What is the top of the line AGP card available

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 5:49 pm

I have a Radeon 9500 with the 9700 softmod, I'm looking to upgrade, but would like to push just a little more life of my AGP motherboard. What is top of the line or the most bang for your buck AGP card?

Veggita2099 · Post by **Veggita2099** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:07 pm

I would guess the geforce 7X series?

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:28 pm

Yeah I've looked at this one BFG GeForce 7600 GS AGP 512MB DDR Video Card w/HDTV Support & DVI-I Retail ***Free Shipping*** Would that be a big improvement over my 9500?

Post by **melancholy** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:30 pm

Very much so. A GT would be better than a GS, but the only GT version on that site has only 256mb and is $15 more, so the benefits would counteract each other.

APE · Post by **APE** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:24 am

The latest ATi agp offering is frame for frame just about as fast as it's pci-e model. Like 1-2fps difference in a handful of instances. Really was no reason to ditch AGP at this point.

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:55 am

X1950 Pro is faster.

A friend is selling me his 6800 Ultra AGP pretty cheap. If he werent selling it to me cheap, i'd go for the X1950 Pro.

Vlad Tepes · Post by **Vlad Tepes** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:32 am

neoak wrote:X1950 Pro is faster.

A friend is selling me his 6800 Ultra AGP pretty cheap. If he wasnt selling it, i'd go for the X1950 Pro.

I was thinking about an X1950 Pro...but I can't find one. Really, though...I haven't been looking too hard.

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:37 am

So the X1950 has the best performance, yes. It looks like they cost around $200, which isn't to awful bad.

Post by **melancholy** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:40 am

If you can spare the $200, then definitely get the X1950. I just assumed you had a $150 budget.

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:12 am

melancholy wrote:If you can spare the $200, then definitely get the X1950. I just assumed you had a $150 budget.

I didn't really want to spend much more then that, but if it's only $50 more for the best card, I figure why not splurg a little.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:58 am

ace wrote:Really was no reason to ditch AGP at this point.

I think the reasons had to do with the quality of AGP as a standard (it never was a "real" standard, more like Intel's own hacked version of PCI), and the fact that PCI needed to be replaced anyway as the standard PC expansion bus. If it was up to ATI and NVidia, AGP would probably have stuck around for another 10 years.

Code-Red · Post by **Code-Red** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:08 pm

There is a reason to ditch AGP. It's dated.

AGP x8 = 2.1 GB/sec half duplex (4 Bytes @ 533 MHz)
PCI-E x16 Base 1.1 = 4 GB/sec full duplex (2 Bytes @ 2 GHz*)

Thats open to debate, however the new Base 2.0 increases bandwidth to 5GB/sec.

Oh, and AGP cards are starting to drop off in production (if they havent already). Radeon x1950 and GeForce 7600 cards are pretty much your last option now.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:21 pm

IIRC, benchmarks have shown that for most real games/apps (i.e. not synthetic tests that intentionally stress the CPU-GPU link), link bandwidth doesn't seriously affect performance until you go below a x4 PCIe link (the test took advantage of PCIe's link negotiation process by taping over some of the pins on the cards). I'd provide a link but I can't readily find it right now.

Vlad Tepes · Post by **Vlad Tepes** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:50 am

I've been thinking about getting an X1950. Been reading good things about it. I'm not planning on building a new PC for at least another year, and I think an X1950 will hold 'til then. If nothing else, it should give Company of Heroes a much needed boost on my machine.

Code-Red · Post by **Code-Red** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:39 am

Next up for me is Dual SLi 8800's. I think I've had just about of ATi, considering I've been with them the last 12-14 years.

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 10:02 pm

Code-Red wrote:Next up for me is Dual SLi 8800's. I think I've had just about of ATi, considering I've been with them the last 12-14 years.

If one goes by the massive amount of R600 and R6X0 cards the OEMs are buying, i'd wait for the R600 first.

It seems Dell is buying a lot of R600 for the XPS line and Alienware desktops.

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:20 pm

melancholy wrote:If you can spare the $200, then definitely get the X1950. I just assumed you had a $150 budget.

What do you guys think about this card Radeon X1950PRO 512MB Only $150 after rebate, what do you think?

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:54 pm

Calavera wrote:
melancholy wrote:If you can spare the $200, then definitely get the X1950. I just assumed you had a $150 budget.
What do you guys think about this card Radeon X1950PRO 512MB Only $150 after rebate, what do you think?

I just noticed the rebate is only valid 7-1-07 to 7-31-07 so I guess today would be the last day to buy it.

APE · Post by **APE** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:56 pm

That card is pure win.

Calavera · Post by **Calavera** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:18 pm

I just wonder if the rebate would still be good if I bought it today.

What is the top of the line AGP card available

What is the top of the line AGP card available

Re:

Re: Re:

Re: What is the top of the line AGP card available

Re: What is the top of the line AGP card available