AGP or PCI-E

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe Somma
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J

Joe Somma

Hi All

I wanted to ask an opinion and get some feedback, i have noticed alot of new
cards coming out as pci express, obviously to work on the newer
motherboards.

But would it be wasting my time in purchasing an AGP variant of the 800xt
video card or you think that AGP will be around for some time.

Thanks in Advance

Joe
 
Joe Somma said:
Hi All

I wanted to ask an opinion and get some feedback, i have noticed alot of new
cards coming out as pci express, obviously to work on the newer
motherboards.

But would it be wasting my time in purchasing an AGP variant of the 800xt
video card or you think that AGP will be around for some time.
Click to expand...
AGP will still have a place as long as there are CPUs available for the
current AGP motherboard chip sockets.

As a guide, PCI slots first came out around 1995 and ISA slots were
still available in motherboards (e.g Abit KT7a) right up until ~2000.

--
Conor

Greedo shot first. Greedo ALWAYS shot first. You did not see Solo shoot
first.
It never happened. Never, ever. Not in any version. Remember: Greedo
shot first.
 
Joe Somma said:
Hi All

I wanted to ask an opinion and get some feedback, i have noticed alot of
new cards coming out as pci express, obviously to work on the newer
motherboards.

But would it be wasting my time in purchasing an AGP variant of the 800xt
video card or you think that AGP will be around for some time.

Thanks in Advance

Joe
Click to expand...

Considering that pretty much every PC out there has an AGP slot, there will
be a huge market for many years for AGP cards. I estimate 5-6 years before
AGP video cards are phased out completely. Most of these new technologies
take a lot of time (in computer terms) to make mainstream. The average gamer
keeps their PC around 3 years with adding an upgrade along the way, so those
buying AGP systems now, which most still are, will want an upgrade in 1.5-2
years. It wouldn't make financial sense for card makers to completely
abandon AGP in favor of PCI-E. I mean hell, PCI is a ten+ year old standard
and there are still PCI video cards a-plenty available.
 
HockeyTownUSA said:
Considering that pretty much every PC out there has an AGP slot, there
will be a huge market for many years for AGP cards. I estimate 5-6 years
before AGP video cards are phased out completely. Most of these new
technologies take a lot of time (in computer terms) to make mainstream.
The average gamer keeps their PC around 3 years with adding an upgrade
along the way, so those buying AGP systems now, which most still are, will
want an upgrade in 1.5-2 years. It wouldn't make financial sense for card
makers to completely abandon AGP in favor of PCI-E. I mean hell, PCI is a
ten+ year old standard and there are still PCI video cards a-plenty
available.
Click to expand...

But PCI was never phased out in favor of AGP, AGP always coexisted with it.
PCI Express is supposed to replace both AGP and PCI.
 
Totally agree.

And, in my experience, when you eventually replace your old mobo with a new
one (which will include PCI-E) you will be glad that your old mobo has a
fast gfx card since this should allow it to be used as a secondary (or
kid's) PC even allowing for the increased demands of future software.

My kids are using an Athlon 1100 for a range of purposes (including games)
thanks to an nVidia FX5200 card which I passed down to them when I upgraded
to an ATI 9600 Pro.

But AGP will die commercially very quickly (in the sense that all new mobos
will soon feature PCI-E only).

Bobby
 
Joe,
PCI Express is a new concept in PC I/O whereby there are many, (1>16),
dedicated bi-directional serial channels.
AGP, (at x8), has run out of steam at 2.1GB/sec and PCI-Express potentially
offers 16 x 200MB/sec performance with a 16-channel slot.

A useful review of the new bus is available here:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1087&page=1

And of course, where it is all decided:
http://www.pcisig.com/home

New machines are now shipped with PCI Express, e.g. Dell; so get used to it.
BTW, the cards look similar, as do the sockets, there's just 1/4" offset in
the socket's position.

John
 
John said:
PCI Express is a new concept in PC I/O whereby there are many, (1>16),
dedicated bi-directional serial channels.
AGP, (at x8), has run out of steam at 2.1GB/sec and PCI-Express
potentially offers 16 x 200MB/sec performance with a 16-channel slot.
Click to expand...

Of course, we should aslo mention that even the very fastest of the new
generation graphics cards use no way near the full bandwidth of AGP; don't
be misled into thinking that a PCIe card will run faster than the equivalent
AGP version.
 
John said:
Joe,
PCI Express is a new concept in PC I/O whereby there are many, (1>16),
dedicated bi-directional serial channels.
AGP, (at x8), has run out of steam at 2.1GB/sec and PCI-Express
potentially offers 16 x 200MB/sec performance with a 16-channel slot.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but AGP has hardly "run out of steam". While PCI Express offers more
bandwidth, it's debatable whether there is any need for bandwidth greater
than AGP 4x provides--there has been no clearly demonstrated improvement in
performance when going to a higher bandwith than that.

It's mostly hype. A way to sell more hardware.
A useful review of the new bus is available here:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1087&page=1

And of course, where it is all decided:
http://www.pcisig.com/home

New machines are now shipped with PCI Express, e.g. Dell; so get used to
it. BTW, the cards look similar, as do the sockets, there's just 1/4"
offset in the socket's position.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we do seem to be stuck with it.
 
None of the responses are really answering the original question.

As I understand it, he's building a new system from scratch, including a
new motherboard. The question was, AGP or PCIx. Given that
everything's new, no one has given a reason not to go with PCIx.

It is partially a question of cost vs. performance. The PCIx system
will presumably be both higher performance and more expandable to the
higher performance video cards in the future (for example, in 2007 (or 8
or 9), it's quite possible that the highest performance cards will all
be offered only in PCIx).
 
Barry said:
None of the responses are really answering the original question.

As I understand it, he's building a new system from scratch, including a
new motherboard. The question was, AGP or PCIx. Given that
everything's new, no one has given a reason not to go with PCIx.
Click to expand...

No, the question was AGP or PCI-_E_. PCI-_X_ is a 64-bit implementation of
PCI running at 66 MHz or faster and commonly found on servers. And don't
bother to tell me about nvidia's "PCX" brand name--that has nothing to do
with any standard, but some marketroid no doubt figured that it would serve
up a good dose of FUD.
It is partially a question of cost vs. performance. The PCIx system
will presumably be both higher performance
Click to expand...

Any performance improvement would come from using a newer chipset that
supports faster memory or a faster FSB. Video performance is not
bottlenecked by the AGP 4X interface at this time--there is no benefit in
terms of video performance from using PCI Express. It can feed bits to a
gigabit Ethernet board at full speed if something in the machine can
generate them, but unless the machine is doing some kind of massive
calculation, you'd need a huge PCI Express drive array to feed that gigabit
board, and there aren't any high performance PCI Express RAID controllers
on the market as yet.
and more expandable to the
higher performance video cards in the future (for example, in 2007 (or 8
or 9), it's quite possible that the highest performance cards will all
be offered only in PCIx).
Click to expand...

However, in 2007 or 8 or 9 is their going to be much point to putting a high
performance video board in a 3 or 4 or 5 year old motherboard?
On the other hand, in terms of what you will pay today, the PCIx system
is likely to be quite a bit more expensive.
Click to expand...

Newegg has PCI Express motherboards in stock for $89 and PCI Express video
boards for $65. While that's higher than their cheapest AGP boards, I
wouldn't call the price difference "quite a bit more expensive".
 
Joe said:
Hi All

I wanted to ask an opinion and get some feedback, i have noticed alot of new
cards coming out as pci express, obviously to work on the newer
motherboards.

But would it be wasting my time in purchasing an AGP variant of the 800xt
video card or you think that AGP will be around for some time.

Thanks in Advance

Joe
Click to expand...

AGP will be around for sometime to come. Considering all the latest high
performance machines bought/sold in the past couple years ppl are not
going to jump onto pci-e as the cost is too prohibitive for a total
revamp. This doesnt include users who have the money and want bleeding
edge. The vast majority will be quite happy with the performance of
todays machines for a few years to come.
 
Gordon Scott:
AGP will be around for sometime to come. Considering all the latest high
performance machines bought/sold in the past couple years ppl are not
going to jump onto pci-e as the cost is too prohibitive for a total
revamp.
Click to expand...

AGP will be extinct in less than 18 months. Wait and see.
 
AGP will be extinct in less than 18 months. Wait and see.

That has certainly been the way of it in the PC industry.

Hey, look on the bright side - an ATI 9800 Pro for $50 in six months!
 
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