Basic Questiong Regarding Video Cards

[cpres]

A few questions regarding what to look for in a video card (on the low end due to not really playing many games)

1) What is the difference between DDR and DDR2 in video cards, is it the same as memory with the lower latency, and how can you verify your mobo supports it.
2) What is the difference between HDTV and AVIVO?
3) What is the difference between DVI and DVI-DL?

 

[sithscout80]

1. DDR2 is faster but at the cost of higher latency. It also runs on a lower voltage. The motherboard doesn't care what type of ram is on the video card.
2. HDTV is a standard for television, while AVIVO is ATI's hardware acceleration for H.264 (don't know to much more about AVIVO).
3. DVI is a digital interface for monitor connections. DVI-DL is the same interface but supports a higher bandwidth allowing for higher resolutions.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr2-ddr.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDTV
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI

 

[xientist]

1) The difference is that, DDR 2 will increase your memory bandwidth by better clockspeeds. DDR 2 also uses lesser power. only 1.8Volts compared to DDR, 2.5Volts. The type of memory ON your gfx doesn't really matter if you want to get worried bout compatibility with your mobo.. It doesn't ok. What you need to get worried is the interface, ie, PCI, PCIe or AGP.

2)A Quote from Wikipedia...

AVIVO is a programming interface ATI introduced for its Radeon R520 line of graphics cards. However, the AVIVO encoder doesn't actually use any GPU features for video encoding and depends totally on CPU speed alone. A cracked version is widely available that works with any graphics card, for example a 8 year old Nvidia TNT is just as fast as a Radeon 1900XT. Avivo is quite fast for an encoder but loses in video quality to Nero encoder as well as more professional tools like CCE encoder. It's main advantage is that it's free for Radeon R520 and newer card owners. It is also used by ATI to enable high definition rendering, image processing, and media encoding.

HDTV means broadcast of television signals with a higher resolution than traditional formats.

3) No difference actually except that DVI-DL (Dual link) doubles the frequency of the transmission so that it could carry more information for higher resolutions. For Single link, you'll get highest resolutions at 1280x1024. But with dual link you'll be able to scale up to 2560 × 1600 or even 3840 × 2400 but with lower refresh rates. Most of new gfx support dual link. You may not need this unless you are planning to get the apple Cinema Display 30inch. *drool*