Buy AGP 2x/4x or PCI video card ?

[SingSing]

I am working on a PC with a broken video card. The PC only has old 2x/4x AGP slot, and PCI slots.
I can buya ATI radeon chip set in either AGP4x or PCI, But I figure that AGP2x/4x is a dead format, and will be useless when this P4 PC at its end of life, but the PCI card is still good to run the second video montior on other PC.

I would like to find out from people who recent use a PCI video card whether PCI video card is fast enough to watch movie, and play open GL games ?

[bevills1]

AGP is newer technology than PCI technology, and I'd choose AGP for that reason. You may be thinking of PCI Express which is newest video technology, but it requires a PCI Express slot which is different than the older PCI slot. There are some good AGP cards that will work well for games and watching movies.

[redwudz]

I just purchased a PCI slot video card and after a bit a research I found the offerings very limited. But you do have a valid point that the PCI card could be more useful in the future. PCI is still available on the newest motherboards, AFAIK. But AGP isn't.

I think PCI may be the better choice for a low end, inexpensive card. If the user doesn't plan to do much more than light video viewing, office type work or net surfing, you can get a PCI card from Newegg for less than $40US and use it to add a second monitor in the future. But I wouldn't pay much more for either type of card at present.

I'm not sure which interface has the edge on performance, but probably AGP. If performance is an issue, then AGP may be the better choice. And a AGP card 'may' be easier to set up. I would check the BIOS and make sure it has the capability to easily select a PCI card for startup.

I used a PCI card because my Mini-ITX MB only had a PCI slot and I needed S-Video for output to a video projector. But I would have used a AGP if I had that slot just because there are still more options and cards available with AGP, even at 4X speeds.

It's not as easy of choice as it first sounds.

[SingSing]

Thank you for the feedback.

Both formats of these video cards costs about the same.

I just worried about the PCI video card ability to play movie and open GL games.

[jman98]

Thank you for the feedback.

Both formats of these video cards costs about the same.

I just worried about the PCI video card ability to play movie and open GL games.

I can't help you with games as I am not kidding when I say that I NEVER play games on my PC.

If by "movies" you mean high def stuff, you will find that PCI is not fast enough for you. You can play high def Divx, but any PCI card will be completely inadequate for playback of HD DVD, BluRay or H.264/X.264 video unless you are able to keep the resolution to 1024x720 or less. It's a complicated reason, but basically if your motherboard is old enough that it only supports PCI, you won't have the dual-core or better CPUs that you in reality will need for such playback because your PCI based video card will be completely unable to offload any of the processing needed for playback. If you really want to get into high def video, the reality is that you need PCI Express and as many cores as you can possibly throw at it.

[prouton]

Or you could try the ATI Radeon HD 2400Pro for the PCI bus.

[SingSing]

I know he limitation of PCI bus ( I had designed a PCI bus 3-axis Digital signal processor with a MIPs and ASIC ), but I have the same though as Prouton, that many graphics features are processed by the card GPU and memory, instead of send thru the bus.

Oh, do these PCI video cards support rotate a.k.a. protrait mode ?

[redwudz]

The ultra cheap ($30US) ATI 7000 chipset HSI PCI card that I have in my Mini-ITX PC has; Right 90 degrees, Inverted Landscape, Left 90 degrees and Standard Landscape options. I have it set to a wide screen format for my projector at present.

I would suspect the chipset used for a PCI card would have the same graphics capabilities as a AGP card chipset, and is likely the same one. It's just the interface that's different. I'm assuming the AGP interface is a wider bandwidth/faster interface than PCI, but I don't know that.

[Video Head]

PCI is shared bandwidth. AGP is dedicated video. AGP provides a dedicated pathway between the card slot and the processor. AGP also uses sideband addressing and can address graphic textures much more efficiently than PCI based cards...good for 3D games. The only reasons to go with PCI cards over AGP is if you do not have an AGP slot or are concerned about moving the card to another system...most people who purchase hardware with the intention of grandfathering it to the next system spend much more due to the fact that technology as a whole changes and by the time they purchase their next system the sub-systems have also changed.

[Nelson37]

You're talking a fairly small amount of money here, and are concerned with preserving the utility of a secondary video card. If performance was not an issue then the PCI card is a relatively easy choice.

But, performance IS an issue.

Buying the lesser card just so you might be able to use it again is one choice. Buying the AGP card, with no future, but that better serves the purpose, is the other.

Didn't see the specs on the PC in question, but if it needs a boost from the card for video or games, I would go with AGP.

Will knowing you can use the card again make you happy with jerky video and low framerates during gameplay? Will smooth video and good FPS make you happy that the card dies with the PC and has no future?

Do today's job today, and worry about tomorrow's job tomorrow. The one thing I can guarantee you about tomorrow is that the solution you are looking at now will be cheaper, and it will no longer be the best one available.

[lordsmurf]

I would use the AGP card.