is there an advantage to using an agp PRO slot?

[jackwhitter]

i have a motherboard with an agp pro slot.. is there an advantage to using a card that is agp pro and not regular agp? specifically in games/desktop situation. i am not a cad designer...

the only downfall i've seen is that the agp pro cards will mean i have to sell one of my kidneys to afford a vid card.. thanks.

 

[jamesbond007]

The only time the AGP Pro is useful is if you have a video card that requires it. Otherwise, any regular AGP video card will not benefit from the slot being a "Pro" slot. It's just for extra voltage that the larger/bigger/more powerful cards require to run.

EDIT:
is there an advantage to using a card that is agp pro and not regular agp?

No.

 

[BFG10K]

There is no advanatge other than providing extra power for some high-end 3D cards that require it. A normal AGP card will work as normal in it.

 

[AndyHui]

Please read the FAQ: What is the difference between AGP Pro and AGP 4X?

 

[AndyHui]

Double post....

 

[Bartman39]

Andy...

I understand the use of the AGP pro slot but why did MOBO makers even put them on consumer type boards...?

<< There are currently no consumer level AGP Pro video cards. >>

 

[AndyHui]

Good question.

It looks good on the feature list and OEMs like it, I guess.

I don't think it costs much more to implement. I know that with the ASUS motherboards, the PCB has all the pins and traces there, even if they put an AGP4X slot there anyway.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Plus I think it looked like consumer cards were heading towards using that extra power, such as the sucessors to the Voodoo 5 (or the voodoo 5 itself, which instead used a reugular 4-pin connector for extra power).

 

[AA0]

The only reason I can think of that pro slots are on non workstation boards so often is stability. Since asus always seems to put a pro slot on, I'm think that is a good guess. People that buy agp pro cards, also tend to buy higher end boards, they don't buy ECS, it could be another reason.