AGP/Parallel vs. PCI Express/SATA

trobertstroberts
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
While many people are bebating which processor, core single or core duo, the iBooks and Mac minis will get I am more curious as to whether Apple will ditch "legacy" hardware (AGP video, Parallel drives) or keep it. Apple can use the switch to ditch legacy technologies like they did with the floppy, or they could keep it which would allow them to offer a "real" upgrade while still keeping a decent gap between the consumer and professional laptops.



Given a choice which would you rather have:

1) A 128MB AGP graphics card or a 64MB PCI Express card?

2) A 5400rpm Parallel drive or a 4200rpm SATA drive?



If the new iBooks (MacBooks) get a PCI Express graphics card and a SATA drive then there won't be much of a difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro, especially if there is a BTO option for a 128MB video card and 5400rpm drive.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    thttht Posts: 5,450member
    Apple won't give you the choice.



    The iBook/Intel machines will likely have PCIe and SATA, but with slower and lessor graphics and hard drives. Ie, they won't have an ATI X1600/128 MB or a standard 80 GB hard drive, rather ATI X1300/64 MB and standard 60 GB SATA drive with an option to move up to 80.



    If given a choice, always choose the faster component regardless of the bus it uses (given the current state of the buses and components).
  • Reply 2 of 3
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by troberts

    Given a choice which would you rather have:

    1) A 128MB AGP graphics card or a 64MB PCI Express card?

    2) A 5400rpm Parallel drive or a 4200rpm SATA drive?



    Those choices aren't realistic, so it doesn't matter. Consider these facst:



    Current Intel chipsets do not support AGP at all.

    AGP graphics cards cost about the same as PCE Express graphics cards.

    SATA drives cost the same as PATA drives; the performance is also the same.



    So as THT said, AGP and PATA are already gone and they aren't coming back. PCI-X is also gone, and I suspect it is not coming back either.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    trobertstroberts Posts: 702member
    Thanks for the information. When I posted my question I was thinking more about performance, percieved or real, of the components, not the cost or whether they are supported.



    From what I have read on how Quartz 2D Extreme works is the graphics card will do more of the work and it will cache information about where things should be, but when there is not enough memory then it will cache the information elsewhere or wait for the CPU to send the information it needs to render the object. With this in mind I was wondering if a 128MB AGP graphics card (more VRAM for caching, "slow" bus speed to CPU/main memory) would offer about the same performance as a 64MB PCI Express card (less VRAM for caching, "fast" bus speed to CPU/main memory), and if so, would Apple go with the AGP so buyers would think "Woohoo! VRAM was 32MB and now it is 128MB. Thanks Apple!"
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