AGP 8x Card in a AGP 4x slot?

S

safeer1982

What would happen if you located an AGP 8x Card in a AGP 4x slot?

Would this result in a serious loss of performance by the card, if it
was installed into an AGP 4x slot?

Thank you
 
R

Rod Speed

What would happen if you located an AGP 8x Card in a AGP 4x slot?

Usually works fine.
Would this result in a serious loss of performance
by the card, if it was installed into an AGP 4x slot?

Nope, the loss wouldnt be dramatic.
 
P

Paul

Rod said:
Usually works fine.


Nope, the loss wouldnt be dramatic.

I just ran a benchmark. And I'm surprised how little
difference there is. I expected a bit more difference than
this. There was a fresh reboot before each test.

P4 3.2GHz, 9800Pro, 1GB mem, 3DMark2001SE Build330
AGP 8X = 15720
AGP 4X = 15532

HTH,
Paul
 
S

safeer1982

which card were you using to conduct the test, just out of interest?

Secondary Question -
i have just purchased an ATI X1950 Pro AGP 8x 512MB, how much system
RAM would you reccomend my system has in order to utilise this card
properly?

My System is
P4 2.8
512MB RAM

thanks
 
P

Paul

which card were you using to conduct the test, just out of interest?

Secondary Question -
i have just purchased an ATI X1950 Pro AGP 8x 512MB, how much system
RAM would you reccomend my system has in order to utilise this card
properly?

My System is
P4 2.8
512MB RAM

thanks

ATI 9800pro was the video card.

And the amount of system RAM, depends on the game. For BF2, 1GB
is enough. Task Manager shows about 600MB or so used. For a game
like Gothic3, the answer might be 2GB of RAM. For other games,
less will do.

You can use Google to find how much memory people use for the
different games.

Paul
 
D

DaveW

An 8x video card will run in an AGP 4x slot, but the card will only run at
half its rated bandwidth. So, yes, a performance hit.
 
R

Rod Speed

DaveW said:
An 8x video card will run in an AGP 4x slot, but the card will only run at half its rated
bandwidth.

Nothing like half in practice.
So, yes, a performance hit.

Sometimes its so little you cant even pick it in a double blind trial.
 
K

kony

An 8x video card will run in an AGP 4x slot, but the card will only run at
half its rated bandwidth. So, yes, a performance hit.


No, in almost all situations the difference is minor, and in
particular it is more common that a system old enough to
only have AGP 4X support would have other factors impacting
video performance (for gaming, since AGP 4X is far more than
sufficient for other uses) like insufficient system memory,
system memory performance, or CPU performance.
 
M

Mike Walsh

The graphics engine on the video card would run at the same speed whether it is in an AGP4 slot or an AGP8 slot. Only the I/O between the card and the AGP port would be different.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top