PCI Express V AGP

[marcus]

More out of curiosity than anything, but is PCI-Express a significant (if at all) benefit over AGP? Currently I own a Radeon X800, the best AGP card I could buy right now is probably the X850 PE but Ive heard that the best PCIE cards outperform it. Assuming that the jump from a X800 to X850 isnt worth the ?150 odd additional outlay, would there be any reason to look at the PCIE option, or is there something even more potent around the corner?

[Ginger Tosser]

Its probably not too noticeable at the moment but if your looking at a new PC then probably the most future proof option would be one with a PCI-Express slot.

[AlwaysAce]

sli is the only advantage of pci - express, but there is a chance that the new 6800 ultra 512mb gddr3/ new redeon x800+ 512mb wont come out for agp mobo's due to bandwidth limitations.


my advice is to stick with agp until the time comes that software is developed to really push decent sli/512gddr3 setups etc.

as at the moment for instance a sli setup of two pci-e cards(say 6600gt's)running something like far cry wont run any quicker than a single card configuration!! doom 3 is apparently better with sli so i'm assuming its opengl software that benefits the most.

x850xt pci-e vs x850xt agp = no difference!!
finally i'd say around 6 - 12 months would be the ideal time to upgrade as the prices will be at a sweet point, but at the moment what game really needs 2 6800 ultra's in sli or a 6800 ultra 512mb(especially for over ?500 )? and i imagine there wont be much for at least 6-8 months.

now wait for the contempt

[Ciaran]

sli is the only advantage of pci - express, but there is a chance that the new 6800 ultra 512mb gddr3/ new redeon x800+ 512mb wont come out for agp mobo's due to bandwidth limitations.

You sure about that? Most current cards barely top the AGP 4x interface. With the majority of boards now they are running 8x I can't see PCI-e being needed this generation.

[Valken]

I think PCI Express is more about the fact that the bandwidth is more suited for bidirectional transfers to and from the GPU compared to AGP. I would imagine this is better because more can be done on-chip and retrieved as needed. I know that Longhorn's new hardware accelerated UI is going to use this where it can.