Out of the Loop

[Trashdog]

I haven’t put together a system in a few years, the last one I did had
a 2x AGP card so I need some information.

Ok, now I have a question what is better 8x AGP or a PCI Express video
card? Also just what exactly is PCI Express?

 

[J. Clarke]

I haven’t put together a system in a few years, the last one I did had
a 2x AGP card so I need some information.

Ok, now I have a question what is better 8x AGP or a PCI Express video
card? Also just what exactly is PCI Express?

In terms of performance neither is "better", just different. The PCI
Express advocates will tell you all about the higher bandwidth but in the
real world nobody has come up with an application that performs noticeably
better on a PCI Express board than on an AGP 4x board that uses the same
GPU. Now if you're going for a super high end gaming system, PCI express
if you choose your components judiciously allows dual video boards with
shared video processing (google "SLI") which does provide a higher frame
rate in some games, but it's an expensive solution.

PCI Express is a new standard that is supposed to eventually replace both
AGP and PCI with more bandwidth than either--to an extent it's an Intel
marketing gimmick but since they put it in all their chipsets and dropped
AGP the rest of the market is pretty much forced to follow suit, and there
are not many new designs for motherboard chipsets that support AGP, so it's
pretty much a dead end.

If you're putting together a new system then PCI Express is usually the
better way to go.

 

[DaveW]

PCI-Express is the new video card industry standard that has come out to
replace the aging AGP standard. PCI-Express video cards can handle twice
the twice the maximum data transfer rates that AGP 8x could.

--
DaveW
__________

I haven't put together a system in a few years, the last one I did had
a 2x AGP card so I need some information.

Ok, now I have a question what is better 8x AGP or a PCI Express video
card? Also just what exactly is PCI Express?

--
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[Brian Pemberton]

PCI-Express is the new video card industry standard that has come out to
replace the aging AGP standard. PCI-Express video cards can handle twice
the twice the maximum data transfer rates that AGP 8x could.

Don't think there's much out there that'll show much of a difference - yet.
But the fact that PCI-E is the newr standard makes it the one to choose IMO.
The 6600GT is already cheaper in PCI-E than AGP.
Three years from now, you probably won't be able to get the latest card in AGP at all.

HTH

Brian