Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
onscreen. The graphics processing unit (GPU) is a purpose-designed chipset
that pipelines graphics data to make it seamlessly render display data.
Just like the CPU we installed earlier, high-end GPUs generate a lot of heat
—so much that they require larger fans and thermal conductive metal surfaces
to cool them down. And just like CPUs, high-end GPUs can be overclocked
to push their rendering speeds. The faster they perform, the hotter they
operate. When air cooling fails to adequately keep GPU operating temperatures
at bay, most high-end cards accept water-cooled attachments to prevent
overheating.
Two leading companies currently compete in the high-end consumer graphics-
card market. AMD makes the Radeon series, and NVIDIA has its GeForce line
of cards. Both companies have designed hardware that is quite capable of
rendering today's most graphically intense games, support dual- and even
triple-monitor setups, and can be chained together with identical cards to
further boost graphic output. Choosing one or the other is strictly a personal
preference, and I prefer the NVIDIA brand. I recommend the NVIDIA-powered
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics card (which the next figure shows).
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Several manufacturers make this card based on NVIDIA's reference implemen-
tation. Since we have an ASUS motherboard, it makes sense to go with an
ASUS graphics card to ensure 100 percent hardware compatibility.
Figure 60—The ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics card is a beautiful, beastly GPU!
