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AGP future?

Z

zekez

n00b
Joined
Dec 1, 2004
Messages
32
I will be upgrading my system here shortly upon the arrival of the venice core, but the problem I'm facing right now is whether to get a motherboard that supports PCI-E or AGP. My system as it is right now is a AMD XP 2600+ w/ ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Ideally I'd like to just upgrade the CPU, Mobo and RAM. However this would require buying an AGP only board (The PCI-E / AGP combo mobo are just not an option as my choices are very limited). I can't justify paying for a new video card for such a small increase in performance. When the time does come around, will the new video card models still come in AGP? I'm talking 9mo to a year down the road. I'd like to be able to get two video card upgrades out of this mobo over a span of about three years. Can anyone speculate if AGP will still be around in the next two years? Or should I future-proof it and go with PCI-E?
 
I would venture to guess that the next year top end model cards will come in the AGP flaovr and PCI-E.

While the generation behind that may be limited to PCI-E, but I am sure the mainstream products will still have an AGP counterpart.
 
I'm pretty sure next generation's cards will also come in AGP (albeit a few months later), since a large portion of the market is still AGP. The generation after that is almost certainly going to be PCIe exclusive.
 
Considering that ATI originally said even the X850 would be PCIe only, I think that AGP's future is bleak.
 
Well, the x800 series and 6800 series seem pretty popular. Could it be that consumers aren't ready to burn their AGP mobos yet? Naaaaah.

Consumers help guide the market with their dollar. I think AGP is safe a lil longer. When there's a game that FORCES me to throw away my video card, processor, and mobo, then I'll think AGP is doomed.
 
I would get a pci-e motherboard if you are upgrading, you can sell your 9800 for 130 or so...
 
Well, look at it this way, if you buy a pci-e mobo, you're safe. If you buy an agp mobo you're left worrying about support. No one really knows if agp is officially dead or not. So it's anyone's guess. I would assume since there's still a large market of agp users, they would make something, but they might phase agp out by lowering it to mid-range solutions only. Like agp would have a 5900 but pci would only go up to a 5600 ...they might release a pci-e 7800 Ultra but only a 7200 for agp...see what i'm saying? Basically forcing those who want to game, to upgrade. That's pretty much how they did it with pci vs. agp back in the day.
 
That's pretty much how they did it with pci vs. agp back in the day...
Click to expand...

I was afraid it might come to that. I remember back in the day with the Voodoo 3 release, their highend card only came in AGP. Well, looks like I'll be selling my 9800 Pro and getting either an X800XL or 68/6600 GT.
 
Ati has already said they will be supporting AGP for the next 6 months, and all there cards reguard less of cost will be done in AGP. But I think we will see it right now where the PCI-E cards will be cheaper than there AGP counterparts, IE X800XL and 600GT
 
Since both ATi and NV are now also chipset-makers, they may want to artificially make PCIe more attractive by making the fastest cards for PCIe only... will boost motherboard sales, which indirectly will boost their chipset sales.
 
I think one more release at the most. ATI will want to get a little more mileage out of that PCIe to AGP bridge chip. The card I have now will be the last AGP card for me.
 
While somebody might think this is a totally novel and new idea....it is not. If this method truley was better in terms of profitability for ATI/nViida...THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IT ALREADY.

I know discussing these things can be fun...but it won't happen. As for the circuit digram...you really don't need one. It is simple. Draw two boxes (one called RAM and one called GPU). Connect a bi-directional arrow between the two. With the GPU box draw an arrow one way for the MB bus and another arrow for the video. If you think about it..there is the basic diagram of a video card. All other components are claptrap/support.

-tReP
 
Trepidati0n said:
While somebody might think this is a totally novel and new idea....it is not. If this method truley was better in terms of profitability for ATI/nViida...THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IT ALREADY.

I know discussing these things can be fun...but it won't happen. As for the circuit digram...you really don't need one. It is simple. Draw two boxes (one called RAM and one called GPU). Connect a bi-directional arrow between the two. With the GPU box draw an arrow one way for the MB bus and another arrow for the video. If you think about it..there is the basic diagram of a video card. All other components are claptrap/support.

-tReP
Click to expand...

I think you're responding to the wrong thread :D
 
nvidias bridge chip seems to been working pretty nicely.

AGP 8X still has plenty of bandwidth to spare... from a tech point of view you could churn out bridged AGP cards for years to come.
 
Agp cards will still come out like pci cards use to do until they stopped at 5200fx since the bus was maxed out. I think agp will hang around for couple more years but there won't be that much support for it as only a few cards later will have it. This generation and next one will definantly have agp support since everyone has an agp port and there will be demand for it. Just my opinion :)
 
Conker said:
Agp cards will still come out like pci cards use to do until they stopped at 5200fx since the bus was maxed out. I think agp will hang around for couple more years but there won't be that much support for it as only a few cards later will have it. This generation and next one will definantly have agp support since everyone has an agp port and there will be demand for it. Just my opinion :)
Click to expand...

Bingo that is why PCI cards were phased out because the bus was maxed out. This is not the case with AGP, I think you will see AGP for at least 2 more generations.
 
Just think of it this way...if the next topend card is the 6900ultra..agp will get teh 6800gt..hehe
 
Next high-end is G70, which I'm presuming will share specs with NV47- 24 pipelines, in brief. If this happens, the difference between it and the 6800GT/Ultra will be comparable to the difference between GT/Ultra and vanilla.
 
Well personally I'd be very surprised if the r520 "Fudo" doesn't get a Rialto bridge on a AGP version of that card. ATI obviously spent some time and money developing the Rialto technology, so I can't see why they wouldn't slap it on the r520 and make an AGP version.

Other than that, I'm not too sure. Nvidia may or may not drop AGP, I haven't really heard. But by the looks of things, ATI is going to support AGP high end for the next generation. That's my best guess.
 
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