Much discussion has continued in this newsgroup regarding future upgrades of
AGP versus PCI Express and advantages/disadvantages for manufacturers to
make AGP, PCI or both.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...0/pcie-10.html
I agree entirely with this statement:
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..... It makes perfect business sense: AGP will not vanish overnight with the
introduction of PCI Express. There will still be a demand for AGP cards, and
it will probably only fade very slowly, because everyone wants to make a
buck in the transition to the new bus. After all, simply upgrading to a new
motherboard isn't the end of the line - you'll almost certainly need a new
processor, new RAM, a new graphics card, probably a new power supply and
perhaps even a new case.
For many prospective buyers, a simple graphics card upgrade with a AGP model
will therefore surely be the preferred (read: less expensive) solution.
Since this is the case, the chipmakers would suddenly have to design,
manufacture and advertise two versions of the same chip, one each for AGP
and PCI Express. Considering that a chip tape-out is anything but cheap, it
would be logical to focus development of new chips for he PCI Express
versions. Should there be demand for an AGP version, it could be implemented
by using a bridge chip, which would be far less expensive than creating a
second version of the same chip.....
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So it sounds like a bridge chip may be the answer to offering PCI Express
cards as a future AGP solutions. I know it would be dumb not to offer AGP as
an upgrade card in the future, and hopefully this will be relatively
inexpensive and easy to implement.