AGP GPUs

[kieran]

I posted this in the anandtech and gamespot forums, too. But this place seemed like a good place to get some feedback as well.

So I'm (still) in the market for a good AGP video card to make my current
PC last as long as possible (I don't want to give up my Nvidia
soundstorm mobo, plus budget doesn't allow a new mobo, cpu, AND gpu,
especially when the current mobo/cpu work great).

The 7800gs seems to be the best choice, but at $250+ it's just a little
unreasonable for such a situation (i.e. delaying the inevitable). The
~$150 range seems more reasonable to me.

Also, I don't like to base purchase choices on the possible potential of a card *IF* it overclocks well, and/or pipelines unlock successfully. I prefer to buy
a product based on stock performance, then if it mods well, then great
that's gravy, but I won't wish I'd spent $20 more for the other one or
something like that, if it doesn't o/c or mod well.

Given that, how would you rank the current crop of AGP cards? 6600gt, 6800gs, 6800gt, 7600gs, 7800gs?

What about ATI agp cards? I don't know anything about ATI cards, as I've
been an nVidia guy for years. But where would an x850PRO, x1600pro/agp
or an x1600xt/agp etc., fall in this ranking? I like the comparison
site,
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

but I don't really understand a lot of the numbers,
except that bigger is probably better... but sometimes a card is higher
on some numbers, lower on others, and I'm not sure how that plays into
actual overall performance.

I'm strongly considering either the
6800gs or the 7600gs based on price, but not sure which is the better
performer. I'm slightly leaning toward the 7600gs, simply because of
the extra features that the 7-series offers (e.g. hdtv
encoding/decoding, possible Vista compatibility, etc.)

This computer is used for everything
from 3D games to media (divx encoding/playback, etc.), to CAD... but
it's really the games that drive the desire for a new card.

My
system: video card is a GF4 4600ti 128MB agp 8x, my cpu is an AthlonXP
3200+, 1GB of Corsair XMS TwinX pc3200 ram, 21" Sony G500 crt monitor.

Thanks for any advice...

[Mike]

Probably the best bang for the buck would be an AGP X1600 pro for a little over a hundred bucks. Above that (and below a 7800 gs) I'd recommend the 6800 gs which isn't much faster than the x1600, but has a decent change of unlocking to 16 pipelines and has much more memory bandwidth (i.e. it'll do AA and AF with less of a performance hit).

Also, it might be worth looking around on ebay for an old x8*0xt or 6800gt. If you can find one for under $200 that'd be a pretty good deal too.

[kieran]

Probably the best bang for the buck would be an AGP X1600 pro for a little over a hundred bucks. Above that (and below a 7800 gs) I'd recommend the 6800 gs which isn't much faster than the x1600, but has a decent change of unlocking to 16 pipelines and has much more memory bandwidth (i.e. it'll do AA and AF with less of a performance hit).

What about the soon-to-be-available 7600GT? How would you rank that relative to a 6800gs? (very similar price)

Also, it might be worth looking around on ebay for an old x8*0xt or 6800gt. If you can find one for under $200 that'd be a pretty good deal too.

You can get a 6800gt for $190~200. At that price, I'd just go for a refurbed 7800gs ($205 at newegg).

[Mike]

I'm expecting the 7600gt agp to be a little overpriced compared to native solutions, I might very well be wrong on that point, but right now the 7600 gs agp is almost $150, so I suspect the gt won't be any better...but definitely worth considering.

I wouldn't spend much more than $150 on a 6800gt right now. Honestly the *only* card I'd recommend for agp right now is the 7800gs, but he's trying to find something on the cheaper side.

[Track]

Probably the best bang for the buck would be an AGP X1600 pro for a little over a hundred bucks. Above that (and below a 7800 gs) I'd recommend the 6800 gs which isn't much faster than the x1600, but has a decent change of unlocking to 16 pipelines and has much more memory bandwidth (i.e. it'll do AA and AF with less of a performance hit).



The 6800 GS only has 12 pipelines. Only the 6800 GT can be un-locked to 16.
But even the 6800 GS is much better then the X1600, wich is like the worst mid-range card ive seen. It has far too little texture units wich cripples it. The 6800 GS has twice the memory bandwidth as well as having over twice the texture fill, at stock speeds and can be overclocked to the same frequency as the X1600, giving it the same ammount of shader operations.





I wouldn't spend much more than $150 on a 6800gt right now. Honestly the *only* card I'd recommend for agp right now is the 7800gs, but he's trying to find something on the cheaper side.


The 7800 GS is a waste of money, its worse then the 7600 GT and it costs far more. The X850XT should only be considered for high-end a AGP
machine.



Wierd.... :o

[Mike]

The 6800 GS only has 12 pipelines. Only the 6800 GT can be un-locked to 16.
But even the 6800 GS is much better then the X1600, wich is like the worst mid-range card ive seen. It has far too little texture units wich cripples it. The 6800 GS has twice the memory bandwidth as well as having over twice the texture fill, at stock speeds and can be overclocked to the same frequency as the X1600, giving it the same ammount of shader operations.
I know the 6800 GS only has 12 pipelines. That's why you'd have to UNLOCK it to get 16.

And the only reason to consider an x1600pro is the fact that it costs about $70 less than a 6800gs.

And you CANNOT overclock a 6800 GS to 500MHz to match the shader power on an x1600.

Basically you've completely missed my point and you have no idea what you're talking about.

The 7800 GS is a waste of money, its worse then the 7600 GT and it costs far more. The X850XT should only be considered for high-end a AGP machine.

The 7600 GT isn't available for AGP yet (or at least I've yet to see one in retail). So the 7800 GS is the only real choice, and yeah, it's a badly overpriced card.

[Track]

I know the 6800 GS only has 12 pipelines. That's why you'd have to UNLOCK it to get 16.

http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-6800-GS-PCI-E-card-354.html

No, it has 12, not 12 (16).


And the only reason to consider an x1600pro is the fact that it costs about $70 less than a 6800gs.

Its still worth it, for twice the memory bandwidth and texture fill. Its performance is defenetely worth the extra 70$, and much more.



And you CANNOT overclock a 6800 GS to 500MHz to match the shader power on an x1600.



The 6800 GS is built on the 110nm process, so its likely that with good cooling it would be possible to reach 500Mhz. (In reference to the 7800 GTX 512Mb wich got to 550Mhz)
But even if u couldnt, that small extra ammount of shader power wouldnt ammount to much.

You have written in ur explanation of "Texture Fill rate" that the X1600 is a horrible card due to it's ratio of texture units and shader pipelines. ATI gave the X1600 a little more shader pipelines and cut the texture units by 3, wich is a good ratio, example of wich are the X1900s but that only means that having a lot of texture fill and 3 times more shaders is good. Having just enough shader and 3 times less then enough texture is stupid. "Recently ATi has introduced the X1600s and X1900s, both of which feature a 3 to 1 ratio of pixel pipes to texture units. This crippled the X1600, but gave the X1900s a nice boost "




The 7600 GT isn't available for AGP yet (or at least I've yet to see one in retail). So the 7800 GS is the only real choice, and yeah, it's a badly overpriced card.

Of course its out, its been out for over 2 months now.
I even have one, taking into consideration where i live. I even bought it a month ago, for my sister's PC.


Of course i know what im talking abt. Ive been reading on graphics cards for over 3 months, for at least 5 hours a day.