PCI vs. AGP; does it matter?

[KKiller]

Does it matter if your card is a PCI video card vs. AGP video card? Is there a speed/feature difference?

 

[Rebel7254]

AGP is a lot better than PCI. Much faster and much better features.

 

[AndyHui]

Rather than a graphics feature difference, the differences will be in speed and overall system performance.

One of the biggest advantages of AGP is that it pulls the graphics card off the PCI bus. So much graphics data is sent that the PCI bus would be saturated, leaving no bandwidth at all for any other items, such as sound, IDE, etc.

 

[NeilPeart]

That was a great response, AndyHui. No wonder you're the FAQ Man! Also, because of the easily-saturated PCI bus, no high-end cards will be produced for the PCI. AGP offers the bandwidth necessary for large textures, though many question the benefit of 4X over 2X.

 

[Slatz]

Originally posted by: NeilPeart
That was a great response, AndyHui. No wonder you're the FAQ Man! Also, because of the easily-saturated PCI bus, no high-end cards will be produced for the PCI. AGP offers the bandwidth necessary for large textures, though many question the benefit of 4X over 2X.

Not to mention 8X right around the corner as we speak!? whats up wit dat?

 

[KKiller]

does it matter if it is 2x agp, 4x agp, or 8x agp?

 

[TheCorm]

Most cards nowadays are 4x so that would be fine. They should be backwards compatible to 2x too! More hard pressed to find a new PCI card anymore...especially an decent one.

Corm

 

[Goosemaster]

Acutally, some of the best cards are pci, or at least some will be...


PCI 66 and pcix blow agp out of the water(acutally pci66 and agp are the same speed)

Then again, ther is a benefit to having it on a secluded channel. Maybe agp will reach ppcix one day...or does agp8x already do that?