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Nvidia Reanimates AGP

A

Auric

Diamond Member
DigiTimes

Due to continued demand, particularly from Internet cafe and emerging markets, for AGP-based products, Nvidia is scheduled to launch an updated bridge chip which supports the company's newer GPUs in October, according to sources at graphics card makers.

Nvidia's BR02 chip was designed to convert the company's PCI Express-based GeForce 7600 (G73) GPU to support AGP, however, this chip is not compatible with GeForce 8 series GPUs. A new version, A05, will work with current GeForce 8600 (G86) and 8400 (G84) GPUs and well as the upcoming G92 and G98, noted the sources.
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Now with fixed linky!
 
AGP is going to be with us for a long time. Until the bus nears becoming a bottleneck for midrange cards, don't count on it going away. I mean heck, it's only been a few months that my local Walmart stopped carrying a PCI FX5200.
 
According to an article (not up to Wiki's preferred standards, at the time, supposedly) I was reading at Wikipedia, AGP is more expensive to deal with all around, but especially on the mainboards, which, if true, explains why the producers of motherboards were so quick to abandon AGP once PCIe was certified. Much of the reason for AGP to have been designed the way it was, had to do with the seriously high cost of RAM, especially VRAM, when the AGP standard was introduced. A large part of it was the Hypermemory/ Turbocache type capability (using main system RAM as VRAM, in case you didn't know), and that need disappeared with access to cheap RAM.
 
Also, when Intel switches to such a new standard and the likes of HP and Dell follow then the GPU IHV's and AIB's don't have a choice if they expect to capture all important OEM sales and thus stay in bidness.

Just think of PCIe 1.x as transitional. Most didn't need it but it helped pave the way to improved standards. Pity it wasn't momentous compared to AGP as AGP was to PCI.

PCI lives on because it has remained useful in both older gear as a primary and in newer gear alongside any other standard for driving additional displays.
 
Originally posted by: speckedhoncho
Is AGP a bottleneck for high-end cards? How can one tell?
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Look at bechmarks of the same card where the only difference is the connectivity to the motherboard.
 
Originally posted by: Wreckage
I would love to get a HDMI video card for my HTPC.
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What he said.

In fact, I've been stalling on a videocard for my new rig, waiting for a discount or huge rebate, etc. And I was planning to go with an 8600GTS, which would transition to a newer MCE machine in about 12-18 months...but if I can get an AGP 8600GTS, I would just drop it into my secondary machine (original EE socket 478 proc), make that my new MCE machine, and put the old MCE machine in the living room.

And I also would now have a reason to get a non-HDCP 8800 series for my new rig...but that means buy now, and miss the newer nVidia cards coming soon. Hmmm, decisions, decisions...
 
The only issue currently is that PCI-E is better because it allows better power delivery, as well as the possibility of SLI.
 
Benchmarks that I found since the the Nvidia's 7k series & ATI's 1k series don't even care to measure AGP cards. I've seen some AGP/Mainstream Benchmarks listed, but being lumped with mainstream speaks for itself.

It seems obvious that what happy medium is true. Once the cpu/chipset/mem surpassed AGP's bandwidth, AGP is the bottleneck by calculation.

AGP 8X is twice the clock of PCI, so at the time it was blazing. But once VRAM went to 128MB and the GB memory bandwith barrier was broken, pressure games would suffer.

Of course you might be thinking that I am not a heavy/particular gamer, and you are right/in-the-vicinity.

I've believed even before I bought my 7800GS AGP card this Spring that AGP is a bottleneck, but with the system it was built into (shown below), I wonder if it still is a bottleneck...
 
That's odd that AGP draws more power than PCIx. Or is it that its power efficiency whittles with current power requirements versus PCIx?
 
I wouldn't really say that PCI-E 1.x is dead or defunct at all. PCI-E 2.0 really isn't any different than the AGP4x-8x transition. How many years after you threw your AGP 4x motherboard out did it take for you to have a video card that actually showed an improvement with AGP 8x?😀
 
PCI-E 2.0 isn't appearing on Motherboards til what...2009 or '10? Even someone who tries to squeeze the last bit of performance out of their rig like me (Bioshock is one of the first games that I really need to turn the settings down for on my 6800 GS - though it still looks great) will be getting a new computer/mobo by that time anyway (yes, I plan to keep my s939 for a couple more years). AGP still isn't a bottleneck in terms of bandwidth. I don't think PCI-e 16x will be either anytime soon.
 
Well.. first chipsets to support PCI-E2 are coming from multiple sources..for example Nvidia releases Nforce7 around the same time as they release GF9. I think first motherboards with PCI-E2 will be out 2007
 
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