Graphics accelerators weren’t’ always necessary. There was a time when the onboard CPU could handle the graphic demands being place upon it. Technology moves rapidly and so do the needs that come with it. Newer games rely on good graphics rendering. Especially these new MMO type games that require rendering graphics in real-time. With this type of load being placed upon the CPU a graphics accelerator can make this possible. By acting as a coprocessor, a graphics accelerator will begin to computer primary information without having to send it through the bus system and to the CPU for redrawing.

The graphics accelerator essentially bypasses the need to transfer rendering information to and from the primary CPU making it possible to have high-quality graphics move and scale quick, smoothly and much more stable than the local bus can provide. Eliminating the bottleneck between redraw and refresh rates at which graphics are created and sent to memory is what graphics accelerators were designed for. As the processing speed of computers multiplies so do the graphics needs of more sophisticated gaming and high-definition video.

The graphic demands on computers have grown exponentially and require faster technologies to power them. These market demands have bred newer faster graphics accelerators that provide maximum redraw/refresh rates while not adding too much in the way of system load times. Most graphics accelerator now come with onboard cooling systems as opposed to traditional aluminum heat sinks to provide faster results without sacrificing performance.