All PCs require special circuitry that is used to make the textand graphics images that you see on your display.
Most new PCs are equipped with motherboards that have integrated video chipsets in them. These integrated chips compete with other devices in the PC foraccess to the main memory. This causes congestion and slowdown.
A solution to this congestion is the Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) found onmodern motherboards. It provides a place for a video card to plug in to themotherboard giving it a fast, clear path to the RAM main memory. Besides thefast path to RAM, the video card also has its own local memory anywhere in sizefrom 32Mb to 128Mb which it uses to hold and manipulate the video data beforesending it to the display.
Newer video cards also have a DVI connector which provides digital videosignals that directly drive LCD displays equipped with a DVI connector. Thistype of connection provides very good looking video, but keep in mind that notall LCD displays have DVI connectors to take advantage of it.
Fast moving 3D graphics writes millions of bytes per second to the display andhigh performance video cards are key to realistic looking video. Running highdemand video applications without one can make your display look like one ofthose jerky frame-by-frame TV feeds from reporters in some remote part of theworld using portable, but very slow transmission equipment.
Recommendation:
For general, everyday PC operation, the integrated video chips should workadequately.
If you want to run intense applications or video games that require fast, richgraphics, then you'll need a high performance video card. Radeon video cardsfrom ATI and GeForce cards from nVidia are among the top brands offered.