Screw graphics... use AGP for GigE networking!! (Score 2, Interesting)

As evidenced by the NetBSD support, AGP is essentially a PCI-bridge-plus-frills with only one PCI device on it: your graphics card. It also adds snazzy stuff like the command FIFO (which if you study I2O, you will note is generally useful and not just a graphics processor concept).

The electrical simplicity of supporting only one card plays a large part in allowing it to be so much faster than the normal PCI bus. It's only a matter of time before you end up wanting AGP speeds for:

1. graphics
2. disk
3. network

Since the most normal PCI slots you want on a single bridge is four, you could have a reasonably balanced motherboard with 3AGP+4PCI ... assuming the expansion card vendors agree to make AGP versions of things.