Intel's Accelerated Graphics Port brings almost-true 3D to the desktop, as well as supposedly enhancing the usual 2D graphics applications to a new level of realism. AGP was mainly attractive for games players. Supposedly more business-oriented apps like MS Office would have employed AGP technology to enhance the look and feel of their programs, and was expected to become an industry standard, but as it became more widespread, users began to realize that with the improvements in graphics boards, AGP became almost completely irrelevant. In layman's terms, it sped up the connections between graphics boards and your PC's main memory, and it did this quite well, but when NVidia and other graphics boards makers started ramming more, and faster, memory directly onto their boards, AGP wasn't needed.

Still and all, you may want to climb onboard. If you want to use AGP technology now, you'll need to trash your old graphics card and install a new one that's fully AGP-compatible. You also need an AGP slot on your motherboard, which lets out old chipsets (PII and older). We're waiting for AGP Version 2, which will debut at some point in the very near future. If you do lay down the dollars for an AGP system, make sure it comes with a graphics card that stores 3D textures in system memory. Besides flooring the PC sales clerk with your amazing grasp of AGP technology, you will be able to spend the extra money on more system memory rather than graphics memory. Trust me, this is a good thing. Another good thing: unless you're buying a whole new PC, you can still get awesome graphics with a new PCI graphics board, and your old warhorse will support PCI technology. Keep up with AGP developments at the AGP Home Page, at developer.intel.com/technology/agp/.

The final 8X specification for AGP, released in September 2002, should yield a throughput of 2.1GBps, very fast and useful. But don't be surprised if in a year or so, AGP is another technology that becomes outmoded and forgotten in the march towards ever-faster, ever-spiffier graphics.