many technical abilties of the card(s). Just saying this card puts out a higher frame rate than another card, really isn't going to mean a thing to your dad.
Instead, you need to approach this from the standpoint of what you want to do with the specific video card and why the others won't work (as well). I presume that you want to play a specific game(s) which require certain bus speeds, GPU speeds, frame rates. The best thing I think you can do is go to the game sites and look up the game you want to play, find out what the requirements are for the video for that game and then show your dad that you need to have that graphics capability if you need to play that game.
Even benchmarks are not going to convince him, he needs to understand that certain games will not play well or at all without specific graphics capabilities. I think this is the best way to sell him on the idea, if he is going to be sold at all.
you might want to leave some questions on some game forums and see if you can get other gamers to tell you which cards they are using for what games.
Well, that's the best I can do, i think, in answering your question.
PS - I bet your dad is looking at the money, which you may not be aware of all his bills and financial situation, it may not square with him to spend, let's say $500 on a top of the line graphics card when he could make a car payment with that.
You have to see his point, is what I am trying to say. I am just guessing here...Well, good luck.
Reply:first I do not agree that you call your dad a stupid
The best way to tell which one is better search by the card name and look for comments from customers, in forums and bloggers .... sometimes you get lucky and get a video on any where you can see the product that you are asking about and check for its performance ....
Also ask in your area, friends, mall, ....cuz the weather and temp is differ from one place to an other and that may affect the performance
Reply:The highest number of mb that is with the name of the graphics card is the better graphics card. Also, nVidia Geforce graphics cards are higher end than most graphics cards.
Reply:what graphics card are you comparing?
Help for melasma
...i know that there is a way...but am not sure how to put it into words...
Plz be informative, clear, and understanding...10pts to best answer
How can you tell the difference between two graphics cards?
You have to look at all the specs of the entire card, and understand how they relate to each other. More memory doesn't make it a better card. A 1GB 8500GT will still lose every performance benchmark compared to the 512MB 8800GT. Just because its an Nvidia card doesn't mean its going to perform better then an AMD card. The same 8500GT would lose every performance benchmark if you compare it to the 3850.
For current cards, the things to look for are number of shaders, clock speeds for Shaders, Core, and memory, memory bus width, and core used in the GPU. Realize however that you can't compare stats directly if they come from different companies, or even different lines in the same company. AMD cards have many more shaders then Nvidia, but they are clocked much slower. (not to mention that AMD shaders work differently then Nvidia shaders.)
In some ways, you are each both right. Dad is right, you can't just look at two cards, or their stats, and know which is better. On the other hand, if you look at this stuff long enough, you will start to be able to tell how well something will perform if someone tells you the stats of the card.
Reply:The problem in explaining to your dad is I bet, he is not familiar with the technobabble of pixel shaders and frame rates or rendering capabilities. He probably just figures that if you have a good video picture its good enough.
The only real way you can tell what the performance is, is to use a benchmarking software that tests all of the many technical abilties of the card(s). Just saying this card puts out a higher frame rate than another card, really isn't going to mean a thing to your dad.
Instead, you need to approach this from the standpoint of what you want to do with the specific video card and why the others won't work (as well). I presume that you want to play a specific game(s) which require certain bus speeds, GPU speeds, frame rates. The best thing I think you can do is go to the game sites and look up the game you want to play, find out what the requirements are for the video for that game and then show your dad that you need to have that graphics capability if you need to play that game.
Even benchmarks are not going to convince him, he needs to understand that certain games will not play well or at all without specific graphics capabilities. I think this is the best way to sell him on the idea, if he is going to be sold at all.
you might want to leave some questions on some game forums and see if you can get other gamers to tell you which cards they are using for what games.
Well, that's the best I can do, i think, in answering your question.
PS - I bet your dad is looking at the money, which you may not be aware of all his bills and financial situation, it may not square with him to spend, let's say $500 on a top of the line graphics card when he could make a car payment with that.
You have to see his point, is what I am trying to say. I am just guessing here...Well, good luck.
Reply:first I do not agree that you call your dad a stupid
The best way to tell which one is better search by the card name and look for comments from customers, in forums and bloggers .... sometimes you get lucky and get a video on any where you can see the product that you are asking about and check for its performance ....
Also ask in your area, friends, mall, ....cuz the weather and temp is differ from one place to an other and that may affect the performance
Reply:The highest number of mb that is with the name of the graphics card is the better graphics card. Also, nVidia Geforce graphics cards are higher end than most graphics cards.
Reply:what graphics card are you comparing?
Help for melasma
Is there any advantage using two 512mb graphics cards over one 1Gb card?
Say for example you had two 512mb SLI graphics cards, would that be faster, better than just having a single 1gb graphics card? Assuming they're the same in terms of spec in every way, i'm just wondering if dual cards work like dual processors and increase performance not only because of their size but the fact there're two of them.
Is there any advantage using two 512mb graphics cards over one 1Gb card?
Yes it would be faster because of the dual gpu's, not because of the RAM. It may not be much faster though, and it could very much be overkill. Many cards can max out every setting by themselves, and other times dual cards only increase performance when running extremely high resolution, and then only a little sometimes. If you look around at benchmarks for dual setups, many times they only increase performance by 10-15%. I know for sure that a single 8600gt is way more pwerful than two 8400's, and the 8800gts is much much more powerful than two 8600's.
The amount of RAM doesnt have much to do with general performance, but it does effect overall.
A slow gpu with alot of RAM will suck, but a powerful gpu with only a small amount of RAM could be literally several times more powerful.
The great thing about modern cards is that they can use system RAM in addition to the onboard, and man can it make a difference.
I have a laptop with the ATI x1600 128mb with hypermemory (fancy word for shares system RAM) and the amount of system RAM allocated makes a huge difference.
When I had 1gb of RAM there was no system RAM allocated for the card, and my games suffered. In BF2 I only got 1-2fps on highest settings, but as soon as I upgraded to 1.5gb RAM the system allocated an entire 512mb of system RAM and now BF2 plays at anywhere from 45-60 fps on highest settings. Now that I upgraded to 2gb, it has 763mb of RAM allocated, and it runs freakin awesome.
After my experience with this card, I would not hesitate to go with a card with lower RAM as long as I had extra system RAM. The savings could be significant. A gb of RAM is less than $50, but most cards with alot of RAM are more than that, just look at the difference in price between the low RAM 8800 series and the high RAM versions, its $200 in some cases.
Reply:If they had the same GPU core then you would get a speed advantage using SLi, but that can depend on the drivers you use.
Reply:2 GPUs are faster than 1 GPU. It isn't just about the video memory...
"i'm just wondering if dual cards work like dual processors and increase performance" - Absolutely right!!!
Reply:they all use the same buses , so makes no odds about if they are on 1 / 2 ports. as said before.. more about the gpu's
so say you had ONE card that supported 2 gpu chips, would be fast..
SLI doesn't warrent me getting a new MOBO anyway. I didn't think the FPS in games was that much higher.
Reply:I would simply say that then if one card lost data, you wouldnt loose everything, if it was spread across two cards
Reply:Toms Hardware has some excellent info on this. (and on most other things gpu related). Have a look here...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454...
Is there any advantage using two 512mb graphics cards over one 1Gb card?
Yes it would be faster because of the dual gpu's, not because of the RAM. It may not be much faster though, and it could very much be overkill. Many cards can max out every setting by themselves, and other times dual cards only increase performance when running extremely high resolution, and then only a little sometimes. If you look around at benchmarks for dual setups, many times they only increase performance by 10-15%. I know for sure that a single 8600gt is way more pwerful than two 8400's, and the 8800gts is much much more powerful than two 8600's.
The amount of RAM doesnt have much to do with general performance, but it does effect overall.
A slow gpu with alot of RAM will suck, but a powerful gpu with only a small amount of RAM could be literally several times more powerful.
The great thing about modern cards is that they can use system RAM in addition to the onboard, and man can it make a difference.
I have a laptop with the ATI x1600 128mb with hypermemory (fancy word for shares system RAM) and the amount of system RAM allocated makes a huge difference.
When I had 1gb of RAM there was no system RAM allocated for the card, and my games suffered. In BF2 I only got 1-2fps on highest settings, but as soon as I upgraded to 1.5gb RAM the system allocated an entire 512mb of system RAM and now BF2 plays at anywhere from 45-60 fps on highest settings. Now that I upgraded to 2gb, it has 763mb of RAM allocated, and it runs freakin awesome.
After my experience with this card, I would not hesitate to go with a card with lower RAM as long as I had extra system RAM. The savings could be significant. A gb of RAM is less than $50, but most cards with alot of RAM are more than that, just look at the difference in price between the low RAM 8800 series and the high RAM versions, its $200 in some cases.
Reply:If they had the same GPU core then you would get a speed advantage using SLi, but that can depend on the drivers you use.
Reply:2 GPUs are faster than 1 GPU. It isn't just about the video memory...
"i'm just wondering if dual cards work like dual processors and increase performance" - Absolutely right!!!
Reply:they all use the same buses , so makes no odds about if they are on 1 / 2 ports. as said before.. more about the gpu's
so say you had ONE card that supported 2 gpu chips, would be fast..
SLI doesn't warrent me getting a new MOBO anyway. I didn't think the FPS in games was that much higher.
Reply:I would simply say that then if one card lost data, you wouldnt loose everything, if it was spread across two cards
Reply:Toms Hardware has some excellent info on this. (and on most other things gpu related). Have a look here...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454...
What are the best graphics cards out there?
I've been playing around in graphics mostly with PSP9 and a little PhotoShop. I recently wanted to check out Entropia Universe and couldnt because my Intel 82810E graphics card isnt cutting it anymore. ( I'm so sure that I'm way out of date by now) Does anyone know whats the best I can get, and maybe whats the best at a cheap price so I can compare? I really have no idea what I need to look for in a card, or what the typical price is. Thanks in advance for any advice/opinions you might offer.
What are the best graphics cards out there?
the best card out today are nvidia's 8 series, their top of the line is the 8800GTX Ultra OC
Prices range from $300-$600
What are the best graphics cards out there?
the best card out today are nvidia's 8 series, their top of the line is the 8800GTX Ultra OC
Prices range from $300-$600
Whats the difference between 2 agp graphics cards?
I have been shopping around for graphics cards. I have an AGP slot so i need an AGP card but when i look at them some have 2 parts to go in to the AGP slot and other have 3. Is there a difference or can i use either. My AGP slot seems to have only 2 spaces. Can any1 help me? I hate technical stuff
Whats the difference between 2 agp graphics cards?
some cards just have that for some reason. As long as you know that its an AGP slot in your computer and the card is AGP then you'll have no problems.
Reply:The answer depends upon your particular motherboard. Older AGP cards ran on 3.3 volts and the more recent ones run on 1.5. Take a look at your AGP slot and compare it to these diagrams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agp#Compati...
This should help you figure out what you need. Basically, if the card will fit your AGP slot, then it should be fine. If your computer is only a few years old, then it should be a 1.5v slot. Just make sure the card you get is 1.5v compliant. Putting a 3.3v "universal" card into a 1.5v motherboard, even though it fits, will blow out your motherboard.
Reply:jen, nothing to be confused about,
as you saw, the first two of the parts that you've seen are the ones that slides into the slot, the back part of it, which sort of looks like a tail, doesn't get into AGP slot, its just to lock your card tight without moving where motherboard supports so.
Then again, the third part is simply nothing but a lock handle. Just go ahead and purchase your card and slide it in, you'd have no problems at all, and enjoy your new visual experience, good luck. hope my answer helped.
Reply:Difference between 1.5V AGP and .8V AGP:
http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html
Whats the difference between 2 agp graphics cards?
some cards just have that for some reason. As long as you know that its an AGP slot in your computer and the card is AGP then you'll have no problems.
Reply:The answer depends upon your particular motherboard. Older AGP cards ran on 3.3 volts and the more recent ones run on 1.5. Take a look at your AGP slot and compare it to these diagrams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agp#Compati...
This should help you figure out what you need. Basically, if the card will fit your AGP slot, then it should be fine. If your computer is only a few years old, then it should be a 1.5v slot. Just make sure the card you get is 1.5v compliant. Putting a 3.3v "universal" card into a 1.5v motherboard, even though it fits, will blow out your motherboard.
Reply:jen, nothing to be confused about,
as you saw, the first two of the parts that you've seen are the ones that slides into the slot, the back part of it, which sort of looks like a tail, doesn't get into AGP slot, its just to lock your card tight without moving where motherboard supports so.
Then again, the third part is simply nothing but a lock handle. Just go ahead and purchase your card and slide it in, you'd have no problems at all, and enjoy your new visual experience, good luck. hope my answer helped.
Reply:Difference between 1.5V AGP and .8V AGP:
http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html
Will graphics card makes make there graphics cards with less power usage?
Will graphics card makes make there graphics cards with less power usage but still a strong graphics card
Will graphics card makes make there graphics cards with less power usage?
yes, and those settings would also nuke your performance. If you cannot handle the power consumption get an older card or spend the 80 bucks and upgrade your power supply
Reply:Nope, but there are settings you can change. ; )
riding boots
Will graphics card makes make there graphics cards with less power usage?
yes, and those settings would also nuke your performance. If you cannot handle the power consumption get an older card or spend the 80 bucks and upgrade your power supply
Reply:Nope, but there are settings you can change. ; )
riding boots
What is the point of having 2 graphics cards?
is the point of having 2 graphics cards for dual screen gaming and do they have to be SLI?
What is the point of having 2 graphics cards?
Some video cards, are able to bridge together and become a "virtual" one. Most people have two video cards for compatibility or multi-screening. I myself have a quad screen setup. They don't have to be SLI. I have 2 Nvidia cards and and ATI and they work together even though they are all different types of cards.
SLI is only used to bridge as far as I know.
Reply:Having more than one graphics card means more graphical power. Basically, you are combining the power of both cards.
Yes, they have to be SLI.
Reply:for now YES! SLI is the new way to reach the pinnicle of maximum gaming. SLI basically makes it to where each card focuses on only half of the screen. In the same way it doubles your graphics. For now the cards have to be the same make and model. You can't have an 8800 with 8600 GT side support. Get SLI, you can find decent SLI cards at www.tigerdirect.com . If you decide to get SLI, make sure the motherboard and the graphics cards are SLI ready.
Reply:The POint?? To brag about your system. No one needs 2 of the latest graphics cards, cureetly to play games, but then, Its nice to have games go at 140fps!
What is the point of having 2 graphics cards?
Some video cards, are able to bridge together and become a "virtual" one. Most people have two video cards for compatibility or multi-screening. I myself have a quad screen setup. They don't have to be SLI. I have 2 Nvidia cards and and ATI and they work together even though they are all different types of cards.
SLI is only used to bridge as far as I know.
Reply:Having more than one graphics card means more graphical power. Basically, you are combining the power of both cards.
Yes, they have to be SLI.
Reply:for now YES! SLI is the new way to reach the pinnicle of maximum gaming. SLI basically makes it to where each card focuses on only half of the screen. In the same way it doubles your graphics. For now the cards have to be the same make and model. You can't have an 8800 with 8600 GT side support. Get SLI, you can find decent SLI cards at www.tigerdirect.com . If you decide to get SLI, make sure the motherboard and the graphics cards are SLI ready.
Reply:The POint?? To brag about your system. No one needs 2 of the latest graphics cards, cureetly to play games, but then, Its nice to have games go at 140fps!
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