Geforce 7800 AGP!

Pestcontrol

Pestcontrol

In Cryo Sleep
When you buy such a card, remember that you cannot upgrade the rest of your system anymore. I don't really see the benefit of such extreme high-end AGP cards, especially when they're more expensive.

I've upgraded to a second hand 9800pro for less than £60 (i think..), it's all i'll ever need before doing a full upgrade. PCI-E will be around for multiple decades, AGP has been relatively short-lived for an interface, having appeared on the majority of motherboards for roughly 8 years.
 
DeZmond

DeZmond

Junior Administrator
The reason for this being, of course, that the PCI spec is multi-purpose, whereas AGP is for graphics cards only. (Yes, I know that PCI express x16 slots are used for graphics cards only at the moment, but that probably won't last forever).

Of course, you are right about ludicrous AGP cards... however this is not entirely the case. Many systems with AGP slots are still pretty potent and can make a fair amount of use of a card like the 7800... some 64-bit motherboards have AGP slots... so having high-end cards like the 7800 caters to that market perfectly. And, it forces the price of other AGP cards even lower, which is a good thing for the rest of us... :)
 
H

HotStuff

Member
Just checked the spec of the 7800 AGP compared to that of my 6800GT AGP, here is the low down.

Both have 16 pipes, 256 bit 256Mb GDDR3 memory running at 400Mhz(dual) & 8xAGP.

The only difference appears to be that the core clock is 350Mhz on the 6800GT but 375-400Mhz on the 7800 (depending on model you buy). Pressumably that would give slighly more bandwidth. I calculate that as 7-14% improvement.

Any ideas, you think it's worthwhile upgrading? Am I right here? I have a 3.2Ghz, 1Mb Cache Pentium chip and 2Gb Ram.
 
Haven

Haven

Administrator
Staff member
I doubt you'll get your money's worth Hotstuff - save it for a rainy day mate.
 
DeZmond

DeZmond

Junior Administrator
HotStuff said:
Just checked the spec of the 7800 AGP compared to that of my 6800GT AGP, here is the low down.

Both have 16 pipes, 256 bit 256Mb GDDR3 memory running at 400Mhz(dual) & 8xAGP.

The only difference appears to be that the core clock is 350Mhz on the 6800GT but 375-400Mhz on the 7800 (depending on model you buy). Pressumably that would give slighly more bandwidth. I calculate that as 7-14% improvement.

Any ideas, you think it's worthwhile upgrading? Am I right here? I have a 3.2Ghz, 1Mb Cache Pentium chip and 2Gb Ram.
Click to expand...

The core on the 7800 is a heavily modified version of that in the 6800. Among other things, you get:
-faster pixel shading
-much faster HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering
-"Transparent AA" ie a version of antialiasing that is good for textures with alpha channels in, ie chain link fences, etc.

But on your system I'd say no: your 6800 is more than capable at the moment and when you do get the urge to upgrade (again) go for a new 64 bit system (I'd recommend AMD for this - see the other tech topics I've been replying to recently).
 
Pestcontrol

Pestcontrol

In Cryo Sleep
Upgrade when your system feels too slow, not when something faster comes out. :) Unless it's really burning a hole in your pocket.
 
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