7800GT comes to AGP (sort of)

[Sunday Ironfoot]

Dunno if this has been posted before, sorry if it has. But Gainward have a new AGP card out soon that looks basically like a 20 pipeline version of the 7800GS AGP. Overclocks really well too, Enquirer have done a short review with loads of benchmarks...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30502

This looks clearly to be the fatest AGP card in the world. But a UK online shop taking pre-orders for it has it listed at £280 which is more than the 7900GT PC-Express, and it performs lower than that card as well.

Hmmm....get this card and prolong my AGP system for a bit more, or upgrade to an all enw PCI-Express system,,,decisions decisions

Dunno if it's 8 ROPS or 16 (or whatever they're called). The 7800GS has 8 I think.

 

[Gstanfor]

Well, I was getting ready to go athlon64 and an Asrock dual interface m/board, but it looks like I won't have to bother for another 12 months thanks to this card.

I had a feeling it would only be a matter of time before a manufacturer with some brains replaced the crippled core the 7800GS "features" with something decent.

 

[CKTurbo128]

Guys, before you leap in joy, hoping that this means there will be a massive influx of new 7800 GT AGP cards, you should read this first:

BUY NOW @ £239.95 +VAT (£282 Inc. VAT)!!!

Again this is a limited Edition - Gainward have produced 2500 for worldwide and the UK has been allocated 1000 units which of OcUK has 900.
This card is special because they are actually 7800 GT's with 20 active pipelines out of the box, plus you've got the 512MB of GDDR3 memory. This is truly the worlds quickest AGP card ever produced by miles and its Gainward and OcUK that have brung you this amazing product and deal.

Gainward have taken 7800 GT PCI-E chips and bridged them down to AGP for this card. So it is actually a 7800 GT but to keep everybody at NVIDIA happy it has to be advertised as a 7800 GS, but its really a 7800 GT out of the box with 20 fully active working pipelines.

Reasoning for this is because Gainward were going to do another batch of the "Goes Like Hell" 7800 GT on PCI-E cards but as demand has died off due to 7900 coming out Gainward looked at OcUK's suggestions and agreed that AGP demand is still massive for a very powerful solution on AGP and hence this card has appeared.

Again its limited, we only have 900 units available and I suspect that a card is the quality and performance will sell well, because remember it has a silent cooling solution too.

Link: Gainward bring you a 512MB 7800 GT for AGP!!!!

This is from the Overclockers UK forums, one of the main suppliers of this card in the UK. These cards are supposed to retail at £282; throwing this value into a currency converter reveals that this is ~$490.00 USD!! :Q They have stated that it's a limited edition product (only 2500 cards made), so you will not see high supplies of this card, which means it will remain expensive. Also, Gainward no longer exists in North America, so anyone in North America will have to import this card, meaning that they would have to pay ~$490.00 + very expensive overseas shipping costs.

Just some info. that people should keep in mind before they get too excited. Hopefully, the release of this card will convince nVIDIA to allow other manufacturers to produce 7800 GT or faster AGP cards.

 

[AzNPinkTuv]

its freaking 2 slots.. useless.. most people who got the 7800gs were in shuttles or other SFF's =/

 

[v8envy]

Great idea, not so good pricing. $500 USD to get a 7800GT for AGP is both impressive, and a bad value. If you have an athlon XP, are you really itching to blow more than the cost of a X1900XT to have a video card your cpu will most likely hold back? And after the dust settles, it's still just a 7800GT.

If you have a more or less modern CPU, the $200 difference over a 7900GT will more than pay for a motherboard.

 

[CP5670]

That's a huge markup on this card for the AGP support. I think $200 is enough to buy both a processor and a motherboard. (an Opteron 144 and one of the Epox boards would come out to about $210)

Although it's nice to see some faster AGP cards out, I can't see how this limited edition product would be a good buy for anyone.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you already have P4 2.8ghz and 6800GT, I'd just overclock the processor and the card to Ultra speeds. Sure 7800GT is faster than 6800Ultra, but in my eyes it was never worth it to upgrade from 6800Ultra to 7800GT for $300.

6800Ultra vs. 7800GT
Far Cry
Splinter Cell: CT
HL2
Doom 3
Riddick
FEAR
COD2

With all due respect to 7800GT, it was never anything special from X850xt and 6800Ultra cards. Sure it might allow 1 higher resolution at best, but is that worth $300+ US? Personally when I spend $300 on a PC component I expect at least 2x increase across the board. 7800GT simply doesn't deliver that, neither does 7800GTX for that matter. I wouldn't consider anything below 7900GT @ 550/1550 or X1800XT 512mb to be a decent upgrade from previous generation top end cards unless playing at 1 extra resolution is important.

 

[JRich]

Oh god yes! Let's put a 7800 AGP on an aging Athlon XP cpu. Nice bottleneck! :disgust:

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: JRich
Oh god yes! Let's put a 7800 AGP on an aging Athlon XP cpu. Nice bottleneck! :disgust:

You can use that AGP card with any current AMD cpu (and supposedly the M2 as well - though I fail to see the point without DDR II memory) by using the 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard.

As for Socket A, it will still see a mild speed boost, plus you get more fps when using 8x AA and above - hardly worthless in my book...

 

[Bateluer]

To be fair, the 7800GS/GT do boast some serious speed boosts over the 6800GT/Ultra. Not in every app, but there are a few where they should massive gains.

 

[Effect]

A good deal on a 7900gt and a mobo/cpu, and this 'deal' is put to shame, IMO.

 

[Sunday Ironfoot]

Kinda sucks about being limited addition. And yes it IS too expensive it's bassically a 7800GT for £280...if I shop around I can get myself an X1900XT for £290, which is a good double the speed over a 7800GT.

 

[Canterwood]

Well anyone with an Athlon64 and still using AGP should just buy a cheap PCI-E mobo and 7800GT PCI-E rather than waste the cash on one of these cards.

Its a good card for AGP, but vastly overpriced compared to the PCI-E offerings.

Only people who have absolutely no upgrade path from AGP should consider getting one.

 

[Creig]

If it were reasonably priced, I'd say this was excellent news. But at nearly $500, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Creig
If it were reasonably priced, I'd say this was excellent news. But at nearly $500, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

that IS the problem . . . the good news is that other partners will finally see "demand" . . . there is still hope for a GTX or XTX in AGP.

until then my x850xt will do fine . . . 'till i really upgrade in '08 [PCIe2, anyone?]

 

[AzNPinkTuv]

lmao im holding off on my evga superclocked... 7800gs that is...

if evga offers one later on b4 step up is over, ill upgrade it and bench it but i dont think it worth it

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Canterwood
Well anyone with an Athlon64 and still using AGP should just buy a cheap PCI-E mobo and 7800GT PCI-E rather than waste the cash on one of these cards.

Its a good card for AGP, but vastly overpriced compared to the PCI-E offerings.

Only people who have absolutely no upgrade path from AGP should consider getting one.

I agree...luckily I have both AGP and PCI-E on my motherboard, so I'm not so limited as to what I can buy (other than by my wallet )

 

[Gstanfor]

Well, the cost doesn't really concern me that much. As I posted above I can carry the card forwards from Socket-A until I decide to get a DX10 generation card, at which point it will go back into the Socket-A nForce 2 system, which I have no intention of ever getting rid of. It's proven itself to be a fantastic performer over a long length of time, and I've yet to see any motherboard chipset since then offer a better balance of performance/features/future proofing than it did. So the card will be the penultimate AGP board in the penultimate Socket-A system.