Is an 8x AGP Motherboard with buying?

bladephoenix

Senior member
Sep 28, 2002
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ATI just sent me a replacement All-in-Wonder Radeon 9800 to replace a dead AIW 8500. I have purchased an Enermax noisetaker 420W to replace my old Enermax 300W in order to accomdate its power needs, however, now I am also wondering whether I should purchase a new motherboard to take advantage of the 8X AGP also.

I currently use a Gigabyte 8PE Titan Pro, which is a Intel 845PE Chipset - a maximum of 4X AGP. I am considering purchasing a 865 chipset, which utilizes 8X AGP. The one I am looking at is a Gigabyte 1000G (I know ASUS is the preferred brand, but for the price, Gigabyte is not bad). It has 3 firewire ports, SATA, gigabit ethernet and 8X AGP.

Though the firewire ports and SATA are a nice addition which I wouldn't mind having for the sake of having, the honest truth is I will probably not be using them for the forseeable future. However, I was told that the Intel 865 chipset might improve the performance of the new video card, since it is a more recent chipset and supports a higher AGP pipeline.

At this point though, I am wondering if this "improved performance" is worth paying an extra $95 for a new motherboard. What do you guys think?
 

bladephoenix

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Sep 28, 2002
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Ok thanks. Had a feeling it probably wouldn't be worth it...I will burn my cash on something else =)
 

CrispyFried

Golden Member
May 3, 2005
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Yup, keep what you have, the small diff isnt worth $95. Snag some memory with the extra money.
 

bladephoenix

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Sep 28, 2002
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That is an odd test, considering in some of his results, the 4x produced faster rates than the 8x.

I am left to assume that most games don't actually use the entire 2GB/sec pipeline than, so basically 8X AGP is an overkill for most applications?
 

Continuity27

Senior member
May 26, 2005
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Originally posted by: bladephoenix
That is an odd test, considering in some of his results, the 4x produced faster rates than the 8x.

Likely it just means that the actual rate is right around 4x or slightly above. Remember, when dealing with any processor, it's not always going to take the same path to get a result each time, sometimes the branches are predicted better and sometimes not. If you took the same components and ran the same benchmark over and over, you'd get 10 different results +/- 2% or so :p
 

bladephoenix

Senior member
Sep 28, 2002
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I see what you mean. So this leads me to the same conclusion that most of time, generally speaking, 8X AGP is only used at half its real capacity right? I mean if a game has 2GB of video bandwidth, but still only goes at the same framerate as an AGP 4X, it means the game only needs about 1GB of bandwidth. This, obviously would mean that AGP 8X is overkill for the most part.
 

RichUK

Lifer
Feb 14, 2005
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yes i would second the fact, ... that AGP 4X will suffice for the requirements of you GFX card .. i have a 6800 ultra which you would think would require more bandwidth, but when lowered to 4X doesn't really affect anything, as i only lose a couple of FPS .. and as your GFX card is speced below mine then, i shouldn't think it would be a problem
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
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alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: bladephoenix
I see what you mean. So this leads me to the same conclusion that most of time, generally speaking, 8X AGP is only used at half its real capacity right? I mean if a game has 2GB of video bandwidth, but still only goes at the same framerate as an AGP 4X, it means the game only needs about 1GB of bandwidth. This, obviously would mean that AGP 8X is overkill for the most part.

more-or-less

it is NOT worth it to upgrade your MB just for the AGP . . . you will not notice any difference