Will 512mb cards be available in AGP?

[chuckchurch]

Hey all,

I'm contemplating replacing my Radeon 9700 Pro AGP sooner or later, but am holding out until the 512mb cards are out. I don't want to replace my MB, RAM, and CPU just to support PCI-E. Any speculation on whether the 512mb R850 or GF6800 Ultra will be available in AGP? My MB does 8X AGP.

Thanks,
Chuck

 

[ChuChu]

I have no clue, but AGP is still pretty the main thing that most people have. Although PCI-E is growing more popular as people prepare for the future...

 

[cleeve]

I'd say it's a pretty safe bet 512 meg cards will be out of AGP, especially since they're still selling brand new AGP boards.

AGP is far from dead. It'll living in the retirement home for a while before passing on.

________________
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[Guest]

GreatApe posted in another thread (I forget which) that ATI's R520 may posiibly only be pci-e :frown:

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[Clob]

I will find the one that made that decision and strangle them if it is true! The only thing I understand is the lack of bandwidth that AGP provids. Will that realy be a factor for the R520? I know its going to be a beefy card, but Geeze!

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[Guest]

Well his post stated that it was not a definite, but rather a possibility. I believe he also stated that it may be released later as such if there's enough demand.

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[Guest]

OMFG, I apologize, it was a post by Cleeve, my apologies to everyone lol :

ATI R520:

ATI's new GPU chip R520 is internally called "Fudo". The design has been ready for quite some time now. One source is telling us "the chip is working, now ATI is designing the boards, and after that they have to fix the boards to get them working [laughs]".

The chip is produced using a 90nm process at TSMC and will have 300 to 350 million transistors.

We have confirmed the 24 pipelines rumors from several independant sources. However, these 24 pipelines are not comparable to 24 of today's pipelines - multiply by 1.3. So the 24 pipelines will have the performance of 32 "normal" pipelines.
The result of this is that the R520 will be two times as fast as the currently fastest X850s.

ATI will most probably present the chip in June at Computex, Taiwan.

The most important architectural change is support for WGF 1.0 (Windows Graphics Foundation). This is the successor to DirectX9, often called DirectX Next. WGF will be included as standard in Microsoft Longhorn.
WGF offers new exciting features for game developers like "unlimited" shader length, Geometry Shaders, Much lower overhead than DirectX9 and many more.

Obviously ShaderModel 3.0 is supported by R520 as well.

Memory configurations will be 256-bit memory interface (definitely not 512-bit) with 256 MB and 512 MB GDDR3. The internal registers of R520 support even 1GB memory size. With current GDDR3 prices we will definitely not see a 1GB design at least not in the near future and not for gaming cards. However, this shows that ATI is planning for the future.

The boards will be available in PCI-Express only. When asked about an AGP version, one source said "most probably not". Please note that this is not a definite "no". My guess is that if the market really demands an AGP version, it will be implemented via the Rialto bridge chip.

In the S3 part of this report we talked about OmniChrome supporting 10-bit-per-color display depths, so does R520. HDTV and HDCP output will be supported as well.

Clocks are not finalized yet, but expect something around 700 MHz core and 800 MHz memory (1.25ns).

The first boards will be VERY expensive people are talking $600-$700 range. It all depends on how the graphics memory prices develop in the next months and if TSMC can get good yields out of the 90nm process.

And there it is

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[cleeve]

AGP Bandwidth is great. IN the current generation PCI-express offers NO performance increase over AGP 8x.

I'd be surprised if that changes with the R520.

Also, you should note that 512 megs of ram really does very little for performance. You're much better off with a good 128-meg card than you are with a crappy 512 meg card.

I doubt 512 vs 256 will offer more than a 5% performance increase, and that's in very special high-res circumstances. Most of the time a difference won't be perceptible.

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[addiarmadar]

It depends on the bandwidth the addtional 256mb of ram will require. Im not confident that at leaset the High-End 512mb cards will have AGP interface option but pretty certain that Mid-Range or Lower-End 512mb cards would have AGP interface.

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[jihiggs]

man, i really hate the idea of having to upgrade the video and motherboard at the same time. thats a lot of money! i will probly be buying a new video card in a year and a new mother board probly in 2 years. i wonder if there is a pci-e adaptor to plug into an agp port. i usually dont condone the use of such things but i consider this an extenuating circumstance.

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[Andrzej_Pl]

IMHO there is not such thing as adapter...your only solution is that VIA chipset that has both AGP and PCI-ex onboard (forgot the chipset name though)

Andrzej

 

[chuckchurch]

My reason for wanting 512mb isn't really for performance, but it seems like the newest games like Doom3 prefer to put all textures in video ram. So I hope that having 512 will future-proof me for at least 3 years.

Chuck

CCIE #8776, MCNE, MCSE

 

[chuckchurch]

Just as an update, I emailed the EVGA company, as I noticed last week they had an advertisement for the upcoming 512mb 6800 Ultra card, which listed only PCI-E. Email thread:
---------------------------------------------------------
Hi Chuck,

At this stage there are no plans for an AGP version of the 6800 Ultra 512MB.

Thanks

EVGA Sales
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wade Shelley
Assistant Manager
2900 Saturn St. Suite B
Brea, CA 92821
Email: wshelley@evga.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Church, Chuck [mailto:cchurch@xxxxxxx]
Posted At: Friday, March 25, 2005 3:39 AM
Posted To: eVGA.com Sales
Conversation: Video card question
Subject: Video card question


Sales,

I'm interested in the new 6800 Ultra with 512 mb RAM when it comes out. Will it be available in AGP, or only PCI-E?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Granted, this is only one company, but I hope it's not what others are planning...

Chuck Church
CCIE #8776, MCNE, MCSE<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ChuckChurch on 03/26/05 11:09 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Clob]

I WANT 512Bit RAM! RAWR!!

"If youre paddling upstream in a canoe and a
wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse? None! Icecream doesn't have bones!!!"

"Battling Gimps and Dimbulbs HERE at THGC"

 

[Guest]

Lol, go get em wusy!!

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[TheGreatGrapeApe]

There will be a new AGP+PCIe solution in the near future from ULi, here's a pic of a Jetway board shown @ CeBit (Xbit has a bigger pic but Xbit-Labs' server is down );

<A HREF="http://overclockers.ru/images/news/2005/03/14/uli_03.jpg" target="_new">The Board</A>

<A HREF="http://overclockers.ru/images/news/2005/03/14/uli_01.jpg" target="_new">The Chipset</A>


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