maybe this is a stupid question, but....

[extract]

Do they make PCI slot graphics cards? I just bought an ATI Radeon 9000(it looks decent and was very cheap) and its AGP, now Im on an older PC(store bought nov 2001) and it appears to not even have an AGP slot =/ (how ghetto).....anyways Im looking for a card comparable in price to that radeon 9000 that maybe uses PCI slot. Heres system specs 1Ghz Celery 512 DDR ram 80Gig HD, audiophile 24/96(not sure if soundcards important) and WinXP......any help?????

[jernau]

If it was new in 2001 it will have AGP, though not necessarily a slot. It presumably has on-board graphics which you would need to disable - check this can be done before you buy a new card.

In answer to the question - yes you can still get PCI cards but they are MUCH lower spec than current cards, even a 9000. The best you'll get will be something like a Voodoo 3 and you may find the onboard is better.

[Ehyuko]

Actually a Geforce 4 MX card [sucky yeah but better then a vodoo2/3] does come in PCI, my parents have an old cheap comp without an agp slot and it took some finding, but they're still sold in retail stores... but who knows for how much longer [this was dec 2003].

[extract]

Originally posted by jernau
If it was new in 2001 it will have AGP, though not necessarily a slot.

ok i dont understand what this means..........whats the point of agp without the slot??? is there an adapter I can get????? I cant really afford another motherboard AND vid card...........

[Peeping Tom]

you can get Geforce FX5200 \Gforce4 mx \Ati 9200\ati 9200 se \matrox G450 with PCI
cant promise they would rock.. but atleast you can still get PCI vidcards
think i would go for ATI radeon 9200 myself if i really had to get a pci card
sry dont have any english link to shops that sell those cards
K4F

[WebShock]

the only stupid question is the one you dont ask.

[cMz]

If it was new in 2001 it will have AGP, though not necessarily a slot.

Translation :-)
If you bought an IBM Aptiva (or similar), it would have an AGP-graphics card on the motherboard, but no slot for you to put your own AGP-card.

I got one (Aptiva) from work, and ended up buying a new motherboard and just moving the good parts (RAM/HD/CPU) to the new board.

[[TgR]KILLER]

they got the newest geforce cards in Pci ? whats the use.. pci is sooo much worse then AGP.. only cards i knew to be out in Pci and actualy preform kinda the same as their AGP brothers are Geforce 2 cards.. and a comp from 2001 without an agp slot = a bad buy imo.. it was a standard back then already..

[kurai]

Originally posted by extract
ok i dont understand what this means..........whats the point of agp without the slot??? is there an adapter I can get????? I cant really afford another motherboard AND vid card........... AGP is a type of data bus, not a type of socket.

It describes a way of keeping the data channels between the graphics chip and other PC components nice and fast.

This does not mean that it must have a socket available on the board to plug a 3rd party graphics card into this bus system - there may be a chip already soldered onto the system board hooked into the fast data path.

In some cases there is an onboard soldered AGP gfx chip, *and* a slot for a third party AGP card. You can't use both simultaenously - you have to disable one or the other.

In your case it seems there's no 3rd party AGP card slot at all, so as you say ... you are limited to PCI cards.

As the PCI data bus is much slower than an AGP one there is very little point making the latest generation top end cards with PCI connectors - the *card* may be super fast once it actually recieves some data to work on, but it will get held up all the time waiting for the PCI bus to move data back and forth.

That, in a nutshell, is why you won't see the latest super-duper top end graphics cards available in PCI options.

[t0tt3]

PCI = White
AGP = brown
ISA = gray a bit bigger then PCI but totaly worthless :D < 2000

easy huh ?

[[TgR]KILLER]

pci is mostly near the backside end of your mainboard..


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Agp is more to the middle and most of the time above the pci slots. IE Agp is in a circle with the Proc and your ram..


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and Isa is long gone.. and very old.. those cards were HUGE... so were the slots..


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meh pc lessons on t3h forum :lol:

[jernau]

Sorry for hurried responce, I was busy with too many other things. Seems others have filled in the blanks though.

If the cards Nancy lists are indeed all available as PCI I'd get the GF4MX or the Matrox depending on what you are gonna use it for. None of them will be too great though on PCI.


@Ehyuko - Don't forget GF4MXs are actually GF2MXs with better memory and a new box.


@totte - what colour was VLB? :p

[robinitnow]

problem with pci is that it say 4 sokets athat are all on the same bus and alocated inportance like 1/2/3/4. when slot one requires the bus it gets it untill it is finnished no mater how badly the othere pic cards nead the bus so puting in the latesed gfx card can be problematic.

[Agent L]

ISA is usually black, not gray : P

PCI cards this days are produced in very small amounts. That's why if you even manage to find a PCI-based version of a modern card it's price will be simply insane.

Trick when buying PCI card is to get as much video memory as possible, because if all data will fit in card memory, bus will be loaded less.

But at all, it is pointless to buy PCI card this days (unless you want second monitor output), just buy old cheap mobo with agp slot.

[Jadin Eleazar]

Actually, the new gfx-cards will be PCI again. Don't worry not the crappy old 32bit PCI, though. You'll have to buy new mainboards which support PCI-Express :D

[extract]

Ok by the looks of it, there is no point in even wasting time or money on a PCI slot card, so Ill just wait til I can buy new comp and just keep this radeon for it at a later time.......I can still play now I just wanted better performance, I get like 3-7 FPS on average on my onboard vid card.....thats with gfx settings all the way left =/........anyways thanks for all the help