Graphic Card – Endless Competition

What is graphic card? A graphic card can also be called as video adapter, graphics accelerator card, display adapter, or graphics card. Actually it is a hardware that converts the display signal from the motherboard to the monitor for display. The card is inserted onto the motherboard perpendicular to the board. For some motherboard, the Graphical chip (GPU) is embedded into the motherboard, while some would have a separate video card. Today let me talk about those separate video cards.

Structure

A video card is basically an electric circuit card with input and output ports. First, it has a chipset consisting of a Graphics Processing Unit, which is called as GPU. The GPU is the graphic accelerator which is dedicated to processing graphical information. The graphic card also has video BIOS. The BIOS is used to let the users control the settings of the video card, i.e. to communicate with the card. The BIOS also controls the card’s operation. Also, a graphical card consists of video memory. The video memory can be made up to 8 Gb nowadays. It is used to store the video information like the color, pixel…etc temporarily so as to facilitate the graphical process.

The card also has different ports for connecting to the monitor. For example,  the blue port is called the VGA port and is connected to the monitor. Now, there is a new and more commonly used port called the DVI port. It supports the HDMI output and thus is becoming more and more popular.

Development

Now, the computer development is fierce. Generally, the graphic cards are divided into 3 categories: the low-level cards, mid-level cards and the advanced cards and their prices vary accordingly. Actually the competition among companies in the advanced card category is the hottest one. To manufacture the stronger graphic cards, the companies employ different ways to enhance the performance of their graphic cards.

First, the companies compete in making their graphic card with the strongest GPU. As mentioned, the graphic cards have the chipset (GPU) determining their graphical performance, so the companies make the cards better by increasing the clock frequency which in turn determines the card’s ability to process graphical data. The video RAM is also another important factor to distinguish the “better” cards because it determines the resolution of the display. In a word, both GPU clock frequency and video RAM are “the more, the better”. However, the clock frequency cannot be elevated endlessly as the higher clock frequency will increase the operation temperature of the chipset. This poses a great problem to the engineers.

To tackle the problem, the graphic card companies have developed new technologies. For example, the Graphic card company nVidia developed the SLI (Scalable Link Interface) technology in which 2 display cards work in parallel to process the graphical data, so as to accelerate the graphical display performance but not with the expense of increasing the temperature. Another company ATi has also developed the similar technology called Crossfire. Today, The SLI and Crossfire technology are also not limited to 2 cards only. In fact, 3 or more cards are now able to be connected together to achieve ultimate graphical excellence.

Now, the display card has also progressed into multi-GPU technology. From 2 GPU per card to 4 and now even more, a single graphic card is becoming more capable in dealing with the graphical demanding games like Crysis 2.

In conclusion, the competition of different company in the aspect of video cards will keep going because people are demanding for better technologies and perfect graphic. Whenever there is a problem, there is alternatives to the problems. As  graphic card companies, they will keep working to earn more money. As consumers, we will not stop pursuing the better technologies. Therefore the computer world is always progressing!