Please help to figure out AGP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alon Brodski
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A

Alon Brodski

Hello!

I recently found out for myself an apparently old issue with different
versions of AGP and everything around it.
I read a warning that incompatable voltage could ruin the Mo-bo or video
adapter card.So I kinda started to worry because I have an old AGP 1.0 x2
Mo-bo (VIA Apollo Pro 133) and a newer AGP 3.0 x8 nVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440
card.
The card seems to be what's called a universal keyed one.It has 2 keys on
it's bottom edge (for 3,3 and 1,5 V).
Also the card has been working fine for the last couple of weeks,so I would
assume I have nothing to worry about,except that I use AGP x8 card working
at AGP x2 speed.
So my general question is...If I have a 2 keyed card,then I can put it into
ANY AGP slot without any problems?
Same...if I have a Mo.bo with a universal AGP slot,then I can put into that
slot any AGP card as well?
'cos in any other case the physical construction (design) of the above said
equipment would PREVENT from using a mismatched voltaged equipment?
I read about some rare exceptions...what are they?
Also I read about AGP video cards with jumpers to switch voltage from 3,3 to
1,5....What's the point if the card WON'T fit into slot in a 1st place?Or
they talk about universal card (like mine) that physically WOULD fit in any
type of slot ,BUT UNLIKE mine won't automatically adjust itself to a work
under new voltage?
Out of curiosity...say,in my case...what actually happens-is the card works
with 3,3 V and at x2 speed OR it using a built-in transformer converts the
3,3 into 0,8 V and work at x2 speed? Not like it really matters,but...
From what I understood 0,8 V cards work fine with 1,5 V slots....(I would
assume at a lower speed x4 instead of x8).Is that right?
And the last thing...If I wanted to use my card at it's FULL speed
(x8)...then the only solution is to find a AGP 3.0 chipseted Mo-bo with
0,8V?

Alon
 
If you are thinking about changing the motherboard, then I'd get one with
PCI-E (PCI Express) which is the way all future graphics cards are going.
 
Well,in the country where I plan to start a computer business PCI-e is
somewhat premature (price wise).Average salary is 210$ a mo.

Al
P.S.Plus in all honesty except for maybe DVD playing,heavy graphics and
extream gaming who on Earth needs PCI-Express?
DVD is better be played on a DVD set and a TV anyways...
 
My desktop is still AGP and I just got the latest greatest card for it
without upgrading CPU and mobo... it's an x850 Pro ATI card with 256mb RAM.
It's a huge step up from the older nVidia FX5700 which I was running. But
if I had been prepared to upgrade to PCI-E, I'd have gone better than the
x850 Pro.

PCI-E cards are now cheaper than their equivalent AGP cards.... and it's
always better to look ahead as much as possible in computer technology to
avoid being left behind. The three other desktop PCs in the household all
have PCI-E slots, although all use the integrated x200 graphics right now
which suffices (just). None use heavy gaming, or even DVD playing, but all
do video editing, encoding and re-encoding. I would not buy a motherboard
with AGP if I were replacing any of them.
 
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