Your graphics card always ready: update your drivers to improve performance
Table of contents:
- The “front” of your Windows system
- Typical Graphic Configurations
- Update your drivers, you will notice the difference
Our personal computers are powered by various components: motherboards, USB ports, RAM memories, hard drives, chipsets, processors, readers of DVD…
All are necessary, but some are so important that they determine the power that our equipment can demonstrate: this is the case of the GPU, which can be a dedicated graphics card or a graphics chip. Do you know that keeping your drivers updated is vital for your Windows system?
The “front” of your Windows system
Without a graphics card or graphics chip (GPU), your Windows computer would simply be a state-of-the-art typewriter. that you could not give it much use, since you cannot emit any image on the screen. That is precisely what a graphics card does: convert data from the CPU into output information, in this case visual.
If your intention is to design, retouch images, edit videos, create 3D, or relax and play the best video games on the market, your main option should be to purchase a graphics card at the height if you want to perform at your best in said tasks.
Today, the most recognized graphics cards are released under two GPU design firms: Nvidia and AMD (formerly known as ATI at that time). field), which have controlled the market for practically years.These types of components are sold as non-motherboard devices and are usually connected to the motherboard via an internal port known as PCI Express They have their own heat sinks , with fans, with dedicated high-speed memory, and with various types of connections to connect monitors or TVs: DVI, VGA, HDMI, Display Port, etc.
On the other hand, and as a result of the arrival of the latest generation microprocessors, it is increasingly common to see computers without a graphics card dedicated, since the graphics chip that comes integrated into the processor itself has very decent powers for the vast majority of users, aided by the RAM memory installed in the equipment. In this field, Intel and AMD share the cake thanks to being the two leading processor designers. The ports are the same as on graphics cards: DVI, VGA, HDMI, Display Port... Only in this case they will be on the motherboard itself, near the other common ports on your computer.
Typical Graphic Configurations
If you get a little lost and really don't know if your computer has a dedicated graphics card or uses its processor's graphics chip, just take a look behind the tower on your computer you will be able to recognize it instantly:
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Case 1: We have a graphics card (and with the monitor cable connected to it). Graphics cards are usually found away from all other ports and connectors on the motherboard, in the lower area of the towers.
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Case 2: The monitor cable is connected to one video port on the motherboard, which is located close to the others common ports of the computer: USB, LAN, power, sound, etc, which indicates that we are using a chip integrated in the processor
-Note: If your tower has a graphics card but the monitor cable is connected to another port that is not located on it, then you will be using the graphics chip internal and not the graphics card (and you'll be wasting that card's power by the way).
- In the case of laptops, you can have a dedicated graphics card or not, but that will always be indicated by the manufacturer , indicated with the corresponding promotional stickers that usually accompany the laptop. The most expensive laptop models usually incorporate a dedicated graphics card and an internal graphics chip in their processors, and will interchange between one or the other depending on the demands of the process to be carried out .
We recommend you review our latest screencast dedicated to configuring monitors and speakers on your Windows computer, it will be very helpful.
Once you've located the graphics card you're using, it's time to update your drivers to the latest version.
Update your drivers, you will notice the difference
Updating your graphics drivers is necessary for a very significant reason: designers refine their controllers so that they are more compatible with new gamesand new programs.
In fact, if you enter the Nvidia or AMD website they literally “bombard” you with the benefits that their new controllers bring to the latest games on the marketThank you for your updates, so we must pay attention to them.
Generally, if you don't know the model of your graphics chip or graphics card, it won't be difficult for you to find it, since thanks to the websites themselves we can analyze our systemto automatically detect them and download the drivers.
If this fails, we can manually search for the device in our system. In this same space Welcome to Windows 8 we have dedicated a couple of articles to help you: one to install the drivers manually and another to detect unknown devices in our system.
Finally, if we already know the model, but we don't have the drivers downloaded, we simply have to go to the support and download drivers sectionsfrom the Nvidia, AMD or Intel websites and download the correct version according to our graphics chip.
