Video Card
Minimum Price Range: Varies
The video card (or GPU - Graphical Processing Unit, OR VPU - Video Processing Unit) can be one of the toughest decisions you have to make from a budget standpoint if you want any kind of performance PC. If all you need is a simple PC to surf the net, check email, and play solitaire, you're much better off just finding the cheapest video card you can find, OR preferably purchasing a motherboard with integrated video. If your board already has this feature (which is common on many low and mid-ranged priced motherboards) you can skip this section entirely. For anyone else wanting to install a video card into a system that can play games, do video editing, or anything else requiring any kind of decent graphics/video performance, read on...
You may have noticed the minimum price range for video cards in this section is labeled as 'Varies'. This is because the choices in video cards are so broad, you really need to establish what class of video card you want to purchase so you can narrow down how much money you want to spend on your card. Once you have your budget established and performance-level range identified, most video card manufacturers further subdivide the pricing on the same video card models by how much the cards are overclocked. Typically, the major video card manufacturers (such as EVGA, XFX, BFG Tech., and many more) will offer the same model with several different overclocked versions. The more overclocked the card is, the higher the price. While most of the big manufacturers offer very respectable warranties on their cards (many offer lifetime guarantees at no extra charge), be aware that the more aggresively overclocked cards are more likely to experience a shorter lifespan than their lesser-overclocked counterparts as they endure a higher amount of stress and wear. Avoid running into problems with these cards by investing in higher quality cooling solutions for the video card(s) as well as a well-cooled case.
