pci vs. agp (which to keep)

[PMFleXXX]

so... everything i've heard has always told me that agp is far superior to pci. just how superior has been debated for years.
i recently came across a geforce4 mx420 pci card with 64mb sdr for only 20 bucks after rebate. I'm trying to decide whether to keep it or try and sell it. i currently have an original radeon le (agp) with 32mb ddr on an xp1800 and 256mb of ddr. should i ditch my radeon, and put in this new card? would the difference in video quality be that great (i've been playing a lot of c&c: generals). or should i sell it and use the money to pay off my spring break bill and a future ti4200? your comments would be greatly appreciated as well as any comparisions you might have of apg vs pci. also, no one seems to have any reviews of mx420 cards, whats up with that?

thanks everyone

 

[Keysplayr]

PCI bus has a 33 Mhz bandwidth cap. AGP 2x I believe is double that. The MX420 PCI is a WEAK!!! card. I have one. "sitting on my shelf because I had to replace it with something better. Go AGP all the way. PCI is fine if you dont need to play intensive games. Anything over "Unreal" and your dead in the water. If you just want a work computer then PCI is more than enough. IMHO.

Keys

 

[Nirvana1979]

If you game, don't even consider getting a pci card! AGP is so much faster.

 

[eklass]

agp... you've got a dedicated slot for it.. gues why? that's right, it MADE for video cards specifically...

why doesn't anyone review the mx line? cause they suck... cost effective, and suck effective

 

[PMFleXXX]

Originally posted by: Nirvana1979
If you game, don't even consider getting a pci card! AGP is so much faster.

any numbers to back this up, i'm looking for a little more than sweeping generalizations

 

[nick1985]

A G P

 

[jvang125]

no offense but why would you want to go with a pci card when you already have an agp one? to me, that's like a downgrade. as some of the members have mentioned, agp was designed specifically for video use so that it can provide the necessary bandwidth that video needs. most likely your agp slot is running at 4x so that gives a theortical bandwidth of 1Gbps. the new agp spec, 8x, provides up to 2Gbps. as you can see, that's A LOT of data that can go through that thing. as for a pci slot, i'm not too sure what the bandwidth is but i bet is only a small fraction of a 4x agp slot. so until pci express comes along, it's agp for video all the way!

and that geforce4 mx420 is not even worth the hassle. they're not even fully DX8.1 compliant (bad decision on Nvidia's part to try and lower the cost). reviews of the agp version are rare so a review on the pci version is probably nonexistent cause NOBODY who games uses pci. save your money for that ti4200 or maybe even a 9500/9700 pro?

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: PMFleXXX

Originally posted by: Nirvana1979
If you game, don't even consider getting a pci card! AGP is so much faster.

any numbers to back this up, i'm looking for a little more than sweeping generalizations

Like said by keysplayr2003, the PCI bus has a 33mhz bandwidth limit. AGP is a lot faster. He said twice the speed at 2x AGP but I think its a bit more, maybe not. Anyway, there is a reason why none of the newer cards use PCI, for example the Nvidia Geforce FX Line, ATI's 9500 and above cards. They did make a 9000 PCI card but that was because they wanted to add more variety of selection to choose from.

If your going to play any games and are expecting good speed, don't think twice. Its going to be AGP.

Here is a lin k to an old article which should provide somewhat of an explanation of what it does because it is outdated and the improvements shown by this aren't as big as today's AGP cards provide over PCI cards. Lick Me

 

[PMFleXXX]

so the consensus is that this new $20 pci geforce4 card is vastly inferior to my 2 year old agp2x radeon (original le)?

btw, thanks for the quick new responses

 

[Glitchny]

the geforcemx420 is only an enhance geforce2 so with the pci bus, i would say it isnt as good as the radeon

 

[calvink]

Definately stick with AGP. I just saw a Geforce4mx 420 AGP for $30 after rebates a couple weeks ago.

 

[WaZaA]

AGP is the way to go