ATi/Nvidia Video Card Guide info

The world of geputer graphics is a fast paced rat race for supremacy between the worlds 2 largest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) Nvidia and ATi. From the Rage 128 and the Geforce 256 to the Radeon X2800XTX and the Geforce 8800GTX, the number of video cards is great indeed. The suffixes behind the model names, and terms such as ROP, Pixel Pipelines, Core and Memory Clock Speed can confuse many people buying a video card or making a geputer for the first time. This guide is written to help you understand the jargon of shopping for a video card and what video card to get.=The Core Clock is the frequency at which the GPU operates, and ranges from 350 MHz (Megahertz) to over 700 MHz on the newest models=The Memory Clock is the frequency at which the Video Card's RAM operates, and has both a realistic Frequency (in MHz and GHz) =Video Memory is the RAM that the GPU will access instead of System RAM. It ranges from 64 MB( Megabytes) to over 2048 MB, types of VRAM include DDR, DDR2, GDDR3 and the high end GDDR4=Pixel Shader is the part of the video card that allows individual pixels to have different types of rendering. These range from around 2 to over 96=AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) is a Interface port that connects a video card to the motherboard. AGP Cards can transfer at 2x/4x/8x, but is most gemonly found in the 8x version. AGP slot cards are currently being phased out, but one can still find current generation cards at higher prices.=PCI Express is a higher speed Interface port that connects a video card to the motherboard. PCI Express is currently the standard and transfers at 16x. The Video Cards.In General, the lower the number on the model the lower the video card is. However, this does not mean a x1300 video card is more powerful than a x850 card from the previous generation. The cutoff is usually at the midrange of the generation, usually the "6" series, (ex. Geforce 6800 Ultra =(performance) GF 7600GT, and Radeon x850XT =(performance) R X1650Pro))) The suffixes are for seperating more than two cards in a single family, (ex 1650 XT/PRO). In general, for ATi cards, the closer a Suffix letter is to the end of the alphabet, the more high end it is. (x1950Pro