The AGP outlook (reopened and updated 01-19-2006)

Damnit I hate being in an upgrade limbo!!! All these people having fun with overclocking Opty's, new PCI-e GPU's, new RAM out and the new AMD chipsets coming out soon!! My machine is still too good to justfy the cost!!! AHHHHHH lmao!!
 
Battle_Rattle said:
Damnit I hate being in an upgrade limbo!!! All these people having fun with overclocking Opty's, new PCI-e GPU's, new RAM out and the new AMD chipsets coming out soon!! My machine is still too good to justfy the cost!!! AHHHHHH lmao!!
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All that means is your system is still good enough that you'll get the best price for selling any old equipment to make up some of the cost of trading up. :D

Note: this argument does not always go over well with spouses. ;)

P.S. Looks to me like you'd only wish to trade out your graphics card and mainboard anyway, everything else looks great. When I traded up, that's all I did, I just didn't want to get stuck with an AGP graphics card at the point where I couldn't salvage enough from it. Sold my 6800NU and MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum last January, and it didn't cost me too much extra to do the two upgrades I wanted.
 
Battle_Rattle said:
Damnit I hate being in an upgrade limbo!!! All these people having fun with overclocking Opty's, new PCI-e GPU's, new RAM out and the new AMD chipsets coming out soon!! My machine is still too good to justfy the cost!!! AHHHHHH lmao!!
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Blah, I've been itching to upgrade my rig for 6 mo. now... but I want the AMD dual cores to come down in price before I move forward! What sucks extra is that AGP cards cost 20% MORE than their PCI E counterparts... ugh... I want a new AGP card! my 5700 is straining!
 
I have an ASROCK 939Dual MB which has PCIE and AGP support.
It runs an Opteron 170 with an x850 VIVO mod'd to x850 XT PE (16 pipes).


Basically the ASROCK 939dual gives you some flexability and is a descent board. True no gig lan or firewire. But, stable!!!
 
Good news for us AGP users:
(Quoted from Tom's 21Dec05)


Albatron released a new graphics card for users who are looking for a graphics upgrade for their AGP system. As the name indicates AGP6800GS, the new card is based on Nvidia's GeForce 6800GS chip, which is clocked at 350 MHz and runs on 12 pipelines. The card comes with 256 MByte of GDDR3 memory that, according to the manufacturer, can be overclocked to up to 1 GHz.

Maximum resolution capability of the card is 2048 x 1536 pixels at 32 bpp color depth and 85 Hz refresh rate. Standard interfaces of the card include TV-OUT, DVI and D-sub. Pricing has not been announced, but is expected to be in line with other 6800GS cards. Street prices of 6800GS cards from eVGA, XFX, PNY Gigabyte and MSI currently range between $200 and $230
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A guy in another thread posted that the X1600 and X1300 will be released as AGP parts. I'm not of the opinion that this will be much of an improvement over a 6800U or X850XTPE, though.
 
i just plonked an nVidia 6600 with 256 MR RAM into an Asus p4c800 system. it works a little smoother than the 5600-128 MB RAM system it replaced. i was using texture maps in Solidworks with the 5600, it kept crashing, i was taking the Lord's name in vain, sure sign of a time to upgrade.

also have a PCI-E system with an asus x850xt. consumes lots of electricity. i use it to run 3D studio max, but i don't leave it running.

PS Merry Christmas !

oh yeah, i tried an ATI x800xt AIW. ran slower than the 5600. RMA'd it. probably something to do with Open GL drivers ... but i didn't want to spend more than a half hour fiddling with it.

oh yeah ... the 6600 cost $140.
 
x800xt AIW clocks well past the x850xt PE and is agp, got mine for 270!
 
I've got an older P4 2.6 in my system and my 9600 pro is starting to show its age. If I go for a 6600 GT or 6800 GS AGP am I going to run into a bottleneck due to the CPU? I really want to avoid overhauling my system until next year.
 
pretty much yes. you try ocing that 2.66 to 3.0+?

you'd be better off doing a full upgrade.
 
This whole change seemed to come by so fast. Right when the market for new chipsets came out all of a sudden there was tons of pcie news hitting the market and now only a relatively short time I feel I have to upgrade to have any hopes of keeping a decent rig.

Oh well, dfi nf2 board you have served me well and I still like the board and my processor very much but my gfx are dwindling. Decisions decisions
 
atomhead said:
I've got an older P4 2.6 in my system and my 9600 pro is starting to show its age. If I go for a 6600 GT or 6800 GS AGP am I going to run into a bottleneck due to the CPU? I really want to avoid overhauling my system until next year.
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I havent had a problem in years with my midline graphics card or 2800+ until I played FEAR and can only play nicely on the lowest settings which was a wakeup call lol.
 
I currently have a 6800 Ultra AGP.

What are my AGP upgrade options or am I pooch screwed?
 
You're screwed, since that's the very best GPU on AGP, but it should still play most games smoothly. ;)
 
Yeah I have a 6800 GT and I'm out of luck. It's kinda crazy that when I got this card, I wouldn't have thought I'd be in this position today. Just sux is all.
 
atomhead said:
I've got an older P4 2.6 in my system and my 9600 pro is starting to show its age. If I go for a 6600 GT or 6800 GS AGP am I going to run into a bottleneck due to the CPU? I really want to avoid overhauling my system until next year.
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depends on the application and settings but generally there will be some more performance by having a faster cpu

Doesn't mean that there won't be a still large performance in improvement though

check out some benchmarks before you decide
 
:)

I just got my X850XT about 3 weeks ago...I love this thing :D

Coming from a 9800 Pro, I run everything maxed smoothly at 1280x1024.
 
after reading this thread I decided to check my bios to see what my agp was set to....128mb just like the other guys lol, damn I feel pathetic. I put it to 256mb and my older graphics card can now run new games halfway decently.
 
Well, I'm in the market for an AGP card upgrade. Old card = ATI 9500 Pro 128MB/8 pipes.

I'm going to be looking for a 6800GT, or else an ATI. nVidia seem to really be blowing ATI out of the water (and I say this as a customer that's been with ATI since the first Radeon) but I would be open to getting another ATI, as this will be my last AGP upgrade...

I looked on Ebay expecting to find a lot more AGP 6800 GT's - only a handful on there. That's a good sign, I guess, that people aren't disappointed with them and moving up to 7800's etc.

I just oc'd my $93 Barton 2500+ into FX-53 territory (in multimedia benchmark, anyway) so "no thanks" on the pointless and expensive upgrade (at this time) to Athlon 64. As for Fear - I'm not going to build my rig around a single game, that's crazy. My current rig even played the Quake 4 demo to my liking, although I'm sure there's some peeper-candy that I missed.

So, thanks for this thread - I'll be checking it out and reporting back when I pick something up.

P.S. - I see some mention of an AGP 6800GS version WOO!! Also, what is the highest-level ATI card you can get in AGP?
 
$215.69 350MHz 12 pipelines and two more weeks to wait

doesn't sound good compared to the constant X850XT deals
 
Wow, that was easy. ATI has a card that is basically a tad better than a 6800 GT Ultra, and they have them going for $250: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=998485 That's a $35 difference between the 6800 GS and the ATI. Pretty crazy performance increase for the price! :eek:

I just put one on order with 2-day shipping, so I should have it by the end of the week. I'll be replacing my 9500 Pro. Guess I'm going ATI once more.
 
newegg has the x800GTO agp back in stock.
12 pipes at 400/980.
i'd say that kicks the crap out of a 6800
 
Time to close this down, as we're talking about individual cards rather than the overall state of AGP.
 
Well, there's been some shaking on current generation AGP products from both ATI and NV, so I think we'll open this back up

First up is Sapphire announcing an AGP X1600 Pro and hinting that other AGP X1x00 parts are a possibility: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=315 Cathy Yu, Sapphire's channel marketing director:
We have plans to ship other X1k AGP cards but the X1600 Pro AGP is available and shipping now
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As for Nvidia, there have been rumblings of a 7800GS AGP, although thee aren't any pics or other concrete evidence of such a creature in circulation: http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2058
 
DougLite said:
As for Nvidia, there have been rumblings of a 7800GS AGP, although thee aren't any pics or other concrete evidence of such a creature in circulation: http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2058
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I wouldn't hold my breath. Now that OEM's have moved beyond AGP, the market has essentially dried up. They aren't going to mass produce high end AGP cards for the sub-1% of people who want them IMHO. Maybe I'm wrong though...Socket A forever :D.
 
Another factor, at least in my warped and distorted perception, is that there are no reference obard that an AIB maker can simply copy ofr high end AGP boards. They would incur all of the development cost related to getting a PCB out the door for an X1800 or 7800 GPU and a bridge chip, simply copying the reference design isn't an option, as there isn't one.
 
The Sapphire and Gecube AGP x1600pro:s have been listed preorder for weeks now. Still, I'm not to sure about the x1600pro, I would rather have a x1600xt or, even better, a x1700pro/xt AGP.
 
kirbyrj said:
They aren't going to mass produce high end AGP cards for the sub-1% of people who want them IMHO. Maybe I'm wrong though...
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Right about the OEM's having moved to PCI-E - but "sub-1%" of people wanting agp is WAY off. For example - I have a lot of siblings, and aunts/uncles/cousins etc. - I can't think of ONE of them that has a PCI-E based system. A lot of them that do play games will ask me about upgrades. They NEED agp cards. Everyone that I reluctantly do computer repair for - none of them have PCI-E systems. While i have no idea how high the percentage of AGPvsPCIe systems is - It's a lot higher than 1 percent. It's probalby over 50 percent agp
 
kirbyrj said:
I wouldn't hold my breath. Now that OEM's have moved beyond AGP, the market has essentially dried up. They aren't going to mass produce high end AGP cards for the sub-1% of people who want them IMHO. Maybe I'm wrong though...Socket A forever :D.
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I heard numbers a few weeks ago that said that 70% (!) of all cards sold in retail was still AGP...
 
seanmcd said:
Right about the OEM's having moved to PCI-E - but "sub-1%" of people wanting agp is WAY off. For example - I have a lot of siblings, and aunts/uncles/cousins etc. - I can't think of ONE of them that has a PCI-E based system. A lot of them that do play games will ask me about upgrades. They NEED agp cards. Everyone that I reluctantly do computer repair for - none of them have PCI-E systems. While i have no idea how high the percentage of AGPvsPCIe systems is - It's a lot higher than 1 percent. It's probalby over 50 percent agp
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I think that he was meaning that there is a very low percentage of AGP graphics card owners that would want a higher dollar high performance upgrade. I could believe that 50% graphics card owners still use AGP but many of them are not high performance users and hence they will not buy an upgraded AGP card. If ATI or Nvidia bring out a $300+ AGP card, only a small percentage of people are going to buy it. Many people who still use AGP are completely happy with it and will not upgrade unless their card fails. Therefore Nvidia and ATI will not sell a lot of high performance AGP cards. I dont even think they could hope to reach 50% of gamers/enthusiests.
 
for an update on probrably the last and best agp card that will be avaliable if it goes as planned the 7800GS
and it comes in two variants.

NVIDIA is set to launch GeForce 7800GS AGP in early February and it will be the highest end graphics card that users can buy for their AGP platform. There are two variants of of the 7800GS; 100 and 200 series. The higher end GeForce 7800GS 200 will be available first and the core clock is expected to hit around 400MHz. The GeForce 7800GS 100 will come later as there are some performance issues to be solved right now.
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link to article sorry if its a repost
 
<edit> of possible intrest:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2616&p=1
</edit>

*IF* the 7800GS is available in an AGP flavor, I have a sneaking suspicion it might be just what I need to tide me over until I can justify / sneak-past-the-wife a full system upgrade (mobo / cpu / vidcard).

Woo hoo. Now to see what pricing will look like. I hope they take a page out of the 6800GS / 6800GT book and make the price point just under the retail of the GT part. This would mean that $300ish would get you some 7800 series AGP lovin.

Dear god please let it be true.

-q
 
amen to that brother, i still need some agp love and have been holding out gettin a 6800gs in favor of a *Crosses fingers* 7800gs!!! then i would wait for a new socket type and direct x 10 cards before a complete system overhaul! socket 478 p4 for life!! ;)
 
metallicafan said:
I think that he was meaning that there is a very low percentage of AGP graphics card owners that would want a higher dollar high performance upgrade. I could believe that 50% graphics card owners still use AGP but many of them are not high performance users and hence they will not buy an upgraded AGP card. If ATI or Nvidia bring out a $300+ AGP card, only a small percentage of people are going to buy it. Many people who still use AGP are completely happy with it and will not upgrade unless their card fails. Therefore Nvidia and ATI will not sell a lot of high performance AGP cards. I dont even think they could hope to reach 50% of gamers/enthusiests.
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Yeah, this is what I was talking about. I understand that a lot of people still use AGP, but the market for a high end AGP part is very small and non-profitable IMHO. That being said, I'm surprised some card manufacturer hasn't slapped a bridge chip on a PCIe part and tried to market it.
 
I'm betting that this next round of AGP cards isnt gonna break $300 in the worst case. Maybe it is something to replace the now hard to find nvidia 6800's (225-300 price range), while for ATI its something for their AGP market to "equalize" (lack of a better word) with the 850XT (think: nVidia 5900's vs 6600GT's, only ATI style).

If this "nVidia 7800 GS 100" does come out before May 2006...I might consider...
 
Umi.Ryuuzaki said:
I'm betting that this next round of AGP cards isnt gonna break $300 in the worst case. Maybe it is something to replace the now hard to find nvidia 6800's (225-300 price range), while for ATI its something for their AGP market to "equalize" (lack of a better word) with the 850XT (think: nVidia 5900's vs 6600GT's, only ATI style).

If this "nVidia 7800 GS 100" does come out before May 2006...I might consider...
Click to expand...

Honestly, if Nvidia doesn't come out with the 7800GS in AGP by the time AM2 comes out, there's no point. By that time those who were waiting to do a full system upgrade will come on board with PCIe.
 
kirbyrj said:
Honestly, if Nvidia doesn't come out with the 7800GS in AGP by the time AM2 comes out, there's no point. By that time those who were waiting to do a full system upgrade will come on board with PCIe.
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Very true. However, like all new motherboards/sockets, I rather wait for the series to mature a bit first - I was about to jump onto the AMD64 bandwagon very early, but heard of the huge problems with it initially. The same is gonna probably happen with Intel's new Conroe/Memroe (spelling?) CPUs.

I heard the 7800GS AGP is coming out sometime next month so its not that bad. Then again, there hasn't been much confirmed (no clock info, though a 350mhz/1ghz DDR3 ram seems plausable IMHO).

This sounds extremely far-fetched, but would hardocp.com review what might or will be, the last "high-end" card for AGP? I know PCI-E is the next step, but for whatever reason, a reasonably good number of us are still on AGP and would like to review this options before putting a serious amount of money into overhauling into PCI-E/AM2 or Intel's next gen.
 
The marketers are trumpeting the clarion call of "PCIE goodness". This is not to say that one cannot measure a small marginal improvement of PCIE solutions over AGP, comparing like cards. However, how many AGP motherboards are there still being used by gamers? Millions. The Inquirer says 70% of motherboards are AGP. And most of the reviews last year that compared AGP and PCIE cards of the same GPU, found little difference in performance.

My concern centers around the fact that there does not seem to be an "advocate" for computer users and gamers who try to get the most "bang for the buck", i.e. the longest possible use, at the lowest possible cost, for the most performance - a balancing act as it were. The "aged" AGP interface can still provide a pleasurable gaming experience, but none of the nVidia partners appear interested in supplying top tier cards for AGP users - just try finding a new 6800GT AGP online. And there seems to be little interest or inclination from the 'body politic' of reviewers to pressure or encourage video card manufacturers to offer AGP versions of the latest video cards.

Most likely, there will be a few offerings for a “stripped down” version of the 7800 series cards for AGP users this next week. And regrettably, this will probably be the last hoorah for AGP. Sad, sad, sad.
 
The marketers are trumpeting the clarion call of "Athlon 64 goodness". This is not to say that one cannot measure a small marginal improvement of Athlon64 solutions over Socket A, comparing like processors. However, how many Socket A motherboards are there still being used by gamers? Millions. The Inquirer says 70% of AMD Processors are Socket A. And most of the reviews last year that compared AthlonXP's and Athlon64's, found little difference in performance if the Athlon XP was clocked high enough.

My concern centers around the fact that there does not seem to be an "advocate" for computer users and gamers who try to get the most "bang for the buck", i.e. the longest possible use, at the lowest possible cost, for the most performance - a balancing act as it were. The "aged" Socket A interface can still provide a pleasurable gaming experience, but none of the nVidia partners appear interested in supplying top tier motherboards for Socket A users - just try finding a new Nforce 2 motherboard online. And there seems to be little interest or inclination from the 'body politic' of reviewers to pressure or encourage video card manufacturers to offer Socket A versions of the latest motherboards.

Most likely, there will be a few offerings for a “stripped down” version of the NF2 series cards for budget office users. And regrettably, this will probably be the last hoorah for Socket A. Sad, sad, sad.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and upgrade more than one piece at a time :D.
 
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