How to determine what video card to get with a computer purchase is heavily dependent upon what the computer is going to be used for. I tend to find that there are four categories that people can be placed in when it comes to computer usage and video card needs: casual computing, graphic design, light gaming and serious gaming.
Before going into detail about the different categories, I will mention that it is possible to upgrade the video card on most computers. Most systems use the new PCI-Express graphics card slot, also referred to as a x16 slot. Some older computers may still use the AGP slot. Be sure you know which your PC uses before buying one.
Casual Computing
Casual computing tends to be those tasks related to using the computer for word processing, web browsing, watching a DVD movie or listening to music. None of these tasks requires much 3D video processing power at all. For this category of computing any choice of video processor will work. It can be integrated into the computer system or be an expansion card. The only exception to this is high definition video such as Blu-ray. For this, an integrated solution rated for HD video is important.
Graphic Design
Individuals looking to do graphic design or even video editing will want a few more features with the video card. For graphic designs, it is generally good to have a higher resolution capability. Many high-end displays can support 1900 by 1200 resolutions or higher allowing for more visible detail. Another feature that may be of interest is multi-monitor support. This allows the graphics card to support two computer displays at once expanding the graphical workspace. For extremely high resolution displays, you may be required to have a dual-DVI or DisplayPort connector support on the graphics card. Check the monitor for requirements.
Photoshop CS4 uses can gain benefits from having a 3D accelerator to boost performance. At this point, the boost is more dependent upon the speed and amount of video memory than it is on the graphics processors. It is recommended to have at least 512MB of dedicate memory on a graphics card with 1GB being preferred.
Individuals looking to do video editing also have additional needs to those of casual computing. Key to video editing is a feature called video-in/video-out or VIVO. This allows a video source to be plugged into the computer for digitizing of analog video sources such as TV or VHS tapes as well as exporting a video signal back to those devices. If the video card does not have this capability, don't worry as it is possible to add this capability with external devices.
Light Gaming
When talking about gaming, I'm referring to games that use 3D graphics acceleration. Games like solitaire or Tetris don't use any 3D acceleration and will work fine with any form of graphics processor. If you play 3D games every once in a while or even on a regular basis and don't care about it running as fast as possible or having all the features to enhance the detail, then this is the category of card you want to look at.
Cards in this category should fully support the DirectX 10 graphics standard and have at least 256MB of video. Direct X 10 cards will only use this feature in Vista but are backward compatible with Direct X 9 for systems still on XP. For particular brands and models of processor, check out the selection in the Best Budget 3D Video Cards.
Serious Gaming
If your next computer is going to be an ultimate gaming system, then you want to make sure that you have a video card that matches the capabilities of the system. It should be able to support all the current 3D games on the market with acceptable frame rates with all of the graphic detail features turned on.
All performance 3D video cards should fully support DirectX 10 and have a at least 512MB or more memory. For particular brands and models of processors, check out the selection in the Best Performance Video Cards.
