News Modding ancient AGP slots is still oddly popular in 2024 to add modern GPUs and boost networking — two adaptors enable GTX 960

[Admin]

That strange in-between of PCI and PCIe slots, AGP, has been repurposed for a modern-day NAS board by YouTuber RECNAS for fun and/or profit. Additionally, a Twitter user @tercio_miranda also came across a GTX 960 elaborately mounted to an AGP slot through 2 adapters.

Modding ancient AGP slots is still oddly popular in 2024 to add modern GPUs and boost networking — two adaptors enable GTX 960 : Read more

 

[ezst036]

Going through some serious stress and thought just to stick to Windows XP.

 

[bit_user]

Not sure if "popular" is a word I'd use, but it's definitely a thing.

Just wanted to point out that AGP and PCI are closely related, making the adapter probably somewhat straight-forward to implement. Also, if the AGP -> PCI adapter ran a 66 MHz (the native speed of AGP 1.0), that would still give you a 2x boost over legacy PCI, which typically ran at just 33 MHz.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Don't remind me of AGP, had to replace a X1950Pro AGP a few months after I bought it with an X1950GT PCIe because of a motherboard change way back in 2007.

 

[bit_user]

Don't remind me of AGP, had to replace a X1950Pro AGP a few months after I bought it with an X1950GT PCIe because of a motherboard change way back in 2007.

When I bought my Pentium 4, I had the choice of going with AGP + DDR or PCIe + DDR2. Initially, DDR2 had higher latency and with PCIe being such a new standard, I opted for tried-and-true AGP and regular DDR.

I didn't really regret that decision until about my second GPU upgrade for that machine. I got stuck with a HD 4650, probably using regular DDR3 (not GDDR3), because it was basically the fastest modern thing still available for AGP.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

When I bought my Pentium 4, I had the choice of going with AGP + DDR or PCIe + DDR2. Initially, DDR2 had higher latency and with PCIe being such a new standard, I opted for tried-and-true AGP and regular DDR.

I didn't really regret that decision until about my second GPU upgrade for that machine. I got stuck with a HD 4650, probably using regular DDR3 (not GDDR3), because it was basically the fastest modern thing still available for AGP.

It didn't help that it took a while before GPUs started really exceeding AGP bandwidth, so many people (like me) didn't see the need to go PCIe at first. Thankfully an X1950GT was only $140 so it wasn't AS bad as it could have been...

 

[Vanderlindemedia]

To be fair, when that switch came from AGP to PCI-E there was zero difference in speeds for the cards back at the time. The reason why was the industrialisation in both enterprise and consumer market knowing how many different standards there where at that time.

AGP is afteral a direct link to the CPU instead of over the chipset or through other PCI devices. You can run a soundcard on it if you have the proper tools and drivers for it. OC'ing both PCI-E bus or AGP bus was "fun" - reward was there in actual percentages.

I remember running a card over 119Mhz PCI-E - increasing the whole speed of the bus was simply how faster bits would go from one to another point.

 

[bit_user]

AGP is afteral a direct link to the CPU instead of over the chipset or through other PCI devices.

Not exactly. AGP did go through the chipset, but you're right that it didn't share the link with any other devices.

OC'ing both PCI-E bus or AGP bus ...

PCI was the last true bus, in PCs. PCIe is not a bus - it is a packet-switched network.

That said, I think AGP was technically a bus, even though it was implemented as a point-to-point link.

 

[Vanderlindemedia]

Oh, your right:

The primary advantage of AGP is that it doesn't share the PCI bus, providing a dedicated, point-to-point pathway between the expansion slot(s) and the motherboard chipset. The direct connection also allows higher clock speeds.

But it's still a link offering more bandwidth. You can place anything in between that can translate AGP signals into PCI-E signals and virtually attach anything you want.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Oh, your right:



But it's still a link offering more bandwidth. You can place anything in between that can translate AGP signals into PCI-E signals and virtually attach anything you want.

That's what several board partners did during that time, used a Rialto PCIe-AGP bridge

ATI readies 'Rialto' PCIE-to-AGP bridge chip

Paves way for Radeon X800 XT on AGP?

www.theregister.com

 

[stonecarver]

Darn you Tom's putting this article up is like waving hardware crack.

Thank god I only have two AGP boards left and filled with a card. But it's nice to see yet again where everyone says you can't, here it's been done.

 

[P.Amini]

2 / 100000000... is a very BIG number. So the title is right, "popular"!