Can't comment on the performance side of things.

But I look at it from the cost side of things.
AGP Geforce cards are cheaper and more available then PCI versions.
Even if your looking at something a bit more period correct like a S3 Virge, an AGP variant will be dirt cheap vs PCI

douglar wrote on 2025-08-13, 22:59:

Anyone have any info on how much performance is lost by going with PCI over AGP graphics on socket 7 motherboards?

Wrong question. It depends on a particular setup. What is known is that a card like Voodoo3 produces one of the smallest differences.

I did video on PCI vs AGP for 3dfx cards here:
https://youtu.be/Ss9vDF_FNfI?si=5xAdo61A3pTzxutl&t=1030

You can see even with a Pentium 3 is makes little difference.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-08-14, 00:31:

Can't comment on the performance side of things. […]
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Can't comment on the performance side of things.

But I look at it from the cost side of things.
AGP Geforce cards are cheaper and more available then PCI versions.
Even if your looking at something a bit more period correct like a S3 Virge, an AGP variant will be dirt cheap vs PCI

AGP is definitely much more affordable when it comes to 3dfx, Nvidia and ATi cards that offer decent 3D acceleration.

Regarding Virge cards though, I believe the Virge/GX2 was the first to have an AGP variant. All prior models are PCI (Virge, DX, VX, GX). Also, they're all so bad at 3D acceleration that I doubt the interface matters much at all on the ones that support AGP.

Regarding the OP's question: I doubt that AGP vs PCI will matter at graphics settings that are actually playable unless you're going with an overpowered graphics card so that you can push graphics settings higher with little performance loss (since a Socket 7 CPU will be the bottleneck no matter what you use). If I had to guess without having benchmarks in front of me, I would say that a Geforce 2 MX PCI vs AGP (both with 128bit SDRAM and same clocks) will start to show a difference at higher resolutions in some games.

Going beyond that with even faster\later PCI cards vs AGP will likely also show a difference when you crank that resolution and settings, but realistically, the more graphics heavy games made after 1998 or so will not be very fast (by today's standards) on any Socket 7 CPU, so situations where it matters will be limited.

Also, I don't think 3dfx cards benefit at all from AGP until you get to the Voodoo 5 5500. And this is pretty much in line with what I said above, since the 5500 and Geforce 2 MX offer a similar level of graphics performance overall.

The Apollo MVP4 has a built-in video core, if it is not possible to turn it off on the board, this will significantly reduce system performance when using a separate graphics card.

I would choose MVP3.

douglar wrote on 2025-08-13, 22:59:

Anyone have any info on how much performance is lost by going with PCI over AGP graphics on socket 7 motherboards? I’d love to see benchmarks with similar AGP & PCI cards have similar GPU clocks and ram. Like a Geforce 2MX or Voodoo 3 2000 based cards.

I wanted to do a build and I wasn’t sure if I should stick with an AT MVP3 board from DFI https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/dfi-p5bv3-plus-rev.b

Or a PCI only MVP4 ATX board from compaq. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/mitac-trigon-5114vu

MVP3 and MVP4 are basically the same chipset, just with integrated AGP on the MVP4. So MVP4 with PCI VGA should be identical to MVP3 with PCI VGA. AGP theoretically gives more performance on the MVP3, but in practice, CPU will generally be the limiting factor. MVP4 integrated VGA has more bandwidth to the chipset, but as it shares memory bandwidth, it will perform much worse than a similar VGA controller (Trident Blade3D) on PCI, let alone on AGP on an MVP3. If it's not being used, it won't harm performance though. No need to get into a twist about disabling it.

Any time i take AGP, but when its not available, then i use integrated or PCI card. Geforce 2 / Geforce 3 runs great on SS7.