The Graphics Card FAQ - computer help forum

Introduction:

The world of graphics cards is constantly changing, even faster than the rest of the computer industry. This is intended to be a guide to what's on offer at the minute. This guide will be kept up to date if possible, but will inevitably fall behind slightly. Last update:August 13th 2008.

The sections below are divided into integrated graphics processors, low end, mid range, high end and ultra high end cards, with a short explanation at the end of each. First, there is a Jargon section, explaining most terms used in this guide and by hardware manufacturers.

Jargon

ATI
ATI, recently bought by AMD, is a manufacturer of graphics card chips. These chips are added to other video cards and resold by other manufacturers – for example, you may see an Asus ATI or AMD Radeon HD3850 - this is an ATI/AMD Radeon HD3850, branded, packaged and produced by Asus.

Nvidia
Nvidia is ATI's rival graphics card manufacturer. Similarly, its cards are rebranded, repackaged and sold by other manufacturers, very seldom by Nvidia themselves.

GPU
GPU stands for Graphics processing unit - it's the chip on a graphics card that does all the work.

PCI-E (PCI Express)
The newest interface for graphics cards. It offers high bandwidth, meaning higher-performance cards. Most new cards available today are for PCI-E. Also sometimes abbreviated as PCI-X, although this is incorrect.

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port)
This is the older interface for graphics cards. It provides less bandwidth than PCI-E, and is largely superseded by PCI-E now. Some graphics cards are still made for AGP, but not many. The newest cards are usually only for PCI-E. The best card currently available for this interface is the AGP version of the ATI/AMD HD3850 512MB.

SLI (Scalable Link Interface)
This is Nvidia's technology to use two or more graphics cards together for increased performance. All you need are two fairly recent (6600 or newer) identical Nvidia cards and a motherboard that supports SLI.

Crossfire
This is ATI's technology to use two or more graphics cards together for increased performance. A Crossfire capable motherboard must be used.

DX10
DirectX 10. This is the newest in Microsoft's DirectX software series. It allows for better, more realistic graphics, but only the newest cards support this. Windows Vista is also necessary, as no other operating system supports DirectX10 at this point. ATI/AMD Cards with a HD in front, or from the Geforce 8, 9 or GTX 280/260 families support DX10.

DDR2 memory
Double Data Rate v2 memory. This is standard system RAM, used on low end video cards as video memory. Cards using this memory will be quite slow.

GDDR memory
Graphics Double Data Rate memory. Currently, there are GDDR3, GDDR4 and GDDR5 variations on the market. Newer versions may be slightly faster than older versions.

Graphics cards[/strong
Below is a list of graphics cards, from highest to lowest performance. This is not comprehensive, but covers most common cards from late 2005 onwards. For more information about the cards from the manufacturer, click the card's name.