Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Monitor/Video Forum => Topic started by: Stephenace on March 16, 2015, 11:36:28 am
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Sorry for the Newbie question in advance:
I'm changing the computer out on my arcade cabinet. Currently there is a Radeon 9800 pro (AGP) installed and there is a four pin connector (Directly from computer power supply) plugged into the back of the graphics card. I have a pentranic 1432 monitor.
I can't see a similar 4 pin connector on the arcadevga 5000 or most other graphics cards compatible with soft 15khz so what is this?
Since I now need a PCIe card, just want to make sure I'm buying something that's going to work for me.
my best guess is it's a vga signal boost of some sort but really not sure. Appreciate help. Thank you.
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THe AGP bus could only supply a max of 48.25 Watts through the AGP 3.0 bus so any card that draws more than that needed an additional 4 pin power connector to provide the extra wattage for the card - The PCI-e 2.0 slot can provide up to 75 watts where PCI-e 3.0 can provide up to 300W so most of the newer (relative to AGP) PCI-e 2.0 cards that are compatible with soft 15Khz require less than 75 watts so can get enough power through the slot thus do not have 4 pin connectors ( and those that require more than 75W have either 6 or 8 pin connectors - a 6 pin can provide an additional 75W and an 8 pin 150W in addition to the 75W the PCI-e bus provides so how many and what number of pins the card has will be determined by the amount of power the card can use + a decent overhead amount for stability )
But for your original question the reason the 9800 Pro had the 4 pin is so it could get the additional power it needed that the AGP slot could not provide.
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Perfect! Thanks for the quick response!