Question Regarding New PCIX and Asus P5Ad2

[Viper001]

Hey all....

This is my first post to these forums! I been an avid Anandtech reader for some time now and the site is very informative.

I have been toying with the idea of building myself a new rig and I have been hearing good things about the new boards that are comming out based on the Intel 925x, 915 chipsets.

I just have a few questiosn if any of you guys may know.

Do any of these boards support exisiting AGP cards such as the ATI 9800XT? Or is the new PCIx bus ONLY made for fully new stuff.

I am torn if I should wait for this stuff to come out or just go ahead with an Athlon FX rig.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

-Viper001

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

I assume you mean PCI-ex (which is on the new Intel motherboards) which is different than PCI-X. PCI-ex is a new replacement for the PCI and AGP peripheral interface. PCI-ex does not have AGP (though some companies are trying to release a jerry-rigged pci-ex/agp combo motherboard). PCI-X is a higer frequency and sometimes higher bit original PCI interface usually found on workstation and server boards. Most PCI-ex boards will have a few legacy pci slots on them for a smoother transition but you will have to purchase PCI-ex graphics cards (no performance benefit currently) and new ddr2 memory (no performance benefit currently). The AMD boards with PCI-ex are coming out in Q3 and/or Q4 but they will continue to use ddr1 since AMD has an integrated memory controller on its cpu which makes it more difficult to change memory types (plus ddr2 latencies are so high that it needs to be at ddr2 667 or ddr2 800 to really see a performance benefit and it is much more expensive)

I ordered my AGP ATI x800xt and I am getting either the nforce 3 250 939 board or the via k8t800pro 939 board with the FX -53 and danger den virge watercooling and overclocking! You can wait for pci-ex but there is no real benenfit to it currently but a year from now you may want to upgrade your graphics card and your options may or may not be limited. I think the next generation cards will have AGP support so I am not worried.

If you are not overclocking or just doing mild overclocking than the 3500+ or the 3800+ is a better option. I am really going to try and get 2700 out of my FX-53. :beer::laugh::beer:[/quote]

 

[Viper001]

Thanks for the info!

I have been leaning towards goign the Athlon route but several friends were telling me that I should wait.
As we all know one can play that waiting game indefinitely!

BTW: Please tell me what you think of that Danger Den Watercolling kit.
I ONLY have experience with Koolance so far, but I have been interested in some of the pther products out there.

HAPPY 4TH ALL!!!!