Motherboards for Dummies type question... please help!

[AngryBeaver]

Here's the deal. I'm tech savvy enough to understand the very basics of harware interaction and I know what many of the basic specs are about.

One thing about the motherboard confuses me....

I know each board is rated, indicating which processors the board is designed to support. What I want to know is: what determines which video cards a board will support?? Is there more to it than making sure the board supports 4X AGP if the video card requires 4X for optimal performance?

Please help me as none of the motherboard information websites I've found go over this basic question!!

 

[sohcrates]

AGP and PCI are standards....and you can put any AGP or PCI video card you want on a mobo.

Two constraints in the real world that i can think of , though, would be size (aka if the card is large it has to fit physically in the mobo) and perhaps putting a fast GF3 4x AGP card in an ancient mobo...which would effectively kill the AGP advantage it has.

Other than that, I've come across VERY few compatibility issues with video cards and mobos....only recent example i can think of was installing win2k on a new mobo that anandtech reviewed recently with a gf3 TI500...apparently, win2k wouldn't install with that card..but worked fine with all others. I can't at this moment remember the exact mobo model.


AGP 4x cards with run on AGP 1x systems...just not optimally

Not sure if that answers your question...but really, video cards are "self sustained" and unlike a cpu, they really don't require certain mobo components or chipsets in order to run.

 

[GraveJoKer]

But remember, AGP cards to AGP slot and PCI to PCI slot

 

[hwstock]

<< AGP and PCI are standards....and you can put any AGP or PCI video card you want on a mobo. >>



Well, sort of, most of the time...

When I got my D850GB board last January, I wasn't particular about the AGP card -- after all, the system was for calculations, and would share a monitor with 3 others. So, I got a trusty AGP 2x card, one I'd put in many systems -- an ATI Xpert 8 MB.

It didn't fit. The AGP slot on the Intel D850GB is designed for the new low-voltage-only AGP 4x standard. Pretty much any AGP 4x card will work.