Build The Ultimate Custom PC (2005)

Chapter 7 — Choosing CD/DVD Drives 109

Summary

In this chapter, we’ve looked at optical drives, in particular writable CD and DVD drives because these offer the best in terms of flexibility for you as the user. We’ve taken a look at the technology behind optical drives and looked at and deciphered the bewildering variety of formats present.

In the next chapter, you will look at video adaptors and the choices that are open to you there.

Take Action

Before you move on to the next chapter, be sure you’re prepared:

■Consider your optical drive needs. Do you need only drives that can read discs or do you need writers?

■If you need a writer, how much storage do you need? Will a CD be enough or do you need DVD?

Choosing Video

Adaptors and

Monitors

Without a video adaptor and monitor, you won’t have a window into what’s happening with your PC. Your PC will need both a video adaptor and a monitor. In this chapter, we examine the

options available to you when building a new PC.

Clearing Up Terminology: We’re going to be calling the card that lets you hook up a monitor to your system the video adaptor. However, you might find this particular item referred to by many different names in different places:

Video card

Graphics card

Graphics adaptor

VGA (Video Graphics Array) card

And any number of other word combinations too! These all refer to the same thing — a device that allows you to connect a monitor to the system.

Types of Video Adaptors

There are a number of different video adaptor options that are open to you. Here are the main options, listed in increasing price:

Using an “on-board” video adaptor

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) video adaptor

PCI Express video adaptor (PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect)

Let’s take a look at each of these options in a bit more detail.

chapter

in this chapter

˛Video adaptor options

˛“On-board” video adaptors

˛AGP

˛PCI Express

˛2-D/3-D

˛GPU speed

˛Memory

˛Multi-monitor support

˛Additional video adaptor features

˛Monitor choices

112 Part I — Choosing Components for Your PC

“On-Board” Video Adaptors

Motherboards now come loaded with all sorts of extras that a few years ago had to be bought separately, and along with network adaptors and modems, one commonly bundled feature is an “on-board” video adaptor.

An on-board video adaptor provides support for a monitor that’s been built directly onto the motherboard. There are two ways that you can tell whether your motherboard has an on-board video adaptor:

Look at the ports available. Along with a serial port and parallel port, you might find the DB-15 port (see Figure 8-1). This is easily recognizable from the other ports because the connector has 15 holes in it. It looks a little like a serial port connector, but if you look closely, you’ll notice that unlike a serial port it has holes instead of pins.

Check the documentation for your motherboard. Look for mention of “on-board” video.

FIGURE 8-1: A DB-15 port on a motherboard.

Pros and Cons of On-Board Video Adaptors

Is an “on-board” video adaptor good enough? This is a question most people ask themselves when they are building a PC. The answer depends on what you intend on doing with your PC.

There are several things to bear in mind about on-board video adaptors. They revolve around quality, performance, and price.

The odd thing about on-board video support on motherboards is how the pros and cons switch places depending on how you plan on using the PC you are going to build. For example, the first thing to bear in mind about on-board video support is that you’re not paying much for that extra. For a lot of people this is a “pro” point. In fact, it’s now pretty much a standard on most boards that you might actually find it costs more to find a board without an on-board video adaptor.

Chapter 8 — Choosing Video Adaptors and Monitors 113

Problem is, in the PC world cheap rarely means high performance or high quality, and nowhere is this more true than for video adaptors. This means if want high performance, the “pro” point of low cost becomes a “con” point in that you are going to have to buy a separate video adaptor.

On-board video adaptors generally use low-quality components. Although they work and will allow you to connect a monitor to the system, don’t expect much in the way of speed or performance. An on-board video adaptor will be fine if your PC is destined for word processing and Internet use (making it a “pro” point), but if you want to play games on the PC or use your system for movies or video, then forget the on-board video adaptor because it’s not going to have enough in the way of power or performance and the results you are going to get will be disappointing. “Con.”

One of the main reasons on-board video adaptors cost so little is that they don’t have their own RAM (as you will see later in this chapter, video adaptor cards have RAM on the card to handle the needs of the card) and instead share a portion of the system RAM. Obviously, a “pro” point. However, this results in much lower performance from the video adaptor, and it also means that your system will need additional RAM — bought and installed — to cater to the RAM consumed by the on-board video adaptor. I think you’ll agree that this is a big “con” point!

The Bottom Line

So, what do you do?

If you are building a machine that’s going to be used for playing games or playing videos or DVDs or if you are going to be doing graphics or image manipulation, then dismiss the idea of using the on-board graphics adaptor. In this case, you will get at best disappointing results, and at worst things won’t work at all.

If all you think your PC will be doing is running word processors and spreadsheets, processing email, and surfing the web, then on-board video support might be everything you need. However, bear in mind that $20 well spent will likely get you a separate video adaptor that will offer far superior performance and reliability than anything you get on a motherboard.

For everyone else, we recommend steering away from using the on-board video adaptor and getting a separate video adaptor.

Upcoming Windows Vista

To get the best out of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Vista operating system, you will need a video adaptor with at least 64 MB of on-board memory and reasonable 3-D performance. Windows Vista will more than likely run on systems with a lower performance, but users will not be able to take advantage of features such as the new Aero Glass interface.

114 Part I — Choosing Components for Your PC

AGP Video Adaptors

AGP stands for Accelerated Graphics Port. This is a video adaptor expansion port that is present on the motherboard and allows you to connect an AGP video adaptor card to the system. AGP was designed by Intel, and its purpose was to replace slow PCI-based video adaptors with something capable of delivering the performance required for gaming and video.

FIGURE 8-2: An AGP video adaptor (Crucial Technology Radeon 9200).

PCI-based video adaptors (video adaptor cards designed to fit into a PCI expansion card slot on the motherboard) are all but extinct (they are still for sale in many places but either as replacements for systems prior to AGP support or to allow users to hook up two cards to one PC — more on that later!) and have been replaced by AGP.

AGP is faster because it allows for greater bandwidth between the motherboard and the video adaptor card, meaning that the system can display and update complex graphics faster and with less load on the CPU.

Chapter 8 — Choosing Video Adaptors and Monitors 115

FIGURE 8-3: An AGP slot on motherboard.

An AGP expansion card slot is easily distinguished from a PCI slot. The AGP slot has a small catch on the front to hold the card in place (see Figures 8-4 and 8-5).

FIGURE 8-4: Clip at the front of the slot to hold the AGP card in place.

116 Part I — Choosing Components for Your PC

FIGURE 8-5: Slot for clip on AGP card.

AGP is currently very popular, and you will find support for it on many motherboards, and you will have a wide choice of AGP-compliant video adaptor cards from a large number of manufacturers and at a wide range or prices. However, there is an alternative to AGP that is gaining ground fast. This technology is called PCI Express.

PCI Express Video Adaptors

PCI Express takes the lessons learned from PCI and improves on them. PCI Express is faster than AGP (about 2.5 times faster) because it utilizes greater bandwidth, and it is quickly gaining ground on AGP. It is also more versatile because the technology isn’t just limited to video adaptors. All new video adaptor cards from ATI Technologies and NVIDIA make use of PCI Express, and for cards that connect to AGP, a bridge chip is used.

Physically, a PCI Express slot looks similar to an AGP slot, but check for motherboard support. Your motherboard will either support PCI Express or AGP, not both. Motherboard support for PCI Express is limited to midand high-range motherboards.

An easy way to tell the difference between the two slots is to measure the distance between the back of the slot and the back edge of the motherboard (see Figure 8-6). For an AGP slot this will be 2-1/2 inches (6.35 cm), while for a PCI Express slot the gap is less, 1-5/8 inches (4.13 cm). Another way is to look at the adjacent slots — all the other PCI Express slots are small.

Chapter 8 — Choosing Video Adaptors and Monitors 117

FIGURE 8-6: To tell the difference between AGP and PCI Express slots, measure the distance indicated by the double-headed arrow shown here.

How to Choose between AGP and PCI Express

How do you decide what you need?

If you want to build a PC that uses the latest technology and has a long lifespan before becoming obsolete, then choose a PCI Express-based motherboard and video adaptor. However, you are going to pay extra for this, in particular the motherboard costs. You will also need to make sure that all your other expansion cards are PCI Express cards, which can increase your build costs (especially if you were thinking of moving some of the cards from an old PC into the new one). However, if you are into gaming in a big way and your new PC is destined to be a gaming rig, then you should consider PCI Express-based technology.

The AGP port is still a good, solid option to choose, and this will give you a good compromise between performance and cost. If you are building a budget or midrange PC, then choose a motherboard that has AGP support over PCI Express. As always, cost will be your guide. If you want performance, power, and the longest upgrade life, go for PCI Express. However, for budget systems you might be stuck with AGP (although you might be lucky and grab a bargain!).

118 Part I — Choosing Components for Your PC

Video Card Features

When you are looking for a good video adaptor to buy, there are a few features that you can check for.

First of all, as we’ve said already, decide whether you want an AGP video adaptor or a PCI Express video adaptor. This is either a choice you can make prior to buying a motherboard or you will have to buy whatever your motherboard supports.

Once you have this information you can then set about buying a suitable video adaptor expansion card.

Manufacturer

You will find a number of video adaptor manufacturers to choose from. Any good vendor will provide you with all the relevant information you need to make an informed choice (or at least they should be able to — if not, find another vendor).

Generally, you will find that at the core of the cards is a processor (known as a GPU or graphical processor unit) from one of only a handful of manufacturers. Two of the most common GPU makers are ATI and NVIDIA.

These GPU makers make chips for a number of companies, so you might find that even though you have a card with a GPU from, say, ATI, that the card was otherwise made and assembled by another company.

Don’t worry too much about brands — most brands carry similar lines and if you are buying from a good, reputable store, you can use price as a guide to performance and quality. The more expensive the card, the higher performance it will be and the better quality the card will be overall.

2-D or 3-D

You also need to decide whether you want a card that’s capable of 3-D (or, more accurately, 2.5-D, which is as close to 3-D as you can get on a flat screen). 2-D cards are much cheaper than 3-D cards, but they have limited scope. 2-D cards are fine on machines that are going to be confined to office work (word processing, spreadsheet work, or databases). For anything like gaming or video work, you will need a card with greater capabilities, and 3-D becomes essential.

We recommend that unless you are building a system designed for office use (where perhaps you might even want to discourage gaming!) that you steer away from 2-D-only video adaptors.

Speed

Just like CPUs, the on-board GPUs (shown in Figure 8-7 under a heatsink) come in a variety of speeds. The faster the speed of the GPU, the better the performance of the card. Again, without burdening you with too many confusing terms, you can let price guide you. The more the card costs, the faster the overall card will be.