• Specifications of different AGP video cards.agp card image by TEA from Fotolia.com
  
  AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) is a slot standard used exclusively for video cards that reigned in as the standard for approximately 10 years before being replaced by PCI Express. The AGP standard underwent several versions, and many different graphics cards were produced for it. AGP was designed exclusively for video cards and is a progression from older PCI-based cards.
  
  

Chipset

• The two primary graphics card chipset manufacturers are nVidia and ATI/AMD. However, many other vendors produced graphics card chipsets as well, some of which no longer exist, such as 3dfx. ATI's series of chipsets for the home market are "Radeon," while its professional line of chipsets aimed at professional workstations are called "Fire." Likewise, the nVidia chipset for the home market is called "GeForce," and the professional market is called "Quadro."
  
  

Brand

• While ATI and nVidia are the primary designers of chipsets, these same chipsets are utilized on video cards manufactured by other vendors. Popular vendors are XFX, Gigabyte, EVGA and MSI. Each manufacturer builds a card with a base chipset then modifies it in various ways, such as overclocking and adding additional memory.
  
  

Speed

• AGP was produced in four different versions: the original 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x. Each new generation of AGP video card requires less power and produces better results with a faster data bus.
  
  

Memory

• Different memory configurations make a significant difference in the performance of a video card. With more memory on a card, graphics intensive applications are able to store more texture information inside the graphics card itself for faster retrieval, which results in better video performance.