Graphics Cards

Graphics Cards
Creating an image out of binary data is very processor intensive. To make a
3-D image, the graphics card first
creates a wire frame out of straight
lines, which it then rasterizes, that is
to say converts it into pixels, and
then adds lighting, texture and
colour. A modern fast-paced
computer game will require the
computer to go through this process Graphics card by permission of Leigh Harries

sixty or more times a second.

If the CPU could not pass this on to a graphics card with its own graphics
processing unit (GPU) and memory the CPU would be overwhelmed by the
task.

A graphics chipset is either mounted onto the motherboard or is mounted on a

separate expansion card that plugs into an expansion slot on the motherboard

A GPU is designed specifically for

performing the complex mathematical
and geometric calculations that are
necessary for graphics rendering. A
high performance GPU can have more
transistors on it than an average
CPU. This means that a GPU can get
very hot and require its own heat sink
and fan. Notice just how big the fan is on this MSI Nvidia 460 GTX Cyclone
graphics card.

As the GPU generates images it uses the on-board RAM to store information
about each pixel, its colour and its location on the screen. In addition it uses
special storage area called a “frame buffer” that holds completed images until
it is time to display them. RAM on graphics cards needs to be very fast it is
designed to allow data to be written to it and read from it at the same
time. This is called “dual-porting”.

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 Graphics Cards

A cathode ray tube (CRT) is an analogue device so that a digital-to-analogue

converter (DAC) is required to convert the digital data from the graphics card
to the analogue data required for the CRT.

The situation is a little more complex when using a modern digital display,
such as an LCD monitor. If a digital connection such as a Digital Video
Interface (DVI) or High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) sits between
the graphics card and the display a DAC is not required. If however the older
VGA connector is used, the digital signal is converted to analogue form and
then converted back again to digital by the LCD monitor before being
displayed, which is not very efficient.

Some graphics cards have connections for: a TV display TV-out or S-video,

analogue video cameras video in/video out (VIVO) and digital cameras using
USB or Firewire. Some cards even incorporate TV tuners.

The type of graphics card you need will depend upon the use you want to put
it to. For surfing the net and for office applications the sort of low-end chipset
that is integrated into the average motherboard will suffice.

A separate top-of-the-range graphics card has lots of memory and a fast

processor and probably provides more power than most users need. A mid-
range card will do for most casual gamers. Users who need a high-end
graphics card will include serious gaming enthusiasts, graphics artists, and
engineers and designers who need to run powerful CAD applications. But
don’t forget the role played by the computer’s motherboard. A fast graphics
card can’t make up for a slow motherboard, and the type of expansion slots
the motherboard has may also dictate what kind of graphics card you can use.

Two useful measures of a graphics card’s performance are “frame rate” and
“pixel rate”. The frame rate measures how quickly the card can build a wire
frame and pixel rate measures how many pixels the GPU can process in a
second, which is essentially how quickly it is capable of rasterizing an image.

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