Things You'll Need:
- Knowledge of your motherboard video card slot
- Understanding of how you will use your computer
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Step 1
The absolute first thing you need to find out is the type of video card slot on your motherboard. There are three types, listed below.
The first and oldest is the PCI slot. If your PC is 5 years old or so you probably have one of these, and although the replacement video card will be cheap, the performance will not be great.
The next type is the AGP slot. This is a midrange slot and some great bargain cards can be had using this type of connection.
And finally comes the PCIe or PCI express slot. This is the latest and greatest and the highest performing cards use this type of connection.
Truth be told, if you have an old PCI slot motherboard you will probably not gain much performance with a new video card. AGP and PCIe will give you the best bang for the buck. -
Step 2
After you determine the type of slot you have you need to decide how you will be using the computer. Will you be playing the latest graphic intense games? will you be watching the occasional video? Your graphic usage will determine the power (and cost) of your new video card.
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Step 3
Now you need to determine the graphics chip that you want. There are two main manufacturers, Nvidia and ATI, at this point they are both very good. The manufacturer makes the chip (called the GPU or graphics processing unit) but a different company may make the video card overall so don't be confused by different manufacturers, concentrate on the GPU you want first.
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Step 4
Next up decide on how much memory you want on the chip. Graphics memory ranges for 64mb all the way up to 1gb, with the video card cost going up quickly as well. In a nutshell the graphics memory determines how much of the on-screen textures are stored on the card and not coming from the hard drive. Simply put, the more memory the faster the screen will update and the smoother the graphics will be.
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Step 5
Now, here's the important step. Manufacturers will flaunt two numbers at you to get you to buy their video card; Chip speed, and onboard memory. But the most important spec is neither one of these, it's the number of pipelines. To put it simply, the more pipelines a card has, the more efficiently it can display data on the screen. Low end cards will have 4, medium range cards will have 6 or 8, and high end will have 10 or more. Don't be fooled by large memory with only 4 pipelines, the performance will be horrible.
So, in order of importance..
1) Number of pipelines
2) Chip speed
3) Onboard memory
Buy according to these parameters and you'll get the best video card for your PC -
Step 6
An additional thing to consider is support for Directx 10, this is the new standard from Microsoft and personally I wouldn't buy a new graphics card that didn't support this. In fact almost all new games coming out now require this for the best performance.
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Step 7
To get the best price on a new video card consider online resources, in fact there are some great links right on this page to retailers that can supply you with the best video card at the best price possible.
