PCIe to AGP converter?!?

[Alceryes]

Someone needs to make a device that can be fitted to the end of a PCIe video
card that will convert it to AGP 8x. It should be technically possible. Of
course card height would then be an issue so it probably wouldn't fit in
some micro case and whoever made it would have to make an accompanying
bracket so that it could be secured to the case at it's new height. Even if
there was a slight performance hit I would buy it just so I could have a
flagship GPU now (7800GTX or X1800XT) and then be able to purchase a good
PCIe MB later.

Whadda ya think?

 

[Paul]

Someone needs to make a device that can be fitted to the end of a PCIe video
card that will convert it to AGP 8x. It should be technically possible. Of
course card height would then be an issue so it probably wouldn't fit in
some micro case and whoever made it would have to make an accompanying
bracket so that it could be secured to the case at it's new height. Even if
there was a slight performance hit I would buy it just so I could have a
flagship GPU now (7800GTX or X1800XT) and then be able to purchase a good
PCIe MB later.

Whadda ya think?

An adapter was already announced, but would only be useful with
a fairly low-profile card. And since the people who would want
the adapter, would be using a high performance card, this isn't
likely to be a popular converter.

There is a ULI chipset now, that has both an AGP and a PCI-E
video card interface on it. That is one way to make the
transition.

Also, companies like Asrock, have made some crazy motherboards,
where they make "lookalike" slots. I think one is constructed by
bridging the PCI bus to the AGP slot. Their PCI Express video
slot runs at x4 instead of x16. While the board functions as
intended, the very thought of losing a bit of performance, would
drive most potential customers away.

In terms of bridging chips, both ATI and Nvidia have made
PCI-Express to AGP bridges. And I think the bridges are
bidirectional, so with the chips, you can fit an AGP card
in a PCI-Express slot, or fit a PCI-Express card in an
AGP slot. What I don't understand, is if there is any
incentive for those two companies to try to promote the
manufacture of adapter cards (even if they were feasable
in any sense). Certainly, I can see some benefit in the
construction of motherboards. (Like maybe make a 915
motherboard with S478 socket, then bridge the PCI-Express
video interface to AGP, so a transition from P4P800/P4C800
can be made without buying any new parts.)

Here is the adapter in action - pretty crazy looking:

http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12837

More info here:
http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/it/vga/atop_page.asp

The purpose of the ribbon cable, is to allow the customer
to continue to use the VGA interface on the card. They place
a blank VGA connector on the adapter board, and then the
ribbon cable brings the VGA signals down from the main
card.

Paul

 

[kony]

Someone needs to make a device that can be fitted to the end of a PCIe video
card that will convert it to AGP 8x.

Pay a lot for a specialized adapter?
It's not going to be just a piece of circuit board with a
pin-adapted pair of slots.

It should be technically possible.

In some spare-no-cost, theory, possibly some kind of bridge
could be made, but it would not just be a slot adapter like
a PCI riser card, it'd take a whole daughter board and new
case form factor to implement else some kind of special card
mounting bracket that isn't supported by any case and thus
requires drilling a hole to secure to the case. This is for
the adapter daughterboard alone, not the video card which
would need fixed in place too.

Of
course card height would then be an issue

That's trivial, a bend piece of metal with two tapped holes
to span the created gap between card bracket and case slot
screw-down point, and it's done, essentially what you
mentioned below.

so it probably wouldn't fit in
some micro case and whoever made it would have to make an accompanying
bracket so that it could be secured to the case at it's new height. Even if
there was a slight performance hit I would buy it just so I could have a
flagship GPU now (7800GTX or X1800XT) and then be able to purchase a good
PCIe MB later.

Whadda ya think?

You need a new motherboard.

 

[Marc]

Whadda ya think?

We are talking about $400/800 cards, and a motherboard costs $75, if not
less.

So, even if we don't count how stupid it is to make an extra transition
and lose performance with an expensive card, and the fact that a
graphics card wouldn't fit in a case anymore, the card also has to be
really cheap, because nobody wants it if it's expensive: a new
motherboard gives more instead of less performance and allows you to use
SLI/Crossfire (not all, of course).

So: I wouldn't want one, and I think a lot of other people share that
opinion.

Marc

 

[john]

We are talking about $400/800 cards, and a motherboard costs $75, if not
less.

So, even if we don't count how stupid it is to make an extra transition
and lose performance with an expensive card, and the fact that a
graphics card wouldn't fit in a case anymore, the card also has to be
really cheap, because nobody wants it if it's expensive: a new
motherboard gives more instead of less performance and allows you to use
SLI/Crossfire (not all, of course).

So: I wouldn't want one, and I think a lot of other people share that
opinion.

You know that might have been attractive if the price was really low -
$10-20 AND it was a year or so ago. But you figure someones willing
to spend $280-350 on a video card and not be able to come up with
$50-75 for a PCI-e mb ----- not a very likely scenario.

The chaintech nforce4s are regularly $69 and Ive seen other cheaper
boards especially if you want to chance a refurb.