AGP/PCI-e argument

[bunnyfubbles]

The longer you delay the inevitable death of AGP, the longer PCI-e remains hindered to stretch its legs. AGP had its transition period with the GeForce 6 and Radeon X series. Now its time to upgrade. I'm not sure why you'd want a top of the line video card for this era for AGP anyways. I mean you're going to spend $500+ on a video card but not on your motherboard/CPU? Are you nuts?

And its not all about PCI-e vs. AGP, because PCI-e isn' just video cards, its one bus for everything. The sooner we have the majority of the PC market in PCI-e, the sooner we start getting new PCI-e 1x lan cards through 16x video cards, an all around improved PC experience via price and performance.

 

[Hacp]

Ok to all those guys saying.. If you buy a 400 dollar video card (7800GT), why not a mobo? Well, maybe you have a Nforce 3 Ultra motherboard with an overclocked AMD 64? A 7800GT will be a good fit wouldn't it? Sure you can just spend 100 dollars on a mobo, but how many people are willing to just throw 100 dollars out the door? If 100 dollars is something that you people won't care about, then go ahead and get the PCI-E mobo with your video card. BUT, to people who have powerful rigs with AGP slots, they are not getting the performance they desire, and are not willing to waste 100 dollars. Heck the 400 spent on the GT will likely have broken their bank already.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: rbV5

PCI-Express is meant to replace both AGP and PCI. Most motherboards sold with PCI-Express have at least one x1 slot

Which is basically useless due to the lack of PCIe cards. Its basically a graphics port option at this point I guess. I do like the fact that there are decent PCIe platforms with nice feature sets....SLI keeps interest up even if you don't go that route, and crossfire makes thing a little more interesting. I guess I'll be more excited when I see some other PCIe solutions available like sound cards and TV tuners

Tell me how you motivate OEMs to make PCIE cards without a motherboard to support it?
It is a chicken before the egg argument. PCIE is coming, get over it.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Hacp
Ok to all those guys saying.. If you buy a 400 dollar video card (7800GT), why not a mobo? Well, maybe you have a Nforce 3 Ultra motherboard with an overclocked AMD 64? A 7800GT will be a good fit wouldn't it? Sure you can just spend 100 dollars on a mobo, but how many people are willing to just throw 100 dollars out the door? If 100 dollars is something that you people won't care about, then go ahead and get the PCI-E mobo with your video card. BUT, to people who have powerful rigs with AGP slots, they are not getting the performance they desire, and are not willing to waste 100 dollars. Heck the 400 spent on the GT will likely have broken their bank already.

You are willing to pay 4-600 dollars on a video card. You are throwing money out the door.

I dont really understand people who purchase just a video card when they upgrade. Unless you bought a S754(me) MB in the past 8-12 months you should have got a MB with PCIE.

The people who really irritate me on this issue are the AXP whiners who want their 7800GTX. Give me a break, anybody who has looked at a benchmark knows the AXP is long dead in terms of a viable highend gaming CPU. The friggin Sempron takes it to task for crying out loud.

 

[imported_Doughboy]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

And its not all about PCI-e vs. AGP, because PCI-e isn' just video cards, its one bus for everything. The sooner we have the majority of the PC market in PCI-e, the sooner we start getting new PCI-e 1x lan cards through 16x video cards, an all around improved PC experience via price and performance.

why do you think we haven't seen PCI-e 1x or 4x cards? ... because 98% of the market still has mobos with PCI slots (and AGP). If they made 1X & 4X cards now only a few people would buy them (entusiests with brand new mobos). also, any card that would be used in a 1x or 4x slot is a sound card (or the like). Apparently PCI is still fast enough for this and we don't need 1X & 4X PCI-e. X-Fi is a fine example... it looks like it will be using regular PCI slot. The fact is that PCI is still very usable, and so is AGP for single card rigs. My main complaint is: I feel like nVidia is holding out on AGP to "force" as many PCI-E Mobo & video upgrades as possible until ATI gets the R520 on the market (with AGP). I think it's wrong to lie to consumers saying "we're NOT gonna have any more AGP cards (so you better go buy our PCI-e parts)", but then knowing all along if ATI does it we're doing it too. At least they could say "we're uncertain of our AGP plans, but if it makes sense for the market, we'll do it".

 

[Gamingphreek]

What some of you are missing:

If you already have an AGP system you are satisfied with then there is no reason to simply drop it and go PCI-E.

However, if you are building a new system there is no reason to buy an AGP board.

-Kevin

 

[imported_Doughboy]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
What some of you are missing:

If you already have an AGP system you are satisfied with then there is no reason to simply drop it and go PCI-E.

However, if you are building a new system there is no reason to buy an AGP board.

-Kevin

The point is that a lot of people would still be able to be very happy with their rig, IF 7800s came in AGP form (even if it were only the GT model). A P4 3.2GHz (or better) machine is still very nice gaming rig. The bottom line: I wouldn't have to upgrade systems if they made 7800GT in AGP. I think we can agree that Mobos aren't all that profitable for manufactuers, unless you can sell more of them. This is why nVidia holds out on AGP, because they profit from nForce 4 sales too (Intel and AMD versions).

 

[JonnyBlaze]

i thought 7800's were cpu limited even with the 4000 amd chips??

using them on a p4 3.2 would be a waste wouldnt it?

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: Hacp
Ok to all those guys saying.. If you buy a 400 dollar video card (7800GT), why not a mobo? Well, maybe you have a Nforce 3 Ultra motherboard with an overclocked AMD 64? A 7800GT will be a good fit wouldn't it? Sure you can just spend 100 dollars on a mobo, but how many people are willing to just throw 100 dollars out the door? If 100 dollars is something that you people won't care about, then go ahead and get the PCI-E mobo with your video card. BUT, to people who have powerful rigs with AGP slots, they are not getting the performance they desire, and are not willing to waste 100 dollars. Heck the 400 spent on the GT will likely have broken their bank already.

plus anothe $150 for the 939 processor making it an additional $250 on top of the pci-e card

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: Doughboy
For the record I ordered my PCI-e MB and Vid card last night (eVGA 7800GTX KO). I'm not trying to make this a bitch session about opposing change and trying keep AGP forever. I completely enbrace change, when it actually has benifits. For those who don't require or can't afford SLI or Crossfire, the upgrade to PCI-e is difficult to swallow considering the performance gain is zero right now. I get that PCI-e is the future, no problem, but I don't understand why card makers don't continue to support AGP until the platform is dead. they still stand to make a lot of money off of us poor guys with last years AGP systems. The last time I checked my 3.8GHz Northwood was no slouch considering that the fastest CPU you can buy is also running at 3.8GHz (P4 570 & 670). If the AGP bus was maxed out, I'd understand. If it wasn't for the fact that card makers decided to stop supporting the PC that cost me Thousands of $$$, I'd still be sitting pretty... yeah, I guess I'm a little upset. I can still buy parts for a '65 mustang, but not a '04 PC. dirty, rotten PC industry.:Q

The bottom line is nVidia says "there will be no more AGP cards", but if ATI does, just watch 'em cough up a few. That's really what bothers me. If they stand by their word and really don't make AGPs, I can accept the change. But I feel like their holding back... time will tell.

Would you really want to be able to buy parts for a 1965 computer?

 

[imported_Doughboy]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
i thought 7800's were cpu limited even with the 4000 amd chips??

using them on a p4 3.2 would be a waste wouldnt it?

I'd like the choice to make that "poor" decision. From an article on FiringSquad.com it does show a CPU limitation, but you still ~double your frames by going with the 7800GTX over the 6800GT. I'd say that's a worthy investment if you could spend $400-600 to get it instead of ~$1200+ for a new rig.

 

[imported_Doughboy]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus

Originally posted by: Doughboy
For the record I ordered my PCI-e MB and Vid card last night (eVGA 7800GTX KO). I'm not trying to make this a bitch session about opposing change and trying keep AGP forever. I completely enbrace change, when it actually has benifits. For those who don't require or can't afford SLI or Crossfire, the upgrade to PCI-e is difficult to swallow considering the performance gain is zero right now. I get that PCI-e is the future, no problem, but I don't understand why card makers don't continue to support AGP until the platform is dead. they still stand to make a lot of money off of us poor guys with last years AGP systems. The last time I checked my 3.8GHz Northwood was no slouch considering that the fastest CPU you can buy is also running at 3.8GHz (P4 570 & 670). If the AGP bus was maxed out, I'd understand. If it wasn't for the fact that card makers decided to stop supporting the PC that cost me Thousands of $$$, I'd still be sitting pretty... yeah, I guess I'm a little upset. I can still buy parts for a '65 mustang, but not a '04 PC. dirty, rotten PC industry.:Q

The bottom line is nVidia says "there will be no more AGP cards", but if ATI does, just watch 'em cough up a few. That's really what bothers me. If they stand by their word and really don't make AGPs, I can accept the change. But I feel like their holding back... time will tell.

Would you really want to be able to buy parts for a 1965 computer?

No, I'll settle for an '04 computer.

 

[Tanclearas]

Once again, this is simple. Read these words. Before you moan about why manufacturers are not committing to AGP, read the words again.

Nvidia and ATI need to focus initial production (which is limited) to where the money is at. The money is with the OEM's. The OEM's are building new PC's. New PC's use PCIe. As shocking as this may sound to you, Nvidia and ATI are in business to make money. They are publicly traded companies. It is their responsibility to make money for their stockholders.

Once again, before you bitch and moan, read that paragraph again. Read it as many times as is necessary to make you understand how the world works.

Will they make AGP versions of their cards? Who knows. Even if they say they won't, they might. The AGP cards will be more expensive due to the necessity of a bridge chip. This means more bitching from AGP users, and even fewer sales of AGP product. These companies will need to be reasonably certain that time invested in testing the new generation of cards with the bridge chip will pay off. Honestly, if I was a betting man, that would not be a bet I'd make.

 

[knyghtbyte]

Originally posted by: Tanclearas
Once again, this is simple. Read these words. Before you moan about why manufacturers are not committing to AGP, read the words again.

Nvidia and ATI need to focus initial production (which is limited) to where the money is at. The money is with the OEM's. The OEM's are building new PC's. New PC's use PCIe. As shocking as this may sound to you, Nvidia and ATI are in business to make money. They are publicly traded companies. It is their responsibility to make money for their stockholders.

Once again, before you bitch and moan, read that paragraph again. Read it as many times as is necessary to make you understand how the world works.

Will they make AGP versions of their cards? Who knows. Even if they say they won't, they might. The AGP cards will be more expensive due to the necessity of a bridge chip. This means more bitching from AGP users, and even fewer sales of AGP product. These companies will need to be reasonably certain that time invested in testing the new generation of cards with the bridge chip will pay off. Honestly, if I was a betting man, that would not be a bet I'd make.

the man (or woman, sorry, didnt check your details..heh) is right..........these companies are here to make money, and the OEMs provide a large chunck of their revenue.....so they do what the OEMS want.....OEMS can always sell more products by saying 'Brand new type of technology in the XTA5000 home PC' rather than 'We've even managed to squeeze a couple more MHz out of the current technology for you in the XTA5000 home PC'........and also the bit about it costing them more to support both technologies, therefore driving prices higher........

only thing i wish they wouldnt do on Dell PC's is put the damn PCI-E 1x slot next to the 16x......my double width GTO covers the slot....rendering it useless....lol
not that i have anything to put in it atm, but ya never know...heh

 

[Ranulf]

Originally posted by: Doughboy

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
i thought 7800's were cpu limited even with the 4000 amd chips??

using them on a p4 3.2 would be a waste wouldnt it?

I'd like the choice to make that "poor" decision. From an article on FiringSquad.com it does show a CPU limitation, but you still ~double your frames by going with the 7800GTX over the 6800GT. I'd say that's a worthy investment if you could spend $400-600 to get it instead of ~$1200+ for a new rig.

Sweet Zombie Jesus. My impression here is, you built an agp system in the last year or so and are now bummed that during a tech change/transition period that you can't get the latest n greated uber video card for your older system right when they come out. Perhaps you should have waited then? Its not like you couldn't see the writing on the wall with regards to pcie vid cards in the last 6-12 months or more... the companies are going to lean that way. As Tanclearas said, its fiscally smarter for them to push pcie and its gonna take time for them to decide if an agp version is worth the expense. If you're going to upgrade your video cards every year to keep up with the latest fps etc., you better be prepared and do your homework otherwise, you'll get burned. Its the nature of the industry and especially video cards. You want the latest and greatest, be prepared to pay for multiple upgrades especially in a tech generational transition

Second, how do you get from 400-600 for a video card vs 1200 for a new rig? You'd buy all new parts? Reuse the case, hd, sound, ram, optical, ps, etc.. At most you'd need a new mobo, cpu (likely not) and vid card and you could sell the older stuff you won't use too.

 

[rbV5]

Tell me how you motivate OEMs to make PCIE cards without a motherboard to support it?
It is a chicken before the egg argument. PCIE is coming, get over it.

Get over it? I've had a PCIe rig for 7 or 8 months now, and PCIe motherboards have been out for longer than that. I've seen 1 lousy PCIe 1x card, and it was a crappy, overpriced Matrox G550 video card:roll:

If they are waiting for AGP and PCI slots to die before cranking out PCIe peripherals, we'll be waiting some time....cmon already.

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I dont really understand people who purchase just a video card when they upgrade. Unless you bought a S754(me) MB in the past 8-12 months you should have got a MB with PCIE.

What is there to not understand? What if you got one of the first 939 boards (like me, with my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum) based on nForce3 Ultra or K8T880? My board supports ALL of the latest procs, including X2 and FX-57. Why and how is this supposed to be dead and obsolete? ITS NOT FOR FRIGGEN SAKES!!! IMO, NVIDIA would stand to do good to release the 7800GT\X in AGP form, as it would give 98% of the market an option besides "old" 6-Series (or X800-Series) parts. It just seems like its a stupid move.

 

[coomar]

if your in the situation where you have a 939 agp board, sell your board, buy a pci-e version and the gtx, it would cost you the same anyways as if they had released an agp version (since they would charge more for the hassle and the bridge circuit)

if your socket 754, the platform is dying, with semprons & opterons going to 939, there is no reason for anyone to buy socket 754 but still for those with fx's/clawhammers on socket 754, its sucks for them

anyone else is not going to see the difference between a 6800gt/ultra compared to the 7800gtx due to their cpu unless they have some insane overclock

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Doughboy
Personally, I'd like to see AGP cards produced until AGP can't keep up with PCI-E (show me the benchmark!). It seems that vid card makers jumped the gun when making the switch to PCI-e.

Video card makers want the transition to be as quick as possible, so they are essentially nudging people to upgrade to PCI-e. You think having to make two versions of the same card is free? Or motherboard MFRs making 2 versions of the same board?

It's better for the industry if this switch is as quick as possible. It's not comparable to previous switches in slot designs because of the difficulty of co-existance. Maybe comparable with the transition from VESA Local Bus to PCI.

The PCI-e transition needed to happen. bandwidth was being choked from network and storage systems on the PCI bus. AGP was cool for the video card, but PCI-e works for that too, and it's much less complicated for MB manufacturers to boot. Looking at things only from the consumers standpoint doesn't make sense. You need to look at the whole picture the corproations are looking at. High end AGP cards are going to be such a niche market going forward, and without sufficient volumes their cost per unit will soar.

 

[Tanclearas]

Originally posted by: geforcetony
IMO, NVIDIA would stand to do good to release the 7800GT\X in AGP form, as it would give 98% of the market an option besides "old" 6-Series (or X800-Series) parts. It just seems like its a stupid move.

Wow. 98%? That's just about the most skewed figure I've ever heard. Trust me, it would be far closer to the truth to say that 98% of the market for new PC's (not including integrated graphics with no graphics slot) will be PCIe. Of the people with AGP-based systems, maybe 5% are actually likely to purchase an upgrade card. Even that 5% I would guess to be too high. I know far more people that never upgrade any component in their computer than people like you find on these forums.

 

[imported_Doughboy]

thanks all, some good discussion.
but I can't help that notice that most of the folks telling me to "get over it" have alreay taken the PCI-e plunge. Just an observation.

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: Tanclearas
Wow. 98%? That's just about the most skewed figure I've ever heard. Trust me, it would be far closer to the truth to say that 98% of the market for new PC's (not including integrated graphics with no graphics slot) will be PCIe. Of the people with AGP-based systems, maybe 5% are actually likely to purchase an upgrade card. Even that 5% I would guess to be too high. I know far more people that never upgrade any component in their computer than people like you find on these forums.

When I say 98% of the market, I mean 98& of the market still has AGP. Maybe its closer to 95%, but there is NO WAY that PCI-E outgunns AGP when it comes to market share. That's why its just plain silly to stop supporting the platform, especially since there is definitely life left in it.

 

[Valkerie]

was there ever a difference in speeds with AGP4x vs AGP8x?

ofcourse we'll see speed increases from AGP8x to PCI-e in the near future, such as when Unreal Engine 3.0 comes out and when Windows drivers and the software for PCI-e will develop eventually, but I'm just curious if AGP8x from AGP4x made any difference whatsoever and if it wasn't just a scam like the MX4000 trying to benefit from an AGP8x slot because the packaging said it was AGP8x? I doubt there was much difference for Geforce MX class cards, but maybe say, for a mobo with AGP4x using a Radeon 9700 with a mobo using AGP8x using a 9700?

anyone know about this?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Doughboy
why do you think we haven't seen PCI-e 1x or 4x cards? ... because 98% of the market still has mobos with PCI slots (and AGP).

Care to provide proof of 98%?

If they made 1X & 4X cards now only a few people would buy them (entusiests with brand new mobos).

Which is exactly why we need PCI-e quickly adopted, so that the companies can see that there is a userbase and that creating a product for PCI-e use would actually be a wise thing to do.

also, any card that would be used in a 1x or 4x slot is a sound card (or the like). Apparently PCI is still fast enough for this and we don't need 1X & 4X PCI-e.

You really don't get it do you? Its not about whether or not we need it faster, its about the fact that its all on the same bus which will reduce costs for motherboard manufacturers. No need for a special AGP slot or bus, its all on the PCI-e.

X-Fi is a fine example... it looks like it will be using regular PCI slot. The fact is that PCI is still very usable, and so is AGP for single card rigs.

thats fine, it is usable but it isn't the best for consumer and producer.

My main complaint is: I feel like nVidia is holding out on AGP to "force" as many PCI-E Mobo & video upgrades as possible until ATI gets the R520 on the market (with AGP). I think it's wrong to lie to consumers saying "we're NOT gonna have any more AGP cards (so you better go buy our PCI-e parts)", but then knowing all along if ATI does it we're doing it too. At least they could say "we're uncertain of our AGP plans, but if it makes sense for the market, we'll do it".

You should have done your research before recently purchasing an AGP motherboard. Anyone here could have told you that PCI-e was the future, and that sticking with AGP wouldn't be wise unless only for very short term. If you're going all-in with your savings on a video card, should you really be doing so? Can't you sell off the old motherboard to help with the costs of the new? Are we just being lazy?

 

[QueBert]

I went out of my way to find a 939 MB that has AGP. PCI-E offers me ZERO speed improvement. And, I have a few older AGP cards laying around, incase my X800 dies, I can pop in an older card in without having to buy shat.

PCI-E taking over is ineviable, it's already happening, but that doesn't mean it's better. It's the industy forcing a new standard down our throat (IE SATA, ATA166 etc etc etc) Maybe I'm just really stupid, but video card technology, we SHOULD be able to run the next 2 or 3 generations on AGP just fine. I have no problem with them rolling out PCI-E, but keep making AGP cards for people like me who won't buy a new MB until AGP isn't useful anymore.

I have a SATA HD, my IDE drive, I see no difference in performance at all. But, according to hardward manfacturing, I need SATA, SATAII because they're better.