September 2010
Beginner
336 pages
7h 29m
English
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Chapter 9. Beefing Up Your Computer's Video Card
Topics and tasks in this chapter
Finding compatible video slots and ports
Understanding video card features
Installing your new video card
When engineers sat down at their poker table many years ago to design computers, they decided on a quick and easy way to upgrade their many parts.
Upgrades would come on cards, they decreed. To upgrade the computer, owners would simply slide the card into one of several standard-sized slots built into every computer. Simple.
And today, that's still how you upgrade your computer's video: You slide a video card into your computer's video slot. This chapter covers that specific task in minute detail by covering these things:
Discovering what type of video card works with your computer's video slot.
Choosing a more powerful video card that both fits into that slot and matches the video ports on your monitor.
Installing the new video card and plugging a cable between the card and your monitor.
Note
Dig in — unless you own a laptop and netbook, unfortunately. Only desktop computers can upgrade their video.
Buying the Right Video Card
Video cards require two things to be compatible with your computer:
The card must physically fit into your computer's video slot.
The card's ports — its connectors — must match the ones on your monitor.
Let's tackle the slot issue, first.
Finding a compatible video slot
Also known as buses, slots sit together in a long row on your motherboard, like rake marks left in dirt. When you plug in ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.