PCI To AGP

TacT

http://forums.viahardware.com/messageview.cfm?catid=33&threadid=15765

po0k

Cool, but why?

Gavin

It'd be bloody handy for using multiple gfx cards to drive a dual monitor system. pci cards are awkward to get a hold of cheap.

Gav

po0k

Why not get a dual head AGP GF2 MX400 and a dual head PCi GF2 MX400? Or Matrox G400s for that matter (they made em in PCi afaik). 4 monitors there.
That seems to be a PCI card to AGP slot, not AGP card to PCi slot.
Look at the fingers on the adapter, 3 sections. PCI only has 2.

koneko

Or a GF4, or a Radeon 8500. I plan on modding a case, and will use an LCD in it. Myom. Not sure whether I'll use the 8500 or the Ti4200/4400, either way it'll work.

Inspector Gadget

...this "adaptor" allows you to use a PCI board in an AGP slot, not the other way around. In other words, it's only of any use if you need to insert another PCI card into your machine and your AGP slot happens to be free - and how likely is that?

It's a nice trick, but useless 90% of the time.
Gadget

TacT

I'm just the messenger

Though some of you might be interested....

I think somewhere in the thread someone mentions that there is an agp to pci which would be infinitely more useful because it would allow you to take advantage of pixel shaders and other yummyness you can't get on the pci bus......must read it through

halfab

...this "adaptor" allows you to use a PCI board in an AGP slot, not the other way around. In other words, it's only of any use if you need to insert another PCI card into your machine and your AGP slot happens to be free - and how likely is that?

Sorry gadget its the other way round.. it AGP card in a PCI slot..
as the pic shows.. here with a Radeon 8500 Low Profile



Link to full size pic was on www.viahardware.com

Its very useful for people who bought the mini Shuttle PC boxes which are decent enough but have no AGP slots..

halfab

po0k

I fail to see how that 3 segment finger set fits into a PCi slot.
Here's a scan of an AGP and PCI card (TNT2 and 3Com 595 TX)

The only other thing I can think of is that it's a 64-bit PCI slot.

Kali

doesn't look like a 64bit card to me (the first two are right but the last slot connector is too small?)

for those who can read japanese:

http://www.kuroutoshikou.com/products/agp2pci/agp2pcifset.html

although the only thing i coudl grab from that was that it was limited to converting 5v PCI to 3.3v AGP.

halfab

It does fit.. its a standard pci slot not 64bit PCI
here is a pic of 2 56k PCI modems one of them is 3 segment .

and here is a shot of the modem with a 64bit pci slot
JFYI thats all

This should clear it up.

Inspector Gadget

...the number of "keys" cut in the board's PCB header is irrelevant, provided:

1. It's got the right key to match the one in the PCI socket itself
2. It's got all the pins it needs - address, power, data and so on.

However, from what I understand of this, three things happen (there's a good article at AnandTech on the subject):

1. AGP's DiME (Direct Memory Access) capabilities aren't usable - it can't use system RAM if it needs to. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind...
2. You'd be stuck with AGP 0.5x because you're limited to PCI bus speed (33MHz) and PCI doesn't support "double pumping" (sending data on both the rising and trailing edge of each clock pulse) - so you'd be going from a theoretical maximum of just over 1GB/s (for AGP 4x "in full flight") down to ~132MB/s (the theoretical maximum of the PCI bus, which of course you'll have to share with all the other PCI devices - the sound card, NIC and so on - so you'll only get a certain fraction of this at any one time) - quite a drop!
3. PCI doesn't support "pipelining" of instructions (sucking down the next instruction(s) and their data while executing the current one), whereas AGP does; another kick in the performance "teeth".

Anyway, this doesn't bode well at all. If you are planning to get one of these cards, stick to a slow card with plenty of its own RAM; however, it'll crawl along anyway, so be ready for that. Of course, it'll have to be low-profile so that you can bolt it into your PC as well...

Interesting idea nonetheless...
Gadget

TacT

Good research Gadget

As stated it's main use is for small form factor pcs, heh we need a few of those in here (mainly the shuttle owners/modders which is why I though a few peeps in here might be interested)

Unfortunately you are limited to 3.3v agp.

you can translate all that japanese pretty easily too

just use this and then paste the japanese/whatever language url in and convert from japanese to english

http://akiba.ascii24.com/akiba/news/2002/06/01/636205-000.html