Advantages of PCI-E over AGP

Im going to be upgrading soon and obviously don't want to be upgrading with an AGP video card if the PCI ones are much better. Is there a huge advantage going PCI over AGP? If I go AGP I can go ahead and get the video card and use it in my current computer until I purchase all the other parts that I'm upgrading. I thought I read somewhere that PCI was like 10% better than AGP or something like that, it may have been comparing something else though. TIA.

right now, no. heck, you still can't really tell a difference between agp 4x and 8x, let alone pci-e's 16x. what you're doing, though, if you buy pci-e, is buying a more future-proof comp. pci-e vs agp 8x theoretically implies that pci-e will offer 2x the bandwidth of agp. it's really impossible to say when agp 8x speeds will truly be maximized, let alone when pci-e speeds will begin to be touched.

my advice is this: if you don't plan on upgrading for some time (several years, possibly), then buy pci-e now. your comp will last a little longer, so you won't be forced to upgrade. otherwise, save a little money and buy an agp setup and upgrade a little further down the road when there's a need for the bandwidth potential of pci-e.

Im going from a ti4800se =) so I'm sure the AGP 6800 or X800 will be a HUGE HUGE improvement so I think i'll just go AGP since I can go ahead and buy it and use it in this computer until I get the mobo/cpu/memory for the new one.

Binow said:

Im going from a ti4800se =) so I'm sure the AGP 6800 or X800 will be a HUGE HUGE improvement so I think i'll just go AGP since I can go ahead and buy it and use it in this computer until I get the mobo/cpu/memory for the new one.

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yeah, sounds like an awesome choice. from everything i've read, there's really no difference at all between, say, the 6800gt agp and 6800gt pci-e. you're gonna love your new setup regardless. you really can't go wrong with either card.

Fangs404 said:

right now, no. heck, you still can't really tell a difference between agp 4x and 8x, let alone pci-e's 16x. what you're doing, though, if you buy pci-e, is buying a more future-proof comp.

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buying to futureproof a computer is bad advice IMHO. for one CPU's will be the limiting factor in any future more powerfull GFX cards anyway. its better to buy the best available right now because chances are down the road the rest of your NEW system will be obsolete anyway. i have been down this road before.

PCI-E alone will not provide any performance boost and it will be like this for a while. The onyl advantage to PCI-E is if you can use them in a SLI setup.

Fangs404 said:

right now, no. heck, you still can't really tell a difference between agp 4x and 8x, let alone pci-e's 16x. what you're doing, though, if you buy pci-e, is buying a more future-proof comp. pci-e vs agp 8x theoretically implies that pci-e will offer 2x the bandwidth of agp

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wrong

agp 8x is 8 times the speed of 1x agp which is faster than legacy pci speed 1x or 33mhz

a 16x pci-e slot has nothign to do speed wise with an 8x agp slot

I think there are two main advantages, the first being better prepared for future upgrades as mentioned before. I think you can also feed a bit more juice through the PCI-E slots allowing for cards w/o a molex connector.

tsin

yes i believe pci-e allocates ~75w