Rookie learning installed four graphic adapter card installation

There are many adapter cards in the computer, such as: Video card, sound card, NIC, modem card, TV card, SCSI interface card, IDE interface card, they are connected with the motherboard through AGP, PCI or ISA bus slots on the motherboard. In fact, these adapter card installation process are similar, this period to a typical graphics card as an example, I believe we can extrapolate, the smooth installation of other adapter card.

First, understand the interface type of AGP video card

The graphics card needs to exchange data with the motherboard to work properly, so it must have a corresponding bus interface. From the earliest use of the Isa interface graphics card, has been developed to the PCI interface, and then to today's AGP interface. AGP has undergone several changes from birth to the present, with the main specifications: AGP 1x, AGP 2x, AGP 4x, AGP Pro, and the apparent AGP 8x.
The AGP 1x/2x belongs to the AGP 1.0 standard, uses the 3.3V voltage, the AGP 4x belongs to the AGP2.0 standard, uses the 1.5V voltage. You might ask, "How much faster is AGP than PCI?" ”。 The AGP 1x equals twice times the PCI transfer rate, and the AGP 4x is 8 times times that of PCI. The AGP Bus standard works at 66MHz, and the PCI frequency is 33MHz, so the AGP 1x bandwidth is also increased by PCI 133mb/seconds to 266mb/seconds. The AGP 2x mode can transmit data at the rising edge and down edge of the clock, so the transmission rate is increased to 532mb/seconds, and the AGP 4x/8x bandwidth is 1.06gb/seconds and 2.12gb/seconds respectively.
In high-end graphics cards usually have a lot of display memory, so need a larger current design. The AGP Pro Bus slot is designed to provide additional power slot design for this type of video card. The AGP Pro bus slot is still in the middle part of the standard AGP 4x slot design, except at the back end and the front end, plus the 12v/3v voltage. The AGP Pro interface is fully backward compatible and can be compliant with AGP 1x, 2x, 4x. As with AGP slots, AGP Pro also has a different version: AGP Pro 3.3V, AGP Pro 1.5V, and AGP generic. The first two are equipped with a blocking PIN to prevent the insertion of an unsupported AGP Pro video card. Currently, the AGP slot maximizes 25W power to the video card, while the AGP Pro video card reports its power requirements to the motherboard via additional pins prsnt1# and prsnt2#, and the AGP Pro slot provides 50W or 110W in total. The graphics card consumes so much power that it naturally generates a lot of heat. Therefore, the AGP Pro video card needs to sacrifice adjacent PCI slot space for cooling. The AGP Pro50 (50W) video card requires 1 unused PCI slots nearby, while the AGP Pro110 (110W) video card requires a maximum of 2 unused PCI slots nearby.
So what should you pay attention to when installing an AGP video card? Of course, see if it has an AGP slot! Do not assume that it must exist, there are many consolidated motherboards on the market because the display is already integrated, so no additional AGP slots are available. Most of the motherboards now support AGP 4x slots, and the question now is what should be the difference between it and the AGP 1x/2x/pro slot? I'm sure you'll see the several AGP slots shown in Figure 1, and the AGP interface shown in Figure 2, and you'll understand.