What is a Video Card?
At the Most basic level, a Video card is part of your PC you plug your monitor into. It handles everything you see on the screen and, in the case of games, it actually takes over nearly all the processing duties from your systems CPU, Cards come in Variety of shapes and sizes covering all price points, from $70-$1000. Generally speaking you get what you pay for , the more you pay for a video card the better it will run your games. However a better bang for your buck can sometimes be had by avoiding the top of the line models and picking something a rung or two from the top of the ladder. For instance, for the beast PC we wanted an Nvidia 8800 Ultra the fastest single card currently available - but it cost a whopping $1000-$1400. The Next Step down is a 8800GTX, running some 10-15% slower than the ultra, but even cards using this chipset cost between $700-$900. Instead we have picked a newly released variation of the 8800 family, an XFX 8800GTS Alpha dog Edition. It costs $530, but performs just as well as the GTX. XFX 8800GTS alpha dog edition is a long-winded and confusing name if you're new to PC building, let us explain XFX is the name of the company that makes the card, 8800 is the particuar code name given to this family of processors by NVIDIA, the company that makes them. Nvidia's main rival in the consumer market is AMD, which makes ATI Radeon-Branded cards. We've plumped for Nvidia because right now they have the speed edge over anything by AMD. Getting back to the card at hand, the GTS bit refers to the specific model. Finally, the "alpha dog edition" bit is marketing speak and, in this case simply the name XFX has picked to let consumers know they've overclocked this card's running speed a tad compared to the non- "Alpha Dog" card.
