A computer electrician takes notes of the different ports that are used in maintaining a computer for their reference in repairing it. To better understand ports in a computer, here is an article that you may use for reference from an electrician. An AGP port or an Accelerated Graphics Port is a high-speed point-to-point channel where you attach a video card so you can attach it to the motherboard of a computer. PCI, on the other hand, or Peripheral Component Interconnect is used for attaching hardware devices in a computer. Although both seem to have the same function, they do have their differences and uses.
Both ports are used to attach a hardware device onto the computer. However, an AGP is generally used to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. AGP slots or ports were designed for video cards only.
A PCI port can add about 2 to 5 different hardware onto your computer. Some of these possible devices include a video card, sound card, hard disk controller, USB controller, TV or radio tuner, network card whether it is wired or wireless and a 56Kbps modem.
Each equally has their own advantages and despite the fact that AGP has slowly been phased out for PCI Express, AGP answered the need for a specific bus for graphic adapters. Since computers are now becoming more graphically oriented, the succession of graphic adapters has pushed the limits of PCI which has a shared bandwidth. Because of this, AGP, a bus dedicated to graphic adapters, was developed.
One of the main advantages of AGP over PCI is that it provides a specific pathway between the processor and the slot instead of sharing the PCI bus. Since AGP has a point-to-point connection, it also has a higher clock speed. AGP also uses a sideband addressing. This simply means that the data buses and addresses are separated so the packet is not needed to be read to get any addressing information. An AGP is also able to read textures directly from RAM using GART or the Graphics Address Remapping Table. AGP is also faster than a standard PCI port.
However, PCI is not without any benefits. There are reasons why PCI is still being manufactured and sold. One of the greatest advantages of PCI is that it is compatible with almost all computers. You will find that almost all computers have PCI slots while not all are able to carry AGP slots.
Another great advantage of PCI is that you can use several PCI graphic cards if the user has an appropriate operating system to give a variety of video outputs. This is the one thing that an AGP cannot do. AGP do not support more than 1 AGP Master. Although there are some that support more than one AGP Master only a few computers are equipped with more than 1 slot for AGP.
Aside from the different functions of an AGP port and PCI port, the looks between the two are different as well. You can easily identify an AGP and PCI from each other. Generally, the AGP slot is the shortest and is colored brown. PCI, on the other hand, are colored white and are slightly longer than an AGP slot.



