to all the AGP haters...

Our "pub" where you can post about things completely Off Topic or about non-silent PC issues.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

to all the AGP haters...

Post by mr. poopyhead » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:00 pm

i haven't really seen any on this board but....
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/10/ ... -analysis/

viva la AGP!

it's good to see that sensible people are still fighting against nV/ATi's attempts to shorten the life cycle of AGP. Stupid marketers...

PopCorn
Posts: 346
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: U.S.A. Massuchusetts...... *Folding For SPCR*
Contact:

Post by PopCorn » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:29 pm

yea but see you can only get so fast on AGP.... you can get faster speeds on PCIe and PCIe can be used for more than just video card so.... within a year i see AGP completely out-dated and will start to lose support

autoboy
Posts: 1008
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:10 pm
Location: San Jose, California

Post by autoboy » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:18 pm

PopCorn wrote:yea but see you can only get so fast on AGP.... you can get faster speeds on PCIe and PCIe can be used for more than just video card so.... within a year i see AGP completely out-dated and will start to lose support
Not true. There is no indication that the AGP is the bottleneck. In this article they use a relatively slow processor (XP 2500+) and a fast graphics card. The processor is holding the system back, not AGP. When they test the A64 3400+ in the next article, it will give a better indication if the AGP is holding it back. Still , there are faster processors than that on AGP. You can still run an FX-55 single core, or a fast 939 dual cores with an AGP chipset. Even some Core 2 Duo boards still support AGP. It is not dead because of any techincal reasons, just marketing reasons.

While games may, or may not be bottlenecked by AGP, PCI-e provides significantly more upstream bandwidth than AGP which helps with other applications like physics and stream processing. It is the future, but AGP still has legs.

AGP is kinda like a car that is really slow in reverse, but still fast going forward. PCI-e is just as fast going forward as backwards. How often do you drive fast backwards?

PopCorn
Posts: 346
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: U.S.A. Massuchusetts...... *Folding For SPCR*
Contact:

Post by PopCorn » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:24 pm

well i agree with you... right now im usung agp i mean that maybe in another year or two its not gonna used as much as it currently seeing how i havent seen ANY agp AM2s and most of the newer MoBos are switching over..... and how often do you drive in reverse ? think about video and forward... what about all the raid cards that are PCIe

mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

Post by mr. poopyhead » Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:30 pm

there's a review of the X1950 Pro out there that pits the AGP version against the PCI-e version. the PCI-e version edged it out in most test by a VERY small margin...

which helps to prove what most of us knew when PCI-e was introduced... that this whole PCI-e nonsense was mostly a cash-grab by nvidia and ATi.

autoboy
Posts: 1008
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:10 pm
Location: San Jose, California

Post by autoboy » Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:39 pm

mr. poopyhead wrote:there's a review of the X1950 Pro out there that pits the AGP version against the PCI-e version. the PCI-e version edged it out in most test by a VERY small margin...

which helps to prove what most of us knew when PCI-e was introduced... that this whole PCI-e nonsense was mostly a cash-grab by nvidia and ATi.
Actually, Intel was the first to push PCI-e. They are the first to push many new technologies that are not entirely needed. They just droped IDE completely from their new southbridges. I'm not sad to see it go but there was little technical reason to abandon it. Same with DDR -> DDR2. Eventually though, the new standard gets better and we all adopt it for the advantages.

I am glad Intel, AMD, and Nvidia are pushing PCI-e. I just don't know why all slots aren't x16 physical and why some x16 slots can only take graphics.

mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

Post by mr. poopyhead » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:56 pm

if anyone cares, i dug the review up for anyone in the market for a new AGP card.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/pow ... gp_review/

sadly and ironically, today i have betrayed my AGP brothers... yes. i bought a PCI-e card and new motherboard. i'm sorry...

qviri
Posts: 2465
Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 8:22 pm
Location: Berlin
Contact:

Post by qviri » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:42 pm

mr. poopyhead wrote:sadly and ironically, today i have betrayed my AGP brothers... yes. i bought a PCI-e card and new motherboard. i'm sorry...
Don't worry, I'll still be here with a Matrox G450 :D

Beyonder
Posts: 757
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2002 11:56 pm
Location: EARTH.

Post by Beyonder » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:40 pm

autoboy wrote: AGP is kinda like a car that is really slow in reverse, but still fast going forward. PCI-e is just as fast going forward as backwards. How often do you drive fast backwards?
This is a pretty compelling analogy, at least until we come back to reality and remember we're not talking about driving a car. :P

From a video processing standpoint, there are very substantial penalties associated with AGP; whenever someone attempts to read data out of video memory, they are penalized heavily. PCIe really helps clear up that bottleneck. Additionally, for GPUs to evolve into more general purpose processors (not general purpose in the sense that they'd replace CPUs, but for certain mathematical functions, they're obviously superior), they need more upstream bandwidth--much more than AGP provides.

I think PCIe is absolutely a compelling upgrade, but not for gaming.

mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

Post by mr. poopyhead » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:48 pm

Beyonder wrote:
autoboy wrote: AGP is kinda like a car that is really slow in reverse, but still fast going forward. PCI-e is just as fast going forward as backwards. How often do you drive fast backwards?
This is a pretty compelling analogy, at least until we come back to reality and remember we're not talking about driving a car. :P

From a video processing standpoint, there are very substantial penalties associated with AGP; whenever someone attempts to read data out of video memory, they are penalized heavily. PCIe really helps clear up that bottleneck. Additionally, for GPUs to evolve into more general purpose processors (not general purpose in the sense that they'd replace CPUs, but for certain mathematical functions, they're obviously superior), they need more upstream bandwidth--much more than AGP provides.

I think PCIe is absolutely a compelling upgrade, but not for gaming.
i don't think any sane person could argue that PCI-e isn't a substantial improvement over AGP. the problem here is the way the gfx firms pushed it down our throats when it wasn't needed 2 years ago... and judging from some of the numbers out there, may STILL only have theoretical benefits over AGP in terms of graphics processing.

PopCorn
Posts: 346
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: U.S.A. Massuchusetts...... *Folding For SPCR*
Contact:

Post by PopCorn » Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:00 pm

i mean PCIe was gonna be needed sonner or later we all new it so why not switch to Pcie now and be ready for when we do need it that way when we hit the limits of PCIe wel have already had time to make new PCI slots.... AGP was going sooner or later we all new it... from my point of view sooner is better... the evolution of the computer will always to make thing faster and smaller... that is untill humans destoy them self with bombs

mr. poopyhead
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 376
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:37 pm
Location: Mississauga, ON
Contact:

Post by mr. poopyhead » Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:19 pm

PopCorn wrote:i mean PCIe was gonna be needed sonner or later we all new it so why not switch to Pcie now and be ready for when we do need it that way when we hit the limits of PCIe wel have already had time to make new PCI slots.... AGP was going sooner or later we all new it... from my point of view sooner is better... the evolution of the computer will always to make thing faster and smaller... that is untill humans destoy them self with bombs
the problem was not that they were introducing the technology, i have no problems with that. the problem is that they didn't give AGP users ANY options at all.

unlike IDE/SATA. you didn't see hard drive companies stop producing IDE drives all of a sudden when SATA came out. for years now they've given the consumer a full range of choices on what to buy. we now have 3 choices for storage connection, IDE/SATA/SATA2 which is great for the consumer.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Post by andyb » Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:23 pm

I am split on this subject.

I welcome PCIe as it is a superior technology with none of the drawbacks (except cost which has since dissapeared), the best thing about PCIe is that it will destroy PCI which is long overdue (but no-one is making PCIe devices)

What really pisses me off is not the availability or choice of graphics cards, but the availability of motherboards, if my mobo dies, I dont have a chance of getting a decent AGP 939 board............

Going back to PCIe 1x connectors, they are a very sensible design as they allow more board space for other components thus reducing the size of the board and beat the crap out of PCI in every way except card to use :roll:

For anyone who is old enough to remember.... the card that really sparked the mass usage of PCI and the long-overdue destruction of ISA was the Soundblaster Live!. It was the card to have, it wasnt too expensive, it was an excelent product (bar the shit drivers :evil: ) and evryone wanted one, as on-board sound was really really bad and nothing else compared to it, and people suddenly had a "real" use for their PCI slots. After that came RAID cards, etc etc etc and finally PCI modems (yuk).

PCIe will be the complete package when new PCI products dont exist and everything is PCIe, but that wont be until mid 2008 by my guess. And by then we will be on PCIe 2 :roll:


Andy

Tzupy
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1561
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:47 am
Location: Bucharest, Romania

Post by Tzupy » Fri Jan 12, 2007 1:10 pm

AGP readback is generally limited to PCI speeds, about 266 MB/s. Depending on the motherboard, this had improved for nForce3 and GeForce 6xxx AGP combinations, but still much lower than PCI-E. With the AGP architecture there was no reason to implement SLI or Crossfire, because these have to transfer data, between the two cards (except the final digital video data) through the motherboard, so AGP would have been a major bottleneck.

Beyonder
Posts: 757
Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2002 11:56 pm
Location: EARTH.

Post by Beyonder » Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:19 pm

mr. poopyhead wrote: i don't think any sane person could argue that PCI-e isn't a substantial improvement over AGP. the problem here is the way the gfx firms pushed it down our throats when it wasn't needed 2 years ago... and judging from some of the numbers out there, may STILL only have theoretical benefits over AGP in terms of graphics processing.
But this is precisely my point: the benefits of PCIe have little to do with graphics processing. If people ever want to use their graphics cards for something that requires reading out of video memory, they need a faster channel than AGP. I don't see the issue as one that has much to do with gaming at all.

JazzJackRabbit
Posts: 1386
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 6:53 pm

Post by JazzJackRabbit » Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:07 am

Toms Hardware is finally dead. In half the tests 7600GT had better framerate than 7800GS. Right. :roll:

Post Reply