another question, AGP this time

[bellyboy]

i have a MSI Geforce 4 TI4400 128 ddr ram. it is AGP x4, would i see any difference if i got an AGP x8 card. what im really trying to say is, is thee musch speed difference beteen x4 or x8.....those connect 3d radeon 9800pro look smokin.....

[luke313]

In a word, no.

[bellyboy]

cant get it plainer than that.

thanks, just what i wanted to know.

[SilentDeath]

a 9800pro is a lot faster than ur gf4 but 8x agp makes up a very small amount of this performance differnce, u wouldnt notice if u ran a 9800p at 4x instead of 8x

[Russ]

yes there is.. or they wouldn't bother using the technoloogy would they, with 8x, everything happens twice as fast as 4x, so you would see a massive increase from a ti440.

[SilentDeath]

no...

8x gives more agp bandwidth, that is all.
current cards (9800p included) dont really need more than 4x bandwidth so far...
the technology is HYPE, look on boxes for the cards, its a good USP. PCI-X will be out before cards really need 8x agp.

theres no point in having 2x more bandwidth if u aint using it...

(agp is from gfx cards to mobo/ram/cpu. having faster agp will not affect gpu-gfx mem bandwidth - this is where the best perf improvements are made, from clocking ur gfx ram higher)

[bellyboy]

i thought it was really importent the way all these reviwers rave about it..... thanks for that info, it's appreciated.

[Russ]

not in mood to argue with "professionals"

[SilentDeath]

im not a professional till u pay me, so keep arguing (or pay me )

atm nvidia and ati (but mostly nvidia) are trying to exploit small technical improvements, like agp speed. from 2x to 4x was quite a big improvement, so they assume ppl will think 4-8x will be, so they get more money.
this is very similar to another thing they have done, sticking 256mb on cards like the fx5200 or 9200. these cards simply arnt fast enuf to make use of the extra 128mb, the 9800pro which is a lot faster hardly even makes use of it.... (makes only a few frames/second faster at very high res's where it makes most difference)

they are using there marketing techniqes to 'trick' a lot of people into buying there products, the gfx card market is no longer won by the company with the better card.

[Agent]

Its correct Russ

The AGP 4x bandwidth is far from full in most cases at the moment. AGP 8x lowers the latency a little aswell as giving the extra bandwidth, but the extra bandwidth isnt really needed.

[Austin]

Yup AGP8x vs AGP4x makes virtually no diff at all. However a lot of AGP8x cards like the Rad9700 and Rad9800 are faster because of their design and architecture, the fact they have AGP8x is more to do with seeming good the the average Joe. Upgrading froma TI4400 is not worth at the mo unless you absolutely need DX9 and superb AA+AF ... even then the 9600PRO can work out slower in some cases so you'll be looking at a fair sum of money.

[bellyboy]

well i think i'll save my dosh then......until half life 2 anyway