Does the lowest card speed rule the box?

[Kemoc]

Running a mx 460 dual out and put in a pci mx 440.
Now everything has slowed down. and sugestions?

<SPAN class=headline>I have a MSI's FX5700-VT2DR256 graphics card</SPAN>
on the way but am lerry of running the second card.
Does the lowest card speed rual the box?

 

[Peter]

It's because a graphics card on PCI is a HUGE system I/O bandwidth hog. Data heading toward the PCI bus is taking the longest path in the entire system, from CPU or RAM through northbridge and southbridge out onto PCI and then finally into the graphics card's RAM. When the graphics card's speed is saturated, the entire I/O path is blocked from doing anything else.

Some chipsets, particularly SiS' recent ones, have a concurrent multi-link I/O path from north to south and thus get at least _something_ done during heavy PCI traffic. But in the vast majority of systems, screen updates on the PCI card bring all other I/O to a screeching halt - in case of sound I/O, even literally so.

 

[Kemoc]

Well thats tells me i dont want to run a third monitor.
Thanks Pete

 

[Kemoc]

I did want to run a third monitor. but didnt like the slow down which is awful.
Whats other people doing?
The cost of a quad card that has any speed for games is not worth the cost.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Kemoc
I did want to run a third monitor. but didnt like the slow down which is awful.
Whats other people doing?
The cost of a quad card that has any speed for games is not worth the cost.

Matrox is about the only good 3-monitor option, but if you play games, dual monitors is as good as it gets for now.

Aside: anybody know how well GF4MX integrated does, if at all, with an AGP card installed?

 

Integrated or onboard video is still AGP, and you can only have one AGP device.