PCI or AGP

[jasonwichman]

Hello All-

Can anyone give me some insight on the difference between the two slots when it comes to a Video card. I am planning on building a new pc and use parts from the PC I have now. I don't have an AGP slot on my motherboard now, and I need to get a new video card. I only have a few PCI slots open for the new video card. I guess what I need to know is what is the performance difference between the two. It will be a 32 or 64 mb video card when I get one.

Thanks for the help Jason Wichman

http://jasonwichman.ath.cx:81

ftp://jwichman.ath.cx:22

 

[bgauntt]

Read this article on PCI vs. AGP and this should tell you exactly what you are looking for.

 

[MattWray]

What article?!? Matt Wray
CCNA, MCP
mwray77518@yahoo.com

 

[jasonwichman]

Yeah where is the article? Jason Wichman

http://jasonwichman.ath.cx:81

ftp://jwichman.ath.cx:22

 

[cdogg]

You have to be careful when reading up on this topic. Many people are confused that some PCI cards perform the same as their AGP counterpart. While this may be true in some cases, you cannot assume that this is true for all cases.

Older cards that were made for both AGP and PCI were meant to run on a PCI interface and simply converted to work with AGP. This "conversion" in many cases isn't designed to take advantage of the AGP architecture. So, a lot of comparisons you run into on the web claim that AGP is nearly identical to PCI - not true...

Here's a good comparison:

http://thetechnozone.com/pcbuyersguide/hardware/graphics/benchmarks/

 

[paparazi]

If you have an AGP slot on your new board then use it!!! simple as that!!
Yes the dedicated graphics slot "AGP" is quicker (do you need to know by how much?) and all newer 32mb+ video cards are 4X AGP so make sure the motherboard supports that too (again if it's a new motherboard 99% support 4X AGP)so no problem!
For gaming go with an Nvidia G/force card for 2D images the ATI Radeon has the quality edge, but alot is down to the actual model of card you purchase.
Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[bgauntt]

My bad.

http://www.pcmech.com/show/video/139/

 

[bgauntt]

That article

 

[cdogg]

bgauntt,

That is a perfect example of a card that was meant for PCI and also made compatible with AGP. It was not "rewritten" to take advantage of AGP. Not that it really matters anyway since that card doesn't require the extra bandwidth that AGP offers.

Newer cards (like the GeForce2 Ultra or GeForce4) could not have even really worked in a PCI environment due to the bandwidth restriction. AGP actually sits directly on the system bus allowing for faster access times and greater thoroughput...

 

[cdogg]

PCI - 133MB/sec max transfer rate

AGP
1x - 266MB/sec max transfer rate
2x - 533MB/sec max transfer rate
4x - 1GB/sec max transfer rate

_________________________________________________
This guy always did have a good way of describing comparisons:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/97q3/970805/index.html