AGP XX.... what do they mean?

[mecharmor25]

Is it true that there are different AGP slots?? What does these 2x 4x 8x mean?? Is the AGP slot simply an AGP and can fit all AGP video cards from a GF2 all the way to GF4?? I'm currently using and ECS K7S5A motherboard for financial reasons...... The video card I'm considering about says AGP 8x but on my instruction manual it only mentions 4X but never higher, never lower. What do they mean?? BTW is the Geforce series more stable and compatible than the ati-radeon series?

[Dark Zero]

Its the bus speed used for the agp.

[Yeloazndevil]

this iste will explain in depth http://www.msi.com.tw/html/e_service...gp8x/page1.htm

[takwu]

yeloazndevil,
he's asking the difference between the speed ratings, that link doesn't seem to explain it.

mecharmor25,
it is the bus speed. it is determines the transfer speed of data to your video card.
each speed is different and require specific support. always read the fine prints. most motherboard should support more than one speed, such as 2x/4x. similarly most video cards also support more than one speed; if the card is 8x, it probably supports 4x as well. Make sure you have a match.

[Demigod]

The AGP slot can accommodate any videocard that has an AGP connector and meets the AGP 1.0 specifications. This includes cards as old as the TNT2 right up to the latest GeForce FX cards. All AGP videocards are also designed to be backwards compatible so they will work on all previous AGP modes (AGP 8x videocards will work on boards that support AGP 4x; they'll work in AGP 4x on such boards). Basically, as long as you can fit the card into the slot it should work. As for your last question, ATI videocards are just as stable as Nvidia ones. Compatibility is subjective but ATI cards should run most of today's games just as well as Nvidia's (emulation is a different matter though).

Ah, forget to answer the speed question. As others stated it is the bus speed, or rather, how much data can be transferred at each clock. At AGP 2x the card will transfer 2x the data compared to AGP 1x and at AGP 4x it will transfer 4x the data. Don't confuse this with the clock speed though, the AGP bus always runs at 66 Mhz, it's just the frequency of data per clock. It's a bit too complicated to get into the technical aspect of DDR and QDR technology so you're just going to have to take our word for it. The data transfer capabilities of AGP break down as follows:

AGP 1x = 66 (Mhz clock) x 1 (transfer rate) x 4 (32-bit) = 264 MB/s
AGP 2x = 66 (Mhz clock) x 2 (transfer rate) x 4 (32-bit) = 528 MB/s
AGP 4x = 66 (Mhz clock) x 4 (transfer rate) x 4 (32-bit) = 1056 MB/s
AGP 8x = 66 (Mhz clock) x 8 (transfer rate) x 4 (32-bit) = 2112 MB/s