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 Radeon HD 5570 from Sapphire, a PCI Express video card with VGA, HDMI, and DVI ports and a small cooling fan | |
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Display via one of: |
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A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a display device such as a monitor. Graphics cards are sometimes called discrete or dedicated graphics cards to emphasize their distinction to an integrated graphics processor on the motherboard or the central processing unit (CPU). A graphics processing unit (GPU) that performs the necessary computations is the main component in a graphics card, but the acronym "GPU" is sometimes also used to erroneously refer to the graphics card as a whole.[1]
Most graphics cards are not limited to simple display output. The graphics processing unit can be used for additional processing, which reduces the load from the CPU.[2] Additionally, computing platforms such as OpenCL and CUDA allow using graphics cards for general-purpose computing. Applications of general-purpose computing on graphics cards include AI training, cryptocurrency mining, and molecular simulation.[3][4][5]
Usually, a graphics card comes in the form of a printed circuit board (expansion board) which is to be inserted into an expansion slot.[6] Others may have dedicated enclosures, and they are connected to the computer via a docking station or a cable. These are known as external GPUs (eGPUs).
Graphics cards are often preferred over integrated graphics for increased performance.
- ^ "What is a GPU?" Intel. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
- ^ "ExplainingComputers.com: Hardware". www.explainingcomputers.com. Archived from the original on 17 December 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
- ^ "OpenGL vs DirectX - Cprogramming.com". www.cprogramming.com. Archived from the original on 12 December 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
- ^ "Powering Change with Nvidia AI and Data Science". Nvidia. Archived from the original on 10 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
parrish20170710was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Graphic Card Components". pctechguide.com. 23 September 2011. Archived from the original on 12 December 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2017.