Which card is best?

[Scullypuss]

Hi.

My gamer son had a PSU blow-out which has killed his XFX geForce 6800 Ultra 256Mb. AGP card.

I'm going to replace this for him as an early Christmas present, but I cannot find the same card anywhere in AGP format, they're all PCI-E now.

Has anyone got any suggestions to make as to what the new-kid-on-the-block high-end dogs-bollocks graphics card would be that I could try searching for to replace this with?

Thanks.

[Odc]

I got my 6800 GT AGP from ebuyer.com. Try there.

[Scullypuss]

Thanks Odc.

Had a quick look, but they don't have a 6800 ultra in AGP - I wouldn't want to change the motherboard as well for one with PCI-E slots, but I wouldn't want to give him a less powerful card ... ah well........

[Carlh]

Hi,

At the moment all the 6800 Ultra cards are slowly becoming end of life as all Nvidia's partners are now going towards the newer generation 7 series of cards and as such as these are all PCI-E its now becoming difficult to get any AGP 6800 cards from suppliers.

[iranu]

An alternative is to get a sapphire x800gto2 (squared) for @ £150 and unlock the extra 4 pipes and overclock it to x850xt pe speeds. A few on Hexus have done this quite easily and there are some guides around.

[fredered]

but i dont think on AGP, although i am not sure about modable mlian GTOs that are avaliable on AGp, however these have a lower succes rate.
*edit* If you do decide to get a 6800gt AGP this thread should be usefull http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=58185

[BrynS]

Komplett have 100+ XFX GeForce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 AGP8X at £239 inc VAT, which seems to be fairly reasonable given that "high-end" AGP supplies from nVIDIA in particular, as well as ATI appear to be drying up. Scan have the same card in stock for £233.83 inc VAT with Far Cry (Full game) which is a great deal.

Another possibilty would be to look for a X800XT(PE)/X850XT(PE) or X800XL AGP variant. The X800XL is a good competitor to the 6800GT in most Direct3D games especially with high AA and AF, but lags behind in OpenGL games. The X850XTPE is generally 5-15% faster than the 6800 Ultra at stock speeds, especially with high AA and AF, but again suffers in OpenGL relative to the 6800. The X800-series only support up to Shader Model 2.0b, whereas the GeForce 6800-series support SM3.0, although by the time SM3.0 games are prevalent, neither card will be able offer to decent performance at the highest settings. OcUK and Overclock have some AGP X800's in stock.

Unfortunately, if you're looking for higher peformance on the AGP platform (like a still significant percentage of consumers I would wager), you are currently out of luck. Your only choice for a high-end GPU being to transition over to PCI-e and all that entails -- new mobo and possibly RAM and CPU as well depending on your previous setup. ATI roadmaps from earlier in the year showed various AGP versions of their recently released R5-series, but with R520's significant delay, any AGP R520 (X1800XL/XT) seems unlikely, although I believe the chances of AGP versions of RV530 (X1600Pro/XT) and RV515 (X1300 Pro) more probable, but likely only next year.

nVIDIA have so far been been fairly quiet on high-end AGP products, while emphasising their shrewd transition to native PCI-e with their 7800GT/GTX products. In one of the FAQ's on their site they don't rule out AGP GeForce 7-series variants, but suggest that it is up to their AIB's. I wouldn't be surprised to see AGP 7600's and 7200's when they emerge, but both IHV's seem keen to push enthusiasts to PCI-e, which is actually a good thing, but leaves those still on AGP with few options.

nVIDIA are due to hard launch their new high-end 512MB 7800GTX on 14th November (although the 7th has also been bandied about) and some chat suggests another SKU may be launched as well, although this could be just the availability of their 6800GS SKU. Other chit suggests it may be a further crippled G70 (GeForce 7800) with 16 fragment pipelines and perhaps it may have a bridged AGP variant, but I wouldn't hold your breath, although if you have the time, I might not hurt to wait until the the 14th and see what transpires.

Cheers,


BrynS