8X AGP vs. PCI-E and PC3200 DDR vs. DDR2

[Ringo]

I had to buy some new hardware about two months ago when I had some system problems I needed a video card and a mobo. I had always wanted an All-In-Wonder so I got a 9800 Pro Radeon AIW. The mobo that I purchased was an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe, a top of the line Socket 478 board that utilizes DDR in dual channel mode.

I am very happy with the performance of my system, yet at the same time I'm a little bummed because now everything is switching over to PCI-Express and DDR-2, and I just spent a good chunk of money on DDR and AGP.

I needed to buy the hardware at the time, because I was dead in the water. Even two monmths ago, PCI-E video cards were very hard, if not impossible to find, and very expensive. Also, ATI did not make an AIW for PCI-E. I could have bought a mobo with PCI-E and render my new 9800 AIW useless. I didn't want to do that, the card just cost $269.

After I did a little research, I came to the conclusion that I had nothing to kick myself in the butt for. At the current time, 8X AGP is scoring about the same as PCI-E in benchmarks, and sometimes it does better. Likewise, PC3200 DDR is scoring about equal to DDR2, especially in dual-channel mode, and it is kicking DDR2 in the butt on latency.

PCI-E and DDR2 are certainly the technologies of 2005 - no argument about that. However, at the present time, there is not really any software written that takes advantage specifically of the PCI-E bus's large amount of available bandwidth. Ditto with DDR2, and programmers are struggling to overcome the DDR2's higher latency.

There is no doubt that I will be switching to PCI-E and DDR2 sometime in 2005, maybe in the summer. Right now, these technologies are still expensive and somewhat unproven, and there is no software that really _needs_ it. ATI recently started making PCI-E AIW cards, but they are based on the X600 and X700 and are slower than the 9800 Pro.

That's my story. I was wondering what y'all thought. There is no doubt that PCI-E and DDR2 will be much more refined, and certainly cheaper, in summer of 2005. There will also be programs written for the large amount of bandwidth, and perhaps there will be a Direct X 10? It would be a bummer now to buy a $600 PCI-E card, and then Microsoft releases a new Direct X spec and you find that your card can't be updated.

Therefore, my plan is to wait until Summer of 2005 and I will update my mobo, memory, and VGA with whatever is the accepted standard at that time.

[Shyguy]

From what I understand & have read about the current crop of PCIE cards are that they aren't significantly faster or better than their AGP counterparts, IMO it isn't even worth it to upgrade to a PCIE vid card or capable mobo right now, unless you go with a soon to be released nForce 4 board with SLI, & if you got the money to burn on two nVidia PCIE cards.

So As for me I'm sticking with 8xAGP for now & probably for the next year or so, I'm still running 4xAGP on my 8x capable 9700 Pro, & to be honest, i'm fairly happy with what I have, though some games I would like better graphics, but hopefully that'll be resolved when I upgrade my system with new mobo/CPU, enabling me to utilize an 8x AGP slot.

The dumb thing IMO is that from what I understand is that the industry wants to faze out AGP all together in favor of PCIE, yet 8xAGP isn't even maxed out yet. I just hope that in a year or two some manufacturers are still making 8xAGP cards, otherwise I personally think the whole thing about switching from 4x to 8x AGP was a complete waste of time & money on the consumer end.

The way I see it is 8xAGP has been more of a transitional faze between 4xAGP & PCIE, kind of a fill-in till PCIE was released. At least the way the industry has been talking lately, wanting to faze out 8x when its only been around for about 2 years, yet 4x was around for like what 3 or 4?

But I agree that PCIE & DDR2 is in the process of being the new Best thing, & I'll eventually upgrade to both, but I may upgrade to DDR2 before I seriously think about PCIE for video.

The thing that pisses me off is that, supposedly once PCIE cards are being released that current upper level AGP 8x cards will drop in price, YEAH RIGHT, if anything most have gone up, even nVidia's 5900XT has gone up a bit last I checked, some 9800 Pros & XT's go for as much as a X800 that is more than double or close to double the performance for a 9800 Pro/XT, FX5900 Ultra's are as expensive as some 6600's & 6800's? there seems to be no definative pricing ranges now, I mean usually the previous top of line are cheaper, yet relegated to mid level performance compared to the new tech out, but now it gives some consumers a false sense of what is best, in past usually the more expensive it was usually meant it was the better ones, now if the 5900 Ultras or 9800 Pros cost as much as a 6800 or X800, some people will think they are just as good, when in reality they aren't... even though most people won't need anything more than a 5900 or 9800 Pro, with current software out there, but still, the prices should have drop significantly & not fractionally or risen in some cases.

Enough ranting about that.

Yeah I at least don't plan on upgrading to PCIE, anytime soon...

However if I win the lottery, thats another story, Dual 256MB 6800 Ultra PCIE cards in a SLI enabled nForce 4 mobo, with a Athlon 64 FX-55 & fastest DDR I can put in it!!!

But yeah, thats just dreaming!!!:D

[Ringo]

I agree, and I was reading more on the nForce 4 board last night, and so far that is being worked into my plans for summer. Not to run 2 VGA cards just yet, unless I also win the lottery, but it would be nice to have the extra slot so when I have the money I can get a card and put it in there. So as of now my plan is for a nForce 4 mobo and 1GB of DDR2, and I'll see what VGA cards are out at the time. Maybe 2 VGA's and an HDTV tuner card ??? Sounds nice. I am starting to save a little bit of money each month and hopefully will have about a grand to spend by the summer, then I can pick and choose. Right now my next goal is to convert my IDE HDD's over to 10,000 RPM SATA drives, at least the OS and apps drive. My data drive can be 7,200 because I want to get a really big one, at least 200 GB, and so far they don't make them that large in 10,000 rpm.

My only wish for the current time is a 74 GB Raptor SATA 10,000 RPM Enterprise Edition HDD, so if anyone was planning on a sending a Christmas gift to me, well now you know what to get.

BTW - I know what you mean, about the confusion of VGA cards. It really is hard to tell which one is the "best," as the pricing and even the name structure don't make a whole lot of sense. Especially when cards have the same name and different things after the name like "Pro" or whatever. In other words, it is possible to have one form of an X700 that is faster and costs more than another form of X800. It used to be that the VGA's were clearly named and there was a very clear structure of them in terms of speed and features. Not so any more. It is very confusing to buy a VGA, and you have to do a lot of reading and research if you want to find the best deal for your needs and budget. Luckily for me, on my last purchase I knew that I wanted an All-In-Wonder, and my only question was if I wanted to spend the bucks for a 9800 Pro or get a 9600 or 9700 (I ended up spending the money and getting the 9800 Pro). But if I had not wanted the AIW, I would have driven myself crazy deciding which card to buy...