Safe to assume AGP will still be available @ end of '06?

[Malladine]

Upgrading my wife's machine to A64 - 939pin from socket a but don't have the $ for a vid card right now and her current one is, of course, AGP. Would be fine with this but am somewhat concerned that when I want to get her a new gpu in a year or so the agp 6800s/x800s will no longer be available.

Unreasonable?

 

[Solutions]

I feel 100% confident that AGP will still be available in TWO years. He||, you can still get PCI video cards and AGP has been around for awhile now...

 

[Rage187]

AGP will be around for quite some time.

 

[Malladine]

Thanks guys, that's a relief.

 

[Matthias99]

I wouldn't be so sure that anything faster than a 6800GT/X800XT will ever become available in AGP (it's possible, but it might not happen).

But I'm almost certain newer low-end and midrange cards will be available, and of course there will be a huge market of used cards.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I wouldn't be so sure that anything faster than a 6800GT/X800XT will ever become available in AGP (it's possible, but it might not happen).

But I'm almost certain newer low-end and midrange cards will be available, and of course there will be a huge market of used cards.

Aren't faster cards already available? ie- 6800U and X800XT PE

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I wouldn't be so sure that anything faster than a 6800GT/X800XT will ever become available in AGP (it's possible, but it might not happen).

But I'm almost certain newer low-end and midrange cards will be available, and of course there will be a huge market of used cards.

Aren't faster cards already available? ie- 6800U and X800XT PE

6800U and X800XT are the fastest AGP cards you can get, and probably will be able to get for a long time. But both are still very rare, and usually have inflated price tags.

Given the fact that AGP is no present in any of the next gen chipsets from Intel, Via, Nvidia, ATI, or SiS, I'd say that AGP should die a quick death. To be sure, you'll see low and midrange AGP cards for a while, but your high end cards are all going to be PCIe.

 

[ribbon13]

Its called a PCie to AGP bridge... Sorta like how a lot of SATA drives are IDE with a IDE-to-SATA bridge.

You have nothing to worry about. If they are unavailable, something better will have replaced them (in the agp segment)

 

[DJQuanta]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I wouldn't be so sure that anything faster than a 6800GT/X800XT will ever become available in AGP (it's possible, but it might not happen).

But I'm almost certain newer low-end and midrange cards will be available, and of course there will be a huge market of used cards.

Totally agree on that!

 

[richardrds]

Nvidia already has the hard work done. The 6600Gt was first developed as a PCIE card, then they released it in AGP vesion using their PCIE to AGP bridge. They would basically use that same type of bridge to port over any new next generation PCIE cards in the next few years. They are not dumb, they still want to get upgrade dollars from all of us with AGP slots for the next few years also, and they would rather us upgrade to their high end models and not their low/mid range models, LOL!!!

 

[Wolfshanze]

I wouldn't be so sure that anything faster than a 6800GT/X800XT will ever become available in AGP (it's possible, but it might not happen)... But I'm almost certain newer low-end and midrange cards will be available, and of course there will be a huge market of used cards.

Wouldn't future low-end to mid-range cards of the future be faster then today's top-end cards? I'm sure today's mid-range GeForce 6600GT blows away yesterdays top-end GeForce2 Ultra.

I'm going to guess an AGP mid-range GeForce8 or GeForce9 will probably be faster then today's top-end GeForce6800 Ultra.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: richardrds
Nvidia already has the hard work done. The 6600Gt was first developed as a PCIE card, then they released it in AGP vesion using their PCIE to AGP bridge. They would basically use that same type of bridge to port over any new next generation PCIE cards in the next few years. They are not dumb, they still want to get upgrade dollars from all of us with AGP slots for the next few years also, and they would rather us upgrade to their high end models and not their low/mid range models, LOL!!!

wait so it's not true agp? I need one of those bridge slots?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Wolfshanze

I wouldn't be so sure that anything faster than a 6800GT/X800XT will ever become available in AGP (it's possible, but it might not happen)... But I'm almost certain newer low-end and midrange cards will be available, and of course there will be a huge market of used cards.

Wouldn't future low-end to mid-range cards of the future be faster then today's top-end cards? I'm sure today's mid-range GeForce 6600GT blows away yesterdays top-end GeForce2 Ultra.

Yeah, but the GF2 came out nearly four years ago, and is FOUR FULL GENERATIONS of hardware behind the GeForce6 cards. I'm sure a midrange GF10 would blow away any GF6, but that's looking so far into the future as to be useless for deciding what you do today.

I'm going to guess an AGP mid-range GeForce8 or GeForce9 will probably be faster then today's top-end GeForce6800 Ultra.

Probably -- but I don't know how long NVIDIA/ATI plan on still supporting AGP, at least in a major way. You're talking 2-3 generations down the road now -- if you give 18 months per full card generation, that's 3-5 years from now. That's about how long it's been since AGP took over for PCI -- and now you can only get a handful of low-performing PCI graphics cards, for the few legacy PCI-only systems out there.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: richardrds
Nvidia already has the hard work done. The 6600Gt was first developed as a PCIE card, then they released it in AGP vesion using their PCIE to AGP bridge. They would basically use that same type of bridge to port over any new next generation PCIE cards in the next few years. They are not dumb, they still want to get upgrade dollars from all of us with AGP slots for the next few years also, and they would rather us upgrade to their high end models and not their low/mid range models, LOL!!!

wait so it's not true agp? I need one of those bridge slots?

What?

The bridge chip is on the card -- contrary to what some people seem to think, there is no such thing as a PCIe->AGP adapter you can buy and plug any card into. I'm not sure how long NVIDIA is going to want to stick with this, though, as the chips are not that cheap, and I'm sure they would rather just have one product line than two.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Yeah, but the GF2 came out nearly four years ago, and is FOUR FULL GENERATIONS of hardware behind the GeForce6 cards. I'm sure a midrange GF10 would blow away any GF6, but that's looking so far into the future as to be useless for deciding what you do today.

I was being a bit silly, but I still had a point... explain why my $400 top-of-the-line GeForceFX5900 can't outrun my $250 mid-range GeForce6600GT? That's ONE generation?

 

[Rand]

As long as there is a market for AGP graphics cards, then you can bet ATi/nVidia will still be selling them. Their not about to leave an easily accessible market untapped.

I'd say it's a pretty safe bet there will still be a decent number of legacy AGP motherboards in use in 2-3yrs from now.
I doubt very much you'll be able to pick up a high end AGP graphics card beyond much more then a yr from now though, mid range models should last a bit longer.
Low end boards should be relatively widely available for though.

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: Solutions
I feel 100% confident that AGP will still be available in TWO years. He||, you can still get PCI video cards and AGP has been around for awhile now...

I don't think the lifetime of PCI graphics cards is a very good indicator of AGP. With PCI there is still even now, low end motherboards available that support ONLY PCI, and many motherboards with integrated graphics only provide PCI expansion ports.

AGP won't have the same advantage.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if PCI graphics cards are still available even after AGP has disappeared from the market.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Wolfshanze

Yeah, but the GF2 came out nearly four years ago, and is FOUR FULL GENERATIONS of hardware behind the GeForce6 cards. I'm sure a midrange GF10 would blow away any GF6, but that's looking so far into the future as to be useless for deciding what you do today.

I was being a bit silly, but I still had a point... explain why my $400 top-of-the-line GeForceFX5900 can't outrun my $250 mid-range GeForce6600GT? That's ONE generation?

This generation, with that card, that happens to be true. But, for instance, the midrange GF3s were not faster than the top-of-the-line GeForce2 GTS. And the GeForce FX 5600 was slower than the GF4Ti4600. I mean, the Ti4600 is STILL faster than anything that costs less than $150-200 or so new, at least at DX8.

I'm just saying -- you shouldn't base your purchases now on possible future trends in the hardware market. Will AGP cards of some sort still be available in a few years? Almost certainly (and there will definitely be lots of used ones around). But I wouldn't plan on ever seeing a card faster than a 6800GT/U/X800XT (by which I mean any sort of NV40/R420-based card, 6800UE nitpickers notwithstanding) in AGP. If it happens, great. But it's not guaranteed by any means.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: richardrds
Nvidia already has the hard work done. The 6600Gt was first developed as a PCIE card, then they released it in AGP vesion using their PCIE to AGP bridge. They would basically use that same type of bridge to port over any new next generation PCIE cards in the next few years. They are not dumb, they still want to get upgrade dollars from all of us with AGP slots for the next few years also, and they would rather us upgrade to their high end models and not their low/mid range models, LOL!!!

wait so it's not true agp? I need one of those bridge slots?

What?

The bridge chip is on the card -- contrary to what some people seem to think, there is no such thing as a PCIe->AGP adapter you can buy and plug any card into. I'm not sure how long NVIDIA is going to want to stick with this, though, as the chips are not that cheap, and I'm sure they would rather just have one product line than two.

ah, excellenté, thanks

I was being a bit silly, but I still had a point... explain why my $400 top-of-the-line GeForceFX5900 can't outrun my $250 mid-range GeForce6600GT? That's ONE generation?

This is what happens when you try to keep up

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: Rand

Originally posted by: Solutions
I feel 100% confident that AGP will still be available in TWO years. He||, you can still get PCI video cards and AGP has been around for awhile now...

I don't think the lifetime of PCI graphics cards is a very good indicator of AGP. With PCI there is still even now, low end motherboards available that support ONLY PCI, and many motherboards with integrated graphics only provide PCI expansion ports.

AGP won't have the same advantage.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if PCI graphics cards are still available even after AGP has disappeared from the market.

I still don't really understand the focus on PCIe tbh. I haven't seen a single benchmark that shows express with anything close to a commanding performance lead over AGP. I understand the numbers behind it, higher bandwidth etc, but practical application is what i'm lookin for!

 

[SalientKing]

It would be unwise from a business stand point to stop producing AGP cards. Most people are still using AGP mobos, and there are still plently of mobos that support AGP on the market. I think we'll see new AGP cards over the next 2 years.

 

[91TTZ]

AGP will be phased out fairly quickly.

The reason the comparisons with PCI don't hold up is because they are different types of slots that fulfill a different need.

AGP is a graphics-only slot, and PCI-Express has taken over in the graphics arena. That leaves AGP outmoded in its only purpose. PCI however has all sorts of uses because it's a general purpose bus. It will be useful for quite some time.

A good comparison to AGP would be VL-bus. Remember when VL-bus came out in the early 90's? It was an extension to ISA and was used mostly for graphics. But when PCI came out, it provided more functionality, was better for graphics, and left VL-bus without any purpose in life. It died out very quickly.

 

[GreenMonkey]

I would say it will still be around. I'm sure cards for AGP will still be available. Think about all the people running Athlon XP setups with AGP cards - Anybody running a Barton 2500+ (quite possibly overclocked) isn't necessarily going to need a CPU/MB upgrade any time soon. I'm running a socket 754 A64 Nforce 3 setup. I'm not going to need an motherboard upgrade for quite some time. There will be a market IMO...although perhaps the end of '06 might be running near the end of it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
AGP will be phased out fairly quickly.
AGP is a graphics-only slot, and PCI-Express has taken over in the graphics arena. That leaves AGP outmoded in its only purpose. PCI however has all sorts of uses because it's a general purpose bus. It will be useful for quite some time.

I think that in the future, no more high-end AGP development will take place, and the major GPU makers will create mid-range/low-end cards, with a dual PCI/AGP-compatible interface (on-chip), and leave it up to the OEM board vendors to choose their preferred board-interface implementation. Similar to how ATI's R9200 chipset was an AGP 8x spin of the R9000, but with the phasing out of the R9000 PCI chipset, there are PCI boards with the R9200 chipset, apparently it has a bi-compatible chip-level interface.

In other words, you will probably be able to find PCI-class video cards, some of which may sport an AGP-connector interface. They may not be AGP performance-optimzed though. (Especially considering that there may be a low-end market in the short-term future for some of those hybrid PCIe/AGP mobos, which have an AGP port that is actually bridged to the PCI bus, so it offers no real performance advantages over a PCI video card.)

 

[batmanuel]

I'm not really sure that you can compare the AGP card's future with the PCI slots' longevity.

The whole reason PCI graphics cards have held on for so long is that Dell, HP and Compaq have been producing (even to this day) lots of cheap computers that have onboard video with no high performance expansion slots like AGP or PCIe, which has produced a steady stream of customers that have learned how awful the onboard Intel graphics are and come looking for a graphics upgrade as soon as they attempt to play anything more graphics card taxing than Bejeweled.

With AGP, the potential customer base is going to die out a lot more quickly as the performance motherboards all shift the PCIe over the course of the coming year, so I could forsee decent AGP cards getting pretty hard to find towards the end of 2006. The AGP cards you will still be able to get then will likely be crap that probably would struggle with most popular games at decent resolutions.