Hello chaps,

I've come across what is, essentially, a lack of information regarding the definition of what exactly constitutes a 1.5v AGP card. The scenario is my wife's pc went into meltdown so I've bought a new motherboard (939Dual-SATA2) and new CPU (Athlon 64 3200) to go with it. All the other components were (hopefully still are) fine. The Asrock motherboard says not to use a 3.3v AGP card as this 'will cause permanent damage'. The slot is 8x/4x. Now, my wife's video card is a creative 3d blaster geforce 3 Ti 200 which appears to have both the 3.3v and 1.5v keyed slots; that is it runs at 3.3v for 1x/2x and at 1.5v for 4x. I've read that the card auto detects which mode to run in depending on the slot. So as the card does run at 1.5v and as the motherboard required a 1.5v card - can this card, or indeed any of the older cards that can run at 3.3v (as there are certainly 8x agp cards like the ati radeon9500 pro that also have the keying for 3.3v) be used in this motherboard. After many hours of googling I've found answers that swing both ways but nothing concrete - some say yes you can and others say no you can't... I don't want to permanently damage the motherboard - but if I don't need to upgrade the card then I'm happy to stick with it.

When they say don't use a 3.3v AGP card - are they talking about the really old first generation agp cards or are they talking about any card that can run at 3.3v (even though it can run at 1.5v too)?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated,

Cheers.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

3.3v AGP refers to older AGP cards (typically ones running at 1x or 2x). Newer cards run at 4x or 8x and these are known as 0.8v or 1.5v cards.

Thankyou sir you are both a scholar and a gent!

Hehe...I try..or as my wife says, I'm trying....

Marked as [Answered]