What's next for AGP?

[hxhky]

I built my PC last June, and my video card seems to be bottlenecking my system when running today's games such as World of Warcraft:

P4 3.0C
MSI 865PE
Corsiar XMS 512X2 (cl2)
Asus 9600XT
Audigy 2 ZS
Gigaworks S700
Zalman 400W PSU

I've been looking at 6600GT/6800/6800GT for some time and not quite sure what my next video card should be. Since these cards have been out for a while, I was wondering if ATI/Nvidia will have some new AGP cards (personally I prefer ATI cards for the image quality--maybe thats just not the case anymore), and when.

I think my CPU is still ok, a new video card will improve my gaming experience quite a lot. If there wont be any new AGP cards, probably I'll just get a 6800GT (although the price is a little steep). If there will be, I'd expect the next 200-dollar card will have 6800's performance.

Thanks

 

[cleeve]

Yep, your CPU is still very good.

As for new AGP cards, well, the new X800 (vanilla) and X800 XL will be coming out in AGP in the next month or so. I believe the X850 XT will be, too.

The vanilla X800 256mb will be about $250 USD and will perform about 95% as good as the X800 PRO, as most manufacturers are giving these cards fast X800-pro speed memory. This card is much better than the X6600GT, and is even better than the vanilla 6800.

Although for ~$320 the best bet in AGP is still the 6800GT. The X800XL AGP version will probably be closer to $350, so it comes down to preference.

On a side note, Nvidia's image quality has come to par with Ati's in the 6x00 generation of cards. It was the GeforceFX series that sucked balls.

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[hxhky]

Thanks for the info, its very helpful.

Probably I'll wait for a couple of months and get a X800/XL...

 

[pauldh]

Yup as Cleeve said, X800, X800XL, and X850XT will be coming out. But AGP isn't going to die there. ATI's next release will be R520 and we should at least see a paper launch by the end of June. we'd expect to see PCI-e versions appear for sale first, but ATI will be making an AGP R520 card, possible with the Rialto bridge chip like the X800/XL cards or possibly native AGP like the X850XT AGP. We will have to see. But anyway, if you don't go all out this round, at least you can look forward to another generation of ATI AGP cards also.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>