Types Of Graphics Card

Anyone looking to upgrade their existing computer, buy a new machine altogether, or just learn a little bit about how their computer works, should be aware of what different kinds exist. What follows is a simple overview of the four main types of graphics cards.

A graphics card is what your computer uses to convert data in your machine to useful images on your monitor. Graphics cards—also known as video cards—come in a wide variety of models, with many different options available. For the casual user, looking at graphics cards and trying to choose between the different options available can be intimidating and confusing. While there are many graphics cards to choose from, all graphics cards come in four basic types

There are mainly Four Types of Graphic Card

1. Integrated Graphics Card:

Integrated graphics is adequate for the non-gamer, and an integrated graphics processor (IGP) is increasingly sufficient for many gamers. However, "discrete graphics" using a stand-alone GPU is especially desired by gamers who want the most realistic visualization.

Integrated graphics card shares power between the GPU and CPU, because the graphics card is built directly into the computer's processor. Integrated GPUs are best for typical PC processes like web browsing, social media, and resource-light work such as spreadsheets, editing documents, and project management software.

Integrated graphics cards are the least powerful variety overall, at least compared to the technology that exists simultaneously. If you have an integrated graphics card and want to play the latest video games, you will need to upgrade.

• Integrated graphics are standard with most PCs, especially laptops. While gamers once looked down on integrated graphics, newer technology has changed that viewpoint. This is particularly true with the AMD Ryzen™ processor, referred to as an APU. It combines both a CPU and GPU on the same die to achieve great results.

• You can also play plenty of games with a CPU with integrated graphics, just not massive, triple-A (AAA) titles. Most of these playable games, including indie classics Stardew Valley and Minecraft, use lower resolution graphics and pixels, so you can enjoy them with an integrated graphics card.

2. PCI Graphics Card:

PCI common hardware interface in PCs, Macs and other computers for connecting peripheral devices such as storage drives and graphics cards. PCI Express (PCIe) was introduced in 2002 as "Third Generation I/O" (3GIO), and by the mid-2000s, motherboards had at least one PCIe slot for graphics. PCIe superseded PCI and PCI-X.

PCI graphics cards are cards that use the PCI slots on your motherboard to connect to your computer. PCI graphics cards are usually a little bit out of date, if not extremely so. However, many older motherboards have PCI slots and lack newer varieties of connections. For this reason, there is still a reason to buy a PCI graphics card, but only if you are trying to upgrade an older system.

PCI graphics cards communicate with the motherboard at 40 times or greater the rate of PCI graphics cards. The additional bandwidth provided by the PCI connection type lets graphics cards handle significantly more complicated graphical data, which means PCI graphics cards are able to produce better visuals than PCI graphics cards. However, it is possible for a high-powered PCI card to produce better graphics than a low-powered PCI card. PCI graphics card performance is limited by bandwidth, and more powerful cards see diminishing returns when using an interface such as PCI.

3. AGP(Accelerated Graphics Port) Graphics Card:

In earlier hardware interface from Intel for connecting a graphics card (display adapter) to a PC. Introduced in 1997 and superseded by PCI Express in the late 2000s, a single AGP slot on the motherboard provided a direct connection between the card and memory. AGP was introduced as a higher-speed alternative to PCI, and it freed up a PCI slot for another peripheral device.

It has high quality and very fast performance. It has a direct path to the PC’s main memory. It connects to the CPU and operates at the speed of the processor bus. It sends video information more quickly to the card for processing. It uses the main memory to hold 3D images. It provides the graphics card with two methods of directly accessing texture maps in system memory: pipelining and sideband addressing. The port is identified by its brown color.

AGP was introduced as a replacement for the slower Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interfaces. AGP provides a direct line of communication to the CPU and RAM, which in turn allows for quicker rendering of graphics.

AGP is a point to point channel that is used for high speed video output. This port is used to connect graphic cards to a computer's motherboard. The primary purpose of an AGP is to accelerate 3D graphics output for high definition video. AGP provides much faster connectivity and throughput compared to PCI. An AGP is primarily designed to be used for 3D graphics, high definition games and engineering/architecture graphics.

4. PCI-Express Graphics Card:

It is short for “peripheral component interconnect express” and it’s primarily used as a standardized interface for motherboard components including graphics, memory, and storage. It gets the “peripheral component interconnect” part of its name because it’s designed to handle point-to-point connections for non-core components. Manufacturers added “express” to distinguish the new standard from older PCI standards, emphasizing the substantial performance improvements over previous iterations.

DLINK’s PCI Express Graphics Cards - based on NVIDIA's embedded GPUs - can boost the performance of a wide range of workloads, including image processing and analysis, computing acceleration, and artificial intelligence (AI). ADLINK’s PCI Express Graphics Cards offer high performance, high data bandwidth, power efficiency, and longevity support in a reduced hardware footprint. ADLINK’s PCI Express Graphics Cards connect via a common interface and are easy to integrate and use to increase system responsiveness and accuracy, as well as decrease latency for industrial automation, healthcare, transportation, aerospace and defense, gaming, and telecom applications.

PCI Express, technically Peripheral Component Interconnect Express but often seen abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-E, is a standard connection for internal devices in a computer. Generally, PCI Express refers to the actual expansion slots on the motherboard that accept PCIe-based expansion cards and the types of expansion cards themselves. PCI Express all but has replaced AGP and PCI, both of which replaced the oldest widely-used connection type called ISA. While computers may contain various types of expansion slots, PCI Express is considered the standard internal interface. Many computer motherboards today are manufactured only with PCIe slots.