Which Notebook Video Card
A notebook video card may seem like a
trivial thing when purchasing your next laptop or notebook, but
get this wrong and you could be in a whole world of slow
graphics pain, with little or no options to upgrade.
Laptop graphics cards
are definitely a weak link when it comes to most laptops, if
you’re looking for a laptop to perform any kind of high end
graphics processing such as games or design then a powerful
laptop video card is a must.
Shared Memory Cards
The most common type of notebook video card is the shared memory
type, just what exactly does this mean?
With shared memory cards you can increase or decrease the size
of the memory allocated to the card, usually from 64mb to 1gb,
but where does this memory come from? It actually comes from the
computers Ram, so for example if you choose to allocate 256mb to
your graphics card and your laptop has a total of 1gb of Ram
this then means you’ll really only have around 744mb of Ram
available, which equates to a loss of approx 25%, so in effect a
shared memory notebook video card could be referred to as lost
memory as in effect this is what happens.
Even if we take a laptop
which has 2gb of Ram, it will be left with 1.7gb which is plenty
to run most applications and operating systems but this brings
us to the second downside of the shared memory notebook video
card, if we compare a shared and dedicated graphics memory of
512mb the dedicated memory will run rings around shared memory
type.
Advantages of shared
memory
The real advantage of shared memory is the cost. As shared
memory is part of the system Ram, a shared memory notebook video
card will cost less.
Notes
Of course having a laptop with shared graphics memory is not
such a bad thing, it really depends on what you want to do, the
later generation of shared memory graphics will run most tasks
and games without a problem just don’t expect to have all the
extra effects on, as long as the system has enough Ram and your
ok with this most will be fine.
But do take into account
if you wish to play the latest games where programmers add more
and more complex features dedicated graphics memory is the only
way to go.
To reiterate this have a
look around, how many manufacturers actually list laptops under
types now, and one of these types is usually listed as gaming
laptops, just checkout the specs of a decent gaming laptop and
see the difference between this and a standard machine, this is
simply due to the fact that not only do manufacturers recognize
that there is indeed a market for this, but that the later
generations of games are probably the most graphic, processor
and ram intensive single applications that most people will ever
run.
However one word of
warning, as in the saying never judge a book by its cover, some
laptops are sold as being gaming laptops, but this could not be
further from the truth, so before parting with your hard earned
cash checkout out what to look for in a gaming laptop page..
The
notebook video card is important to any system
But any laptop is only as good as it's weakest component, find
out what else to look for to make your laptop suit your needs
Custom gaming laptops
Play games? Need a laptop? Make sure your gaming laptop is up to
the job
computer adviser
laptop video card article |
