PCI vs AGP?

Question

Help.
I've just bought a comp.
it has NO PCI-E slot!!!

since it was orange, i thought it was PCI-E!!
i just found out it was AGP 3.0

Should i sell off my whole comp for that PCI-E?
or should i just stick to AGP and get the latest of it?

Well.. the thing is i'm a gamer... not a hardcore though..

Any advice?

Answer 1

hysisneon, you should give credit to the original writer, or the website, you copied/pasted that from.



AGP may not be as powerful as PCI-E (or cheap), but simply changing your motherboard (MSI K89 Neo-4 Platinum is a good PCI-E board) can fix that, though there are still very good AGP cards, such as: BFG Geforce 6800 256mb 8x, which is more powerful than a: BFG Geforce 6600 128mb PCI-E (which can run Half-Life 2 at 1024x768 rather well).



In the end it is up to you, since you're not a "hardcore" gamer, having an AGP slot really won't be much of a problem.

Answer 2

In all honesty if your not a "hardcore" gamer its not going to make toooo much of a difference. The AGP cards are still good cards and your going to be able to game most of the high end games now anyways depending on how fast your card is, so its not too much different.



I build systems and for now AGP will do the trick but for the future PCI E is the way to go. However it usually costs a bit more as well. Its really up to you, i use AGP sometimes and it works out great, i mean i still have fun playing, and thats what its all about right?

Answer 3

If you are not a hardcore gamer the top AGP card on the market is more hardcore than you are. But, I think if you are thinking about switching to Windows Vista you are going to be SOL with all of the features. You would need a DX10 card.

Answer 4

Hello,



Wll since AGP slot was designed specifically with gamers in mind I would by a used or new AGP video card.

Answer 5

If your not really hard core on gaming just stick with a top of the line apg card. It should last a couple of years till you feel a new board is warrented. PCI express does offer a lot more performance but I dont see it beeing a must have for the average gamer for a little while longer.

Answer 6

PCI Express has several advantages, not only to the user but to manufacturers. It can be implemented as a unifying I/O structure for desktops, mobiles, servers and workstations, and it's cheaper than PCI or AGP to implement at the board level. This keeps costs low for the consumer. It is also designed to be compatible with existing Operating Systems and PCI device drivers.



PCI Express is a point-to-point connection, meaning it does not share bandwidth but communicates directly with devices via a switch that directs data flow. It also allows for hot swapping or hot plugging and consumes less power than PCI.



However the most promising feature is that it is scalable meaning greater bandwidth can be achieved through adding "lanes," ostensibly future-proofing into the next decade.



The initial rollout of PCI-Express provides three consumer flavors: x1, x2, and x16. The number represents the number of lanes: x1 has 1 lane; x2 has 2 lanes, and so on. Each lane is bi-directional and consists of 4 pins. Lanes have a delivery transfer rate of 250 MB/ps in each direction for a total of 500 MB/ps, per lane.

Answer 7

That's up to you...you can get an AGP 8x card for that. I have an NVidia Ti4800SE 128MB 8x card and it works for all of my games (Half-Life, World of Warcraft, Unreal Tournament 2003, etc.). You can get a much better card than I have for AGP though.

Answer 8

go with the agp for now but make sure the next pc you get has pcie

Answer 9

no need to sold ur new pc agp graphic cards are also very much capable for gaming .