AGP 2X Mode
Common Options : Enabled, Disabled
Quick Review
The AGP 2X Mode BIOS feature is a toggle for the motherboard’s AGP 2X support.
When enabled, it allows the AGP bus to make use of the AGP 2X transfer protocol to boost the AGP bus bandwidth. If it’s disabled, then the AGP bus will only use the standard AGP 1X transfer protocol.
The AGP 2X protocol must be supported by both the motherboard and graphics card for this feature to work. Of course, this feature will only appear in your BIOS if your motherboard supports the AGP 2X transfer protocol!
All you need to do is make sure your graphics card supports AGP 2X transfers. If it does, enable AGP 2X Mode to take advantage of the faster transfer mode.
Disable it only if you are facing stability issues or if you intend to overclock the AGP bus beyond 75 MHz with sidebanding support enabled.
Details
The AGP 2X Mode BIOS feature is found on AGP 2X-capable motherboards. When enabled, it allows the AGP bus to make use of the AGP 2X transfer protocol to boost the AGP bus bandwidth. If it’s disabled, then the AGP bus will only use the standard AGP 1X transfer protocol.
The baseline AGP 1X protocol only makes use of the rising edge of the AGP signal for data transfer. This translates into a bandwidth of 264 MB/s. But enabling AGP 2X Mode doubles that bandwidth by transferring data on both the rising and falling edges of the signal. Through this method, the effective bandwidth of the AGP bus is doubled even though the AGP clock speed remains at the standard 66 MHz. This is the same method by which UltraDMA/33 derives its performance boost.
[adrotate group=”2″]The AGP 2X protocol must be supported by both the motherboard and graphics card for this feature to work. Of course, this feature will only appear in your BIOS if your motherboard supports the AGP 2X transfer protocol!
All you need to do is make sure your graphics card supports AGP 2X transfers. If it does, enable AGP 2X Mode to take advantage of the faster transfer mode.
Disable it only if you are facing stability issues or if you intend to overclock the AGP bus beyond 75 MHz with sidebanding support enabled.
Please note that doubling the AGP bus bandwidth through the AGP 2X transfer protocol won’t double the performance of your AGP graphics card. The performance of the graphics card relies on far more than the bandwidth of the AGP bus. The performance boost is most apparent when the AGP bus is really stressed (i.e. during a texture-intensive game).
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