NZFF

so let me get this straight.
Desktop video cards have power cables? And if I was to buy a video card on trademe, would it come with one?

Bare with me, Im new to desktops

huh, video cards do not come with power cables they run off the current from whatever board they are plugged into. They do sometimes come with cables and adapters though to hook upto TVs etc.

alright cheers.

more powerful graphics cards require more power. to get this you have to plug a an extra power source from your power supply into the card. this is inside the computer case, not external like plugging your card into the wall.
just be aware that your power supply will need a spare connector, and should be powerful enough to power the new card.

Zöltuger is dead right.

This image may help explain it. The part in the circle shows the power plugging into the card. The Y shaped lead splits an existing power supply into 2 if you don't have a spare lead in the case already.

just be aware that your power supply will need a spare connector, and should be powerful enough to power the new card.

Is this something I need to worry about when I get a new computer? (even if its a fairly old AGP Card?)

power is something you should really think about good look at it this way if you have a normal power pack it plugs in just fine to every thing but as you put in graphic cards sound cards tunners etc... they all chip away at the power
so this takes power away from other thing like cpu mother board disc drive etc.. to help the problem you buy a bigger power pack 600watt then all the power is now going to all those things at the right voltage again ...
so power packs will be you computers best friends if you get what i mean plus on the cord power plug thing well bigger the power pack the more plugs come with it
mike

Is there anything stopping me from plugging the power wire from the graphics into a different PC? I'm setting up a network anyway and want to assign different tasks to different PC's, so I suppose this includes power distibution.

i cant see why not , sounds like a good cheap way of not taking power away from the cpu ,but id double cheak with your local pc guy that its is infact do able
mike

brownbox wrote:

just be aware that your power supply will need a spare connector, and should be powerful enough to power the new card.

Is this something I need to worry about when I get a new computer? (even if its a fairly old AGP Card?)

depends on the card and computer
if you're getting something really powerful, like a geforce 7900GTX, and you have lots of hard disks or DVD drives, then you'll need a 500W+ power supply

if its less powerful (say a 6600GT) and one or two hard disks, then you'll survive with a 400W generic power supply.