AGP 8x Is Coming

[ElDonAntonio]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Are we? care to show us some examples?

I can't show you any examples until it's released. In the meantime I can explain at a technical level what its implications are and I've already done so a number of times.

I'm interested in reading that...Felix has a good point with FSB limitations. How can you argue against that?

 

[BFG10K]

I don't even see Felix posting in this thread.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

kinda pointless since most game developers design their games with two year old graphics cards in mind

Then I guess that makes the Parhelia pointless too, right Czar? After all, how many two year old graphics cards support triple head, 30 bit colour and have ~20 GB/sec memory bandwidth?

Yet the Parhelia is the second coming of Christ while AGP x8 is "not needed because developers design their games for two year old graphics cards".

Interesting.

I want that card because I need something to replace my old g400, and I want my next card to last at least 6 months

 

[Agent004]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I don't even see Felix posting in this thread.

He is referring to ElFenix

 

[BFG10K]

Regarding the FSB and memory issue, I really don't see what the problem here is at all.

A 266 MHz FSB already has 2.1 GB/sec bandwidth and that'll match AGP x8. Also you can bet that pretty much the minimum FSB speed that a motherboard supporting AGP x8 will have will be much higher than that. Indeed, 400 MHz and 533 MHz FSBs are already here and I'd hazard a guess that AGP x8 actually will not appear until chipsets with FSBs even faster than the previously listed ones will be available.

In addition, AGP fastwrites relieve memory bandwidth requirements to a large degree since the CPU can directly read and write to the video card without touching the memory at all. Also with 333/400 MHz DDR memory and PC1066 RDRAM becoming more and more common they'll help accomodate AGP x8 better.

So if anything, AGP x4 has been holding back systems since both faster FSBs and memory subsystems have been available for a long time, each that are capable of transferring more than 1.06 GB/sec of data.

Now I'm not saying that everyone will suddenly see double the performance by jumping on the AGP x8 bandwagon as that would be a silly thing to think, but rather it'll be an incremental upgrade, much like DDR memory was from SDR memory. The gain will be small at the start and only get better and better with time. When first released DDR-RAM was only barely faster than SDRAM but try pairing a 2200 XP+ on PC133 SDRAM now and watch it suffer horrendously.