How to Choose Right Video Card for Your Needs and Budget

If you are confused of what video cards you need when buy a new desktop PC or upgrade your older machine, you could have a look at the following article to learn how to choose a video card for your PC.

What Type of Graphics Card You Need

Knowing Your Needs of Video Cards

At first you should know what you will be using the computer for. Do you play a lot of games? Do you edit video or audio? Is your PC used mostly for office applications and playing video?

If you only want to purchase a video card for task such as playing video and surfing internet, you can take advantage of GPU video acceleration and don't need to buy an expensive card. But if you're a gamer or need to do video editing, you'll have to purchase a more expensive and more powerful graphics cards.

Video Cards Depend on Size of Your Monitor

The graphics card depends mostly on your screen. If you're on a smaller screen (1280 x 1024 or 1680 x 1050) and your budget is limited a GeForce GTX 460 1GB or Radeon HD 6850 1GB would be an Ok choice. For larger screens (1920 x 1080 or higher) and or high FSAA modes and still on a budget you could look at the GeForce GTX 470 1.2GB or Radeon HD 6870 1GB.

Of course, you don't have to play games at your monitor's native resolution, but displaying at a non-native resolution on a LCD display usually results in major ugly.

Video Card's RAM

Determine the minimum video requirements for the most resource intensive programs you use. Most system requirements will be listed on the packaging that the software came in. A graphics card that has 256 MB of dedicated memory will be sufficient for most basic systems.

Price Range of Video Cards

Prices for video cards range from under $30 to over $500. More expensive graphics cards will be able to render video much faster and will have additional features like FireWire. That being said, don't spend more than is necessary to meet your computing needs.

Most graphics cards are AGP, although some lower-end PCI cards are still available. Refer to your owner's manual if necessary. Remember resolution is a major factor in game performance.

If you want to play games at high resolutions you will need a video card that has a fast GPU and a lot of RAM. If you don't play at high resolutions, however, you can save money by purchasing a less powerful card with less RAM.