Someone had told me of a physical AGP to PCI-Express adapter that would make it possible to use a PCI-E video board with an AGP motherboard.
I cant seem to find one of these anywhere and have a hard time believing it exists. Has anyone heard of this? If so, could you please post a link to the device for me?
Thanks!
Message edited by voodoo_papa on 03-26-2008 at 03:28:48 PM
That doesn't exist. AGP slots use less physical lanes than a PCI-e slot anyways, so even if it did, the PCI-e slot would perform like an AGP card. Sorry. You can get PCI-e motherboards for fairly cheap nowadays, though...
If you're that pressed to use an AGP card but have a PCIe board, ASRock makes one with AGP And PCIe, but I'm recommend just upgrading everything to PCIe.
You are probably confusing it with the bridge chip that is on all modern AGP cards to make them compatible with AGP since the manufacturing standard is pci-e
Newer AGP highend cards are basically PCIe cards with a 'bridge adapter' to allow it to run on an AGP port. THis adapter though, cannot be purchased separately from the OEM combination with video card.
You are probably confusing it with the bridge chip that is on all modern AGP cards to make them compatible with AGP since the manufacturing standard is pci-e
right thats why I questioned this. The person that told me about this item specifically said it was a physical device/adapter that would make it possible to use a PCIe video board on an AGP only mobo.
I twisted my noodle trying to figure out how such a device would work, much less fit.
they exist, in a sense that they were made (at least prototypes). I've never seen one for sale though, and only 1 obscure article written in Chinese talked about these adapters, and had a pic of them. That was back in 2005 that I found that info. It's long gone by now, but there was such a contraption devised. You could only use half height cards with the adapter of course, making it pretty worthless.
they exist, in a sense that they were made (at least prototypes).
Albatros announced they would produce a "riser" adapter a couple of years ago, but it never went beyond the prototype stage.
An alternative is to buy a motherboard with both AGP and PCI-e slots. Asrock (subdivision of Asus) makes such mobos, but they generally use older generation chipsets so you will not be able to install any of the 45nm Core 2 Duo CPUs made by Intel. They will also not support any type of Quad Core CPU regardless if it is an older or new generation of the Core 2 Duo CPU.
More importantly the PCI-e slot is limited to x4 lanes instead of x16 lanes. While x4 lanes will suffice for entry level/mainstream card, having so few lanes will definitely bottleneck a 8800 GT or GTS (I think I've read a 25% performance loss).
My advice, ditch AGP and simply get a PCI-e video card.
jaguar, the Asrock mobo should support quadcore Kentsfields, but everything else you say is right on the money. Too old of a board for future generation CPUs, plus it's VIA, with all their inherent downsides.
