|
|
AGP is
used to attach a graphics card to the motherboard for speeding up the 3D computer
graphics. The applications having 3D images can access the RAM dynamically for storing
the data using AGP.
And as there is a dedicated bus that has more transfer rate
and bandwidth for accessing the RAM, the images can be accessed and refreshed swiftly.
The processor can concurrently share the access to RAM with the graphic chip’s AGP.
|
After completing AGP’s work, the used RAM is reclaimed by the operating system for
other uses.
We need an AGP video adapter card and AGP connector in the motherboard
for using AGP.
AGP is
a 32-bit channel that runs at 66 MHz providing the bandwidth of 266 MBps which is
double that of PCI bus and the channel is 32-bi. Now, we can get AGP 8x with bandwidth
speed of 2133 MB/s. AGP graphic chips can directly access the main memory for the
complex operation of texture mapping.
Generally the motherboard contains only one
AGP slot, so we cannot connect more than one video card for increased performance.
There
should be an AGP bus slot or an integrated AGP graphics system in the motherboard
in order to have AGP has a couple important system requirements:
PCI Express
is almost replacing AGP since 2004 as it has more robust full duplex support and
provides higher data transfer rates. These days almost all new graphics processors
are designed for PCI-Express.
Example:
ATI RADEON®
9550, (256 MB) AGP Video Card.
|
