Video Bus Through-put Speeds

The graphic below compares the through-put for each of the common video buses used in a PC.
The interfaces are used as a Mother Board video interface to a video monitor or display.
These are the expansion slot interfaces, card buses, and not the interface would would connector to a monitor.

The graph compares the ISA bus [PC-AT bus], the PCI bus, each version of the AGP bus, and then the PCI Express bus.
Each of the interface buses is defined as a IBM-PC Expansion bus, or a video expansion bus in the case of the AGP bus and PCIe bus.
The graph uses the maximum bus speed / through-put so the actual transfer speed will be lower, but the speed improvement remains.
The actual speed of the ISA bus is near 1MBps once bus over-head is taken into account, but makes little difference compared to the 133MBps PCI throughput.
Also the PCI-Express throughput may be nearer to 4000MBps, but compared to the 2000MBps of AGP x8 speed makes little difference, the transfer speed is double.

Not shown is version II of the PCIe bus which increases the bus speed to 10GBps.

Interface Standard Throughput Comparison

As of 2010 AGP video boards were still in demand, there are many legacy mother boards still being used.
By the end of 2011 AGP board are still offered, inexpensive now as any development effort no longer occurs.
Although the AGP bus is out-dated and a PCIe bus is required, it takes time for uses to up-grade their systems.
Expansion boards using x4 AGP cards certainly require an up-grade [to 8x].
Any board using a standard before AGP x4 is obsolete and requires an up-grade, which would require a Mother Board Up-Grade.
Going to a new Motherboard would imply moving to a PCIe interface; however 8x AGP boards are still being produced.

Back to the main PC Video Monitor Bus page [Cable Pinout], or to the main PC Interface Bus page [Board Descriptions].
Use the Buses icon at the bottom of the page to reach the top level index for all bus types.
Use the Equipment icon at the bottom of the page to reach manufacturers of PC Monitors.

Navigation: Engineering Home > Interface Buses > PC Expansion Buses > AGP Interface > PC Expansion Bus Bandwidth.

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