NVIDIA AGP DirectX 10 cards?

[ens_leader1]

Does NVIDIA make any AGP directX 10 cards? I just about a 7900 DirectX 9 card for about 200 but couldnt find any info on any directX 10 cards.

I would never EVER buy any ATI crap, so im just wondering whether Nvidia made anything DirectX 10 that is AGP.

[b10h4z4rd]

I don't believe so.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

There were rumours of them releasing 8800 cards as AGP 8x with some sort of bridge, but they never materialised :(

[zeta_immersion]

mah man, the age of agp stops at 9.0c thaz it ... if you want dx10 then you must get pci-e ... they dont even make agp anymore :D .... which is good and bax, cause i am stuck with an x800 and i wanna have sm3 to play some dirt and splinter cell and nfs which i know is a bit ... something

[Prince Charming]

I'm sure ATi were going to be doing an AGP part on the RV670 boards; an HD3850 or HD3870. ATi have a pretty good PCI-E > AGP bridge, at least so I heard. So don't lose all hope just yet :p

[wpp105]

  Pandya said:

I'm sure ATi were going to be doing an AGP part on the RV670 boards; an HD3850 or HD3870. ATi have a pretty good PCI-E > AGP bridge, at least so I heard. So don't lose all hope just yet :p

Well, Nvidia may or may not. But ATI is putting out a wickedly powerful 3850 AGP card via PowerColor.

http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_...?ProductID=1730

It is held up until Jan when ATI should have drivers for it.

I would wait to see how the drivers work before buying it though. The 2600 AGP cards

have many MANY game compatibility issues due to ATI only releasing AGP version of their drivers every 4-6 months vs PCIe that get new drivers every month.

-W

[Jay-UK]

I would personally say spend the little extra and get a board with PCI Express. Especially when you can find them from as little as ?20/$40. You could probably buy a slightly cheaper card and get better performance from the extra bandwidth, and also be prepared from the future!

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

It would be silly to purchase a new AGP card today, it's just old technology. You really won't get what you pay for. The performance just isn't there - especially in a DirectX 10 card.

[Digitalx]

saying ATi is "crap" when still using AGP, that's big...

[+Mystic MVC]

  jamesyfx said:

It would be silly to purchase a new AGP card today, it's just old technology. You really won't get what you pay for. The performance just isn't there - especially in a DirectX 10 card.

Perfectly said. Just save up until you are able to make your own PCI-E powered computer. It may seem like a stupid idea now (saving a ton), but in the long run, you will be alot happier.

[chconline Veteran]

  Digix said:

saying ATi is "crap" when still using AGP, that's big...

Haha exactly. :p

[raskren]

  jamesyfx said:

The performance just isn't there - especially in a DirectX 10 card.

It's not? Can you share your AGP vs. PCIe DX10 benchmarks then?

[Jay-UK]

  raskren said:

It's not? Can you share your AGP vs. PCIe DX10 benchmarks then?

There's no way they could be compared as AGP has at least half and sometimes more than 50% less bandwidth, you could have a dual GPU high end card in AGP and a single GPU in PCI Express and the AGP would still lose.

[Digitalx]

  Jay-UK said:

There's no way they could be compared as AGP has at least half and sometimes more than 50% less bandwidth, you could have a dual GPU high end card in AGP and a single GPU in PCI Express and the AGP would still lose.

if such technology did exsist, remember no dual gpu's with agp except for i think that 6600 limited series with dual chips on one card but still no dual physical cards ;)

[thejohnnyq]

  ens_leader1 said:

Does NVIDIA make any AGP directX 10 cards? I just about a 7900 DirectX 9 card for about 200 but couldnt find any info on any directX 10 cards.

I would never EVER buy any ATI crap, so im just wondering whether Nvidia made anything DirectX 10 that is AGP.

nVidia does have them, the 8500 and above are Directx 10. I bought once PCI and one AGP that support Directx 10

[raskren]

  Jay-UK said:

There's no way they could be compared as AGP has at least half and sometimes more than 50% less bandwidth, you could have a dual GPU high end card in AGP and a single GPU in PCI Express and the AGP would still lose.

Any hard numbers to back this up or are you going to impress us with speculation and theories?

[chconline Veteran]

Well, of course he's under the assumption that the card uses the maximum potential of a PCI Express x16 slot. Unless it uses all the bandwidth, then the performance difference would favor the one with the faster graphics card, instead of the combination with the slower graphics card and a PEG slot. :p

[Ajapi]

  Jay-UK said:

There's no way they could be compared as AGP has at least half and sometimes more than 50% less bandwidth, you could have a dual GPU high end card in AGP and a single GPU in PCI Express and the AGP would still lose.

Your argument would be valid if video cards utilized all the bandwidth available to them. It was proven upon the release of PCI-E that cards didn't really need any more bandwidth than AGP offered, hence the NULL difference in performance. A similarly unnecesary move was the release of dual 16x laned SLi boards being touted as superior to dual 8x lanes for the same performance. Quite frankly, the extra bandwidth PCI-E offers just isn't used. Perhaps the very latest and greatest cards, such as the 8800GTX, use more bandwidth than an AGP port would allow them, but that is just about the only case in which the technology behind AGP itself would be a limiting factor.

That said, investing in a high-end AGP video card is unwise, since it is to dig yourself deeper into a hole of components that you won't be able to upgrade. Chances are your motherboard still uses DDR1, AGP, and perhaps even a CPU socket that has been discontinued. Thus, any upgrade to such a system would be an exercise in futility, since the rest of the components are either lacking or will be soon. A modest recommendation on my behalf would be to wait longer, get the most out of your current system, and make a system-wide overhaul when you can.

[corrosive23]

  thejohnnyq said:

nVidia does have them, the 8500 and above are Directx 10. I bought once PCI and one AGP that support Directx 10

Do you have a link to them? Because even nVidia says there isn't one.

[Budious]

  raskren said:

Any hard numbers to back this up or are you going to impress us with speculation and theories?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths

PCI Express (x8 link)^[15] 16,000 Mbit/s 2000 MB/s

AGP 8x 17,066 Mbit/s 2133 MB/s

Keep in mind that first generation crossfire and sli solutions run each card at x8 PCI-E speeds so AGP 8x is running out of capacity but perhaps not yet a bottleneck in the real world.

[raskren]

  Budious said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths

PCI Express (x8 link)^[15] 16,000 Mbit/s 2000 MB/s

AGP 8x 17,066 Mbit/s 2133 MB/s

Keep in mind that first generation crossfire and sli solutions run each card at x8 PCI-E speeds so AGP 8x is running out of capacity but perhaps not yet a bottleneck in the real world.

Those are bandwidth figures.

Where are the video card performance figures?

[a-l-e-x]

Powercolor came out with the 3850 AGP. DX10.1 card! Too bad its not the 3870.

http://www.powercolor.com/Global/pro...ProductID=1730

Availability in January, pending driver release

And maybe more powerful agp cards from ati coming out in the future?

Edited December 31, 2007 by a-l-e-x

[Mando]

  zeta_immersion said:

mah man, the age of agp stops at 9.0c thaz it ... if you want dx10 then you must get pci-e ... they dont even make agp anymore :D .... which is good and bax, cause i am stuck with an x800 and i wanna have sm3 to play some dirt and splinter cell and nfs which i know is a bit ... something

Meh put down the crack pipe ;) DX10 does NOT need PCI-e buddy :) Its a 3d hardware API and has no graphic card interface contraints.

If you want a good AGP card dood find a 7950GT on AGP ;) (I have the 7800GT golden Sample on AGPx8)

There was noises made that 8800GS cards would appear on AGP from selected Vendors (BFG or Gainward i "think") but in all honesty the 7950GT would prolly wee on the GS anyways

[Jay-UK]

All my info was based on hypothetical situations, based on what would be the wisest purchase not just for now, but to maybe save you having to spend more money in a short (probably very short) time. With the advances in graphics technology, it's not going to be long before pci express is used to it's full potential, and dual / triple setups improve too. Simple fact is, what's the point in spending the cash on a dying technology. When you could, for example, either spend ?100 on an AGP card, or ?25 on a motherboard with pci-express and ?75 on a new card. The worst case scenario is that you'll get the same (most probably better) graphics performance, but will also be somewhat prepared for the future.

[raskren]

  Jay-UK said:

When you could, for example, either spend ?100 on an AGP card, or ?25 on a motherboard with pci-express and ?75 on a new card. The worst case scenario is that you'll get the same (most probably better) graphics performance, but will also be somewhat prepared for the future.

You conveniently left out a few additional hardware items that would be required to transition from AGP to PCIe.

Systems with AGP slots typically utilize DDR-1 and the last models produced had Intel socket 478 or AMD socket 754 (there few a few socket 939 boards made with AGP slots but not many). That means you'd need a new CPU, RAM, motherboard and a graphics card. You'll also need Windows Vista to play DX10 games.

In my opinion, a fast graphics card in a late Pentium 4 or Athlon X2 system still makes sense price-wise (but probably not too much longer).