What is the difference between Parhelia PCI and AGP ?

[Conker]

Has there ever been any head to head tests between Parhelia AGP and PCI ?

I was just wondering if they are equal when it comes to Surround Gaming - and what the speed difference between the 2 cards is.

Soren

[G400SG16mb]

if you're talking about 33MHz PCI slots compared with AGP8x, there is no way the same card in one can equal the other. I know G4xx/550 PCI cards are totally crippled in performance compared with the same card in an AGP slot.

[Dr Mordrid]

Their main utility is for extended multi-monitor support.

Dr. Mordrid

[Conker]

So using the PCI version for Surround Gaming in FS2004 would give terrible results ?

[Wombat]

Originally posted by G400SG16mb
if you're talking about 33MHz PCI slots compared with AGP8x, there is no way the same card in one can equal the other. I know G4xx/550 PCI cards are totally crippled in performance compared with the same card in an AGP slot.

Can you back that up?

[UtwigMU]

I read that some creative mobo makers are giving AGP slots on PCIe mobos.

However those AGP slots are run from southbridge and force cards to run in PCI mode.

The performance delta is about 20% compared to same cards run in AGP mode in real AGP slots.

Parhelia PCI is PCI 64-bit/66Mhz card which allows for up to 533MB/s bandwidth, which is comparable to AGP 2x (regular 33/32 PCI is 133MB/s).

So the performance hit should not be as hard if you run it in 64-bit 66MHz PCI or PCI-X slot.

The only problem is that 64/66 or PCI-X slots are scarce on desktop motherboards. You'll need a workstation/server motherboard, which is more expensive.

PCI-X = PCI-X
PCIe = PCI Express and is not PCI-X

[DGhost]

Wombat - last I checked the G4xx PCI card did have the busmastering problem when used with non-intel chipsets. I don't remember the details, but I know that it decimated performance...

[Greebe]

Originally posted by DGhost
Wombat - last I checked the G4xx PCI card did have the busmastering problem when used with non-intel chipsets. I don't remember the details, but I know that it decimated performance...

That's another way of saying V I A

[UtwigMU]

Yes, but [M] drivers disable bus mastering for AMD and SiS chipsets as well.

[Marshmallowman]

I think the PCI parhelia is a 66mhz 32bit pci card...eg 266MB/s

[Conker]

Yes, but does anyone know how that would affect the framerate in Flight Simulator 2004 compared to the AGP version ?

[runderwo]

Is there really a G550 PCI? I thought the only PCI G-series cards were G100/200 and G450.

[G400SG16mb]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Yes, but [M] drivers disable bus mastering for AMD and SiS chipsets as well.

does G4xx bus mastering also fail on Nvidia chipsets?

[DGhost]

I thought it was disabled for *all* non-intel chipsets.

[UtwigMU]

Originally posted by runderwo
Is there really a G550 PCI? I thought the only PCI G-series cards were G100/200 and G450.

Yeah, they recently anounced new low profile PCI cards:
G550, P650 and QID.