Video card

A video card (also called a video adapter, display card, graphics card, graphics board, display adapter, graphics adapter or frame buffer) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display (such as a computer monitor). Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, emphasizing the distinction between these and integrated graphics. Within the industry, video cards are sometimes called graphics add-in-boards, abbreviated as AIBs, with the word "graphics" usually omitted.

History

Standards such as MDA, CGA, HGC, Tandy, PGC, EGA, VGA, MCGA, 8514 or XGA were introduced from 1982 to 1990 and supported by a variety of hardware manufacturers.

Virtually all current video cards are built with either AMD-sourced or Nvidia-sourced graphics chips. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors (multi-monitor). Video cards also have sound card capabilities to output sound along with the video for connected TVs or monitors with integrated speakers.