Video cards for dummies?

I am starting to understand all the components to a computer and how to compare and such. But for what ever reason I can't understand the difference between video cards. I have learned general concept of how they work, but I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between to cards if my life depended on it. What brands are good (notebook wise) and what indicators tell you if its a higher end model or more powerful?|||notebook graphics cards are a whole different story from desktop. They are the exact same brands, but the models and varying speeds are very separate. What you will want to look for is the core clock speed (good ones are around 800-900MHz), and memory clock speed (usually around 4-5GHz on higher end models). The amount of video RAM (often just called memory in advertisements) will usually only matter for someone using more than one monitor, but the standard is 1024Mb of memory (or as advertisements will say, 1Gb).



The two main brands are NVidia, and AMD (Radeon). They are the ones who develop the actual processor ON the graphics card, and they have several distributor companies such as XFX (only AMD) or Gigabye (does both). Those companies create the cooling solutions and the actual look and feel of the card itself. They will also often release special editions of the model of card with varying clock speeds.



Think of it as a family tree, where NVidia and AMD are at the top, and for each of them, are the other companies who try to make the best version of what NVidia and AMD provide. Currently NVidia has a better graphics processor (aka "Fermi"), which is on their GTX 500 series of cards. Now when you compare cards, you will need to remember, often the AMD brand of cards will have actual higher numbers (clock speed, etc) but their graphics processor itself just isn't as efficient. They work very differently from one another.



But when you take a step back and look at the two, the performance from all their cards is really the same to the average joe. It's only the enthusiasts who try to squeeze every last bit of power from the cards, and want the ONLY the best, even if it's only by a small margin. I am currently using an AMD XFX 6950 in my desktop computer, and it's great :) In fact, I'm getting a second one in a little while!



Hope this helped :)|||http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_…



generally, the higher the number of a particular manufacturers chipset, the better it should be. eg, a nVidia 7600GT is better than a nVidia 7300 GT but in noway comparable to the ATI HD6750. But likewise a ATI HD6850 is better than the HD6750



Other than that, memory differences will have a small impact onto the filtering you can do.



mobile gpus are always worse than desktop ones (usually about 1/2 the performance of their desktop cousins) due to limited power, heat removal and space.|||The bigger the better. Thumb me down if you like, but you know it's true. More powerful cards generally have bigger heat-sinks, so that's usually an initial indicator. Looking at the specs of the card, check out the bandwidth, which will basically tell you the amount of output the card can give.|||http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_e…



Here take a look at this. It ranks cards by their "bench mark" scores. It is pretty self explanatory and is the easiest way to see what card beats what.



http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?…



This second link breaks it down to core speeds and memory and pixel rate and bus width etc etc.