Specifications

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Chapter 15 Video Hardware
Table 15.9 Video Features of Current Non-Intel Integrated Chipsets
External AGP
Supported Integrated Graphics Video
Vendor Chipset Processors Graphics Type Support Memory Size
ATI RADEON Intel Pentium 4, ATI RADEON 9000 AGP 8x Up to 128MB
IGP 9100 Celeron 4
ATI RADEON Intel Pentium 4, ATI RADEON 9000 AGP 8x Up to 128MB
IGP 9100PRO Celeron 4
NVIDIA nForce2 AMD Athlon/Duron/ NVIDIA GeForce4 AGP 8x Up to 64MB
Athlon XP MX420
SiS SiS661FX Intel Pentium 4, SiS Ultra-AGPII AGP 8x Up to 64MB
Celeron 4 Mirage
SiS SiS760 AMD Athlon 64, SiS Ultra-AGPII AGP 8x Up to 128MB
Opteron Mirage 2
SiS SiS741 AMD Athlon XP/ SiS Ultra-AGPII AGP 8x Up to 64MB
Athlon/Duron Mirage
VIA PM880, PM800 Intel Pentium 4, S3 Graphics AGP 8x Up to 64MB
Celeron 4 Unichrome Pro
VIA K8M800 AMD Athlon 64, S3 Graphics AGP 8x Up to 64MB
Opteron Unichrome Pro
VIA KM400 AMD Athlon XP/ S3 Graphics AGP 8x Up to 64MB
Athlon/Duron Unichrome
Although a serious 3D gamer will not be satisfied with the performance of most integrated chipsets
(NVIDIA’s nForce2 and ATI’s RADEON 9100 IGPs being notable exceptions), business, home/office,
and casual gamers will find that integrated chipset-based video on Pentium 4, Athlon XP, or Athlon
64 platforms are satisfactory in performance and provide cost savings compared with separate video
cards. If you decide to buy a motherboard with an integrated chipset, I recommend that you select
one that also supports an AGP 8x or PCI Express x16 video expansion slot. This enables you to add a
faster video card in the future if you decide you need it.
Video Adapter Components
All video display adapters contain certain basic components, such as the following:
■ Video BIOS.
■ Video processor/video accelerator.
■ Video memory.
■ Digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Formerly a separate chip, the DAC is usually incorporated
into the video processor/accelerator chip on recent chipsets. The DAC is not necessary on a
purely digital subsystem (digital video card and display), but because most display subsystems
have an analog VGA video card, an analog display, or both, video cards will continue to have
DAC features for some time to come.
■ Bus connector.
■ Video driver.
Figure 15.11 indicates the locations of many of these components on a typical AGP 8x video card.
Note that the acronym GPU refers to the graphics processing unit.
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