Graphics Card: The Difference Is there really a difference?

[108SOC 0]

I still have a question, what is the difference between AGP and PCI?

[wutske 0]

Those are the buses via wich a component can communicate with the rest of the computer.The first was ISA and EISA, those were 8-bit and are nowadays not used.The PCI bus was a faster bus with a speed limit of 133Mbs (if I remember correctly). A normal PCI slot (wich connects an add-in card to the computer) is white.But PCI was to slow for the fast graphics cards, so the AGP standard was introduced (and it's only used for graphics). There are different speed grades, 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x. AGP can transfer several gigabytes per second. Normaly the AGP slots is brown.Not that it wasn't fast enough, but few years ago, PCIe was introduced. This new and faster bus can not only connect graphic cards, but lots of other devices like SATA controlles. The PCIe bus is features several lanes, every lane is an extra x . So PCIe 1x has one lane, while PCIe 16x has 16 lanes. In this way, every devices has it's own connection and doesn't have to share the bus at the same time. A PCIe is normaly black and can be recognised by it's tabs on the side.Hope this helped

[108SOC 0]

Wow thank you Wutske, but my questions are not even over yet. As I learn more and more, the questions start coming out more and more.So is there anyway I can get AGP for my computer?(To any admins who are reading this, sorry for the short posts. I am just a bit tired. When school is over my post length and count will improve.)

[xip 0]

It's quite simple. There are several chip makers, but the 2 biggest are ATI and nVidia. What they do is just creating the GPU (like, for example, the NV350 wich is an ATI Radeon9600PRO).
Now, they sell those chips to different companies who put those chips on a PCB, together with memory and all other stuff needed to have a videocard and then they sell it.

Now, ATI also sells it's own cards, but those are the most 'stock' cards available from ATI. nVidia does not sell cards and let other companies do this.

Why they do that? More companies that sell cards means more diversity (memory configuration, cooling, ...) and better concurrency (and broken cards go to the companies and not directly to ATI & nVidia, wich also saves a lot of time and money)

I always have the same doubt. In fact there are only two technologies of graphic cards: nVidia and ATI , but what is better ?
There are any substancial diference between them? Despite of the different model of cards of course, I mean if you compare two similar cards but one nVidia and the other ATI... what will be the key to make a decission?

[Termin-X-man 0]

Just different manufacturers, although some tend to build their video cards cheaper, crappy heatsinks etc. They still have the same VPU though.