The current AGP situation - Availability and whats coming.....

NeoReloaded · 1 Feb 2006 at 14:57

valve90210 said:
Before I go ahead and order a 7800GS, can I just ask something?

I have a P4 2.8Ghz, 512Mb of RAM (not sure on exactly what kind/speed etc off the topp of my head), a Geforce FX5200.

I play Halflife 2 (on reasonable settings with no problems) and Far Cry (or rather want to but my card cries like a little girl and it's hella slow).

My main reason for upgrading my card is because I want to change to a dual monitor setup as I do a lot of work in Photoshop and Quark. My current card doesn't have the outputs to do this so I want to change card to one with a dvi & a VGA output. I only have AGP and I don't want to upgrade anything else cos I don't need to at the mo as everything runs nicely.

I figured that while upgrading my graphics card I might as well go for the quickest one I can to see me a reasonable amount of time into the future.

Now am I being mad to go for this card, would I be better off going for something a bit cheaper like the 6800GS or is it worth my while going for this one???

Valve

I would suggest getting some more RAM as well dude as the 512mb you have now will only hold the card back

valve90210 · 1 Feb 2006 at 15:46

NeoReloaded said:
I would suggest getting some more RAM as well dude as the 512mb you have now will only hold the card back

Yeah I was going to upgrade that as well once I know what I've got in there at the moment. Will probably go up to 1gig.

Well here goes, think I'm gonna phone up now!!!

Valve

Vegeta · 1 Feb 2006 at 16:15

If the 7800GS is preety good I might be temped to sell my 6800nu and get one.

HangTime · 1 Feb 2006 at 16:33

valve90210 said:
Yeah I was going to upgrade that as well once I know what I've got in there at the moment. Will probably go up to 1gig.

My recommendation would be to add 1gig RAM to bring yourself up to 1.5gig, that's the sweet spot for memory right now. 1gig is suboptimal for running games like BF2, FEAR, WoW and FC on high settings.

SithUK · 1 Feb 2006 at 17:16

The 7800GS AGP will be £240ish.

An Asus Socket 478 board with x16 PCI express is £60.
A 7800GT pci-express card is £200

So the price difference comes down to £20 more for the AGP. Looks like Nvidea have been fairly savvy with the pricing. Keep in mind the 7800GT is about 10% faster.

This will be a tough call for me. Do I lumber myself with an AGP card which will lose a lot of resell value in a year or go with a PCI-express card which should hold it's resell value.

What are you guys going to do?

Gibbo · 1 Feb 2006 at 17:52

SithUK said:
The 7800GS AGP will be £240ish.

An Asus Socket 478 board with x16 PCI express is £60.
A 7800GT pci-express card is £200

So the price difference comes down to £20 more for the AGP. Looks like Nvidea have been fairly savvy with the pricing. Keep in mind the 7800GT is about 10% faster.

This will be a tough call for me. Do I lumber myself with an AGP card which will lose a lot of resell value in a year or go with a PCI-express card which should hold it's resell value.

What are you guys going to do?

Chances are AGP will hold its value better. PCI-E cards de-value very quick due to ATI and NVIDIA releasing new cards all the time.

7800 GS is a cracking card and reasonably well priced.

HangTime · 1 Feb 2006 at 17:54

Personally if it was that simply a choice I'd go with the pci-e board and 7800GT. It's significantly faster than the 7800GS and you should also be getting a better mobo than your existing one (I would hope....). Furthermore it would allow you to make a simple PCI-E replacement in the future should you feel the need.

Gibbo · 1 Feb 2006 at 17:54

Yaka said:
btw nice and fast phone service much better than before mate

Yep OcUK misses very few calls now, new phone system and staff training working superbly.

ajgoodfellow · 1 Feb 2006 at 18:30

HangTime said:
Personally if it was that simply a choice I'd go with the pci-e board and 7800GT. It's significantly faster than the 7800GS and you should also be getting a better mobo than your existing one (I would hope....). Furthermore it would allow you to make a simple PCI-E replacement in the future should you feel the need.

I agree with this

If you're on Socket 478/754/939 or LGA775 then it's worth looking at PCI-E, unless you don't want a re-install or if you need a new PSU

This is perfect for people on socket A (who could have clocked mobile Bartons or XP3200 chips which are still fine) or on Socket 940 where there isn't a viable PCI-E alternative (only one S940 PCI-E board for £170 with v. limited availability)

Cyber-Mav · 1 Feb 2006 at 18:48

yea this is a good card for guys with overclocked xp and xp-m cpus.

Lanz · 1 Feb 2006 at 18:48

Any AGP 7800 will hold its price really well, just like the top end products of any dead format (P3 1.4ghz, Xp3200, P4 2.8ghz 400mhz etc) they are all still quite expensive.

Tute · 1 Feb 2006 at 19:16

I think this card is a great idea for people who also don't want to upgrade their mobo. I don't see why I should ditch my DFI nF3 250Gb, which will hit 300HTT with good RAM or on a divider.
I mean come on, what would you have? An AGP board which is known stable and a good clocker, or a PCIe board which is, pretty much, a bit of an unknown quantity.

Cyber-Mav · 1 Feb 2006 at 19:22

i find my system to be perfectly stable, i even have a 1 gig stick of ddr on order crom crucial for only 50 quid inc vat so i will soon have 2 gigs of ram. going to a new pci format is useless for me since the cpu im happy with but need more gfx card power.

Gibbo · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:12

Hi there

7800 GS from BFG and XFX will be on the site tomorrow around lunch time.

Tute · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:24

Gibbo said:
Hi there

7800 GS from BFG and XFX will be on the site tomorrow around lunch time.

Will they ship tomorrow?

Cyber-Mav · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:27

awsome, top stuff. i will check the specs of the cards first and see the price difference. and then order one that is really good.

then again, i may just wait out for a review to show up which compares the difference between the 7800gs and the 6800gs/gt need to see what sort of difference this card will make for me and if its worth the poundage.

Gibbo · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:40

Tute said:
Will they ship tomorrow?

Yes already in stock and we have plenty so they ship tomorrow.

Cyber-Mav · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:42

im guessing the bfg lifetime warranty will be useless on this card since its product life will be ended in around 6 months or even less. so will be interested in a card that has long warranty these days.

The Running Man · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:52

Gibbo said:
Chances are AGP will hold its value better. PCI-E cards de-value very quick due to ATI and NVIDIA releasing new cards all the time.

i can lay testament to this working in the IT industry, i get to look after stock, and haggle cost prices with some of our disty's

the costs i have on some x800xl PCIE 256mb are unbelievable...

think its worth waiting for the 7900GT/X so we can see what happens to 7800GTX PCI prices as i predict a fall.

Tute · 1 Feb 2006 at 20:55

Cyber-Mav said:
im guessing the bfg lifetime warranty will be useless on this card since its product life will be ended in around 6 months or even less. so will be interested in a card that has long warranty these days.

I'm pretty sure that BFG would replace it with a "similar" card if they can't replace it like-for-like.