PCI-E speeds are just starting up. If this is a new box with an eye on video performance (games, not video editing), then the nod is to PCI-E.
Bob
Alongside of needing a little advice on a few things for my new system that I'm trying to build, I would like a good, definitive opinion on PCI-E versus AGP. I see good video cards all over the place, and some of them are for AGP, while some are for PCI-E. Some are for both, it seems, and there are so many different permutations of the same series card, it's sort of difficult to keep together. Having stated that, here is the setup I'm currently considering:
ASUS A8V-E Deluxe Socket 939 VIA K8T890 ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ ClawHammer/Hammer 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500ASBOX
2x Maxtor 120 GB SATA drives comprising one RAID 0 array
Maxtor 160 GB UltraATA/133 IDE hard drive
Antec TruePower 430W PSU
Windows XP Home SP2
NETGEAR 108Mbps wireless adapter
I think that's everything I've settled on. The gaps I'm trying to fill so far are the video card and the memory. The video card is the toughest because it will determine what mobo I will purchase, too. I just chose the one above after having read a review of 9 PCI-E mobosm, and I have been happy with ASUS motherboards thus far. I also initiall chose PCI-E for the sake of future upgradability. However, I'm still a bit torn on the PCI-E vs. AGP issue--is it worth switching to PCI-E now, and what sort of performance gains would you see in two similarly matched cards, one on a PCI-E bus and the other on an AGP 8x bus? I'm only running one video card, so I'm not worrying about SLI operation just yet. However, also taking that into consideration, should I even bother with an SLI board? Should I perhaps get just a single PCI-E board? So many questions, I apologize. I hope someone can help. ![]()

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