Forget AGP. It was crap and it is crap. PCIE is way much better.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

Forget AGP. It was crap and it is crap. PCIE is way much better.

How's that answering his question?

To answer the question:
I have an ASRock motherboard model 775Dual-880 Pro: http://www.asrock.com/mb/VIA/775Dual-880Pro/

Don't think you'll be getting anything newer than a socket 775.

Yeah any asrock with "dual" in the title is ago/pci-e, there's an am2 series as well as the 775s. They are compromised in various ways .

But they are now getting old and less common - if it's for your main PC it may be time to bite the bullet and upgrade to ddr3/pci-e/data.

Half-Saint wrote:

How's that answering his question? […]
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eL_PuSHeR wrote:

Forget AGP. It was crap and it is crap. PCIE is way much better.

How's that answering his question?

To answer the question:
I have an ASRock motherboard model 775Dual-880 Pro: http://www.asrock.com/mb/VIA/775Dual-880Pro/

Don't think you'll be getting anything newer than a socket 775.

With those Asrock boards, though, the AGP slot is wired off of the PCIe x16 slot, it just has a mechanical connection that is identical to an AGP slot. You also, can't use both the AGP and PCIe x16 slots at the same time since they are technically the same slot.

Oh, and Asrock also made a socket 939 board with both AGP and PCIe.

With those Asrock boards, though, the AGP slot is wired off of the PCIe x16 slot, it just has a mechanical connection that is identical to an AGP slot.

No it's not. It's two separate interfaces built into the northbridge.

The 775Dual-VSTA and 4CoreDual-VSTA supposedly support simultaneous use of the PCIe and AGP slots, but I've never heard of anyone actually trying it. The chipset itself officially supports it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it works properly (it is a Via chipset after all). Those things are a bit finicky even with just one video card. Also, if it matters, it's not a full PCIe X16 interface... it's only X4.

The 939Dual-SATA2/939Dual-VSTA definitely do work with two cards at once. And they're quite a bit more reliable than the S775 versions. There is also an AM2 upgrade board available for those, although it's still limited to K8 chips (no Phenoms or anything) so you don't really gain anything over just using a dual-core 939 chip.

...but I can't seem to be able to find one for sale anywhere.

I'm not sure what you were expecting... these boards are all 6-7 years old. It's been years since any retailer has carried them, your only option is finding one used on eBay or wherever.

I wasn't aware such boards existed at all. What exactly would be the point? Any game requiring AGP for compatibility reasons probably wouldn't gain much from the features of a board new enough for PCIe, I would think.

I also had to waste a PCI slot on a RAID card since the motherboard didn't support SATA drives. I don't want to have to do that again.

There are IDE-to-SATA adapters, y'know.

Half-Saint wrote:

To answer the question:
I have an ASRock motherboard model 775Dual-880 Pro: http://www.asrock.com/mb/VIA/775Dual-880Pro/

Don't think you'll be getting anything newer than a socket 775.

Thanks! I was lucky enough to find one of these NEW (and inexpensive), so as soon as I find the time I'll be putting a system together around it. 😀

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

No it's not. It's two separate interfaces built into the northbridge. […]
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With those Asrock boards, though, the AGP slot is wired off of the PCIe x16 slot, it just has a mechanical connection that is identical to an AGP slot.

No it's not. It's two separate interfaces built into the northbridge.

The 775Dual-VSTA and 4CoreDual-VSTA supposedly support simultaneous use of the PCIe and AGP slots, but I've never heard of anyone actually trying it. The chipset itself officially supports it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it works properly (it is a Via chipset after all). Those things are a bit finicky even with just one video card. Also, if it matters, it's not a full PCIe X16 interface... it's only X4.

The 939Dual-SATA2/939Dual-VSTA definitely do work with two cards at once. And they're quite a bit more reliable than the S775 versions. There is also an AM2 upgrade board available for those, although it's still limited to K8 chips (no Phenoms or anything) so you don't really gain anything over just using a dual-core 939 chip.

...but I can't seem to be able to find one for sale anywhere.

I'm not sure what you were expecting... these boards are all 6-7 years old. It's been years since any retailer has carried them, your only option is finding one used on eBay or wherever.

I'm 100% positive I saw a review for one of these boards at Tom's or Anands or some other site that said that the AGP slot is actually a modified PCIe x16 slot and that you can't use both slots at the same time.

I have one of those boards and you certainly can use both slots at the same time

iirc both cards had to use the same driver (eg 2 geforces)