Future of AGP

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apHytHiaTe

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I want to buy a 6800OC after xmas, but i was wondering if that was a good idea. With all the new chipsets for AMD coming out, and more availability of PCI-e cards, will AGP videocards go up in price? I've got exactly $300 in my paypal account, and I wonder if I should go now, or wait.
 
PCI-E won't be necessary for a while since AGP 8X still isn't necessary, but the change over seems to be happening rather quick. I doubt that Nvidia will stop making AGP cards altogether though.
 
With REGULAR PCI cards still being made, I'm sure AGP will be around for a while yet.
 
Krazy_Joe said:
PCI-E cards are cheaper than the AGP 8x :mad:
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Northwoods are more expensive than Prescotts and FX 5900U's are 200-250 dollars more than 6800nu's and don't even come close to the 6800nu's performance.
 
I look at it like this...

The number of users that currently use an AGP card is probably close to 90%.

The number of users that currently use PCI-E is probably around half a percent.

The number of those 90% of current AGP users that will be upgrading their motherboard over the next year can't be more then 35% or so, meaning, AGP has ATLEAST another year of dominance.

Look at what happened with ATX, it was years before stores stopped selling AT cases and power supplys. Look at ISA slots, it was years before stores stopped selling ISA cards.

Hell... as dainthomas just posted, they still make PCI video cards.

I think it will happen like this. Within a years time, the NEWEST fastest cards will only be made in PCI-E format, the second fastest cards will still be made using the AGO interface. That way they'll be able to provide everyone with a solid fast video card, but, at the same time, leaving the best for the early adopters.

Bottom line, get the 6800... it's a hell of a card. Overclock it, enjoy it, a year from now, sell it for probably 70% of what you paid, then buy PCI-E.
 
yeha.. i hope they will make something like the 6800GT=6800ULTRA

like the GT on AGP and Ultra on PCIE that way we can enjoy enjoy the highend by overclocking to Ultra :)


Unless i want Sli.. which i will probably get in a year or two when i actually make some real money :)

My current rig should last me awhile.. i will upgrade fully when i can't play the games i want at 1024x768 medium settings... that'll be the day.. Super-Highend AMD or Dual Intel's, whichever is faster, and ofcourse Sli, two 6xxx or 7xxx ULTRA'a in Sli.. and maybe two of those 148x2 15000 rpm raptors in raid.. *drools*
 
well, are 6800nu's going to go down right after xmas like everything else should? or will the market get flooded with pcie stuff by then?
 
Theres no way to predict that unless you work in their marketing department, but I doubt you'll see them go significantly below 250.
 
Right now, PCI-E and AGP videocards are about the same in price.

Pretty soon though, PCI-E will be less expensive then AGP... It happens with everything, SDRAM is more expensive than DDR now that is has matured.

PCI-E has the advantage of being serial, which means fewer traces (easier to manufacture) It also does not need to support multiple voltages like AGP 2x 3.3Volt (which most mobo manufacturers have given up on to save cost) 4x 1.5V and 8x 0.8V.
 
ZenOps said:
Right now, PCI-E and AGP videocards are about the same in price.

Pretty soon though, PCI-E will be less expensive then AGP... It happens with everything, SDRAM is more expensive than DDR now that is has matured.

PCI-E has the advantage of being serial, which means fewer traces (easier to manufacture) It also does not need to support multiple voltages like AGP 2x 3.3Volt (which most mobo manufacturers have given up on to save cost) 4x 1.5V and 8x 0.8V.
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That's going to take more time than you'd think. Don't bet on it happening for a year.
 
Not for the high end cards.

But I do see someone next year (maybe not even Nvidia or ATi) making a PCIE-2x card on really short slot for a killer price.

Regardless, I'm happier that PCI-E might give a jumpstart to the soundcards which have been in stall mode for the last few years.
 
It's important to realize in regard to PCI videocards that we still have mainboards with both AGP and PCI. AGP was an addition to PCI. PCIe is a replacement for both PCI and AGP.

However, as AGP and PCIe can not easily co-exist on the same mainboard, and the former is only used for videocards, whereas PCI is a general purpose bus, AGP will quickly fade away. K8T890- and NF4 (PCIe)-based mainboards will not feature AGP, but PCIe and PCI. Subsequent generations of mainboards will likely not feature an AGP slot either, but PCI will exist for another couple of years at the very least.

AGP videocards will not immediately rise in price, but somewhere during the next 1-2 years, once AGP has lost enough marketshare (OEMs will also use PCIe in their new systems), it'll reach this point.
 
Very well said. Its a shame that the OEM's are capitalizing on peoples' gullability right now to get them to think that the PCI-E cards are better.
 
PCIE cards are better. They just aren't any faster with todays apps.

If that makes sense.
 
The cards are not, and don't have the potential to be faster or better than AGP. They've got the same cores and same ram. The only difference is the extra useless space they've got to transmit data over the graphics port bus. AGP 4x isn't fully utilized by even the latest graphics cores so what makes you think that the same core is going to need all that bandwidth just because of the application it runs? The applications have nothing to do with the limitation of the core and ram on the card. Those are the limitation. The only advantage is the impractical and expensive SLi which isn't going to be worth it as soon as the new cores come out.
 
Well PCIE is bi-directional. Which means lower latency and no interruptions in two-way transmissions. Ever wonder why people don't videoconference more often even on a local Gigabit lan? Its because computer have a tough enough time trying to do a one unidirectional decode or encode of a DVD quality stream.

Serial means no chance of conflicts with other peripherals on a shared bus (when drivers are optimized for it) Zero chance of stuttering because of harddrive access, or trying to synch up with a soundcard, which is an increasing problem. Harddrives will finally be able accept both a read and write delayed command at the same time, which is a godsend for server farms.
 
Thats not being utilized with current cards though, which is why PCI-E cards score the same or worse than their AGP counterparts right now. When the technology matures, and maybe needs upgrades like AGP did over its lifetime it will make a difference, but right now the core and ram is the limitation for graphics performance.
 
The bandwidth increase of PCIe over AGP is the least of its advantages. AGP is an asymmetrical bus, which means that it's easy to send data to the GPU, but expensive (in terms of CPU cycles) to transfer data the other way around.

PCIe will also lower the latency for data transfers to the GPU, and make system RAM directly accessible. nVidia's TurboCache technology is a direct result of this.

If you're familiar with MacOS X, you'll probably know that it uses the GPU to perform much of the GUI operations. PCIe makes this not only easier, but also much, much faster.

Current (mainstream) CPUs are scalar-based architectures, which means that they operate on single sets of data at any given time. GPUs on the other hand are vector-based architectures, meaning that they operate on multiple sets (vectors) of data. Either architecture has its strenghts and weaknesses. PCIe will allow for the first time the GPU to be used as a 'vector co-processor', kind of like the x87 math co-processor (only much cooler :D ).

In other words, now you can use your $500 videocard for actual work (CAD, mathematical programs, etc.) instead of just for games ;)
 
Thats all very true and makes a lot of sense, but we're talking about current hardware, and turbocache is the only implementation of those technologies on PC's at the moment. It would be nice to see the cards used as co-processors. Perhaps longhorn support such features? You'll probably need a Pentium 5 by the time longhorn actually comes out or gets debugged to a useable level.
 
you realize its only a matter of time before a removeable agp= pci=E bridge is made avail

similar to a usb- ps2 or a VGA- DVI adapter.


then it wont matter what type of card you have.

I expect to use my AGP 6800 GT this summer when i get a dual core system and board.
 
dajet24 said:
you realize its only a matter of time before a removeable agp= pci=E bridge is made avail

similar to a usb- ps2 or a VGA- DVI adapter.


then it wont matter what type of card you have.

I expect to use my AGP 6800 GT this summer when i get a dual core system and board.
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You sure about this?

I havn't heard anything of the sort and frankly dont see anyone producing such an item. I'd be plenty happy with such a device as I just invested in a 6800 Ultra and would be more then happy to have it take me through my next large upgrade.
 
dajet24 said:
you realize its only a matter of time before a removeable agp= pci=E bridge is made avail

similar to a usb- ps2
Click to expand...
The connected device must 'speak' both the PS/2 and USB protocol.
or a VGA- DVI adapter.
Click to expand...
DVI has 'analog' pins in addition to those that carry the digital signal. An DVI-VGA adapter therefore just takes those analog pins and routes them to the appropriate pins at the other end's VGA connector.
I expect to use my AGP 6800 GT this summer when i get a dual core system and board.
Click to expand...
A PCIe slot can never accept an AGP card without some elaborate bridging hardware inbetween, which would never physically fit without modifying the mainboard itself.

What you might see, however, is an onboard bridging (PCIe-AGP) chip, which would allow you to use an AGP card with a slight loss of performance.

More likely is that ATI and nVidia will simply allow for the use of PCIe-AGP bridging chips on their videocards. ATI is currently in the process of developing such a bridging chip, due to people complaining that they didn't release all of their latest cards for AGP.
 
GRAFiZ said:
I look at it like this...

The number of users that currently use an AGP card is probably close to 90%.

The number of users that currently use PCI-E is probably around half a percent.

The number of those 90% of current AGP users that will be upgrading their motherboard over the next year can't be more then 35% or so, meaning, AGP has ATLEAST another year of dominance.

Look at what happened with ATX, it was years before stores stopped selling AT cases and power supplys. Look at ISA slots, it was years before stores stopped selling ISA cards.

Hell... as dainthomas just posted, they still make PCI video cards.

I think it will happen like this. Within a years time, the NEWEST fastest cards will only be made in PCI-E format, the second fastest cards will still be made using the AGO interface. That way they'll be able to provide everyone with a solid fast video card, but, at the same time, leaving the best for the early adopters.

Bottom line, get the 6800... it's a hell of a card. Overclock it, enjoy it, a year from now, sell it for probably 70% of what you paid, then buy PCI-E.
Click to expand...

are u joking u cant sell a vid card a year later for 70%
 
powerade said:
are u joking u cant sell a vid card a year later for 70%
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Depends on how much you paid for your current video card.

Take my purchase as an example.

Last December I purchased a XFX 5900 that overclocks to beyond 5950 levels... it cost me $175 shipped.

Well, I just purchased a used 6800Ultra and will be selling me 5900 in a few days. They currently go for about $140 on Ebay.

Thus: 70% of $175 is $122.50. After fees and shipping that should be easy for me to attain.

So... I was able to use a solid video card for an entire year and now I will be able to get back all but about $40 bucks of my initial purchase.

The same thing happened to me the year before when I purchased a GeForce 3 TDH, I got it refurbished at Newegg, used it for almost a year, got back about 65% of what I paid for it when I sold it.

However, if I were to buy these things new, retail I would of course take a bigger hit, but with what I paid for my 6800 Ultra, lets assume I am only able to get $250 for it in a years time, shouldn't be worth much less seeing with what is coming down the pipeline. Ok, so even if I only get $250 for it then thats basically 60% of what I invested. Not a bad return for a years worth of use.

So you see, it is quite easy to purchase a top of the line video card, use it for some time, then sell it for 70% of your original purchase price. I have and I know others have as well.
 
Well iam sure their are quite a few people who bought hi end AGP cards who would liek to kep them thru the next upgrade I think we will see a bridge for AGP- PCI-E but maybe not, i'm sure their are other in same boat as me.

but we will see
 
Vid card prices have been holding pretty steady for quite a while now. My 9800Pro thats almost a year old costs more new now than it did when I bought it. We need a jump in tech to get things moving along.

Not being "necessary" or the technology "doesnt make any difference yet" has nothing to do with the market for the latest and greatest so PCI-E is gonna roll big time and Ill be picking up the used 6800Ultra AGPs as people dump them to move up.
 
MikeP said:
Vid card prices have been holding pretty steady for quite a while now. My 9800Pro thats almost a year old costs more new now than it did when I bought it. We need a jump in tech to get things moving along.

Not being "necessary" or the technology "doesnt make any difference yet" has nothing to do with the market for the latest and greatest so PCI-E is gonna roll big time and Ill be picking up the used 6800Ultra AGPs as people dump them to move up.
Click to expand...

Exactly... thats why I'm betting that even a year from now 6800Ultra's will go for $250 or more. Especially if it is the last fastest AGP card produced. You're the smart one for waiting. Supply and demand and all that.
 
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