Grinder wrote:
Currently I'm using an AGP 8x video card (Asus A9600XT) with this
motherboard:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...ual-VSTA&s=775

If I have to replace that card, would I be better off putting in a PCIe
card. The literature for the motherboard refers to the PCIe slot as a
"PCI Express Graphics slot," but I can recall seeing it referred to as
"PCI Express Slot (x16 physical, x4 electric)" or something close.

Q1) Will a PCI Express x16 Video Card under perform compared to a "real"
x16 slot?

Q2) Any recommendations for a PCIe card in the $50 or less price point?

Thanks.

Well, that is Asrock for you. At least they give a list of supported
PCI Express cards. (The FAQ page mentions there is a trick to using
a 8800GT.)

http://www.asrock.com/mb/vga.asp?Mod...ual-VSTA&s=775

x4 lane wiring is 1000MB/sec TX and 1000MB/sec RX. Assuming
most of the video card data is moving in one direction at
a given moment, this makes the slot performance similar to
AGP 4X (1066MB/sec half duplex). To see the impact of limited
slot bandwidth, there is this old article. Check *all* the
benchmarks, because some things are more sensitive to a limited
slot than others. This page is relatively bad...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/...ing/page8.html

while the gaming page is hardly affected...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/...ng/page10.html

Is your video card purchase for gaming or not ? At $50, you'll
get something which is good for 2D desktop work, maybe even
Vista Aero, but will be lacking for any strenuous game usage.

HTH,
Paul