Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
In article <41E55CA5.BEF5689C@spam.net>, Larry <no@spam.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm not really up to date with all the latest tech, I'm currently
> running A7V266-E with Athlon XP 2400+ 1G DDR333 ram and Gforce 5900. Is
> the new Gforce 6800 Ultra PCI express worth looking into or am I better
> off with the build in graphic chip like A8N-SLI? I mainly looking for
> the best gaming performance. If I should go with the 6800 ultra, what
> Asus board can take it?? I don't see any compatible board on Asus's
> site
Thanks!
I think first, you'd better do some research on card availability.
It looks like 6800 Ultra PCI Express are hard to find. Maybe you
have a private source. In any case, expect to pay over MSRP for
the card. In Pricewatch I can see cards go for as much as $888.
Here is a PCI Express card - Core 400MHz Memory GDDR3 1.1GHz
http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/N377.pdf
Now, compare the core clock and memory clock specification for the
hard-to-find PCI Express version, to the easier to find AGP 8X
version of the 6800 Ultra.
For example, this AGP 8X card is $535. Core 425MHz. Memory GDDR3 1.1GHz
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-176&depa=0
In fact, Nvidia tends to use a PCIE-AGP bridge chip, to get from
the PCI-E edge card, to the AGP based GPU.
Given that a bridge is being used, I don't see the difference between
a bridged PCIE card and a native AGP card. Both have the same
bandwidth bottleneck, their AGP port.
If you must have PCI Express, there are two Asus AMD motherboards. The
A8N-SLI is one board, and it has two video card slots. You can use
two certified SLI cards running at PCI Express X8 in SLI mode, in
the video card slots. Or you can use one card at PCI Express x16
by itself. The SLI configuration only accelerates certain games,
and apparently Nvidia will have a web site soon, with a list of the
games that appear in the SLI "profile" file.
The second motherboard, is the A8V-E K8T890 based PCI Express board.
This hasn't been introduced into North America yet, and you have to
look at several Asus web sites to find info on it.
ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket939/A8N-SLI%20Deluxe/e1889_a8n_sli_deluxe.zip
http://www.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket939/A8V-E_Deluxe/e1781_a8v-e_deluxe.pdf
The A8N-SLI is so new, that it is still in need of BIOS work.
Dunno about the status of the A8V-E.
I would buy an A8V Deluxe Revision 2 board (which has a working AGP lock),
an AGP 6800 Ultra, and go with that. I think the revision 2 board
doesn't have Wifi bundled. You may want to research that further.
http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/socket939/a8v-d/overview.htm
ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket939/a8v-deluxe/e1642_a8v_deluxe.pdf
Maybe some day, the high end PCI Express situation will change.
It is hard to find fair reviews. Tomshardware did one review of
AGP cards with a 3.2Ghz Pentium, and PCI Express cards with a
4000+ Athlon64 processor. Yet, the Doom3 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF results
are 42.8 for the 4000+ and 41.4 on the Pentium 3.2 system.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-08.html
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/vga_charts-06.html
I think the AGP version should work just fine for you, and run
cooler than some SLI setup. The SLI systems kick out 300W of heat
when gaming with two video cards, so makes a good "winter gamer"
system.
Maybe someone in a video card group would be in a better position
to comment.
You mentioned built-in graphics - no build-in graphics solution
even comes close, when it comes to performance. They are like
ten times slower than the cards being discussed above. Built-in
graphics are for business systems (Word/Excel/playing Solitaire).
Paul
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