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Why are agp users upgrading their gfx cards?

doodleplop

doodleplop

doodleplop

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3 Nov 2006
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46
hi im new here in terms of registering but i have read the forums for quite some time and have to say that this is the best forum i have ever visited.

I was just wondering why agp uses are upgrading their graphics cards when they will be obsolete within a year and a bit, im not having a dig i just want to get other peoples opinions. I myself am an agp user, i would move to pci-e but alas im in the 6thform, and cannot get a job no matter how hard i try, :( so money is too tight to upgrade yet.

thanks for any input

Jonny
 
To extend that PC's life. Brother has a P4 2.6ghz with a Geforce MX440 32MB. Lousy performance, a upgrade to ATI X1950 AGP should help for gaming. But he doesn't use it for gaming, if he did though it'll save changing everthing over (RAM, CPU, motherboard) although it only has 512MB it could do with more also.

But for others with 2GB, P4 3ghz machines it's not worth changing yet, if they upgrade from a ATI X600 AGP to the X1950 AGP get a huge boost in gaming.
 
doodleplop said:
this is the best forum i have ever visited.
Click to expand...

Why thank you :)

Welcome to the forum, make sure you read the FAQ.

Just as AGP appears to be dying ATI or Nvidia release a new card based on their current tech on AGP. Not sure how much longer it's going to continue but AGP still has a huge user base.

Jokester
 
thats a good point but would it not be better to save the money that would be spent on that new card and put it towards a pci-e system, especially since pci-e cards give better performance per pound
 
Welcome to the forums. :)

Yes people could do that, but for some its case of upgrading more than they want to, so they don't bother, for others it could just be a case of a new motherboard, and a PCI-E graphics card, as their existing CPU, Ram etc... is transferable to the new board. :)
 
Generaly speaking these days if you are relatively capable with hardware switching to a PCI-e motherboard and video card will cost about the same and maybe give you better upgradeability in the future (i.e SLi etc).

Having said that if you're not a fan of changing motherboards, or it would involve lots of componants (motherboards, PSU, case, GPU etc) there are some good AGP options to eek out a little more life from a good AGP system (nVidia 7800GS+, which is in effect a 512mb 7900 and the ATI 1950 pro).

AGP almost certainly won't make it to DX10 compatable cards, but if you have an aging system and want almost top end DX9 performance there are AGP options now (albeit relatively expensive ones).
 
Thanks for the replies guys, the switching of the motherboard is a good point, eg skt 939 mobos i spose. Not much hope for my old chip though lol, 1 thing I do find odd though is the current pricing of the 6800 cards (I know it is probably because of availability but it still sounds quite expensive).

Jonny
 
Don't forget that in recent years PCs have become more and more mainstream, so there are quite a few people wishing to play games on their computers, but who are relative novices to the hardware side of things and the prospect of having to replace motherboard (and hence often cpu, memory and even PSU) is probably quite daunting to them.

It's also true to say that these type of people will have pre-built systems, which (if recent) will often have a pretty decent cpu. Thus spending say £150 on a gfx card appeals a lot more than replacing a whole bunch of components at a much greater cost.

One thing I would say is that the move to PCI-E was arguably a little premature, I think it was more a case of hardware manufacturers scratching each others backs than a genuine need for a different interface. AGP 8x in performance terms is fine (this has been proven via direct comparison benchmarks with PCI-E) and cynics might suggest that the move to PCI-E was pushed through quicker than necessary in order to boost motherboard sales.
 
let me explain a little using myself as an example.
im planning on getting a new agp card for one of my agp systems.

i have a system which is:
abit nf7-s v2 motherboard
xp-m2600 @ 2.35ghz
1.5gb ram 2-2-2-11
80gig drive
radeon 9800pro 128mb.

now the above pc is not too shabby but its getting battered a bit in newer games.
now the main thing is that the pc is hooked up to my 32inch lcd tv which runs a resolution of 1360x768. now thats not a very demanding resolution so the gfx card does not need to have crazy power but it needs to ba able to do minimum 2xAA in all games its used for since on a big screen aliasing is easily noticable.

now insted of me shelling out a load of cash for a whole new pc setup i could just shell out around £110inc vat for a agp 7600gt gfx card and sell my 9800pro on for around 30 quid. so in total all i shell out is £80 to get this second pc powered up a bit.

above is exactly what i will be doing. will get a 7600gt agp since the x1950pro is very costly for what its worth.
 
I upgraded my AGP graphics card about... 6 months ago (or thereabouts?) when it became obvious that my 6600GT OC was beginning to struggle a bit. I bought a Gainward 7800GS+ and it's like the proverbial off a shovel - absolutely amazing performance.

I have a 3.2ghz P4 with 2GB DDR RAM and though I did toy with the idea of upgrading to a PCI-Express mobo, it would have meant not only the new motherboard but new memory as well and THEN the cost of the new graphics card. Considering how long it's likely to be before games start making full use of DX10, the card I bought should tide me over until I would have upgraded anyway.
 
the reason i don't want to go pci-e is that my cpu is still plenty quick enough for gaming. and i have 4x512mb ram and this is not transferable across to any pci-e mobo that supports my cpu (s479 dothan). a complete system upgrade is completely out of the question due to a lack of funds. :D
 
I don't upgrade my system particularly often - I just overclock it more. :)

I'm also a SFF junkie, so upgrading my system would cost more than a regular ATX board/case/etc.

PCI-E is the future, sure, but considering AGPx8 isn't even bandwidth-limited with a 7800GS+, is it as necessary as marketing folks make it out? I'm not convinced at this point in time.

Why should I upgrade my whole system for £400 when I can watercool it and overclock it to hell and back for £130? For £400, I would get a bit more performance, sure, but it wouldn't be any faster in Windows and the chances are I'd struggle to run Vista perfectly. So what would be the point? Especially with Quad Core and its refinements coming along so nicely?

We're approaching a paradigm shift in the computer gaming world and to me, upgrading now would be a complete waste of money: quad core, DDR2/3/whatever/Windows Vista/DX10 and everything else all make upgrading anything bar my graphics card seem rather pointless.
 
The only problem with AGP is choice.

It's a standard that's being phased out, and as such, finding motherboards with the newer sockets and processor support is difficult, as well as the cards themselves. There are few new models being released for the AGP market.

However, (and I know this is going to be controversal) I personally think AGP was killed by the motherboard companies for financial gains. Even now, the bus still comes nowhere near to saturation. PCI express was a completely unnecessary standard, however, people were forced to upgrade or face their boards becoming quickly obsolete.

I think we could move ALL cards to AGP and many wouldn't see any kind of performance penalty.
 
Secret_Window said:
Yes, some people (Skt A users) will have trouble upgrading boards without having to purchase a new cpu.
Click to expand...

i wouldn't stick a top end agp card in a socket a board. even when i used to run a 6800gt with an xp2500@3200, i felt my system was slightly cpu limited.... :D
 
have a x800 xtpe

i am tempted 2 upgrade but dont think it would be good in the long run.

i dont think my cpu is powerful enough (3.4ghz P4 ht) to handle upcoming games like crysis.

for the games i play: css, bf2, x3, coh the performance is acceptable.

sumtimes it gets a bit slow (ie 32 players css can go down to low 20s. even if i lower res and put all the settings really low).

but mostly my games run fine
 
doodleplop said:
hi im new here in terms of registering but i have read the forums for quite some time and have to say that this is the best forum i have ever visited.

I was just wondering why agp uses are upgrading their graphics cards when they will be obsolete within a year and a bit, im not having a dig i just want to get other peoples opinions. I myself am an agp user, i would move to pci-e but alas im in the 6thform, and cannot get a job no matter how hard i try, :( so money is too tight to upgrade yet.

thanks for any input

Jonny
Click to expand...

I upgraded to a 7600GT because before that I had a 9800 pro which wasn't much good for the more recent games. Next big upgrade will obviously include PCI-E
 
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