When the first computer was created the only thing it did was calculations. It made very complicated calculations and at first they were only used by the military. After a period of time the computer started to be used in various domains. It has features that allow it to be used by anyone at any age. You can play games, watch movies, listen to music, create and record sounds, create graphic designs and many more.

Today, everyone has a computer in their home. As is said you can play games. And I mean that you can play really good games that make you believe that you are a part of the game. For this you need a very good video card one that is very new that supports the game you want to play. There are always new games that appear on the market and if you really want to play them you have to buy a very expensive video card. Of course, you can upgrade the one you have already but you have to make sure that your main board supports it.



In case your main board doesn’t support a newer version of a video card you have to buy a new one. It isn’t very expensive but if you keep in touch with all the technology you would probably have to buy a new computer every month. Companies make improvements to the components of computer every day and they invent things. A very impressive invention is 3D glasses. At first they were used only in cinemas but nowadays you can buy a pair and watch movies on your computer. Of course you need to have an advanced computer with an advanced video card.

Today the companies that battle for monopole in the market of computer video cards are ATI and NVIDIA. They are in a permanent evolvement and that is a very good thing because prices can stay somehow low. If there was only one company that had the monopole they could sell video cards at any price they wanted because there was no competition.



There are smaller names in this industry but they have a small rate and people don’t buy things from them because they know that if don’t have money they can’t afford to make them the best. We all know that ATI and NVIDIA make the best video cards there are today on the market.

Bottom line, if you like games very much and you want to play the new games you must have an advanced video card. Otherwise your computer won’t be able to support the new graphics and all the special effects that games have. Companies try to make better and better games for us to buy and they know that by doing that we will be forced to buy newer video cards too. For them it is a win-win situation.

A video card is also known as a video adapter. The function of a video card is too generate images that we can see on a screen. A lot of video cards have additional features such as accelerating 3D scenes. Others can be connected to different screens at the same time. The most important thing that a video card is made for is games.

When we buy a computer we want the best video card there is. If we use the computer only for music, pictures or talk to people online we don’t need a very advanced video card. If the main board has one incorporated it is as good as it gets. But, if we want to play a new game, an upgraded version of a game that we played before we definitely need an advanced video card.

The first video card ever made was back in 1981. It worked only in text mode but back then there weren’t movies made like today will all kind of special effects or 3D movies or too advanced computer games. It had 80 columns and 25 rows on the screen. The first video card was a MDA, meaning Monochrome Display Adapter. Trough the years the companies developed more and more advanced video cards. The VGA video cards were very quickly accepted on the market. This way, the others companies that made video cards were forced to make improvements to their video cards too.



In 1995 the number of people that bought a 2D/3D video card exploded. Everyone was impressed with what it can offer. Movies were like in the cinema and the games were very real. Today, the battle for dominancy is between ATI and NVIDIA and they control 90% of all the market. Smaller producers are forced to sell their products on a smaller scale.

A modern video card is made of circuits on which are mounted the components. These components are: the GPU, meaning the graphic processing unit, used for graphic acceleration required for the 3D pictures; the BIOS, which is the main program of the video card and it is usually hidden; this BIOS is the key component of the video card because it makes the connection between all the other components and between the video card and the computer. It offers instructions like information about the memory calendar, operation speed, RAM memory and other types of information.



The video memory is another component of the video card. Capacity of this component may vary between 128MB and 4GB but there are few video cards that have over 1 GB. The video memory can be used for other things like the picture on the screen or the Z-buffer that is connected to the 3D technology.

The bottom line is that technology evolves. Companies try to make better and better products for us to buy. Video cards are for those who love movies in 3D and games. Nowadays, there is technology that makes you believe that you are a part of the movie you see or that you are actually in a game. It creates a virtual world in which no one can see you but you can see everyone else.

When it comes to a smooth gaming experience, much of the work needed to deliver this is put in by a good Video Card. Sure, the RAM also have a say alongside the CPU performance, but there’s nothing more important than the fine and detailed rendered graphics of the game that makes it worth playing and easier to get into the action of it.

The best gaming video cards are usually top-notch technology that comes at a high price. But if you truly are passionate about videogames then you might overlook such high prices and turn to the innovative, sometime hard-to-believe feats a video card can punch.

The Radeon HD 5770, codenamed Juniper, is one notable mention in any list of best gaming video cards. Putting two of these together in CrossFire will result in an exceptional gaming experience. It has a 40nm processor, 1600 (2 x 800) universal shaders, 80 texture units (2 x 40) and a Memory Bus of 128-bit. All this along a Core speed of 850 MHz, a Memory speed of 1200 MHz (4800 effective), DirectX 11 support and integrated bitstreaming high-definition audio content from Blu-Ray movies make this video card one other would envy you for.



Even though it’s in a far higher price range than the one mentioned before, the Radeon HD 5970 is truly a monster among its kind, considering this is one of the fastest rendering hardware available out there for the standard PC. The 40nm processor supports 3200 universal shader, 160 texture units, 64 ROPs and a 256-bit Memory Bus. Its Core Speed is 725 MHz and has a Memory Speed of 1000 MHz. Also, it supports DirectX 11 and Shader Model 5.0. As I’ve mentioned before, this card is an outstanding feat when it comes to gaming video cards. But the price range is anywhere from 600$ to 700$, depending on the vendor.

If you want to go even further then that, then you’re stepping unto grounds that don’t hold account whatsoever for prices, energy consumption or heat caused by the video cards. The very best gaming video cards out there are Two GeForce GTX 480 1536MB in SLI.



Unlike the others mentioned above, this one has DirectX 11, CUDA™, and  NVIDIA® PhysX® technologies support and a 32x Anti-aliasing Technology.  One has a Graphics Clock of 700 MHz and a Processor Clock of 1401 MHz,  with a Texture Fill Rate of 42 billion per second! The Memory Clock is  at 1848 MHz with a Standard Memory Config of 1536 MB GDDR5. The Maximum  Digital Resolution is at 2560x1600 and its Maximum VGA Resolution at  2048x1536. Put two of these together and you’ll have no problem  whatsoever with this card in the near future, even though the price can  easily go up to 800$ - but it’s an investment you should be willing to  make if you’re crazy about games. But then again – you’ll have to ignore  the fact that your room might get warmer, and your electrical bill  slightly more expensive. But who cares about these things when you start  getting into the action of the game with those smooth edges, bright  blush colors and that perfect shadow always following you around.

World of Warcraft is one of the most known on-line game. It is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) from Blizzard. World of Warcraft (also referred to wow), holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG.

It has two expansions: the first one is the Burning Crusade which was released in 2007, and the second one Wrath of the Lich King which was released in 2008.



A third expansion called Cataclysm was announced in 2009 and it was tested in a closed beta version in June which will be released this year in November. Unfortunately this game is not for free. The Subscription options for World of Warcraft (in U.S dollars):

1 month: $14.99

3 months: $41.97 ($13.99 per month)

6 months: $77.94 ($12.99 per month)

If you really-really love this game, then you should subscribe, because there are no lags, sudden disconnections, and everything works properly.

So you are new to this game and you’re wondering if it will work with your video card? Let me tell you something before I’ll get into this. I played World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade expansion with a GeForce 2 and 64 MB video memory. Believe it or not, the graphics were great; I had no problem with it. I got level 70 without problems (regarding to the graphics).



Here is a list where you can check it out if World of Warcraft is compatible with your video card:

ATI:

Radeon 7200

Radeon 8500

Radeon 9000

Radeon 925

Radeon 9000 Series

Radeon X000 Series

Radeon X1000 Series

Radeon HD 2000 Series

Radeon HD 3000 Series

Radeon HD 4000 Series

Nvidia:

GeForce2 MX

GeForce2 MX400

GeForce2 GTS

GeForce2 Pro

GeForce3

GeForce4 series

GeForce FX 5000 series

GeForce 6000 series

GeForce 7000 series

GeForce 8000 Series

GeForce 9000 series

GTX 260

GTX 280

GeForce 6150 LE

GeForce 6150 SE

GeForce 7050

GeForce 8200

Intel:

82945G

G31/G33

G965

Mobile 965

G35

G41/G43

Unsupported video cards:

3dfx:

Voodoo Banshee

Voodoo Series

Voodoo 2 Series

Voodoo 3 Series

Voodoo 4 Series

Voodoo 5 Series

ATI:

3D (Charger / Pro Turbo / Xpression) Series

Rage (II / IIc / Pro) Series

Xpert (98 / @play / @work) Series

Rage 128 (Pro) Series

All in Wonder (Pro / Rage 128)

Rage MAXX

Radeon 7000

Intel:

Extreme Graphics (82810 / 82815) Series

Matrox:

Millenium G200 Series

Millenium G400 Series

Millenium G450 Series

Millenium G550 Series

P750/P650 Series

nVidia:

Riva 128 Series

TNT Series

TNT2 (M64 / Pro) Series

GeForce 256

S3 Graphics:

UniChrome Series

AlphaChrome Series

Savage Series

ViRGE Series

SiS/Trident:

SiS300

SiS500 Series

SiS600FX

SiS600MX Series

SiS700 Series

Trident Blade Series

The role that computers play in our daily activities is very important because only with the help offered by them we have the possibility of doing numerous things that are very important for our daily activities. The advantages that computers offer are priceless and also are countless. For example, these great electronic devices are being used in every industry from all over the world. The help that they offer makes the daily tasks of many of us very easy. Because their great importance, the places from where people can buy them are numerous… stores are found all over every city but the Internet is also a place from where we can make such purchases.

As we all know, computers are made out of numerous internal and external components and the importance that all of them have is great. Most of the time, when one component breaks the others also tend to stop from working properly. One of the most important internal computer parts is the video card because it is the one that offers you the possibility of viewing different pictures and with its help you can also watch the movies that you want.

The video card is quite big and it is installed in the interior of the main unit. If it stops from working wright, you aren’t able no more to do anything on your computer because it is the one that offers the possibility of viewing different types of images. From time to time, certain video cards tend to break down so they have to be replaced with new ones. Making such a replacement is easy to do but unfortunately it is quite expensive.

Video cards for PC can be found having different prices but if you want to keep the performance of your computer, you must buy the same card that you already had or one that is more high-tech and performing. These video cards for PC can have even a price of over 1000 dollars and that is why many computer users tend to purchase medium range ones that can be afforded by most of the people.



The place from where most computer users tend to purchase their video adapters is the store from where they first bought the computer because there they will receive guidance and even some kind of discount. From the Internet are also bought many video cards because the people who like to make such purchases from virtual stores are many and as days pass by, their number is getting bigger. If you want to know more things about the hardware of a computer, you have to access this site because here a lot of the information that you require can be found.



All in all, video cards for PC can be purchased from numerous places, the choice remaining yours because you have to first analyze numerous offers and choose the one that you think is the best for you.