Graphics or Video cards transfer the images from your processor to your monitor's screen.
A basic graphics card has only 2D functions. This means it can display graphics on your screen, such as files, images and your basic desktop, but doesn't contain any additional hardware to help with 3D calculations. In order to view more sophisticated graphics, like playing computer games fully, you will need a 3D graphics card which contains additional hardware on the video card specifically designed to do the mathematical calculations necessary to correctly display 3D objects on the screen. This way the CPU doesn't need to perform the calculations, and can deal with other necessary functions instead. If you buy a high-end graphics card today it will last you several years. To buy anything less reduces the useful life of your graphics card, although you will still be able to make good use of your computer without problems.
If you run several monitors from a single PC then you will need a graphics card for each monitor. This can sometimes cause problems though. In order to achieve maximum efficiency from this set up you will need a multi-monitor card, enabling your PC to support two or more monitors.
The minimum recommended graphics card now contains 32MB of graphics memory that will allow you to easily run programs and generally view images at good quality. For high performance viewing in games, you will need at least a 64MB card, although substantially better quality will be achieved with higher 128MB or 256Mb cards.
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