JVS Computers©

      12/16/2017

What you need here really depends on what you want.  There are a wide variety of video card types and performance levels.  The common specification used to classify video cards is the memory type and size.  The typical office work station will use a video card with only 8 MB of shared RAM, whereas a dedicated gaming system might use 128 MB onboard DDR-RAM.  The video system might use "shared memory" architecture, where the video system uses the same memory as the rest of the system.  This is the case when the video system is built into the motherboard.  Video cards will have there own memory "onboard".

There are two types of video card slots, AGP and PCI.  PCI is the slower type, which is most often used to upgrade the video on a system that has built in video and no AGP slot (or an AGP slot that isn't working properly).  These slots look alike on the motherboard, but are always different colors.  PCI slots are always WHITE, and AGP slots are always BROWN. 

Before you buy a PCI video card to upgrade the onboard video on your motherboard, make sure the onboard video can be disabled.