Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
• A better comparison of the card or system to others
• Access to technical specifications
• Access to reviews and opinions
• The ability to make a better buying decision
• The choice of card manufacturer or chipset manufacturer support and drivers
Because video card performance and features are critical to enjoyment and productivity,
find out as much as you can before you buy the system or video card by using the chipset
or video card manufacturer's website and third-party reviews. Poorly written or buggy
drivers can cause several types of problems, so be sure to check periodically for video
driver updates and install any that become available. With video cards, support after the
sale can be important, particularly for 3D gaming. Therefore, you should check the man-
ufacturer's website to see whether drivers for your video card have problems rendering
your favorite games or working with your favorite software and how often updates are
available.
Note
Sometimes, newer drivers for a particular video card or chipset render newer 3D games and
programs better than older games and programs. If you are using the latest driver and older
games or programs aren't playing as well as they should, you should consider downgrading
to an older version of the driver.
Note that although NVIDIA and AMD are the leading suppliers of discrete graphics pro-
cessors, they do not make video cards. Instead, they create video card reference designs,
which the various card manufacturers use to develop their own specific cards. Because
each card manufacturer can customize or modify the designs as it chooses, two cards that
usethesamegraphicschipsetmaydifferinfeaturesaswellasinactualperformance.This
means a variety of video cards use the same chipset; it also means you are likely to find
variations in card performance, software bundles, warranties, and other features between
cards using the same chipset.
Although vendors might make modifications to the reference designs provided by
NVIDIA and AMD, you can use the drivers provided by the GPU manufacturers for your
GPUifthecardormotherboardvendordoesnotprovideupdateddriversonatimelybasis.
Video RAM
Most discrete video adapters rely on their own onboard memory that they use to store
video images while processing them. Systems with integrated video use the universal
memory architecture (UMA) feature to share the main system memory. In any case, the
