Can I do this?

JLuchinski

JLuchinski

Well-Known Member
Hello. I'm new to here, this is my first post. My question is, I currently have an AGP video card. I was looking through my BIOS menu the other day, and I came across a menu that was for Primary Video Adapter, and it lets me choose between AGP or PCI. Does this mean my Motherboard supports both kinds of cards? Or am I stuck with AGP? BTW it's an Intel chip set. TIA.
 
An AGP card is gonna be faster than a PCI card. Don't change the setting to pci or your computer might not boot.
 
In the order of speed it is like this...

PCI
AGP
PCI Express x16
PCI Express 2.0
 
OK. Thanks a lot for clearing that up. So if I choose PCI, do I use one of the PCI slots or the same one as the AGP? I don't plan on doing that, if anything I plan on building my own machine, it's just one of those things I didn't learn at school. I'm trying to learn just as much outside of the classroom as well. And what's the difference in speed between the 2?
 
The setting in the bios, just sets it to look for the card in either the PCI or AGP slot. It will just boot alittle faster not having to look for the card. You can set it to either and it will still boot, but if you set it to PCI and are using a AGP card it will take a second longer to boot.
 
The computer will still boot fine. It will just kick back over to the AGP card when it doesn't find a PCI card. This just chooses the "primary" adapter - in other words, the one the computer will try to use first.

Johnb35 is right in your case. AGP is faster than the original PCI spec.

If I may expand your list:

PCI
PCI-x (32 and 64bit variants)
AGP
PCIe (and all lane-multiple variants)
PCIe 2.0 spec
 
I meant the difference in speed between a PCI and an AGP card. I guess I should of specified. But like I said, I plan on building my own system soon, a gaming machine to be specific. I'm definitely going to go with the AMD Phenom X4 9950 Quad-Core Black Edition. Not to sure on the graphics card though, I really like first person shooters, so I'll probably go with a higher end ATI card. Decisions, decisions. But thanks again to everyone for your help.
 
Glad to help. If you need any recommendations, I'm sure the folks around here would be glad to chime in.

Are you looking to build a new machine?
 
JLuchinski said:
I meant the difference in speed between a PCI and an AGP card. I guess I should of specified. But like I said, I plan on building my own system soon, a gaming machine to be specific. I'm definitely going to go with the AMD Phenom X4 9950 Quad-Core Black Edition. Not to sure on the graphics card though, I really like first person shooters, so I'll probably go with a higher end ATI card. Decisions, decisions. But thanks again to everyone for your help.
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If your building a new computer your choice of motherboard will either have a PCI-E x16 port or PCI-E 2.0 port. So look at those 2 types of video cards.
 
johnb35 said:
If your building a new computer your choice of motherboard will either have a PCI-E x16 port or PCI-E 2.0 port. So look at those 2 types of video cards.
Click to expand...

On that note, you really should only look at PCIe 2.0 spec cards. They will work in either PCIe v1.0 or 2.0 slots.
 
Zatharus said:
On that note, you really should only look at PCIe 2.0 spec cards. They will work in either PCIe v1.0 or 2.0 slots.
Click to expand...

I will agree on that but I was just letting him know that some motherboards still could only be the older slots.
 
Yeah I'm building brand new, my computer is 6 years old. I'm going to go with the Asus M4A78 PRO, it has integrated ATI 3200 HD video out with crossfire, so I think another ATI card along side that in the pci-e 2.0 port will be more then enough. Plus it'll look good hooked up to my 40" Sony LCD @ 1080p. Can't wait.
 
I don't think you will be able to use onboard video and a separate card at the same time. Hopefully other users will post their input. Might just depend on the motherboard. I've googled it and some say you can use both and others say a separate card will disable the onboard video. I agree with it being disabled.
 
As long as you run ati and ati you can use the onboard video as well as another card i believe. But your best bet is to just buy a pci express graphics card that has 2 outputs to begin with, will save alot of headache.
 
bomberboysk said:
As long as you run ati and ati you can use the onboard video as well as another card i believe. But your best bet is to just buy a pci express graphics card that has 2 outputs to begin with, will save alot of headache.
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I agree. I have a ATI PCI express card with 2 DVI out puts on it. Works great with 2 monitors. Recommend to anyone.
 
So what kind of card is best for gaming, mainly games such as Crysis, Farcry 2 or FEAR 2, ATI or Nvidia? I really like ATI, but like I said this will be a gaming machine. Looking at that ATI/Nvidia comparison chart, I'm kind of leaning towards Nvidia.
 
Avoid PCI video cards, unless it's Onboard, in that case, it will usually be less of a burden on the PCI bus. Otherwise, an add-on PCI video card will hog the PCI bus, which will results in clicks, crackles, pops when playing sounds in games or listening/recording music. Stick with PCI Express, or AGP, if you still have it on your motherboard.
 
johnb35 said:
I will agree on that but I was just letting him know that some motherboards still could only be the older slots.
Click to expand...

That doesn't matter. All the newer PCIe 2.0 spec cards will work in the older PCIe 1.0 slots. The 2.0 spec is designed to be backwards compatible. And, to my knowledge no manufacturer has decided to shoot themselves in the foot yet by not following the 2.0 spec completely. Support for PCIe 1.0 will be dropped eventually, but not for some time. Just think of how much PCIe 1.0 gear is out there now.


JLuchinski said:
So what kind of card is best for gaming, mainly games such as Crysis, Farcry 2 or FEAR 2, ATI or Nvidia? I really like ATI, but like I said this will be a gaming machine. Looking at that ATI/Nvidia comparison chart, I'm kind of leaning towards Nvidia.
Click to expand...

The near future looks interesting for the top dog. ATI just launched the 4890.... nVidia has the 300 series cards on the horison...

Both ATI and nVidia make great high-end cards. How much are you looking to spend?


johnb35 said:
I don't think you will be able to use onboard video and a separate card at the same time. Hopefully other users will post their input. Might just depend on the motherboard. I've googled it and some say you can use both and others say a separate card will disable the onboard video. I agree with it being disabled.
Click to expand...

Bomberboysk is right. As long as you have ONE display driver, you can use multiple video chipsets. This means that all your graphics chipsets have to be from the same manufacturer. ATI works only with ATI. nVidia with nVidia. Intel with...well, nothing. If the onboard video is an ATI chip, than you could use it with another ATI card. Likewise for nVidia.

I also agree that you should just forego the IGP and get a nice, dual-headed (they all are now anyway) graphics card. Run both your displays off that.
 
Um, I'm not going for dual displays. The motherboard has built in ATI crossfire graphics which means it can integrate with a compatible ATI PCI crossfire card. So the board has 512 mb of RAM, and then I add another ATI PCI card with let's say another 512 mb of RAM, they'll work together as one. Am I correct? I'm not 100% on this. And I plan on spending at least $1800 CAD on it, if I shop at local store's, but I can probably spend a lot less if I shop online.
 
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