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Indeterminacy: AGP slot or port       An expansion slot, expansion bus or "slot" is an element that can enter within it, other devices called expansion cards (cards that are inserted into the expansion slot and give more benefits to computer equipment), while that the definition of its Intel ® connector is a port due to its characteristics, so it is not yet determined what type it is.        AGP comes from the initials of ("Accelerated Graphics Port") or port graphics accelerator. This type of slot-port was developed by Intel ® and launched in 1997 exclusively for graphics support. The bits in the expansion slots mean the data capacity that is capable of providing this information is important because by using a formula, it is possible to determine the maximum transfer slot or expansion card. This is described in the section: Bus and AGP data bus of this page. Currently competes in the market against PCI and PCI-Express slots. Figure 1. Slot - port AGP.   General features AGP AGP is considered an expansion slot, but not within the category but rather a port. It is a slot that takes up very little space on the main board (motherboard) measures only 8 cm. in length. It is connected to the expansion slots, so it does not share resources and streamline operations. It has the ability to access directly to the chipset (device that adapts the speed of microprocessors with the cards) and therefore get higher performance. Integra insurance that allows better fixation of the graphics accelerator card into the slot. The AGP bus connects directly to the FSB ("Front Side Bus") of the microprocessor and uses the same frequency with a bandwidth higher.

• It integrates a data capacity of 32 bits.

• It has a transfer rate of 267 Mbytes / s (MB / s) up to 2000 respectively.

• They have a working internal speed of 66 MHz

• There are several versions of this slot (1X, 2X, 4X and 8X).

• It has a feature called DMA ("Direct Memory Access") allowing you to work directly with the devices and RAM memory without involving the microprocessor.

AGP bus and data bus

     The bus is a set of power lines that integrates the device to communicate with other computer components. There are several types of bus, because each device needs to send different types of information, among them are the following:

      - Example: we have a figure that will be saved in RAM.

• Address Bus: is responsible for determining exactly where in memory the data is written.

• Bus control: handles the timing and form of writing the data.

• Data Bus: is responsible for sending the data.

     The most commonly used to describe the characteristics of the data bus and AGP bus performance is a function of the speed of the device and its data capacity.
      - Example: If an 8X AGP slot works indicates that 32 bits and has a working frequency of 66 MegaHertz (Hz), then transfer rate calculated as follows:

Table 1. Calculation of the transfer rate

Transfer rates

      Based on the above formula we have the following baud rates and their operating voltages:

      Keep in mind that each version is compatible with the former but not in reverse, so it is possible to use graphics accelerators 1X, 2X, 4X 8X, 8X card but not a port 4X or 2 X.

AGP slot Schemes

      Basically consists of a slotted plastic piece on the connectors which are small, is is welded to the top of the main board. Showing 3 versions of AGP voltage according to the position of the notch:

Figure 2. Scheme 3.3 volts AGP slot.

Figure 3. Scheme 1.5 volts AGP slot.

Figure 4. Scheme of the AGP slot for any voltage.

Insert card into the AGP slot

     The cards designed for the AGP slot is only the graphics accelerator cards.

Figure 5. Graphics Accelerator Card, marks ASUS ®, GPU ATI Radeon ® model 9600PRO, 128 MB memory, 8X connector, VGA / DVI / S-Video.

Specific use of AGP

     It is used exclusively to provide greater capabilities to the computer graphics, this is to increase the deployment during the execution of video games. In fact there are 3 versions of this port, there has been much confusion, since the cards can be or not compatible.

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