On 30 Jun 98 at 14:56, Michael Gerke wrote:

> Please pardon me if this has already been recently addressed on
> the list, but could someone please explain the new AGP video?

> I am considering an upgrade soon from my 486DX/100 to a AMD K6
> chip and board, and would like to know if I should opt for the
> larger ATX board with AGP or stick with my baby AT format and PCI.

> What difference will I see and what about the cost of the
> associated video cards?

  AGP provides higher bandwidth from the CPU to the video frame
buffer than PCI can.  This, in turn, can improve video performance,
especially on tasks that are implemented in software because they are
awkward, impossible, or just expensive to hand off to an accelerator.

  So while an AGP card will give you better performance, it's
actually (at least potentially) a simpler and cheaper prospect than a
PCI card.  AGP cards based on the Trident 9750 chip are about $50 or
less, and are actually pretty decent.  Matrox is bringing out AGP
"G200" versions of their Millenium and Mystique lines any day now,
listing at about $169, which would be about the high end of the AGP
market for now.

David G