>it's PCI only so it's going to choke when graphics gets heavy.
Pegasos2 would then suffer the same problem as its AGP slot connects to a PCI port of the northbridge via a logic bridge of some sort.
For those of you demanding an AGP slot, name each and every PowerPC northbridge that provides one natively. Of these, how many are acceptable northbridge chips to you? Yep. Not much of a choice is there?
Anything we're going to see in our market will either use Articia or have to use an FPGA chip to build a PCI to AGP bridge, which is then limited to PCI bandwidth. Pegasos2 does this, and that may be acceptable. If so, why not just use a PCI to PCI-Express bridge and have the even newer graphics cards available to you?
If anyone would start a new design today, I'd say he's crazy to put any effort into an FPGA AGP bridge, as AGP is already on its way out. PCI-Express is on its way in, in a big way, and any design that would hypothetically start today should use that for graphics instead, IMNSHO.
> A simple bus slot is cheaper than a graphics
> chip or firewire controller!! it's just a
> plastic connector!
It's simply not that easy with PowerPC. If you don't want an Articia northbridge, then you need a logic chip to convert PCI into AGP for the plastic connector to wire up to. Life's never as easy as you'd like.
> Why not just go PCI express!
Read up on Olegil's solution to this on AW.net. Troika's board would be able to have PCI-Express this way, same for AmigaOne, Mediator, Prometheus PCI, Grex, Pegasos, etc.
