(computer geeks) Why are the "NEWER" Video cards comming out on PCI and not AGP?

[Otraotaku]

ive been in the markert to get another video card for my computer and i cant seem to get this out of my head reading that the  Geforce 7800 GT is supose to be the Greatest card out there to come (or most expensive, you decide) but it only has a PCI model? now i cant tell you how fast it will run on a system bus or anything but.... isnt the AGP slot primarily reserved and used for Fast Video Speeds?

i think ATI also started to release certain cards in only PCI models  aswell..


Whats going on here? 

[JonnyBoy]

It's not regular PCI, it's actually PCI express. It can read faster and perform better and is pretty much where all video card technology is going.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/pcie.ars/1

[Otraotaku]

It's not regular PCI, it's actually PCI express. It can read faster and perform better and is pretty much where all video card technology is going.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/pcie.ars/1

so its something youll need to replace your  motherboard for right?

[Hoopz]

It's not regular PCI, it's actually PCI express. It can read faster and perform better and is pretty much where all video card technology is going.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/pcie.ars/1

so its something youll need to replace your motherboard for right?

Yes, most newer motherboards will say either PCI express or AGP.  All things being equal, chose PCI Express over AGP.

[Otraotaku]

It's not regular PCI, it's actually PCI express. It can read faster and perform better and is pretty much where all video card technology is going.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/pcie.ars/1

so its something youll need to replace your motherboard for right?

Yes, most newer motherboards will say either PCI express or AGP.  All things being equal, chose PCI Express over AGP.

then what about PCI ISA and Etc.... is it pre-compatable? and or AGP aswell?

[SOAPboy]

It's not regular PCI, it's actually PCI express. It can read faster and perform better and is pretty much where all video card technology is going.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/pcie.ars/1

so its something youll need to replace your motherboard for right?

Yes, most newer motherboards will say either PCI express or AGP.

[Harry Potter]

PCI express is overrated.

To fully utilise it's bandwidth, you need to be runnning a 3D program, displaying something like a 5 million polygon model in full preview mode.

Games will not make full use of it unless you're running 1900 x 1200 resolutions.

Plus it's early days for it but it's the new thing.

One good thing about it that AGP never had is you can have more than one PCI express slot on some MBs, meaning certain video cards can run alongside each other. Good for true multi-display applications.

[TalkingOctopus]

PCI express is overrated.

To fully utilise it's bandwidth, you need to be runnning a 3D program, displaying something like a 5 million polygon model in full preview mode.

Games will not make full use of it unless you're running 1900 x 1200 resolutions.

Plus it's early days for it but it's the new thing.

One good thing about it that AGP never had is you can have more than one PCI express slot on some MBs, meaning certain video cards can run alongside each other. Good for true multi-display applications.

Although there are currently few visible benefits of PCI express, it is much better than PCI.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

One good thing about it that AGP never had is you can have more than one PCI express slot on some MBs, meaning certain video cards can run alongside each other. Good for true multi-display applications.

And the downside is they draw a hell of a lot more juice. So much so that you need a power supply running 6-pin +12V to each slot. I ran into a LOT of problems trying to find a stable power supply for my system. And PCI-E cards kick out an amazing amount of heat...if you don't have a decent case with excellent ventilation, the system can become entirely unstable.

I can't imagine how hot it is in SLI.

mrC

[Harry Potter]

One good thing about it that AGP never had is you can have more than one PCI express slot on some MBs, meaning certain video cards can run alongside each other. Good for true multi-display applications.

And the downside is they draw a hell of a lot more juice. So much so that you need a power supply running 6-pin +12V to each slot. I ran into a LOT of problems trying to find a stable power supply for my system. And PCI-E cards kick out an amazing amount of heat...if you don't have a decent case with excellent ventilation, the system can become entirely unstable.

I can't imagine how hot it is in SLI.

mrC

AT the moment I have an AGP 8X card which draws 80w. The PCI equivalent draws 150w. These are high-end OpenGL cards. A 600w supply would have no problem driving two of those (if you're rich). Low end cards (ie Gaming and stuff) would not draw that much more.

As far as heat is concerned, modern cases are more than adequate to get around this.

Although there are currently few visible benefits of PCI express, it is much better than PCI.  With PCI express, you can pump a lot more data through the bus with minimal CPU overhead.  For example, you could put 4 PCIE tuners and stream video from 4 DVD players simultaneously with about 5-15% cpu usage.  With regular PCI, this was impossible.  You'd get only a few fps for each stream, there would be artifacts and 100% cpu usage.  Although this scenario does not make much sense, it illustrates the what is possible with pcie.

I wasn't comparing PCI with PCI express. And yes, I wouldn't drive a video card through it unless I had no choice.
I was saying, PCI-E is overkill as is AGPx8 for most common applications, even gaming.

[cholin]

But then again, ten years ago, when good old Windows 95 came out, everything was overkill!  Now, try playing Doom 3 on your old card... not gonna happen.

Technology changes, and this opens possibilities FOR the new games, before they even bothered coming out with them.  Same as if you have a 10ghz processor, people are going to add more features to their programs under the impression, hey, its out there, might as well use it.

[Harry Potter]

But then again, ten years ago, when good old Windows 95 came out, everything was overkill!  Now, try playing Doom 3 on your old card... not gonna happen.

Why on earth would someone want to do that? I wasn't saying stop progress but there is such a thing as too much progress. Instead of optimising hardware these days, manufacturers are just trying to cram as much crap on it as possible. The Amiga is a perfect example of the way it should be.

Technology changes, and this opens possibilities FOR the new games, before they even bothered coming out with them.  Same as if you have a 10ghz processor, people are going to add more features to their programs under the impression, hey, its out there, might as well use it.

And that is exactly why games suck these days. I can't play doom3 on my machine properly. Not because the video card is old (It was bougth 6 months ago and it's openGL native) but because the designers raise minimal specs too high.
The only game I've seen which has an excellent graphics engine is Half-Life 2 which is a 2004 game as is Doom 3. I can barely run it at 640 x 480 whereas I can run HL2 at 1280 x 1024 at full speed.
I'm not saying designers should cater to hardware like mine, but rather they should take time to make a quality product instead of just trying to make it "look cool".

[SOAPboy]

But then again, ten years ago, when good old Windows 95 came out, everything was overkill!  Now, try playing Doom 3 on your old card... not gonna happen.

Why on earth would someone want to do that? I wasn't saying stop progress but there is such a thing as too much progress. Instead of optimising hardware these days, manufacturers are just trying to cram as much crap on it as possible. The Amiga is a perfect example of the way it should be.

Technology changes, and this opens possibilities FOR the new games, before they even bothered coming out with them.  Same as if you have a 10ghz processor, people are going to add more features to their programs under the impression, hey, its out there, might as well use it.

And that is exactly why games suck these days. I can't play doom3 on my machine properly. Not because the video card is old (It was bougth 6 months ago and it's openGL native) but because the designers raise minimal specs too high.
The only game I've seen which has an excellent graphics engine is Half-Life 2 which is a 2004 game as is Doom 3. I can barely run it at 640 x 480 whereas I can run HL2 at 1280 x 1024 at full speed.
I'm not saying designers should cater to hardware like mine, but rather they should take time to make a quality product instead of just trying to make it "look cool".

Doom 3.. Blame shadows and the lighting engine.. On a "high end" card, this isnt an issue..

Older cards just "cant do it"

[Harry Potter]

Mine's not old. Just not right for games.

Hell, even the RAGE 128 on my parent's 1ghz P3 runs it better.

[SOAPboy]

Mine's not old. Just not right for games.

Hell, even the RAGE 128 on my parent's 1ghz P3 runs it better.

What are you running then.. O_o

Because doom 3, runs amazingly well on "newish" cards

[Harry Potter]

My card is a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 200. This is an OpenGL accelerator which has rudimentary DirectX support. I do a lot of 3D animation and this card is one the best for OpenGL accuracy. Hence it's slow for games, which I didn't buy it for.

[SOAPboy]

My card is a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 200. This is an OpenGL accelerator which has rudimentary DirectX support. I do a lot of 3D animation and this card is one the best for OpenGL accuracy. Hence it's slow for games, which I didn't buy it for.

ahh. yep, that will do it..

[Otraotaku]

to add in, i did find my new card a Geforce 6200  256MB AGP, at only 100$.
and to test it out ironicly last night i downloaded the Demo of Doom3,
(which was like 500mb's.. lol) and it was mind blowing just to see if the card could handle it Full Throttle... and it did very well! 

Played like almost 2-3hrs into it until one of those Beasts crawled out from the stairs and got me.. heheh

great stuff...