Well, I guess that it's every boy's dream to have a computer with which he can play games. Especially high-end PC games that demand a rather powerful video card alternative. As we grow up, priorities tend to change. Some of the things we once considered cool are now either useless or just plain wrong.

The same happens with the video cards: when we're kids, we want to play a lot of nice games, that look really good. Nowadays, I just find myself wanting to play a intelligent game with lower graphics instead of one that uses a ton of graphic power. A great decision maker in this case was the laptop. Laptops are portable computers and they are designed in such a fashion that you can work for hours without plugging one in. But there are multiple categories of laptops: gaming, business, etc. Although I think laptops should be used mainly for business, a good video card isn't that bad.

It's a well known fact that an integrated video card often has lower performances than a dedicated one. And gaming performances in the case of the Integrated GPUs are below average. But there is also an upside: integrated video cards often consume less electricity. So they are perfect for men on the go, and for the persons who don't use a graphics card so often. If you're really into business laptops, like me, an integrated one should be okay. Keep in mind that the new second generation CPUs from Intel come with a pretty good Intel integrated HD. On the other hand, if gaming is your thing, you shouldn't settle for such a video card. It just simply won't be enough. In this case, I strongly suggest buying a laptop with a dedicated video card, that is at least middle-class. I have never seen a gaming laptop that has anything else than a dedicated GPU. But these actually consume a lot of power, so your laptop won't be too happy about it. You have to choose between power and placement. The choice is really hard and it depends on what kind of person you are. But AMD have put something at your disposal: the Switchable Graphics technology. With its aid, the computer can switch between a dedicated graphics card and a integrated one when battery power should be preserved.

There is another nice thing about this: switching between video cards is done without the need of a system restart. You see, the first switchable graphics laptops had an actual switch and a system restart was in order for the computer to use one GPU or the other. The invention of GPU switching revolutionized the notebook industry, making it easier for the consumers, as they now don't have to make a compromise between power and performance, because they can have both.

Because we are surrounded by all kinds of computers, be them laptops or desktops, we learn involuntarily about different parts of the computer. You don’t have to know the history of a certain computer part or its classification to say that you can explain its main function; you just only have to have basic knowledge in what that certain piece of hardware is concerned.

I bet that you have heard about graphics cards, or others may know them by the name of: video card, video adapter, graphics accelerator card or display adapter; all of them mean one thing: an extension card which has the “duty” to generate output images to a display. So, many of you know that without a graphics card you cannot play different types of games which ask for a certain level of performance when it comes to video cards. You cannot have a very old and very poorly built graphics card which doesn’t have the necessary features to support a very new game which has some expectations from that piece of hardware.



In order for your games to run according to their manufacturer you will have to have a very good graphics card which can provide you the performance that you need in order for your games to run flawlessly.

A good graphics card asks for a good CPU; so, in order for you to experience a great gaming thrill you will have to have the whole package when it comes to hardware and software, which provides you this particular experience.

Video cards offer you different functions such as 2D, 3D, TV-tuner adapter, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, video capture, light pen, TV output, FireWire and others. Also some graphic cards have the possibility of connecting with multiple monitors.

Graphics cards can be integrated and dedicated. Most users prefer the dedicated ones because they can easily upgrade the video card; also a video card has its own RAM and its own processing unit. The integrated graphics card is not that desired by user, especially by gamers, because it is very limited. This type of video card doesn’t allow you to run 3D applications, also the card doesn’t have its own memory space, it takes some of the system’s main RAM; therefore reducing the total RAM available. So, if you want a graphics card choose the dedicated one.



The video card is a big consumer of electrical power, it consumes the most energy from the whole system; today there are graphic cards which can be connected directly to the power supply. They have a power consumption over 75 Watts which usually include a combination of six-pin (75W) or eight-pin (150W) sockets.

Because they use a lot of energy they produce a lot of heat, therefore your computer needs a very efficient cooling system; if the ventilation and the dissipation of the heat is not well managed by the system, then the heat from the video card can make some ugly damage.

Thank God, Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla for electricity because thanks to them we have today all these crazy gadget which became a sort of extension, a necessity. If Emerson would still be alive today he would say that man needs more than three elements to survive and those would be: food, shelter, clothes, computers and other electronic gadgets. It is very weird how in time bare necessities change and from three we have today to more than five.

Technology can be cast out of our lives but it would be very hard if this would have happened because we grew with these things and now we have become addicted to them; take for example the mobile phone which is in everybody’s pocket.



Today another important element becomes a very necessary factor among the young generation who are yet to be born. We live in the age of the computers and we have to adapt to it even though we may not like it.

Today I am going to talk to you about the next most important thing, for youngsters, after mobile phones. Computer gaming is more popular than ever these days. And why shouldn’t it be? Gaming technology has increased in performance as drastically as the computer technology itself. If you want to play the latest games, you need a good video card. Luckily, you have plenty of options as long as you have the money. If you happen to be on ATi’s website, you’ll find that it can offer you a customized search that you can use to find an ultra-high-performance video card. I stumbled upon the AMD Radeon HD 6950. This, among others, uses the AMD PowerTune technology which enables the optimization of the graphic card’s power consumption so that the TDP is maintained at the standard value of 300W in any scenario. This is done with the aid of a power control processor located in the graphics card. Another cool technology used by this video card is Eyefinity. This enables the video card to support multiple independent displays so you can have really wide desktop areas and panoramic views within high-end games. This particular video card supports up to 6 monitors at once.



Of course, multiple displays won’t be of much use without a crystal clear image quality. Still, image isn’t everything. One of the technologies in the 6950 is called AMD App Acceleration and it can speed up calculations so different algorithms regarding artificial intelligence can get a boost in speed, while maintaining detailed graphics.

So if you want to surprise your kid and you have a ton of money, buy him this $333.98 video card. But be careful: your computer has to have a powerful processor and lots of memory so you can enjoy all the features that this GPU can offer.

Everybody has had at least once the curiosity of considering multiple video cards on a single computer. But not just for the fun of having them there. We always want better performance. And what’s better than one GPU?

Two GPUs. Why not even three of four.

The ATi CrossFire (or AMD CrossFire, however you want to name it) technology provides you just that option. To combine up to four discrete graphics processor units (ATi Radeon HD, of course) so you can make your system’s video power good enough for more demanding games.



The first public mention of CrossFire was even before AMD purchased ATi, somewhere in late 2005. A condition of using this technology is using a compliant motherboard. The first version of CrossFire connected only two PCI Express graphics cards. In this first generation of Crossfire technology, one video card had to have a master capability, which had extra chips that combined the data from the two cards.

There were some limitations to this technology though. Take, for example, the Radeon X850 (which had the master capability): due to hardware limitations, the maximum display resolution was 1600 by 1200 pixels with a refresh rate of 60 Hz, or a higher one, of 1920x1440, but with an even lower refresh rate of 52 Hz. The first one doesn’t seem like a problem nowadays, when the majority of users use LCD monitors on which a 60 Hz refresh rate is not a problem. But back then, there were CRT users that were annoyed by these features, because such a small refresh rate on that kind of monitor is really awkward for the eyes.

The second generation of CrossFire came with an improvement. When a special chipset is used on the motherboard, namely the CrossFire Xpress 3200, there is no need for a master card for every video card that implements this technology. On this kind of chipset, the two video cards can communicate using the PCI-E bus.



Nowadays we are witnesses to the latest generation of CrossFire, also known as CrossFireX. With this technology, the master card is no longer needed. Video cards that implement this technology are connected through ribbon connectors and you can combine up to four GPUs. The funny thing is that this technology doesn’t benefit only high-end video cards. You can combine two entry-level video cards to really boost your performance in games. The CrossFireX is similar to Nvidia’s SLI in some aspects. But the SLI only works between cards with the same GPU. The CrossFireX can combine different GPUS, but from the same generation.

There is one more CrossFireX mode, known as Hybrid CrossFireX, which can combine on-board GPUs with different graphics cards. If you’ll have the curiosity to check out more about CrossFire on their website, there is also a comparison chart that shows all the possible combinations using this technology.

I was never too shy to recognize that I am a big ATi fan. Actually, one of my very first video cards was an 8MB ATi which ran alongside a very old 155MHz CPU. Since then, many things have changed and I had both ATi and Nvidia cards along this time. However, I remained an ATi fan, and, as a consequence, I bought myself a laptop with one of their GPUs.

I like their homepage design also. It has a very intuitive and informative interface, whether you are considering buying one of their products, looking for drivers or just browsing for some information.

Of course, you may know by now that ATi has been bought by AMD in 2006, so to get to the video cards you just have to search on their website in their products category, then looking for notebook graphics or desktop graphics. For example, for the notebook graphics page is online. On the graphics page you can find a lot of useful facts and information about different series of ATi video cards just by clicking the links on the bottom or on the left of the webpage. An easier way to find out about Radeon GPUs is by clicking the “Learn more” link on the notebook GPU page, or by using their customized search on the desktop GPU page. This search allows you to choose a good card based on your everyday activities that require a video card, like playing games in very high performance or watching HD movies. This is a great tool for people that are not too technical and want to buy their desktop a brand new video card.

If you are searching for drivers, you can easily find them by navigating back to the AMD homepage. In the upper left corner you will have a “Find a driver” drop-down that you can use to search for the software you need by component category (notebook, desktop etc.), by product line and by product model. As long as you know your video card’s name, it’s really easy to find suitable drivers for it. That about covers it. This is all you need to know to navigate through the AMD homepage to find drivers and information about video cards. Feel free to explore more of their website.