What do you want from a video card? Hardcore gaming capabilities? High end video graphics for movies or possible video editing? Gaming: For a gaming video card you are going to want to look at 'stream processors,' because that more than anything is going to tell you how fast your video and images are sent into your GPU. Next you want to look at pixel pipelines along side your core speed. Pixel pipelines are going to show you how much of your total core clock your going to receive while using your GPU. A high core clock is nothing without a nice amount of pixel pipelines. Next your going to want memory. A video card needs to have enough memory to hold the data for rendering the images within the video card. 2Gb is definitively more than enough, but the more the merrier. Next is the memory type. GDDR5 memory will run so very much faster than GDDR3, and you will want to compare this along side the memory speed, because they work hand in hand. Last thing to look for is whether it is SLI or Crossfire ready. Meaning you can put two of the same video cards in a computer connected by a small cord on top. No serious gamer is going to use 3D vision because it's just stupid in the opinions of all great gamers. Most newer good video cards come with DirectX 11, but even DirectX 9 works good. Higher max resolution helps, but not enough to matter compared to the listed above. Of course any gaming video card (even one worth $20) will be PCI Express 2.0 x16. Video editing or Entertainment: The first thing to look at is Higher max resolution for a more defined look, even on lower resolution screens. Next look for the faster memory. GDDR5 is the fastest memory, and the higher the memory clock, the faster the data gets to the GPU and the smoother the movements look. Lastly, look for an 'OK' GPU core clock. That's about it when it comes to plain video. The faster moving everything is, the faster 2D images like movies will go through the GPU, increasing frame rates making all movement look more real, defined, and fluid. By following these easy little tips on finding a good video card, you can easily match it to your budget. If you have no budget at all, the best card today is easily the Nvidia GTX 590 with the highest possible resolution, most amount of stream processors of any card, most pixel pipelines of any card, fastest memory of any card, two extremely fast GPU's in a single card, and 3Gb of memory (enough to do anything), and SLI ready, so you can put two of those ungodly video cards in a single computer and make them run together. For a comparison of Nvidia cards to ATI cards go here http://www.hardwareforums.com/threads/ati-vs-nvidia.28662/ I can't stress this enough. Make sure that the video card has the right port to hook up to the monitor or television screen that you are using!!!
