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Should I go with an AGP or PCI-Express Motherboard?

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OVERKILL

Platinum Member
I have done a good amount of research and I'm still not sure if I should go with an AGP or PCI express motherboard.
From what I hear, right now it makes no difference on todays games.
But how long into the future will it make a difference in gaming?
All information is helpful.
 
I would get a pci-e motherboars, because later video cards may not be in agp, or will comeo out first in pci-e. If your building a new rig, definetly pci-express.
 
I don't believe any of the new nforce motherboards even have an AGP slot anymore. If I were building a gaming pc though, i'd definately get one of the new motherboards and use a pci-e video card.
 
Gaming or otherwise, if you are building a new system, I would get a PCI-E. Many newer AGP cards have a PCI-E to AGP bridge anyway as they are being designed as PCI-E to begin with
 
The only reason to get an AGP MB nowadays would be to use an existing AGP VIdeo card. If your buying new, then PCI Express is the better option.

IMO, there are only 2 AMD routes that make sense for a new system.

Socket 939 + PCI Express: Best option

Socket 754 + AGP: The cheapest socket 754 cpus are $60 cheaper than 939 cpus, so this is the route for a super cheap system.

 
Yup(all the above). Depends though, if you are going to buy a complete system ad have no plans to upgrade it, AGP?PCI-e doesn't really matter. I assume though that you'll want to upgrade the video card on occassion, your best bet is to go PCI-e now as it will eventually completely replace AGP.
 
I'd definitely go with PCI-e, unless you already have an expensive AGP card and would like to keep it. There's not much difference in performance, but AGP is dying real fast in terms of the new cards available for it.
 
Other things to consider:

I had an existing Socket 754 3000+ CPU. I was using it in an mATX system in an Aria, and I was ready to move back to a tower, get a PCI-E mobo, and upgrade to the X800 XL.

I got a great deal on the Super LanBoy, $40 for a new tower with the SmartBlue 350 Power Supply.

At first I looked at Socket 754 PCI-E mobos, of which there weren't any (and the first few are just starting to come out).

Next I looked at moving to 939, selling my 754 CPU, and getting a 939 PCI-E mobo. A good 939 mobo was significantly more expensive than the best 754 mobo. However, I was still willing to do it. Until I found that the power supply I had was not 24-pin, and not good enough to power the X800 XL, which draws all its power from the PCI-E bus and has no external power connector, since the Antec PSU only has about 16A on the 12V rail. The system is more than enough for a quality 754 system using the 20-pin connector and AGP. So now, it became new mobo, CPU, and PSU, just to be able to use PCI-E.

Yes, if you're building a new system with no regard for price, then by all means. However, as I was trying to delineate, there are more costs involved than you might think.
 
Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
I would get a pci-e motherboars, because later video cards may not be in agp, or will comeo out first in pci-e. If your building a new rig, definetly pci-express.
Click to expand...

EDIT: And also the PCI-e version of the last generation cards are cheaper. PCI-X and PCI-e are not totally different. If it were, So what ? you understood what I meant to say.
 
Originally posted by: OVERKILL
Any idea how long it might be until PCI-E will be noticably better than AGP in terms of performance?
Click to expand...

Possibly never. I really don't think Performance is the issue, more of the capability to handle the power useage of future video cards.
 
Originally posted by: OVERKILL
Any idea how long it might be until PCI-E will be noticably better than AGP in terms of performance?
Click to expand...
good question and one i'll need an answer to before upgrading my wife's pc. She has a AXP board with a 9700non-pro currently, which runs every game she's played perfectly.

If PCIe shows no better performance in 6 months than it is showing now I couldn't care less about it.

Sandorski:
Power usage? That's the reason behind the move to PCIe? The cards are just as packed with transistors. How does the pci bus handle power better than agp?
 
Originally posted by: carlosd
Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
I would get a pci-e motherboars, because later video cards may not be in agp, or will comeo out first in pci-e. If your building a new rig, definetly pci-express.
Click to expand...

And also the PCIX version of the last generation cards are cheaper.
Click to expand...

PCI-e please, PCI-X is a totally different thing.
 
If ATI and NVidia continue to be accomodating with AGP, moving to PCI-E for a graphics card is foolish. Especially with concerns that the PCI-E bus will be less than accomodating when it comes to overlocking. It's still infantile technology. I'm not saying avoid the system you want because of PCI-E, it's perfectly fine, but don't let that be a deciding factor.
 
Originally posted by: Malladine
Sandorski:
Power usage? That's the reason behind the move to PCIe? The cards are just as packed with transistors. How does the pci bus handle power better than agp?
Click to expand...

The PCI-e 16x slots provide 75W for the video card whereas an AGP8x provides around 45W. But that's not why PCI-express was created.
There are many other benefits including high data rates transfer to and from the video card. These don't offer any performance advantages at the moment, but their purpose is to eliminate the bottleneck that will happen a few years from now. If companies standardize PCI-e right now, game developers will be able to use more data for the graphics in future. And when the next gen video cards come with 24+ pipelines and more memory bandwidth, the bottleneck will move to the AGP slot (if there were no PCI-e).
Other benefits for PCI-e are for the 1x and 4x add-in cards. You can check out some articles on the subject for full explanation.
The bottom line- PCI-express will become more and more important in the future. So it's a wise idea to get it now if you're buying a new system especially that AGP video cards are going to fade. But don't expect any performance advantages righ now.
 
Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
Originally posted by: Malladine
Sandorski:
Power usage? That's the reason behind the move to PCIe? The cards are just as packed with transistors. How does the pci bus handle power better than agp?
Click to expand...

The PCI-e 16x slots provide 75W for the video card whereas an AGP8x provides around 45W. But that's not why PCI-express was created.
There are many other benefits including high data rates transfer to and from the video card. These don't offer any performance advantages at the moment, but their purpose is to eliminate the bottleneck that will happen a few years from now. If companies standardize PCI-e right now, game developers will be able to use more data for the graphics in future. And when the next gen video cards come with 24+ pipelines and more memory bandwidth, the bottleneck will move to the AGP slot (if there were no PCI-e).
Other benefits for PCI-e are for the 1x and 4x add-in cards. You can check out some articles on the subject for full explanation.
The bottom line- PCI-express will become more and more important in the future. So it's a wise idea to get it now if you're buying a new system especially that AGP video cards are going to fade. But don't expect any performance advantages righ now.
Click to expand...

You're probably correct about the Theory behind it, increased bandwidth, but I doubt that'll ever materialise. AGP was originally meant to counter high RAM prices, the idea was to remove RAM from the video card and use System RAM, thus making Video cards cheaper. That never panned out and in the near 10 years that AGP has been around vidcard manufacturers have avoided using System RAM altogether.

I suppose things could go differently for PCI-e, but I'd never choose between AGP/PCI-e on the basis of better performance or even potential performance. The simple fact is that PCI-e will completely replace AGP and that alone should be the reason someone chooses one over the other.
 
I suppose things could go differently for PCI-e, but I'd never choose between AGP/PCI-e on the basis of better performance or even potential performance. The simple fact is that PCI-e will completely replace AGP and that alone should be the reason someone chooses one over the other.
Click to expand...

And how long will THAT take? And will it justify the additional expenditure now?
 
Originally posted by: doublejbass
I suppose things could go differently for PCI-e, but I'd never choose between AGP/PCI-e on the basis of better performance or even potential performance. The simple fact is that PCI-e will completely replace AGP and that alone should be the reason someone chooses one over the other.
Click to expand...

And how long will THAT take? And will it justify the additional expenditure now?
Click to expand...

Probably within a couple years. I'd expect that new video cards will be released to PCI-e first and/or some Models will eventually only be PCI-e. The cost difference right now is very little(unless a new motherboard is required as well) and will eventually favour PCI-e.
 
Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: doublejbass
I suppose things could go differently for PCI-e, but I'd never choose between AGP/PCI-e on the basis of better performance or even potential performance. The simple fact is that PCI-e will completely replace AGP and that alone should be the reason someone chooses one over the other.
Click to expand...

And how long will THAT take? And will it justify the additional expenditure now?
Click to expand...

Probably within a couple years. I'd expect that new video cards will be released to PCI-e first and/or some Models will eventually only be PCI-e. The cost difference right now is very little(unless a new motherboard is required as well) and will eventually favour PCI-e.
Click to expand...

I think the next gen cards are the last that will have AGP versions. This is my speculation. Because ATI just finished Rialto so I don't think they'll dump it in 2 months (or whenever the next gen cards come out), and I think most people will have PCI-e support by the time the R6xx comes out, so that's probably not gonna be bridged. Again, this is my speculation. I could be wrong.
 
Originally posted by: munky
I'd definitely go with PCI-e, unless you already have an expensive AGP card and would like to keep it. There's not much difference in performance, but AGP is dying real fast in terms of the new cards available for it.
Click to expand...

Yah, AGP is dying so fast that ATI just released an AGP version of the X850XT and also coming soon is the X800XL AGP shown here. Just google for X850XT/X800XL AGP and you find a ton. Vendors wouldn't be caught dead making AGP cards if they didn't think the market was still tremendous for them. AGP isn't going anywhere for a while to come. So stop saying it.
However, if you are building a brand new rig, then yes I would definately go PCI-Express.

 
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