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Old 12-25-2005, 04:41 AM
pairbrother pairbrother is offline
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Default PCI or AGP what is better?


Hey guys, my computer has 3 PCI slots and 1 AGP slot, I dont know alot about these things, which is better PCI or AGP? And anyways, what is the difference between the 2?



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Old 12-25-2005, 05:34 AM
CMan CMan is offline
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AGP is better for graphics cards, because it is designed for graphics cards. Some can go in PCI slots, but PCI is not as fast as AGP. However. PCI express, a new graphics slot is faster than AGP.

-C



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Old 12-25-2005, 06:22 AM
pairbrother pairbrother is offline
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Does the PCI express card fits into the now available AGP/PCI slot or is there a different slot for that also, which we may have to buy?
Also, what other kinds of cards can you put into the PCI slot, I assume, AGP slot is strictly used for inserting the AGP cards!



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Old 12-29-2005, 03:41 PM
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Firefox Firefox is offline
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A PCI-E(xpress) card will fit into a standard PCI slot on any mobo...however it will not work!
Its kinda like pluging an AGP x 8 into an AGP x4 slot, sometimes the card will work fine, but you will not get the benefits of the extra x4...other times (in really old mobo's in the case of AGP x it will not work at all.

PCI-E is alot faster than AGP and more stable when overclocked, however unless your mobo supports PCI-E stick with an AGP card as they are faster than standard PCI.

Edit: As for the PCI slot question about what you can plug in to them, well....

USB Card
Firewire Card
Modems
Network Cards
TV Cards......the list goes on and on



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Old 12-29-2005, 06:33 PM
ThomasW ThomasW is offline
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That is interesting. I did not even know a PCI-E card would fit into a regular PCI slot. Anyways, PCI is long dead as a viable platform for video. AGP is close behind at this point. All the next generation baords are going with PCI-E and the newest cards are not even coming out in AGP versions. So if you are upgrading now keep that in mind. Any AGP/PCI card you get now will not be usuable when you eventually upgrade your motherboard and cpu.

That is the bind I am in right now. To upgrade to the next generation I am going to have to do the cpu, motherboard and video card all at once. Normally I could upgrade piece-meal. Maybe the video card today, and the CPU/Motherboard next week. Now it has to be done all at once.



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Old 01-01-2006, 10:03 PM
JustNewbie JustNewbie is offline
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AGP is better than PCI because AGP is faster than PCI slot. But, as you all have said, PCI-Express is a lot faster than AGP and they are going to take over AGP.

If you're planning to buy a graphics card, look out which one that suits your motherboard and not the newest ones will work. OK, seems like you have an AGP slot, I suggest that you may buy an AGP graphics card. Watch out for AGP 4x and AGP 8x too, AGP 8x cards will have its performance decreased if you plug it into 4x slot.



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Old 02-20-2006, 02:13 AM
zCon zCon is offline
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If you're buying a new motherboard (or whole cpu) read carefully about PCI express. Just because it has a PCI express slot doesn't mean you can use a PCI-E video card in it. There are also non graphics PCI-E slots, which are short slots made for things such as NIC cards providing fast network capabilities... A friend of mine ran into this a little while ago... bought PCI-E graphics card, brought it home, opened up the box and low and behold his PCI-E slot was litte more than 2 inches long! I hated being the bringer of bad news on that one!



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Old 02-21-2006, 05:51 PM
Juanzo Juanzo is offline
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I wonder why PCI-E cards are cheaper than AGP.



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Old 03-28-2006, 09:29 AM
outofbreath outofbreath is offline
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On some older computers using old style PCI video card might be faster than using AGPx1 or x2 style slot. That is because they make some pretty decent PCI video cards still, but don't make any AGP x1 x2 cards.
Plus as has been said already the newer AGP cards might not work in those slots.

PCI-Express x16 I think is what you need for the new PCI-E video cards.



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Old 03-29-2006, 12:39 AM
Juanzo Juanzo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ThomasW
That is interesting. I did not even know a PCI-E card would fit into a regular PCI slot. Anyways, PCI is long dead as a viable platform for video. AGP is close behind at this point. All the next generation baords are going with PCI-E and the newest cards are not even coming out in AGP versions. So if you are upgrading now keep that in mind. Any AGP/PCI card you get now will not be usuable when you eventually upgrade your motherboard and cpu.

That is the bind I am in right now. To upgrade to the next generation I am going to have to do the cpu, motherboard and video card all at once. Normally I could upgrade piece-meal. Maybe the video card today, and the CPU/Motherboard next week. Now it has to be done all at once.
I do not agree. Latest 7800 is still available for AGP, which proves this is not "dead" yet. PCI-E being cheaper than AGP is just a marketing move.



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