AGP 1X or PCI?

[Emesoog]

I currently have a Dell Dimension XPS D300 (PII) with a Dimond Fire GL 1000 Video Card. I have 192MB of RAM. The motherboard has an AGP 1X and PCI port for a new video card. I want to upgrade the old video card and keep costs below $150. I see lots of good choices for the PCI port, but few for the AGP 1X port. What's the best way for me to go? Any specific card recommendations?

 

[AndyHui]

You have an Intel Atlanta AL440LX motherboard in your Dell system. It is capable of AGP2X, not just 1X.

You should go with an AGP card.....they are all backwards compatible anyway, and the performance difference between AGP2x and AGP4x is negligible.

My personal recommendation is to avoid PCI cards and use AGP wherever possible. It keeps the PCI bus free of traffic from the graphics card, which tends to clog up the bus....leaving no room for requests from other devices.

 

[BFG10K]

Get the AGP card even if your motherboard only supports AGP x1. It's still faster than PCI.

 

[Packet]

I agree, AGP is much better.
I only get 1-2fps more when going from 1x to 2x anyways

 

[Emesoog]

Thanks to all for the info. I installed a Diamond Viper V770D, AGP 2x/4x, nVidia, TNT2 card with 32 MB of onboard RAM. It did not work at first (bad color distortion on some software), but I downloaded and installed the Detonator 3 driver set from the nVidia website and all looks very good at this time.

Thanks again.