sick of it... (damned agp cards)

sick of it... (****** agp cards)

Ok, here is the story; you get a motherboard with 5 PCI and one 8x AGP slot, but your AGP video card’s cooler covers the first one or two PCI slots! Anyone know why motherboard manufactures don't separate them? Is there some reason for this insanity!?!?!?

This is just catching on, many recent boards skip the first PCI slot like my AN35N for instance. From what I've heard using the first PCI slot will usually result in a IRQ conflict with your AGP card anyway.
Regards, Balrog

With I/O APIC and/or ACPI and a compliant OS, IRQ conflicts are mostly a thing of the past. As for the original questions, most AGP cards still take up only one slot (mine does, and I don't think the average computer user blows $400 on a video card). I don't believe they are supposed to take up that extra space, bu since they do, well... you'll just have to deal until motherboard makers figure it out.

Even if your card used only one slot, which is almost unthinkable nowadays, imagine the poor airflow around it if a pci was next to it. Last time a pci and agp were next to each other in my house was a voodoo3.

Occasionally m/b have the last PCI slot and a CNR slot line up so as to share the last opening on the back of the case. In other words, it's an either / or between the last PCI slot and the CNR slot. It sort of works the same way in a sense with the AGP slot and the first PCI slot. Not everyone necessarily uses the AGP slot (could be using integrated video or a PCI video card). It doesn't hurt to have the slot there, rather than simply having one slot less. I believe AGP cards that block 2 PCI slots would be the exception.

Re: sick of it... (****** agp cards)

RevelatorHarmon said:

Ok, here is the story; you get a motherboard with 5 PCI and one 8x AGP slot, but your AGP video card’s cooler covers the first one or two PCI slots! Anyone know why motherboard manufactures don't separate them? Is there some reason for this insanity!?!?!?

Click to expand...

Ever wonder why video card manufactures make dumb cards like that? Or why not the GPU on the other side of the card. Now that would be a novel idea.

Ever wonder why video card manufactures make dumb cards like that? Or why not the GPU on the other side of the card. Now that would be a novel idea.

Click to expand...

AMEN to that brother

Re: Re: sick of it... (****** agp cards)

{PMS}fishy said:

Ever wonder why video card manufactures make dumb cards like that? Or why not the GPU on the other side of the card. Now that would be a novel idea.

Click to expand...

It would be right beside the CPU heatsink then, especially if you have a particularly large one. I'm not saying it would block it or anything, but you don't really want to have 2 heat sources right beside each other like that if you're hoping to dissapate heat efficiently from each