What is better for graphics cards, AGP or PCi and why?

Answer 1

As what most people suggest, PCI Express is better than AGP, but of course it comes with a price (yea $$). The biggest difference is speed, in that PCI Express uses high speed serial interface (first gen at 2.5GHz) to transfer data from your system memory to your video card. Since your video card has limited local graphics memory (DDR3, sits very close to the actual graphics chip and thus very fast), so it has to "borrow" resources from your PC. When your card is rendering stuff for the screen, it has to constantly move data back and forward between itself and your ram. Traditionally with AGP and PCI, that's one of the major system bottleneck. PCIe is a relatively new standard so it supports more features than AGP, such as power management, hotplug, QoS (quality of service) where certain data, such as streaming video, can have higher priority than other form of traffic.

If you are thinking of getting a new system, I'd suggest PCIe, since you will most likely see less and less of AGP system in the next few years, which may poses limit if you want to do a upgrade later on.

Now that AMD has bought ATI, maybe it's good to wait for a bit to see what happens, otherwise nVidia is a good option too

Answer 2

These days Video cards with "PCI Express" interface is the best. But you have to have a compatible motherboard (with PCI express slot).

Otherwise AGP is better than the very old PCI. Again make sure that your motherboard has a free slot for it.

The interface speed of PCI express is far higher than AGP which inturn is higher than PCI. And more the transfer speed, more data can be processed and so rich graphics can be created and supplied to the display!

Hope this helps :)

Answer 3

AGP is better. AGP stands for Accelerated graphics port. In layman's terms this is a port dedicated to graphics. PCI slots are more universal and can be used for a variety of add on cards. For the record PCI slots and PCI express slots are two different things. PCI Express slots are the next generation of dedicated graphics ports. In some cases you can run 2 PCI Express video cards linked together. Bring your wallet, credit cards and your first born if you go that way.

Answer 4

Definately PCI express as it allows for more graphical data to move through their hardware (i.e. PCIx = a river of data from the hardware VS AGP = Older hardware, allows a stream of data).

Also for more evidence on why PCI express is a better choice, try to find any NEW motherboards supporting AGP, you'll find you won't see them (see www.pricewatch.com). That and 3Dmark, the company that measures 3d game results in speed from your video card will time and time again show that PCI express produces more "points" on their tests. Trust me.

Regular old PCI video cards are the slowest of the three. They're running on archictecture from ten years ago.

Answer 5

I'm not positive but I think that AGP or PCI refers to how the card plugs into the mother board. Not all motherboards have the same size slots.

Call up your local CompUSA and ask them for certain.


OK, so I type slower than the rest here and like I said, I'm not positive.

Answer 6

depends AGP is better then PCI but if you have pci express it depends on how many times your AGP is. either way if you get the same level of grapics card for either you will not notice a diffrence. depinding what kind of slot you have will determine how good of card you can get though. it says on the card what slot you need. so compare prices and cards.

Answer 7

AGP is much better than PCI, but maybe you're talking about PCI Express...in which case, PCI Express is better than AGP.

Answer 8

depending on your budget and your motherboard ,pci bus were the first and oldest graphic interface,there are still companys that produce pci cards but they are the slowest,ideal for users who have a old motherboard with no agp/pci-e
agp(accelerated graphic port)was the next graphic interface and came in sizes x2 x4 x8,allthough x8 is the size used now,it is much faster than pci and can produce some excellent framerates ,i still use a agp interface due to my motherboard(to change to pci-e means a dramatic motherboard upgrade)
there are some great agp cards still being produced i.e radeon x1600 (512mb memory),a brilliant card that will give any pci-e card a run for its money,and its cheap at £98
pci-e(express)is the latest and best card,but you require a motherboard upgrade,however if you need to upgrade you should buy a s.l.i(scalable link interface)or crossfire enabled motherboard as these support 2 graphic cards(pci-e only),meaning blistering graphics and power
nvidia have just brought out quad cards were there are 2 cards with each card consisting of 2 pci-e cards joined together,you can also buy just a single card(2xpci-e),which will enable a user with a single pci-e adapter to run 2 pci-e cards,although it wont be as good as sli or crossfire,but better than a single card
the main manufacturers in graphic cards are nvidia,ati,matrox,s3,sis,intel
answer=best value for money.....a.g.p
best quality.....................p.c.i-e
best graphics.................p.c.i-e
overall best cards...........p.c.i-e

good luck

Answer 9

AGP is better in general
but PCI ecpress 16x is better than AGP ( and more expensive)

Answer 10

AGP cos its a faster bus