Common Video Card Bus Types

The video card normally plugs into the same type of expansion slots that other cards do. Systems built before the mid-1990s used one of the following obsolete bus standards:

  • ISA

  • VL-Bus (VESA Local-Bus)

  • EISA (Enhanced ISA)

Current systems feature one of these video interfaces:

  • PCI slot

  • AGP slot

  • Integrated graphics

Built-in video uses two different types of memory:

  • Dedicated memory chips on the motherboard; used primarily with portable systems that use a discrete graphics chip instead of chipset-integrated graphics

  • Shared main memory (also known as Unified Memory Architecture [UMA]); used primarily with systems that use chipset-integrated graphics

There's a double whammy on system performance if your video comes from your ...

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