PCI Express or AGP

[demetrics]

I am build my first PC, and I can't decide whether to go with AGP or PCI Express. It would help me a lot of someone could take the time out and technical details between the two. I want a card that is great for gaming and video editing. Thanks

 

[PowderBB3D]

PCIE is more futureproof. That's basically it. AGP flavor cards will go the way of PCI flavor cards.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Text

 

[Heinrich]

If you're building your first PC go PCI-E.

That would mean holding off just a few months for prices to drop significantly.

 

[OinkBoink]

the diff between AGP and pci-e dusnt seem to be that much.i was expecting sumthing of a AGP 2x versus 8x thing.

 

[HumblePie]

If you NEED to build your computer right now.. then stick with AGP. The PCIe boards, there are only a few, are hard to find and are expensive. Same with the cards. Also, the new technology is just still that... too new. It's not really been optimized and truly accepted industry wide yes (it will get there). Because of all that, the PCIe cards available aren't really any faster then any of the AGP cards. The price for the PCIe cards and boards are way up there tho right now. For something that is more expensive and has equal or, in a lot of cases, worst performance I would stay away from...

Now, if you can hold off.. I would really recommend building a computer in about a year. I would get something plain and simple for now to get you by for your computer needs. Something inexpensive and not extravagent. In about a year, this is what I'm going to do, PCIe will more then likely be the mainstay. More cards, and support for the technology will be around and more optimizations that will really allow this techonology to shine as many are predicting. By then, you'll see a MAJOR difference in performance I would think. Talking like the difference from going from PCI to AGP for video cards in the first place.

 

[OMG1Penguin]

Originally posted by: nikhilesh
the diff between AGP and pci-e dusnt seem to be that much.i was expecting sumthing of a AGP 2x versus 8x thing.

AGP 8x has half the throughput of PCI-E, however, I think with current bottlenecks, they have reached a point of diminishing returns.

2x > 8x is a difference of about 1600mb/sec, while 8xagp > pci-e is a difference of about 2100mb/sec


soooo.... on paper the difference is pretty similar (greater even!).

 

[OMG1Penguin]

But to answer your question, buy whatever will yield a cheaper total system price. I have upgraded video cards more than my motherboards, and they still make PCI video cards anyways....... so upgradability shouldn't be that big of an issue.