Dear Sir:
in general is the AGP/PCIE16 tradeoff more important than the
number of pipelines? I am debating ATI AIW X800 vs X600. There have
been poor remarks concerning the X600. Anyone really satisfied with it?
Thank you
The only reason to buy a PCIE system or MB at this time is for future
upgrades, and personally, I don't believe even that is much of a good
reason. Sure, in five years, when most or all high end video cards will be
PCIE, you'll be able to slap a Radeon X900000 in there, but the rest of the
system will end up being too slow, and that's if PCIE in it's current form
is still around, as opposed to PCIE 4X or v. 2.8 or something.
All you have to do is observe the history of the AGP standards that came
about since it's creation. Now, some newer motherboards won't even support
older AGP cards, as well as the reverse. Plugging an X800 AIW AGP card into
my AMD K5 system would be downright silly, and might end up burning
something up.
In fact, nobody has managed to saturate the AGP bus yet, so it could still
end up being somewhat of a standard for a few years yet, even for high end
systems.
I suppose another reason for PCIE is SLI. Cute concept, but I have doubts
it'll take off. Time will tell whether folks are willing to spend an extra
$500 plus just to play video games faster.
So, to answer your question, I suggest you buy the video card that fits
whatever system you plan on putting together, meets your needs, and meets
your budget. Myself, I'd go with the AIW X800. It's certainly not going to
be slowed down by the AGP bus. However, if you have your heart set on PCIE,
wait a few months, or less, because that version of this card is on the way.
I'm going to wait about two years before going with PCIE hardware. I'll be
upgrading four home computers, and I'd like to see what wins out, as well as
save the money early adopters are going to be shelling out.
As for the benchmarks for the X600, take those, and all other benchmarks and
reviews, with a huge grain of salt. These depend entirely on what the
reviewer expects, and lets face it, some folks expect entirely too much. I
can play Doom 3 and Half Life 2 just fine on a 9600XT AIW, and while the
benchmarks or quality might not impress somebody with bleeding edge hardware
that cost a fortune, they certainly impressed my friends and I, and didn't
break the bank in the process.
Pagan
