What is a graphics card? The utility of the graphics card on electronic devices

The graphics card is the main part responsible for handling graphics tasks and visual information. And if you are enjoying vivid, smooth images when playing games or watching movies, that’s the result of a laptop equipped with a graphics card.

What is a graphics card?

If you only have a processor (CPU) and a display, it is not enough for you to see the vividness and fidelity of the displayed frames on that screen. At this point we begin to need the help of the graphics card. So what is a graphics card?

The graphics card is a part responsible for handling graphics-related tasks including images and videos on a laptop, through which, everything will become more vivid and smooth.

Classification of graphics cards

There are two main types of graphics cards on laptops today: onboard (integrated) and external discrete cards. The onboard card was previously integrated by the mainboard manufacturer (such as Intel, AMD …) on the board (mainboard) and later on the processor (CPU).

Integrated graphics cards usually meet moderate graphics needs . If you need a powerful machine for gaming, you need to choose a product with a discrete graphics card. Discrete card supports more advanced instruction sets, the performance can be up to dozens of times stronger .

Integrated graphics cards classified by CPU

As mentioned above, in the new Intel CPU lines, the integrated graphics card is put inside the CPU called Intel HD Graphics XXXX, where XXXX is the graphics card line code that represents the strength and weakness of the processing ability. graphics management, in addition we also have some more powerful lines like Iris Graphics or Iris Pro Graphics.

According to each CPU generation, Intel will integrate different generations of graphics cards . You can refer to the table below. For example, in Intel’s 2nd generation CPU line, Sandy Bridge will have 3 types of HD Graphics, HD Graphics 2000 and HD Graphics 3000 depending on the product segment of the CPU, which is low or high-end, but uses a stronger graphics card.

GFLOPS is a number representing processing capacity, the higher the number, the faster the graphics processing speed .

Popular discrete graphics cards

Currently, the laptop market is dominated by the two largest graphics card manufacturers: AMD and NVIDIA . These two companies both own powerful graphics chips and are integrated on most laptops.

While AMD ATI calls the processor chip on the graphics card the VPU (Video Process Unit), NVIDIA calls it the GPU (Graphic Process Unit), both manufacturers do not directly distribute their products to users but usually through a 3rd party like MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, Powercolor…

How to name discrete graphics card

Looking at the name of the discrete graphics card, you can easily know the old or new generation of cards, the line of cards specialized for games or graphics, used for laptops or computers as well as its power.

Nvidia has the following naming conventions according to the current standards. For example, “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 940MX ” then:

Nvidia is a chip maker.

– Geforce is this chip line dedicated to gaming purposes.

In addition, we also have Quadro – specialized for 3D design or Tegra – low power consumption for mobile devices.

– GTX is a product line with strong performance for gaming laptops, graphics processing laptops.

We also have GT, GTS – a lower-end product line, GTX Ti – more advanced than GTX, with the same design but with additional cores and increased clocks.

– The next 3 or 4 digits include:

+ The first number indicates the generation of this graphics card , the larger the number, the newer and more modern the technology. We have 8XX, 9XX and now 10XX (2016).

+ The following 2 digits indicate the performance of that graphics card compared to cards in the same generation. For example, we have 950 will be stronger than 940.

+ The last 2 letters indicate which device this product will be used in .

– M is a line of chips for laptops and mobile devices thanks to less power consumption, smaller area as well as less heat, but still has high performance compared to integrated graphics cards.

– MX is also a chip for laptops and mobile devices but has higher performance than the M series, of course machines using this card also need to have better heat dissipation if you want to use it.

The above article has sent you basic information related to graphics cards on laptops. If you have any questions or need further advice, please leave a comment below so that lassho.edu.vn can assist you as soon as possible.