Interesting, I didn't see if this BRIDGE device was for AGP or PCI cards, must have missed that part....

BigBodZod wrote:

Interesting, I didn't see if this BRIDGE device was for AGP or PCI cards, must have missed that part....

The card in the picture doesn't appear to have the AGP locking tab, so I am going to say it's PCI only. What's really nice is even a PCIe x1 slot has more bandwith than a normal PCI slot, so you won't experience any slowdowns and the card may even run faster because PCIe slots are clocked higher than PCI slots, so it'll probably run like a 66mhz PCI slot or maybe even faster. It would be funny if it ran faster than the AGP version. Makes me glad I bought the PCI version all those years ago after 3dfx went bankrupt and everyone was liquidating their cards at blowout prices.

BigBodZod wrote:

Interesting, I didn't see if this BRIDGE device was for AGP or PCI cards, must have missed that part....

PCI only.

The part I've always wondered about is if the V4 and V5 PCI cards supported 66mhz pci, and if this bridge supports it. If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then the interface will be as fast as an agp equivalent would have been.

Yeppers, I can see that it's a PCI interface now, I bet there is an AGP to PCIe Bridge Adapter too, just not sure it would be worth it especially of the PCI to PCIe supports 66MHz 😉

BigBodZod wrote:

Yeppers, I can see that it's a PCI interface now, I bet there is an AGP to PCIe Bridge Adapter too, just not sure it would be worth it especially of the PCI to PCIe supports 66MHz 😉

I don't think it does though 🙁. I've seen that bridge on newegg and it only mentioned 33mhz IIRC. That said, it looked like a lot of data wasn't provided.

As for AGP to PCIe bridges, those are trickier. I've only seen them embedded on video cards.

Now we just need to wait for a V6K owner to get one of these and the AGP to PCI adapter and bench their card on an overclocked Core i5 😮

Interesting...

Wouldn't one need to make a custom bracket for the card?

Tetrium wrote:

Interesting...

Wouldn't one need to make a custom bracket for the card?

Yes. I wouldn't want that hanging by only a PCIe x1 connector in a tower case.

Tetrium wrote:

Interesting...

Wouldn't one need to make a custom bracket for the card?

On one of the sites showing that pci-e V5 it was sorta ghetto rigged with wire/ zip ties to the pci slot. Not too 1337 😜

Hmmm...if it's a PCI card, why not use it on a basic PCI slot? 😕

Unless, maybe if there's no more space to install one, or blocked by the main graphics card which take up 2 slot spaces mostly, common nowadays.

Or because some modern motherboards don't even have a PCI slot anymore

PCI, may you rest in peace

Tetrium wrote:

Or because some modern motherboards don't even have a PCI slot anymore

PCI, may you rest in peace

I had read somewhere recently that the PCI slot is going to be dead soon. Everything is going to be PCIe. Most things that go in a PCI slot now can easily be handled by a PCIe x1 slot or x4 at the most. Not too many things other than video cards would actually require a x8 or x16 slot.

Wouldn't something like this require custom (read: less compatible) drivers as well?

Jorpho wrote:

Wouldn't something like this require custom (read: less compatible) drivers as well?

Apparently not. The adapter converts the PCIe x1 slot to a PCI slot so it is handled just the same as if it were installed in a normal PCI slot.

lo

i noticed those widgets on EBUYER.COM just the other
day. the item code is 195060 and is made by STARTECH.
The overview just says it converts PCIe to low profile PCI
which is just about it really. finding a suitable low profile
PCI card to convert is probably a bigger problem.

bye

EDIT: interestingly ebuyer display a PCIe to PCI adapter
and in fact it's the reverse which is a PCI to PCIe adapter
which is displayed correctly at startech's site. i suppose
this is more useful should you wish to put a low profile
PCIe graphic card in a PCI slot.

Now all we're missing are AGP2PCIe adapters and vice versa 😁

Tetrium wrote:

Now all we're missing are AGP2PCIe adapters and vice versa 😁

They had AGP to PCIe x16 -using Nvidia's bridge chip or something way back. But it wasn't too popular as the extra width meant you could only use low profile cards (if you didn't wan't to ghetto rig the thing) and only a few cards worked properly with them.

Not too sure about PCIe to AGP though....pretty sure I saw one once in a Chinese website.

But what pcie cards would you want to adapt to an AGP board? The older ones are available in AGP versions for the most part and newer ones would be cpu- bottlenecked in most cases.

Regarding low profile vs full height cards:

according to this link, it seems like normal size also would work, providing the case is big/wide enough(40mm clearing):
http://www.beaglesoft.com/pcie2pcifaq.htm

Not much of a 'professional' solution, but they do actually illustrate and advise on how to mount it! 😁

And it seems sound cards could experience some 'electrical' problems.
Of course, this is not the Startech adapter model, but still....

Ah yes, the good ol ghetto long screw + nut method 😉

I was thinking they could have used a custom brass or aluminum spacer instead to make it look cleaner, maybe even a plastic/nylon type spacer would look ok.