If you are thinking about updating your computer's video card, and you have been researching the internet for a replacement, and you also know that your graphic card belongs to the agp 8x video cards group, then you may also have heard the acronyms PCI and SLI. This may leave you wondering if AGP is really dead.

It may not be necessary to go out and buy another computer. It may still be possible for you to make some upgrades to the computer you already have, and get a few more years of use for your gaming. However, if your computer has a video card that is less than 8x AGP on the motherboard, and if also your processor is extremely slow, then will have to upgrade more than simply your video card. If however, your computer is just 2 or three years old, you probably have a great deal of processing power, and simply upgrading the card should be all that is required.

The three important things to bear in mind is the computer video card, its memory and the motherboard. To be able to play the recent games on the market, your computer must has a minimum of 1GB of RAM. To upgrade to that is quite simple and takes just a few minutes. You should make sure that 8x is the AGP slot on the motherboard. When both the motherboard and the memory are at these levels, you are in good shape. Installing a brand new video card at this point will extend the computer's graphic life for another year or two.

It is important to know that the PCI Express is the new standard, but the technology is not very widespread as yet as the AGP standard. The game producing companies will try to get as much money from each game as possible, so they will make the games adaptable to as many platforms as possible. So you find that AGP will continue to be useful to you for a much longer time.

If the motherboard in your computer is outdated, you must to upgrade it.

You should think about building your very own computer, if you enjoy doing things yourself.

It is not difficult as you think it might be, and will end up saving you quite a bit of money.