Intel released the first version of AGP, appropriately titled “AGP specification 1.0,” in 1997. It included both the 1x and 2x speeds. As of 2004, newer versions of AGP increase the transfer rate from two to eight times. There are also different kinds of AGP pro video cards. They only use one AGP slot and are most times longer and require a larger in voltage size power supplies.
Generally these types of AGP video cards are used in the business profession by engineer’s architects drafting and game design The AGP physical interface has two different versions, the 1.5v and the 3.3v cards. The 3.3v is opposite of the 1.5v in respect of the location of the key, in the 1.5 the key is located further away from the external connector. If a 3.3v card is poorly designed and has the 1.5v key it can cause severe damage to a mother board if it were to be installed in a AGP 4x/8x slot.
AGP Express is a method of allowing an AGP interface card to connect or to be installed into a PCI bus. This technology was developed by ECS mother board manufacture to allow for the ability to install an AGP card into a PCI express slot.
The phasing out of AGP has become so severe that it is difficult to find a new mother board with the AGP slot technology.
Unless you are really desperate it is not recommended to buy this type of mother board, the performance of these cards installed into the PCI-express bus is severely degraded and there is incomplete support for AGP cards.
ASRock mother board manufacture developed the AGI video card. AGI stand for ASRock Graphics card.
The reason behind the development of this type of video card was to provide support for a chipset that was lacking the AGP-support. The performance of these video cards is yet to be seen, and it is not fully compatible with several video card chipsets.
Last but not least is the AGX developed by Epox. AGX stands for Advanced Graphics extended. However, it is also like the AGI card, relatively poor performance and compatibility.
AGP quick points.
1x card support for up to 264mps of video data transfer.
2x card support for up to 512mps of video data transfer.
4x card support for up to 1gps of video data transfer.
8x card support for up to 2gps of video data transfer
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