For a PC, which slot is better for GPUs: PCI, PCI-e, or AGP?

Question

I have an ATI Radeon 9200 GPU on a PCI slot. My motherboard is kind of old and the GPU is ancient. If anyone else has had my problem, can you give me a good idea for a new GPU?

Answer 1

PCI-Express (PCI-e) is the newest and fastest expansion slot. AGP is the next fastest, followed finally by the old PCI standard.

Your best bet will be to upgrade both your motherboard and your graphics card at the same time. That way you can upgrade to the new PCI-e cards, which for the same chipsets, are usually around the same price as an AGP card.

If you place a high-end GPU on an old PCI slot, you really won't see a performance increase because the system won't be able to move data to the card fast enough. AGP is a lot better, but PCI-e allows the best bandwidth. However, if your CPU is rather old, you probably will run into a bottleneck there too. Perhaps it's time to consider just replacing the motherboad, CPU, RAM, and video card all at once.

If cost is an issue, look for a board with built-in video but with a PCI-e slot, and upgrade your graphics later. Boosting your processor would give you a lot more performance than simply upgrading to another PCI video card, no matter how fast its GPU might be.

Answer 2

In terms of speed from slowest to fastest, it is PCI, AGP and PCI-Express. PCI slots are available on all motherboards and AGP should be standard on most while PCI-Express are not as widespread as AGP. If your are looking to upgrade your graphics card on your current motherboard, then it depends on whether or not your motherboard actually has a AGP slot (it looks different from a PCI slot). But I would recommend that if you want to buy a newer better graphics card, you might as well just buy a new motherboard too. AGP is still a good speed to have and is a bargain compared to PCI-Express. PCI-e is new so the prices are higher for both motherboards and graphic cards. It's your call!

Answer 3

PCI = slowest of the 3
AGP = was the new hotness....a long time ago
PCI-e = the newest and fastest kid on the block

the "GPU" is the chip on the card that gets plugged into either of these slots. Depending on how much ya wanna spend and what games ya play, deciding which graphics card/GPU can be a very involved selective process. What games do you play? "What graphics card runs that best in the $179-$199 price range for Quake 4?" (for example). There are people all over this planet rating and reviewing video games and cards right now, it shouldn't be hard to find a matchup.

starting points:

http://www.anandtech.com
http://www.tomshardware.com
http://www.extremetech.com

Answer 4

pci e slots are much better in all respect.if u want a new gpu ithink u should wait if u can wait for directx 10 gpus to come.And if not then go for the 7series cards nvidia which ever suit ur budget cause u havnt mentioned it.like 7600,etc also its better if u can have pyhxs compatible card which is better for real graphical images.also keep in mind that memory of ur card should be betwen 250 to 512mb cause its good for ur pcs performance.

Answer 5

well agp has in no way been used up..it will definitely outperform an old pci card.....and im pretty sure u can get up to at least a nvidia7800gt or gtx in agp...dont worry the agp8x buss hasnt been saturated yet even though theres pcie now, in fact alot of dual-card sli boards operate the pcie16x cards off of 2 8X slots....anyway...if you got agp8X get a good agp card and be done with it for now....if your moving up to pcie then go ahead and build a new box...that my opinion.

Answer 6

hey i'm not sure..but is it possible for the same card to run on all the slots??? I dont think so...i guess PCI -e is best of all these..

Answer 7

PCI Express (PCIe) is faster than AGP 8X and regular PCI.

Answer 8

Well, if you're motherboard has them, PCI-e would be the best way.

Answer 9

AGP it goes right next to your CPU

Answer 10

PCI-e