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A video card is a PC component that is used to enhance the quality of images showed on a display. It is attached to the motherboard and controls and calculates an image’s appearance on the screen. The video card is an intermediate device that accelerates the video throughput.
Videos cards are also known as graphics cards, video adapters, display cards, graphic adapters and graphic accelerators.
Techopedia Explains Video Card
In the early stages of computer graphics, video cards were not very sophisticated. They simply forwarded output data coming from processor to the display. This worked because the output was generally in text format. Consequently, color and complex graphics were not available on early operating systems.
Today, video cards are much more like co-processors. This means that video cards add some processing power rather than simply forwarding a simple signal onto the display. Video cards can make extra calculations on their end to check the quality of the output and then tailor this to take full advantage of the abilities of the display.
Today’s graphic cards contain following components:
- GPU
- Video-BIOS
- Video-memory
- DVI
Utilizing these components, the video card optimizes data from the processor to match the capabilities of the display.
