PCI Express and AGP on the same board

Petros

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I wanted a computer upgrade for Christmas, but I have a Socket 754 processor with an AGP slot. This looked like trouble; I'd either have to get an AGP board and buy another board with PCI-E later, or buy the motherboard and video card at once (so I thought). I wasn't ready to spring $600-$800 to get all the upgrades, but I wanted a decent board without a crazy chipset I'd never heard of.

I've been a little skeptical of chipsets that stray outside the realm of NForce or VIA, but I have carefully researched the ASRock 939 Dual SATA2 and found it to be a hidden gold nugget from what people are saying about it. There are a few notices of shoddy workmanship, but nothing an RMA can't fix. We'll see...

Sometime next week, I'll be getting my 3700+ San Diego and this board. Can't wait to try it out!
 
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Get a PCI-E board seriously they're about the same price and if you're short on money get a ATi X300 or so.. cost 50$ in Canada.

Let's say 235$ for the CPU, 75$ for the board + 50$ for the PCI-E gfx card for 360$, sell your AGP gfx card.. substract the amount of the sale + buy a nice gfx card for later again if you're broke like me and have fun now!
 
That's why I'm so happy about this board--I get both AGP and PCI! Hehe...I'm more pumped than a tire factory.
 
Be warned!!!!!!!!!!

I have a VIA 890A based dual MB (PCI-e and AGP). The AGP is not REAL AGP! It is an old fashioned PCI interface (slower than AGP 1x) in a connector that accepts an AGP video card. The AGP clock speed and interface enhancements are not impelemented.

This chokes the living **** out of my 9800 PRO and made me drop the video settings to LOW for all games. I was forced to get a new PCI-e video card to make use of my AMD 64 XP 3500 system.

Make sure that the ASROCK does not do the same thing. The only way I found out was when I went into the BIOS and found no AGP settings. None of this was mentioned in the store or ECS advertisements, company website etc.

Download the manual and read it cover to cover including the bios setup sections before you open the box. If the AGP is brain dead and you return the MB they may try and charge you a restocking fee. If they do, point out that they are accessories to mail fraud since the card features are misrepresented. You can't say AGP unless it really is AGP.

Also I use a KVM switch and the Video cable does not reach the AGP slot because it has to be so far away from the kybd/mouse connectros due to the extra PCI-e slots in between.

Good luck and post back if that card really has a real AGP slot.
 
LeeJend said:
Be warned!!!!!!!!!!

I have a VIA 890A based dual MB (PCI-e and AGP). The AGP is not REAL AGP! It is an old fashioned PCI interface (slower than AGP 1x) in a connector that accepts an AGP video card. The AGP clock speed and interface enhancements are not impelemented.

This chokes the living **** out of my 9800 PRO and made me drop the video settings to LOW for all games. I was forced to get a new PCI-e video card to make use of my AMD 64 XP 3500 system.

That really sucks...ouch! I had heard horror stories about AGP on these dual boards like yours, so I read all the reviews in-depth. This page helped me make my decision on it. If it works this well, I'll be pleased. Updating again Monday night! I hope my experience ends up a more pleasant experience than the one you had to suffer :D
 
Kool, glad yours looks like it will work.

I was looking at that Asrock when I made my mistake. I saw the 890A based CPU and MB for a price less than the going price for the CPU so I did not get screwed too badly and the PCI-e interface appears legit benchmarking my X80XL.

It just speeded up my upgrade plans so I end up with less vid card for the bucks than I had hoped for.

PS Ali was making good chipsets 7 years ago so I would not worry about them being an "off brand". A friend of mine at work is still running his cira 2000 Ali chipset MB.
 
yeah... i've kinda been hearing the same thing about those AGP and PCI-Express slot mobo's.... that they're not too great. i've heard that sometimes, after prolonged use, some of them (at least probably the earlier ones) were known to possibly cause damage to whatever video card was in the AGP slot. Seems as though they may have fixed all the bugs in the system of it.
 
LeeJend said:
Make sure that the ASROCK does not do the same thing. The only way I found out was when I went into the BIOS and found no AGP settings. None of this was mentioned in the store or ECS advertisements, company website etc.

Download the manual and read it cover to cover including the bios setup sections before you open the box. If the AGP is brain dead and you return the MB they may try and charge you a restocking fee. If they do, point out that they are accessories to mail fraud since the card features are misrepresented. You can't say AGP unless it really is AGP.

This never stopped them. I know someone who was helping a friend with her OEM business. In this case it was TechRAM who insisted that their TX based Pentium motherboard supported ECC RAM. Only problem is, based on Intel's own specs, the chipset the mobo was based off of doesn't support this.

So he called up the company to inquire about this, and how they could claim the board supports ECC, when Intel, the manufacturer for the chipset they're basing it off of indicates that the memory controller does not support this.

The sales rep was like "Well you can plug ECC memory into the motherboard, and it accepts it"

Him: "That doesn't mean it's making use of the ECC itself."

Sales rep: "Well, we're TechRAM, and given our reputation, we know what we're talkign about."

Well, hmm, that's nice, so I guess Intel doesn't... Afterall, they only designed and manufactured the chipset... Given that he was a computer engineer for 45+ years, and also the sentiments he expressed when he told me about this, I guess he read them the riot act :D

Good luck and post back if that card really has a real AGP slot.

Yes, post back... Hitherto I've been telling people to get an AGP board now, if they can't afford a new PCI-E card. In part because of indications wrt PCI-E/AGP dual boards in the past, and in part because mobos are cheap compared to other components in a comp.

If it does seem there's a viable alternative, I might pass it along...
 
To all concerned,

I just installed the motherboard (UPS apparently doesn't work the day after Christmas--I can understand ;)) without a hitch. I had to reinstall Windows (as new motherboards often require anyway), but I am happy to report zero glitches. To be honest, it's one of the more pleasant experiences I've had.

I got a little chuckle out of the Engrish AGP driver--something to the effect of "Please install graphy driver after AGP driver is installed. If you have installed graphy driver before AGP, please uninstall and reinstall it afterward." Still though, they speak better English than I do Mandarin.

Now for some performance tests...
 
Yeah, yeah performance tests! I want more reason to kick myself for getting the ECS dual Vid MB instead of your Asrock. :dead:
 
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Latest update: Everything is still as it should be, and the board is going strong after two weeks. AGP performance with my Radeon X800 GTO (which is a pretty lame 12-pipe card, to be honest--waste of $200) is actually better than my NForce board, very stable, and I'm moving to a PCI-express Nvidia 7800GT soon. The 7800GT will be my first NVidia card in my main machine in four years, by the way :) Still love you, Red, but you're slacking as of late. Cali beats Canada this round.
 
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