Some History For Video Cards

• The first video card was

the Monochrome Display
Adapter (MDA).
Introduced in 1981 by
IBM. It had 4 kilobytes
of video memory. It also
had a printer adapter.
History Of Video Cards (Continued)
• In 1995 the first
consumer 2D/3D cards
were released,
developed by Matrox,
Creative, S3, ATI and
others.
History Of Video Cards
(Continued Some More)
• 3dfx released its
Voodoo Graphics chip
in 1996. Powerful
compared to other
consumer graphics
cards, introducing 3D
effects into the market.
History Of Video Cards (Yet Again
Continued)
• The Voodoo2 was released
in 1998. The Voodoo2
required a separate onboard
2D Video card for non 3D
Gaming. The image quality
passed the Voodoo by far. It
had higher resolutions
(1024x768). It had
multitexturing support,
resulting in four times
better performance if
supported.
History Of Video Cards (Look Its
Still Going)

• In 1995 Nvidia NV5 had double the

onboard memory of the NV4 Video card,
which was 16MB, (The NV5 Had 32MB)
It Also ran 70% faster than the NV4 Card.
 History Of Video Cards (Hey Look
Even More)

• 3dfx Was bought out by NVIDIA in

December of 2000. When NVIDIA did so
the video card 3dfx was currently working
on, the Rampage, was put to a halt.
History Of Video Cards (It Doesn’t
Stop Here)
• In 2002 Matrox produced
the Parhelia. It had 256-Bit
memory, it came clocked at
220MHz and had support
for three monitors. It also
was supposed to support
Direct X9. It did not have
support for Direct X9, and
its retail price was $400.00.
Double the price for the
same Specs other
competitors were producing.
Video Cards Today
• Video Cards compared from 1981 to
Now, in 2009 have changed a lot. One
video card now can support 4 monitors
and are literally hundreds of thousands
times faster and can handle so much
more at once. If you compared the
Monochrome Display Adapter to a
Geforce GTX 275 there not even in the
same ballpark. The MDA had 4kb of
video memory while the Geforce GTX
275 has 1.7Gb (1792Mb) of video
memory.
Video Card Components
Terminology
• Motherboard Connections :
Bring in data from the hard
drive and electricity from the
power supply.
• Memory Chips : Hold the data
during processing.
• Graphics Processor Chips :
Turn digital data into pixel
information.
• Monitor Connections: Send
pixels to the monitor.
 Video Card Connections
• AGP : Designed for use with 3d Graphics. AGP used a point to point
channel for direct access to the main memory. It has a bandwidth of
266 Mbps to 1.07 Gbps. To use this video card your motherboard
needs to have a slot to support it. Most modern computers do
support this type of card.

• PCI : The oldest of the three types of video cards. Uses a shared bus
to allow communication among different devices on the bus. It has a
bandwidth of up to 133 Mbps to 512 Mbps. They can still offer
decent performance if above 128Mbps.

• PCI-E : PCI Express doubles the data transfer rates of a standard

PCI card. PCI-E is on a two way serial connection, avoiding the
slowdown of sharing a bus. It also uses other devices, like a network
card to get greater output. PCI-E is compatible with some existing
PCI systems. It is the replacement for AGP.
 What They Look Like

AGP PCI PCI-E

Video Card Monitor Connection
Terminology
• Video Graphics Adapter : VGA
connects to analog monitors.
• Digital Visual Interface : DVI connects
to digital display devices, LCD
monitors and digital projectors.
• S-Video : S-Video used to connect a
PC video card to a television, only
capable of 480i or 576i resolution.
• High Definition Multimedia Interface :
HDMI connects a computer to your
HDTV set.
 How The Video Card Works
• The Video Card is a circuit. It is responsible
for processing video data from the CPU so
that the monitor can understand it and create
a picture on the screen. The Video Chipset,
the Video Ram and the Digital Analog
Converter are all things that are used to do
this.
 How The Video Card Makes A
Picture
• First, the Video data is transferred from the CPU
to the Video cards chipset it then processes the
data. The data is then transferred from the Video
chipset to the Video Memory. The video memory
stores the image. The data is then transferred from
the video memory to the digital analog converter.
The digital analog converter converts the image
from digital data to analog data. The analog data is
then transferred to the monitor through whatever
cable it is using. For example, VGA, DVI, S-
Video, or HDMI cables.
What's a GPU?
• A graphics card processor
is called a Graphics
processing Unit (GPU). It
is designed for performing
mathematical and
geometric calculations that
are needed for graphics
rendering. Basically it’s
the graphics cards CPU. It
Processes the data
Who Makes GPUs
• ATI and NVIDIA produce
a large amount of the
GPUs on the market. To
create better image quality
there processors use:
• Full scene anti aliasing
(FSAA) : Smoothes the
edges of 3-D objects.
• Anisotropic filtering
(AF) : Makes images look
more defined.
 Who Makes Video Cards?

• Asus, BFG, Chaintech, ECS, eVGA,

Foxconn, Gigabytem, MSI, PNY, And
XFX,
 Sources
• http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4786531&CatId=3670
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Monochrome_Display_Adapter
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_card
• http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7b1.htm#ram
• http://www.overstock.com/guides/video-cards-buying-guide
• http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/f22/gigabyte-announces-overclocked-geforce-gtx-260-video-card-
63998/
• http://www.howstuffworks.com/graphics-card.htm
• http://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/images/graphics-card9.jpg
• http://www.onlinecomputertips.com/hardware/video_cards.html
• http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/graphics_extravaganza_ultimate_gpu_retrospective?pag
e=0%2C2
• http://www.essaysample.com/essay/003419.html
• http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/246796-33-what-manufacturer
THE END