How Do I Connect A PC To A Monitor?

[adventurelieu]

I am pretty new to PC building and I don't really know what I am doing. I am currently saving up for parts to build my PC and have a pretty good idea of what to do thanks to YouTube tutorials and forums such as this. Since I have never used a desktop or PC before I am pretty confused on how to hook up a PC to a monitor. I just want to know if I have to buy anything to connect them together, where they go, what they are called, and etc. Thank you in advance to anyone that replies to this thread and helps me!

 

[Wolfshadw]

The monitor will typically come with at least one cable, but you may need to purchase one in order to connect it to your computer's graphics card output.

The typical graphics card will have several outputs. There are four primary outputs. They are:

VGA / 15-pin D-Sub: Typically blue in color with 15 pinouts. It is also outdated and no longer supported by some graphic cards.
DVI: DVI comes is a couple of flavors DVI-I and DVI-D. The "-I" in DVI-I means "Integrated" it can utilize both analog (VGA) and digital (DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort) signals. DVI-D, on the other hand, only supports the digital side of display connections.
HDMI and DisplayPort are purely digital in nature.

The typical graphics card will have some combination of three or four of these.

You will want to make sure that any monitor you decide to purchase has an input that matches at least one of the outputs of your graphics card.

Fairly simple after that:
You'll need a VGA cable to connect a graphic card's VGA output to a monitor's VGA input.
You'll need a DVI cable to connect a graphic card's DVI output to a monitor's DVI input.
You'll need a HDMI cable to connect a graphic card's HDMI output to a monitor's HDMI input.
You'll need a DisplayPort cable to connect a graphic card's DisplayPort output to a monitor's DisplayPort input.

While you can use adapter cables (DVI to HDMI, HDMI to DisplayPort, etc...) for strictly digital signals, many people run in to issues trying to connect a digital output from a graphics card to an analog (VGA) input on a monitor. Generally, it's advised to be avoided.

-Wolf sends

 

[adventurelieu]

Thanks for the help Wolf!