Accelerated Graphic Port (AGP)
The AGP was created by Intel as a new bus specifically designed for high-performance graphics and video support. AGP is based on PCI, but it is physically, electrically, and logically independent of PCI. PCI is a true bus with multiple connectors (slots), while AGP is more of a point-to-point high performance connection designed specifically for a video card in a system because only one AGP slot is allowed for a single video card. The AGP specification 1.0 originally was released by Intel in July of 1996 and defined a 66MHz. Clock rate with 1X, 2X (1x means single signal send in 1 cycle, 2X means two signals are send in one cycle and so on.) signaling using 3.3 volts. AGP version 2.0 was released in May 1998 and added 4X signaling as well as a lower 1.5v operation capability.The latest version of AGP specification for PC,s is AGP 8X, which was announced in August 2000. It defines a faster 8x transfer mode for ever-greater performance then before. AGP command is found only on Pentium II and late compute systems The standard AGP 1x/2x, AGP 4x and AGP pro slots are compared to each other in the pictures.
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| Accelerated Graphic Port |
