AGP
An AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) is a dedicated, high-speed connection on a computer's motherboard for graphics cards, offering faster data transfer rates than older PCI slots. This dedicated connection allowed for improved 3D graphics performance by enabling direct access to system memory for textures and other graphical data. The technology was released in 1997, with different versions (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x) providing increasing speeds by operating at higher effective frequencies while using lower voltage signaling in later versions. AGP has since been replaced by the PCI Express (PCIe) standard.
Purpose: To provide a direct, high-bandwidth connection between the graphics card and the system's main memory.
Speed: AGP offered significantly higher data transfer rates than PCI, with speeds of 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x.
Data Transfer: It allowed graphics cards to use the system's main memory for textures and other data, which was a major advancement for 3D graphics and gaming.
Dedicated Connection: Unlike the shared bandwidth of PCI slots, AGP provided a dedicated point-to-point connection to the graphics card.
©2025 PC Anatomy | 