ricer333

I have an older Dell that I have upgrded. I have some PCI slots but also one AGP slot. All the documentation says about the AGP slot is AGP (version 1.0). What speed is this? (2X / 4X / 8X)??? Also, what gives better performance? PCI or AGP? How much does the memory matter? (256 vs 128 vs 64)???

Any help would be great!

This is taken from Dell's Documentation site:

Bus types PCI (version 2.1), ISA, and AGP (version 1.0)
Bus speed AGP: 66 or 133 MHz
PCI: 33 MHz
ISA: 8.33 MHz

So what kinda card would be best?
Some specs: 1.4GHz Celeron with 512 MB SDRAM

Stu_computer

That doesn't look right, if you have a 1.4GHz Celeron running in it, that should be newer than AGP version 1.

Download EVEREST and run it to check that info,
EVEREST > Motherboard > Chipset AGP version.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The AGP 1.0 specification defined 1x and 2x speeds with the 3.3v keyed connector.

So lets say if a video card requires a AGP version of at least 2.0, then this computer would not support this video card.
With this AGP version 1 you may have trouble finding a card that supports Version 1.

AGP Interface Specification; Revision 1.0 1996
AGP Interface Specification; Revision 2.0 1998
AGP Interface Specification; Revision 3.0 2002
-------------------------------------------------------------
AGP is newer technology than PCI, AGP is faster.

How much does the memory matter? Well, more is always better. Games graphics have minimum requirements for CPU, RAM and VIDEO. But performance is far superior when you have more than the mimimum required.

ricer333

To answer the CPU question, it was a powerleap upgrade for slot1 adapters. I upgraded from a P3 450 MHz. I will continue looking for my answer, but it seems that version 1.0 was AGP 1x / 2x... some 4x cards being backwards compatable with v1.0

UncleMacro

This page gives the grisly details of AGP compatibility. You can still get quite a few low-end AGP 8X cards which have support for 3.3 volt slots. But given that you're running an old Dell, I'd stick only with NVIDIA cards like an FX5200 or FX5500. Old Dells seem to be unusually picky about accepting ATI cards like Radeon 9250s for some reason. And make sure you get a card with 128 bit wide video RAM rather than 64 bit RAM (video RAM width info here). There are lots of AGP video cards of this sort which are 64 bits wide and they're much slower than the 128 bit cards which are only a few bucks more expensive.

ricer333

So, I just wanted to post here and give a quick update. I ended up going with the ATI Radeon 9000 w/ 64 MB RAM. I was blown away with the improvement in gaming from my older Voodoo3 card. FPS went from ~30 to a max of 99!!!! Lag down from ~60-110 to ~30-50.

Very nice improvement. The nicest thing is, that this card is compatable with 8x AGP boards... so if for whatever reason I need it in the future, it's there for me. Also, there is a tweeking program for the ATI interface that will overclock this card!!!

Happy as a bee over here