Where Has all the AGP Gone

Z

zoidberg3001

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 15, 2005
Messages
148
Like the title says Wheres all the AGP Cards Gone.

Our suppliers over here in Australia are dropping them like crazy. entire 6800Series (GT, Ultras) have been dropped in the last week. It took our Company 1 and a half Weeks to source a Decent 6800Ultra for a customer. sheeesh

Is there such a HUGE push to get rid of it so soon or is it just companys trying to make more money????
 
Seriously.

Just at the beginning of this week on newegg they had at least 5 different AGP 6800GT's if not more, but as of earlier today, all they had were 3 of them:
Asus 128mb
eVGA 256mb
ELSA 256mb (sold out)

I was going to order a 6800GT tomorrow, but with options being so limited I might wait a while. Not to say tht eVGA is bad or anything, but with the Albatron I could have saved a bit.
 
Geez.. you'd wanna hope they don't. zoidberg3001, I'm not sure what high-end AGP cards are available from our suppliers anymore, so I'm a bit worried. It took us weeks to get an AGP 6800GT in, and for quite a bit of money as well, so if that happens for those cards, as well as slightly lower end cards (like my 6600GT AGP) then certainly we will be in trouble, as well as the consumers that buy from us.

There will be a market for AGP for a while yet, not just from people (like me... lol) who have AGP systems and don't want to upgrade yet, but also for the lower end of the market as well. Like, for example, your mum and dad computer buyers, and people on a budget. If they want good performance on the cheap, or on their current system, AGP is the simple, effective answer. Lets hope that the video card manufacturers realise this before they stop producing those cards altogether.
 
Yeah its a pain in the ass allright. our main supplier dropped there entire AGP 6800 Line up 1 Day after we ordered one, then they told us "we can get them there discontiuned" but were like " it was showing IN STOCK at the time we ordered it" so we ended up having to go else where.

Adding to that personally i have 2 AGP systems at home and i dont wanna have to upgrade board and chip to go High End. (6800, X800XL, etc).
 
Meh, AGP was a hack solution, anyway.

All it is was a dedicated PCI bus (with all the inherent limitations in that) that could transmit data *down* to the card 8 times per cycle (for AGP 8x). The 'up' bandwidth was limited to its PCI roots - 1 time per cycle, at 66mhz.

And all kinds of crap went with it. Sideband addressing, AGP memory, Fast Writes, WS settings, etc - all 'hacks' trying to work around the PCI limitation, with varying degrees of success. (Seriously - who knew, for which cards, 'Fast Writes' *increased* or *decreased* performance. Who knew on which cards 'sideband addressing' resulted in a speed increase, and on which cards is made the system completely unstable.)

PCI-Express is great, doesn't have any of that crap.
 
dderidex said:
Meh, AGP was a hack solution, anyway.

All it is was a dedicated PCI bus (with all the inherent limitations in that) that could transmit data *down* to the card 8 times per cycle (for AGP 8x). The 'up' bandwidth was limited to its PCI roots - 1 time per cycle, at 66mhz.

And all kinds of crap went with it. Sideband addressing, AGP memory, Fast Writes, WS settings, etc - all 'hacks' trying to work around the PCI limitation, with varying degrees of success. (Seriously - who knew, for which cards, 'Fast Writes' *increased* or *decreased* performance. Who knew on which cards 'sideband addressing' resulted in a speed increase, and on which cards is made the system completely unstable.)

PCI-Express is great, doesn't have any of that crap.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the history lesson, you learn something new every day :)
 
dderidex said:
Meh, AGP was a hack solution, anyway.

All it is was a dedicated PCI bus (with all the inherent limitations in that) that could transmit data *down* to the card 8 times per cycle (for AGP 8x). The 'up' bandwidth was limited to its PCI roots - 1 time per cycle, at 66mhz.

And all kinds of crap went with it. Sideband addressing, AGP memory, Fast Writes, WS settings, etc - all 'hacks' trying to work around the PCI limitation, with varying degrees of success. (Seriously - who knew, for which cards, 'Fast Writes' *increased* or *decreased* performance. Who knew on which cards 'sideband addressing' resulted in a speed increase, and on which cards is made the system completely unstable.)

PCI-Express is great, doesn't have any of that crap.
Click to expand...
Yes... but AGP became a standard that became well used throughout the computer world, which is my point. There are a lot of people out in the world that either don't need to upgrade, don't have the money to upgrade, or don't know enough about computers to upgrade. The manufacturers need to realise that there is still a market for AGP out there, and while it may not be totally used anymore by enthusiusts (mind you, there are still a lot of enthusiusts using AGP) they still need to provide some AGP cards at the higher end of the market.

Even though it has a lot of limitations which PCI-e doesn't have, you have to remember that the sheer volume of people who still have AGP make that part of the market still viable. Really, they should wake up and still at least provide some AGP cards that will be utilised.
 
they *could* be clearing out stock for something else, but that might just be wishful thinking...
 
Cali3350 said:
they *could* be clearing out stock for something else, but that might just be wishful thinking...
Click to expand...

That something else is... PCI-E... lol :p

/can't tell if you are being sarcastic
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
My New PCIe Mobo was only 150$.... SO I dont see what the big deal is :)
Click to expand...
And mine was less than $100, and still worked with the same ol' CPU and ram I had in my AGP-based system. Heck, it even has a DX9 integrated video solution (Xpress200 - roughly X300SE performance) to hold you over if the sting of buying it needs you to wait a bit on the sale of your old video card or something before buying a new one.

Heck, the Jetway SLI board that Anandtech was raving about is only $130. And for economy (but still with some great overclockers in the mix), you've got TONS of options around even $70-$80.

There really is NO reason for any kind of PC enthusiast to still be on AGP anymore.
 
Is it me or do the agp cards cost a lot more now? Maybe it's only in Canada, I swear... I went on vacation 2 weeks, and when I came back the cards I was looking at went from 300-400 to 400-500$ (can currency), what the hell is going on?
 
dderidex said:
And mine was less than $100, and still worked with the same ol' CPU and ram I had in my AGP-based system. Heck, it even has a DX9 integrated video solution (Xpress200 - roughly X300SE performance) to hold you over if the sting of buying it needs you to wait a bit on the sale of your old video card or something before buying a new one.

Heck, the Jetway SLI board that Anandtech was raving about is only $130. And for economy (but still with some great overclockers in the mix), you've got TONS of options around even $70-$80.

There really is NO reason for any kind of PC enthusiast to still be on AGP anymore.
Click to expand...

I got a 754 board with PCIe for $86. The nF4x Infinity from DFI overclocks like a champ.
 
Now the thing is customers are gonna get up me for selling them non upgradable systems theres me main problem.

Were talking Ma and Pa type people here NOT OC'ers or Gamers Like us.

Anyone who works in a computer store will know this problem 1st hand and may of us have been abused over things like this.
 
Oh one other thing guys were in AUSTRALIA so Parts tend to cost a lot more than over there in the USA.

For example 7800GTX
USA $599USD
Australia Ranges from $836-$1000+ in places

Some people cant really justify shelling out for a new mobo/cpu when they recently bought AGP based systems.
 
PC enthusiast must have PCI-e? BS What if You have allready stronger card as needed? Like if You are gaming on 1024x768 or 1280x1024 even 6600GT AGP or even x700 is enough.

This world grafic port coverage AGP PC's = 99%, PCI-e = 1%

nVidia is pushing SLI and PCI-e. First they've decided to not produce new gen AGP cards and now they've decided to give AGP final blow and do not deliver even old gen AGP cards . They are going to destroy all AGP cards they still have.

Can't stand that PCI-e mobo costs just xxx $ marketing trick. PCI-e card cost allready XXX $ to and then mobo and this and that. What does it bring more PCI-e mobo then a AGP mobo? (nForce 3 Ultra 250 vs. nForce 4 what are differences exept PCI-e and SLi?)

I'm for new technology but not if someone pushes it up my ass.
I'm for new technology if I get goodies and preformance I haven't had and please doo nottell me like I will gettt preformance because 7800GT and GTX so fast and PCI-e only because if it would be on AGP it would be just as fast. No GPU chip ever came to bandwidth limitation of AGP 8x. PCI-e is almost as same as Slot1 from Intel.



MD
 
MD - Totally agree, Im also getting tired of people coming out with comments like AGP is yesterdays news and a new motherboard only costs you this much
Bottom line is a)For financial reasons im stuck with AGP for at least 9 months and b)until a game using the next gen Unreal 3 engine comes out then AGP is ok for me anyhow

Ive got mobile 2500 running at 11.5x215 at nearly 2.5Ghz, 1Gb DDR400 running at 430Mhz and a 9700Pro AGP running 360/660, The only game to date that has caused me any performance issue from what im used to is F.E.A.R demo which to be honest I can run ok at 1024x768 with 2AA 2AF, dont expect anyone to believe me but i can, i run bf2 at 1280x1024 like a dream

For me to upgrade id need mb, want amd 64 3500, prob 7800GT and another 1Gb of memory that'll run to 550Mhz minimum as my memory wont o/c above 440
bottom line is i cant afford it so its AGP til next summer
id like to run F.E.A.R even better and unsure what COD2 requires so id want to get a 6800GT AGP, apart from the upgrade path which is being pushed up everyones ass im yet to be given that killer reason for non AGP solution based on fps requirements over the next year, its similar to the 512Mb graphics card stuff, in reality theres nothing out there yet that needs it
 
Here is a small list of boards that would only require the board and a PCIe gfx Purchase to go PCIe.

For P4 Socket 478
Albatron PX915P4C Pro $89

For Socket 754
MSI K8N NEO3-F $75

Socket 940
Foxconn NF4PIK8AA-8EKRS $213

Or if you would like to be prepaired for a switch to 939 while using 754
JetWay GTDual-STD-G-OC $86

The only Users that need to replace their CPUs and possibly memory (unless you already have PC3200) is Socket A users, and for them they are already starting to show signs of old age and are no longer in production from AMD. I didn't List 939 and Socket T users since A.) Different boards for PCIe have already saturated the market or B.) in the case of Socket T users there is only PCIe mobos for them.
 
Topweasel said:
The only Users that need to replace their CPUs and possibly memory (unless you already have PC3200) is Socket A users, and for them they are already starting to show signs of old age and are no longer in production from AMD. I didn't List 939 and Socket T users since A.) Different boards for PCIe have already saturated the market or B.) in the case of Socket T users there is only PCIe mobos for them.
Click to expand...

There are a few 865/875 boards for Socket T, including some from DFI.
Socket A semprons are still in production, haha. They are kind of a waste of silicon though, IMO.
 
One big reason in the decline of AGP there is no real market for it. The enthusiasts who spend the most money have already moved onto PCI-Express. And most people who buy a computer today in retail dont even have an AGP port. Working at a retailer, currently, none of our models have AGP, the higher end models have pci-express however. And throughout history, only a very small percentage of computers sold at retail (which is by far the largest market for them) have included AGP ports. Its just not a good idea to make graphics cards for a small market of mid-range enthusiasts. It cost the companies too much money with too little return. Sadly, economics take over most of the time. There just arent enough AGP enabled computers with people who want to upgrade to make it worth the time to keep producing them.
 
robberbaron said:
There are a few 865/875 boards for Socket T, including some from DFI.
Socket A semprons are still in production, haha. They are kind of a waste of silicon though, IMO.
Click to expand...

Actually I thought I read that they produced the last of the k7 arch, I know they will be in the retail marcket for years, but dead is dead. I din't know that they made 865 boards for socket T doesn't make much sense its like feeding the poor rotten meat.
 
dderidex said:
Meh, AGP was a hack solution, anyway.

All it is was a dedicated PCI bus (with all the inherent limitations in that) that could transmit data *down* to the card 8 times per cycle (for AGP 8x). The 'up' bandwidth was limited to its PCI roots - 1 time per cycle, at 66mhz.

And all kinds of crap went with it. Sideband addressing, AGP memory, Fast Writes, WS settings, etc - all 'hacks' trying to work around the PCI limitation, with varying degrees of success. (Seriously - who knew, for which cards, 'Fast Writes' *increased* or *decreased* performance. Who knew on which cards 'sideband addressing' resulted in a speed increase, and on which cards is made the system completely unstable.)

PCI-Express is great, doesn't have any of that crap.
Click to expand...

If AGP is a cobbled together hack and pci-express is so wonderful then why is it not any faster (by that I mean efficient).

Or is a AGP 6800GT (for example) slower than a 6800GT PCi-express??? :confused:
 
Apallohadas, did you even bother to read my post. Or did you only get to the first line of it? I explained why there is no market for AGP anymore. The vast majority of Desktop users do NOT have an AGP port. Remember, we here on these forums are a small minority of the computing public. Walk into your local Best buy, Circuit City, or Compusa. Hell, even check out most PCs from Dell. You'll notice 90% of their computers do NOT come with an AGP port. These are also the places where the huge majority of users buy their PCs. Most of these computers only have PCI slots.

So that leaves companies with one area to produce higher end cards. The enthusiast market. Now split this market up into 3 Segments. Those who have AGP and already own a decent card (x800 6600 and up), those with AGP but an older card who want to upgrade, and those with PCI-Express. From what I've seen on a couple polls on this forum, its about a 66% to 33% split for AGP/PCI-Express. So now, you take two-thirds of the market which you can appeal to. Looking at what posters have for their system specs, about 70% of that market already owns a good AGP based card and are unlikely to upgrade. So that would leave you with only about 20% of the total enthusiast market looking for an AGP card.

Now, PCI-Express plays home to the newer cards, which also produce more margin for the companies, and face it, they do this to make money, otherwise they wouldnt be in business. It only makes sense to cater to PCI-Express because the market for it is 33% compared to 20% for AGP. Expecially if you factor in that the 47% of the market who own AGP cards which perform well, will eventually upgrade to a PCI-Express based solution. There is no reason for companies to keep producing AGP cards, taking away valuable resources from producting PCI-x cards that most people will be looking for.

Also, you need to account that all high end systems from OEMS (Dell, Gateway, etc) now come with PCI-x and NOT AGP. You can see how the AGP market is not all that atractive anymore. And while my numbers arent solid, they should be a fairly close estimate. Feel free to browse the forums on your own to see if you find an error with my estimates. Remember, BFG, ATI, eVGA, etc are all in this to make money and be profitable, so economic forcasts, as well as consumer trends play a HUGE part in deciding what types of cards to send to market.
 
Apallohadas said:
Proof please.
Click to expand...
Seconded. There was a poll in a thread here not that long ago and if I remember correctly AGP users still far outnumbered PCI-Express users. And quite a few of us have relatively up to date systems otherwise, w/decent RAM and good CPUs.
 
dderidex said:
And mine was less than $100, and still worked with the same ol' CPU and ram I had in my AGP-based system. Heck, it even has a DX9 integrated video solution (Xpress200 - roughly X300SE performance) to hold you over if the sting of buying it needs you to wait a bit on the sale of your old video card or something before buying a new one.

Heck, the Jetway SLI board that Anandtech was raving about is only $130. And for economy (but still with some great overclockers in the mix), you've got TONS of options around even $70-$80.

There really is NO reason for any kind of PC enthusiast to still be on AGP anymore.
Click to expand...
If you can justify paying $150 for a CPU, $150 for a mobo, and $200 to get a PCI-E version of the video card I ALREADY HAVE in AGP, then tell me there's no reason.

The most I might be able to get selling this videocard on eBay is like $120...so it'll end up being a $380 upgrade. That is far out of my pricerange and the priceranges of many other people, enthusiast or not.
 
Well, in the high end enthusiast market, there is no market seeing as you can't get the 7800 series in AGP. I guess that's some sort of proof even if it doesn't really help you any :).

Personally, I waited until NF4 before upgrading for this reason. I didn't feel like buying a high-end AGP card when PCIe versions were 2 months away. So I toughed it out with my XP-M and 9800Pro ;).
 
Walk into your local Best buy, Circuit City, or Compusa. Hell, even check out most PCs from Dell. You'll notice 90% of their computers do NOT come with an AGP port.
Click to expand...

Demingo, why do you think that motherboards do not have an AGP slot? That doesn't make sense at all. Maybe these computers do not come with AGP cards, but they mostly do have AGP ports...
 
demingo said:
Apallohadas, did you even bother to read my post. Or did you only get to the first line of it? I explained why there is no market for AGP anymore. The vast majority of Desktop users do NOT have an AGP port.
Click to expand...
I believe he asked for proof other than just your opinion and anectodal experience.
Hell, even check out most PCs from Dell. You'll notice 90% of their computers do NOT come with an AGP port. These are also the places where the huge majority of users buy their PCs. Most of these computers only have PCI slots.
Click to expand...
While we're on anecdotes, here's mine. My company buys Dell machines and has for years. Almost every single optiplex PC we have bought included an AGP port up until very recently. How you can get the idea that 90% of computers out there in operation don't have AGP slots - I'm confused. Or are you saying 90% of new computers being sold right now don't come w/AGP? In which case that's probably true.

Regarding your numbers, which may or may not be true (who really knows), 20% is still a market that they could produce a profit from most likely. People are pissed because they are being strong armed into this. Yes they've done it before and no, we don't have to like it either.
 
Keetha said:
Demingo, why do you think that motherboards do not have an AGP slot? That doesn't make sense at all. Maybe these computers do not come with AGP cards, but they mostly do have AGP ports...
Click to expand...

I would have to agree with Demingo...most of the ones that I've seen DON'T have AGP ports (mostly 865G based OEM types...eMachines...Dells).
 
Making comments like "a vast majority of desktop users don't have an agp port" is, well, actually I'm speechless.

The vast majority of desktops out there have....gasp.....AGP ports!!

Thats because they've been selling desktops for the last 5 years with.....gasp..AGP ports!!

Must be a conspiracy.
 
You have to remember that the largest video card manufacturer is actually Intel with 40% of the market (Extreme Graphics 2 anyone?). Computers based on an Intel chipset didn't always have a AGP expansion slot. Just because it is AGP compatible, doesn't mean there was a port for it.
 
demingo said:
Apallohadas, did you even bother to read my post. Or did you only get to the first line of it?
Click to expand...
I read it and you're pretty full of yourself.
I explained why there is no market for AGP anymore.
Click to expand...
And I disagree with you. I disagree as I type from this AGP system, and I'll disagree when I go home and type from that one as well. So, you're wrong.
The vast majority of Desktop users do NOT have an AGP port.
Click to expand...
Read above. You're wrong. I can walk around my office and announce that you're wrong another 60 times from 60 different machines.
Walk into your local Best buy, Circuit City, or Compusa. Hell, even check out most PCs from Dell. You'll notice 90% of their computers do NOT come with an AGP port.
Click to expand...
Saying that new computers come with PCI-e CARDS is a far different cry than whining about there not being a market for AGP cards. You. Are. Wrong.

Deleting some of your random dribbling...
The enthusiast market. Now split this market up into 3 Segments.
Click to expand...
I'll assume that these are your self defined segments right? But go on.
Those who have AGP and already own a decent card (x800 6600 and up)
Click to expand...
Cards that can play every game on the market today, tomorrow, and probably the next 6-8 months. Sure, that's decent.
those with AGP but an older card who want to upgrade, and those with PCI-Express.
Click to expand...
See, your '3 segments' are fairly inexact.

There are people who want to upgrade their video card and nothing else. There are Socket 754 and 939 users that do not want to reinstall all of their software/hardware just because it gives you wood.

There are people that do not want to put out the UNNECESSARY expense for an upgrade that could be trivially simplistic, or a complete system overhaul just to make someone else feel better about their own purchase.

I can easily think of more than 3 segments that you've clustered the world into.
From what I've seen on a couple polls on this forum, its about a 66% to 33% split for AGP/PCI-Express.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that WE are the enthusiasts. The OEM people and the DIYers. You'd like to pretend that those numbers are 90/10 in favor of PCI-e, but they're not yet. They may be in time, and they probably will be, but the camp that keeps whining about AGP is still off the mark at this early date.

Oh yes, I read what you said, this time and last, but much of what you say is based on your own opinion and statements, that you take as fact. Like this:
So now, you take two-thirds of the market which you can appeal to. Looking at what posters have for their system specs, about 70% of that market already owns a good AGP based card and are unlikely to upgrade. So that would leave you with only about 20% of the total enthusiast market looking for an AGP card.
Click to expand...
WHAT? See? What on earth are you talking about?

Let's just say, that I have a Athlon 3700 with the 1MB L2. S754. I have a 9800 Pro AGP card in there. That's a good card. Plays most games damned fine. Oh! I see a sale on X800 XT PEs at ATi. I'm not going to buy it? Well according to you, I'm not interested, so I won't.

What kind of logic are you working with? Sorry, but you're not using facts, just your opinion and massive speculations based on unrealistic marketting theory.
<snip> Deleted a huge chunk of text based on the aforementioned flawed theories
Click to expand...
You can see how the AGP market is not all that atractive anymore. And while my numbers arent solid, they should be a fairly close estimate. Feel free to browse the forums on your own to see if you find an error with my estimates. Remember, BFG, ATI, eVGA, etc are all in this to make money and be profitable, so economic forcasts, as well as consumer trends play a HUGE part in deciding what types of cards to send to market.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Consumer trends. Consumers are still using AGP cards. Steam survey's prove that, and their numbers are more accurate than your guessing.
 
kirbyrj said:
Computers based on an Intel chipset didn't always have a AGP expansion slot.
Click to expand...
We've seen anecdotal evidence going both ways. My company buys Dell Optiplex PCs, GX240,260,270, and 280. Up until recently they ALL came with AGP slots even if there was onboard Intel Extreme graphics. The question is, who has proof that this is or isn't typical of the majority of their machines sold.
 
Apallohadas said:
There are people who want to upgrade their video card and nothing else. There are Socket 754 and 939 users that do not want to reinstall all of their software/hardware just because it gives you wood.
Click to expand...
/raises hand

Me Me! :D
 
wrangler said:
Making comments like "a vast majority of desktop users don't have an agp port" is, well, actually I'm speechless.

The vast majority of desktops out there have....gasp.....AGP ports!!

Thats because they've been selling desktops for the last 5 years with.....gasp..AGP ports!!

Must be a conspiracy.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but...they HAVEN'T.

*Most* systems sold over the past 5 years are the <$500 'econobox' systems with Intel Extreme Graphics - not even 'Extreme Graphics 2' or anything. No AGP slot! Just solid PCI.

Last numbers I'd seen had 75% of the market without an AGP slot - not PCI-E, either, just no AGP. Pure integrated graphics, and that's it. Oh, and regular PCI slots. For whatever they are worth.
 
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