The video adapter card or graphics adapter translates information into graphics and text that appear on the monitor screen.
The graphics adapter plugs into
a slot on the motherboard or is incorporated directly into
the electronics of the motherboard. A special slot designated
specifically for the graphics card called the
AGP slot (Advanced Graphics Port) has been superceded by the
PCI-e or PCI-express slot which is as much as four times faster
than AGP.
Modern graphics adapters usually incorporate some memory right on the card to improve their performance. To further improve the performance of the video output, a second graphics accelerator card can be used in tandem with the graphics adapter.
