Help Me Choose: Video Cards

Whether you’re gaming, watching DVDs or editing video on your Alienware™ desktop, the quality of the graphics you experience is only as good as your video card. Along with the computer monitor itself, the video card determines the number of colors that can be displayed, as well as the contrast, resolution and overall gaming graphics.
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How Video Cards Work
Discrete video cards can provide better performance, as compared to integrated video cards. Discrete video cards are separate from the motherboard and include a specialized graphics processing unit (GPU). Because of their onboard GPU, discrete video cards don’t have to share the CPU with other programs.

Discrete video cards include memory of their own, measured in gigabytes (GB). Graphics memory is used by the GPU to accelerate graphics performance, store textures using game graphics and make gaming, movies and other entertainment intensely realistic. High-performance graphics cards require a significant amount of graphics memory.

How to Get the Highest Performance
In Aurora, NVIDIA® video cards use a technology called Scalable Link Interface (SLI®) to enable two cards to work together when processing graphics data. Naturally, having two video cards working together to render graphics increases the available frame rate and provides more depth and detail. With the added horsepower of dual graphics cards, you can use higher-resolution displays and enjoy high-definition (HD) gaming without sacrificing graphics performance.

Overview
If you want to... Choose... 
Experience full, rich, smooth, immersive 3D gaming at high resolutions with maximum detail. A dual video card configuration can handle all applications that a single discrete video card can handle, plus:
  • The newest and most demanding game applications
  • Gaming development applications
 Aurora
Tackle complex graphics and applications. A discrete video card can handle all the applications that an integrated card can handle, plus:
  • Play many modern PC game titles at 1080p HD resolutions with medium to high settings
  • Enjoy 3D games, movies and other media via an HDMI 1.4 output port
 X51
Recommendations

GPUMax Graphics PowerProcessor Clock SpeedOnboard Graphics MemoryOnboard Memory TypeGPUs on CardOnboard Memory SpeedDirectX® VersionI/O Ports Dongles 3D CapableSingle Card Available SystemsDual Card Available Systems
AMD Radeon™ HD 6870225W900MHz1GB GDDR5Single1050MHz11mDP-mDP-HDMI-DVI-DVIDVI to VGA-J8461
mDP to DP -VHGFF 		NoAuroraAurora
AMD Radeon HD 6950 225W800MHz 2GBGDDR5 Single1250MHz 11mDP-mDP-HDMI-DVI-DVIDVI to VGA-J8461
mDP to DP -VHGFF 		NoAuroraAurora
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580 250W772MHz 1.5GB GDDR5 Single2004MHz11Mini HDMI+Two Dual Link DVImHDMI to HDMI DDR4T
DVI to VGA-J8461 		YesAuroraN/A
NVIDIA
GeForce GTX 560Ti		210W 732MHz 1.25GB    
 GDDR5   		Single1900MHz11DVI-I, DVI-I, HDMI, DisplayPort DVI-VGAYesAuroraN/A
 NVIDIA
GeForce GT 545 1GB GDDR5		105W  870MHz1GB GDDR5 Single2000MHz 11 DVI+DVI+mHDMI N/A Yes X51Aurora 
 NVIDIA
GeForce GTX 555		150W 1472MHz 1GB  GDDR5Single1914MHz  11 DVI,-I DVI-I, mini-HDMIN/A Yes  X51 Aurora


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