Is AGP near death?

A

Aelfgeft

2[H]4U
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I was browsing Newegg, looking at the 6800s, 7800s, X850s, etc, and noticed very few AGP versions of the newer cards. I'm going to be upgrading in the next month, and I might be able to squeeze enough cash out for a 939 board and processor. I was considering asking here for a good 939 board with AGP.

However, if the chances are that the newer card I get in 6-9 months is not available in AGP, then I might as well get PCI-x and bite the bullet. It would mean having to sell my current card and finding another to tide me over in the meantime, however.

My main question is are the newer cards abandoning AGP altogether? By next year will anything in the $200-$300 range be in AGP?
 
Yep, if you read the other threads there is alot of talk about how AGP is now effectively dead. Oh well, my 6800 Ultra agp should hold me over some time. :)

I cant say if prices will drop that much however, MAYBE the 6800 Ultra will end up i nthe high 300 range :confused:
 
How does the 6800 Ultra handle BF2? I figure in a year I'll still be catching up in games, so it might be ideal :)
 
Aelfgeft said:
I was browsing Newegg, looking at the 6800s, 7800s, X850s, etc, and noticed very few AGP versions of the newer cards. I'm going to be upgrading in the next month, and I might be able to squeeze enough cash out for a 939 board and processor. I was considering asking here for a good 939 board with AGP.

However, if the chances are that the newer card I get in 6-9 months is not available in AGP, then I might as well get PCI-x and bite the bullet. It would mean having to sell my current card and finding another to tide me over in the meantime, however.

My main question is are the newer cards abandoning AGP altogether? By next year will anything in the $200-$300 range be in AGP?
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PCI-X is different than PCI-E, and PCI-Express is what your talking about.
 
Considering that most people still use AGP, I have a hard time believing that we won't see any next-gen cards supporting it, though if we do see some, they'll probably be more expensive than their PCI-E counterparts. I should also add that my X800XT runs Battlefield 2 quite nicely. I wouldn't worry about the performance of our current high-end cards, they should do fine for another few years.
 
Aelfgeft said:
How does the 6800 Ultra handle BF2? I figure in a year I'll still be catching up in games, so it might be ideal :)
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Acutally to be honest, mine struggled a little in 1024 res modes. I wish the code wasnt so poor for that game. Its the only game I own that actually makes the Ultra struggle a bit.
 
My 6800 Ultra does just fine in BF2, 1280x960 2xAA, everything max.

But then again I have a A64 +3400 Clawhammer (~2.3Ghz), and 2 GB memory.

It'll certainly slay most PCIE video cards.
 
Komataguri said:
PCI-X is different than PCI-E, and PCI-Express is what your talking about.
Click to expand...

Sorry, not up on all the new lingo yet. Been out of the loop for a while. Last time I was building we were all getting confused over this dumb tactic AMD was beginning to use where they gave the processor a number instead of telling you what the clock speed was. Thank god that never caught on! :cool:

Anyways, I think I'll stick with AGP. I have a thread over in mobos asking for suggestions on a 939 AGP board, and I'd appreciate any ideas you folks have :)
 
i don't think so...

a good majority of consumers still have AGP slots in the COMP

gpu makers will be stupid to not capitalize on their upgrade path (cough cough nvidia 7 series)

AGP will be here for awhile

just look, there are still PCI graphics!
 
If you are bothering to upgrade and get a new motherboard, then I'd go to PCI-Express. AGP is on the way out, and while it will probably be supported for awhile longer, I don't know why you'd want to stay with technology that is being phased out.

And the price of AGP will probably go up comparitively because less of the AGP model will be produced.
 
AGP just bought a Porsche and got a young girlfriend, if that means anything. :p
 
If you have the money for a motherboard along with the video card and don't mind the hassle of a system rebuild then go for the PCI-Express. It makes sense.

If you don't want to replace your motherboard for whatever reason then just know that the R520 will probably be the last high end card released for AGP. I'm going to buy one in AGP when it comes out but I do plan on a motherboard swapout once I want to replace the R520. Probably at least a year or so I'm thinking.
 
LordBritish said:
My 6800 Ultra does just fine in BF2, 1280x960 2xAA, everything max.

But then again I have a A64 +3400 Clawhammer (~2.3Ghz), and 2 GB memory.

It'll certainly slay most PCIE video cards.
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There must be something wrong with my system, or most likely user error. I NEVER get the kinds of frames that you guys get. It does confuse the hell out of me since I have a Intel 3.4@ 3.7 and a full 2gb of ram backing it up. :confused: But I wont go into that and hijack this thread.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
If you have the money for a motherboard along with the video card and don't mind the hassle of a system rebuild then go for the PCI-Express. It makes sense.

If you don't want to replace your motherboard for whatever reason then just know that the R520 will probably be the last high end card released for AGP. I'm going to buy one in AGP when it comes out but I do plan on a motherboard swapout once I want to replace the R520. Probably at least a year or so I'm thinking.
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I was considering on doing that, but then I thought. I would need a new mobo, ram, videocard, and lastly a new socket CPU. All of which is costly. My system should last me for the next few years :)
 
AGP is not dead or near death, it just happens to be having failing health.

Right now, AGP is beggining to be phased out of the high end graphics segment. However, AGP should still continue in the mid to low end range of cards for some time.nVidia has not released an AGP version of the 7800 series, and will not unless demand is there. I believe ATI will still put out an AGP version of their next high end graphics card, although I think this will be the last from ATI as well. The mid to low end range will continue to have AGP for the next year or two, until demand starts to fall.

In your situation, I would definitely consider biting the bullet and moving to PCI-E if you like upgrading to the latest and greatest every time you upgrade. If you are someone like me who upgrades only when my current card cant cut it ( I JUST upgraded from a 9700 pro), then look at getting an AGP board. just realize that 939 boards with AGP will be harder to find.

Zero
 
i want my agp......

man from the days of isa video cards, to pci then agp OMG! and now something new on the way...
 
Unfortunately, it seems so. I planned on upgrading to the midrange nvidia 7 series card, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. I guess I'n gonna upgrade to a 6800 or something because I refuse to upgrade my s754. It's technically obselete, and definately not the best, but it's not the worst part in my system, and it does it's part extremely well.
 
jhzero1984 said:
AGP is not dead or near death, it just happens to be having failing health.
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"Failing Health", hrmm. Yep, it's pretty much at it's ends of days.

Sorry buddy, but "failing health" is just as bad as "failing life". Heh.
 
man from the days of isa video cards, to pci then agp OMG! and now something new on the way...
Click to expand...

Forgetting VESA Local Bus? :p

PCI died slowly. All the chipset manufacturers wanted to get rid of it from the get-go, but high-end PCI cards were made for quite some time. For example, 3dfx was even working on a PCI Voodoo 6000, four years after AGP's inception. AGP will stick around for at least one more generation.
 
I didn't read much of the thread. Bear with me.

Most of the retail/OEM machines are PCI-E based now. Even on the cheaper machines from E-Machines and so fourth. Virtually all performance rigs are PCI-E now if purchased in the last 6 months or so. And all future machines in that class should be PCI-E based.

Dell for example has no AGP models any more. Therefore, with nVidia and ATi pimping PCI-E the way they did last generation and now, AGP is NOT a wise investment if you plan on upgrading the machine over its lifetime if your buying today.

If you have a high end PC now with AGP, there is no compelling reason for PCI-E unless you want the latest and greatest and or SLi. Which is part of the latter category, except that it does actually offer enough performance to justify the expense if you can afford it and are willing.

AGP cards will be made in the low and mid ranges and possibly even the entry level of the high end card market for at least another year. While AGP isn't dead, its time in the limelight is past. The design is 7 years old and is being replaced faster than most people want to admit. I won't get into my usual PCI-E is better rant but, AGP is dying. I wouldn't buy an AGP system right now unless I got a deal on something cheap I wasn't going to upgrade ever.

pr0nasaurus rex said:
Forgetting VESA Local Bus? :p

PCI died slowly. All the chipset manufacturers wanted to get rid of it from the get-go, but high-end PCI cards were made for quite some time. For example, 3dfx was even working on a PCI Voodoo 6000, four years after AGP's inception. AGP will stick around for at least one more generation.
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I disagree with this statement. High end cards were made in both for a year. It was also apparent early on that PCI cards of the same type were somewhat slower than the AGP. Plus the higher end cards were phased out of production in PCI in about a year or so. That's not really that long.
 
No its not going to die for a while. They MIGHT stop producing the ultra high end cards, but Nvidia has their bridge chips which works both ways. BI-direction (fag) HSI chip

And the (highend) PCI videocards being made for only a year or so doesn't really hold water considering PCI slots had a performance penalty. They still make PCI cards b/c some crappy systems are still coming with no AGP system.

Where 8xAGP and PCIe 16x = same exact performance (no penalty AT ALL)
And DDR2 vs DDR very little benefit.
So there's no reason for the millions of users out there to upgrade to PCIe system,
if they've already got a decent A64 or P4 system with 8xAGP.
 
I can't see why they'd abandon AGP so quickly. It isn't hard to implement bridge chips, and there's no performance penalty for using AGP yet. I think that as long as people want high-end AGP graphics cards, they'll be available.
 
Does anyone know the release date for a uli 1695 mobo? This is what i'm waiting for so that i won't feel bad about upgrading and i can still bring my agp 6600gt with me.
 
pr0nasaurus rex said:
I can't see why they'd abandon AGP so quickly. It isn't hard to implement bridge chips, and there's no performance penalty for using AGP yet. I think that as long as people want high-end AGP graphics cards, they'll be available.
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I don't think so. The OEM's want everyone on PCI-E as fast as possible.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I don't think so. The OEM's want everyone on PCI-E as fast as possible.
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Exactly, no one in manufacturing or distribution wants to run two separate production types if they can pretty much get folks to swap to one. Its a real pain. Luckily Nvidia et al are powerful enough to push consumers and OEMs to this route.

I was surprised at how fast PCI-E took off. I remember about this time last year I was looking through the online suppliers and the share was 98% AGP - 2% PCI-E. About a month later it was 60% AGP - 40% PCI-E, Its good to see the industry moving quickly and not dragging its heels.

The future of AGP? Three words - Legacy Budget Sector.
 
chrisf6969 said:
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050811/uli_m1695-10.html

reason why AGP won't die any time soon.
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Um, ULI has close to zero market share. That's not a reason why AGP won't "die" off.

Your other point was more accurate. There's still a huge installed base of AGP systems and AGP will be around for a while with upgrade cards. But as the conversation started off, AGP is dead for the high end.
 
GPU makers are already starting to try to force people to switch to PCI-E by not offering their high-end cards in AGP (coughnvidiacough). I think r520 will be avalible in AGP. After that, there will be no more top-of-the-line AGP cards. With the gen after r520, we might even start to see a slight performance increase with PCI-E, although that may not happen until the gen after the next-gen.

Face it people, the PC industry moves very, very, very fast. If you want to continue to have a top-line PC, you must be able to upgrade very often, and do a complete system rebuild (socket/interface change) every 2 years or so. That's the only way to stay on top. If everyone upgraded every time a new tech was released, the PC industry would probably move twice as fast as it does today. R&D wouldn't have to waste time and money on backwards compatabillity and making things work on older interfaces. They'd be able to put everything into the latest tech, and not have to mess with older ones. GPU and mobo makers know that, so they try to "force" people to upgrade by simply abandoning older techs when new ones reach maturity. It's called "planned obsoledence", and it will continue for a long tme. Could the mobo makers continue to support AGP? Yes. But, they don't, because they want people to buy their new products instead of sticking with their old ones. That way they make more profit, and the PC industry moves faster.
 
My problem is that these new specs aren't showing much in the way of performance improvements over the last gen. AGP to PCI-Express, DDR to DDR2, 754 to 939... They all seem to be marketing and not technologically driven. At least if you're going to screw me over give me a little something in return.
 
Death is in sight for AGP, anyone can see that. It's almost equally obvious that the current gen of AGP cards will be replaced with another gen and that those AGP upgrades will not be released as quickly as the newest PCIE cards. Of course SLI/Crossfire will ensure PCIE dominance in the extremely high end but that's not a huge market. So yeah, 06/07 will see AGP become nothing more than legacy but that's a ways off!
 
chrisf6969 said:
Where 8xAGP and PCIe 16x = same exact performance (no penalty AT ALL)
And DDR2 vs DDR very little benefit.
So there's no reason for the millions of users out there to upgrade to PCIe system,
if they've already got a decent A64 or P4 system with 8xAGP.
Click to expand...

Quoted for Truth. It's just too soon to phase out AGP while soo many still have it in thier box and probably will untill there's a new cpu socket to force us to upgrade (M2 for me; maybe).
 
Is AGP dead? Well yes:

agpdead25vq.jpg
 
chrisf6969 said:
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050811/uli_m1695-10.html

reason why AGP won't die any time soon.

So many people have high end systems with AGP slots, and there's no performance advantage for PCIe (besides SLI). So there are going to be a lot of people who stubbernly hold on to their AGP systems. (865/875, NF3, etc... all great systems still)
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People keep missing the point, high end system does not equal an AGP system anymore, it's being proven by nVidia and OEMs. If it was, you'd be able to buy a AGP 7800 right now.or a buy a top level AGP system from the likes of Dell etc. That's why AGP is dying quickly. You want to play with the latest and greatest vid cards, PCIe is only way to go already from now on.
 
AGP is dead, maybe 1 more generation of video cards and thats it.

The argument that AGP will live because there are so many AGP MBs is moot because 90% of the people/businesses with PCs that have AGP video cards will never upgrade their cards or MBs and will at some point upgrade to a new PC that will be PCI-E.
 
its not dead, it's in my system and fragging people in BF2 just fine thanks.

when PCIe goes to better performance than AGP, I'll upgrade. Until then, I'm just fine.
 
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