agp vs. pci

[drdodirty2002]

listen up fellas I was just at office max today and the guy had a 3d video card for sale. Now I don't do much rebuilding so I had him put it on hold for me. The card he has is an AGP card. I don't know the difference between AGP and PCI.SOOO what I needed to know was how to tell if I have AGP slots on my computer or not

[Fountain]

Why not just open case up and see if you have the small brown slot. This is the AGP slot.

PCI slots are white, and longer. You probably will have 4/5 pci and only ONE AGP.

[iain]

yep, the samllest and brownest - but be careful not confuse it with old isa sockets, you will typically have just one agp unless you have a customised machine

[iain]

another way is to escape into the bios setup utility and if there is agp it will normally have settings in the bios - enables / latency etc..

[frenchfry164]

yep, the samllest and brownest

Not always. My mobo has a brown AMR slot, and it's only around a inch long.

Search on google about AGP. AGP is basically an improved PCI made for graphics cards. It provides DMA, and it FAST as crap. AGP comes in different speeds. 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x. Most mobos support 4x AGP and the good new mobos have AGP 8x. Don't worry, it's backwards and usually forwards compatible.

[TravisS]

Yep, assuming your computer has an AGP slot you pretty much can't go wrong

I don't know what video card it is your looking at (obviously, you didn't say ) but you shouldn't have a problem. I'm guessing you're using onboard video right now, which means just about everything from a GeForce 2 and up is better.

@frenchfry164:

one thing to keep in mind is that 2x AGP is not compatible in 8x AGP boards Not as though this is a problem in this situation (nor pretty much any situation) but still a good thing to remember

[frenchfry164]

I didn't say it was backwards compatible that far . You do have a point though. I should have said "usually" when I said backwards compatible, like I did when I said forwards. I don't think he's buying a card THAT old though.

[SMurf]

I believe the PCI specification encompasses AGP, as frenchfry164 said, because it is PCI with "go-faster stripes". Gawd bless Intel for letting their marketing people loose on agreed standards...