Why didnt they just release AGP16x
Something like PCI-Express, a longer AGP port that could work with AGP 8x cards, 4x etc
AGP was a parallel bus system. Well, bus system isn´t the right term (it was a point to point connection). As with IDE and the FSB things go Serial because it allows to reach higher frequencies and simpler designs. I don´t doubt that AGP 16x was possible since intel manages its FSB architecture quite well too, but i think that the Mainboard manufacturers as well as the big video card companies had a word or two too.
In addition AGP was totally messed up compatibility wise. Just take a look at the different Card formats and voltage requirements.
PCIe is a much cleaner approach and i don´t doubt that it will stay for some time. The newer incarnations of it will just offer higher frequencies and support more power to the cards.
Yeah, but thats something that makes me angry. Like DDR3, now we all gotta wait until companies lower their price and while time goes by, motherboard makers will stop doing DDR2 (or will do but much less) and customers get really affected.
AGP was nice, if you had AGP 2 generation (or v2 I think), you could ran up to AGP 4x. If you had Universal AGP, you could ran up to 8x and it was backwards compatible with 4x and 2x. So if you didnt need super powerull 8x card, you could just pick a 4x and still in good position.
Also, AGP 8x was in the market for a long time and while that time went by, videocard makers starting making super power hungry that required molex connector (same as PCI-Express, now they need PCi-ex power). Also, by that time, 99% of the people that had computers had AGP port and when PCi-Express came, things changed.
1) EVerybody had to immigrate to PCI-Ex
2) Cards were more expensive because "more bandwidth
3) No backwards compatibility, more expenses
4) Since the first day of PCi-Ex, AGP cards were getting more difficult to get meaning people/stores would make them more expensive.
5) Whoever had a super high-end AGP based PC was screwed, no more upgrades (nobody knew there were gonna be 7800GS and 7600GTs) for his PC (or at least not confirmed)