AGP Question

GDW

Fledgling Freddie
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Dec 22, 2003
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Ive just replaced my aging Geforce 4600 ti with a Geforce 6800 GT. Problem is Im still using an 3 yr old Asus 266 MB wich only has an AGP bus speed of 4. Will I notice much difference if I upgrade the board to a MB with x8?
 

throdgrain

FH is my second home
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Dec 22, 2003
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There will be an improvement, though from what Ive read not as much as you might expect :)
Certainly not as much as when you throw that old nasty mobo/cpu away and buy summat good to go with your nice new graphics card :D
 

Mazling

Can't get enough of FH
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I have to say that it depends on your card. LOADS of people moaned about AGP 4x "not making any difference" when it was new ... until the new batch of cards came out. Best to read up about your card imhfo :)
 

Embattle

FH is my second home
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You'll only normally get around 2-5% performance gain on average, although depends on other factors.
 

Jonty

Fledgling Freddie
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Dec 22, 2003
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Hi GDW

The theoretical difference between AGP 4x and 8x is, as people have said, probably more notable than any real-world difference as far as I know. My notebook has an AGP 4x bus and yet it still flies along in the latest of games, so it's certainly more the graphics card and rest of the system than the bus that's the important in most instances.

Obviously AGP 8x is more preferable than 4x, just as PCI-Express 16x is better than AGP 8x, but at the moment there's often little notable difference in real-world gameplay. No doubt there are exceptions, and the future may well bring with it a need for greater bus bandwidth, but for now I think you should be alright with AGP 4x.

Unless you have the money burning a whole in your pocket and the rest of the system would benefit from a new motherboard, I'd probably save your money for now. Just my opinion, though, and I must confess I haven't read up on all this for a while.

Kind Regards
 

Catsby

One of Freddy's beloved
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Apr 21, 2004
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Catsby has a 6600GT with a 4x AGP, and the benchmarks he gets differ by zero from the 8x AGP published results of others.
 

GDW

Fledgling Freddie
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Dec 22, 2003
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Hmm, interesting comments. I benchmarked my system compared to others with the same gragphics card and the performance of my system was 30- 50% slower than everone elses. I guessed it was because of my x4 bus.

It must be the processor (xp 2400) and the 266mhz Ram thats causing the bottleneck then.

Having said that I can run games like Halflife 2 and Brothers in Arms at the highest settings and it runs sweetly, so I guess Ill hold back before investing anymore money.

Thanks guys
 

Jonty

Fledgling Freddie
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Dec 22, 2003
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Hi GDW

As you say, the processor and the RAM will hold back the system, but if you still get great results when playing then that's all that really matters :)

Kind Regards
 

Catsby

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
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Catsby has a 2600+ (KT333) and has recently upgraded from a Geforce 4600 ti. Catsby is a bit disappointed, as the bottleneck is clearly the cpu. Catsby has deduced this by reducing the load on the gfx card by lowering resolution and image quality, and the fram rate did not increase by much. :(
 

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