Term of the Moment
Blu-ray
Definition: graphics card
The plug-in card in a desktop computer that creates the electronic signals required by the monitor. In early PCs, a plug-in card was commonly found. Later, graphics circuits were built onto the motherboard, but the reason today for a plug-in card is for gamers who want more realism. Graphics cards contain a graphics processing unit (GPU) that performs parallel operations at high speed, and the latest high-end graphics card can cost more than the computer. See GPU.
A Display Adapter Is a Graphics Card
Microsoft calls a graphics card a "display adapter." The terms "graphics card," "video card" and "display adapter" are synonymous. See display standards and display adapter.
All Shapes and Sizes
A Gamer's Dream Card
A Display Adapter Is a Graphics Card
Microsoft calls a graphics card a "display adapter." The terms "graphics card," "video card" and "display adapter" are synonymous. See display standards and display adapter.
The left and middle cards are earlier graphics cards. On the right is a GPU, and they are all large due to their built-in cooling system.
Introduced in 2018, the NVIDIA TITAN RTX has 24GB of RAM, 4,608 CUDA cores and performs more than 100 trillion floating point operations per second. (Image courtesy of NVIDIA Corporation.)