So Nvidia has cancelled production of ALL AGP cards except the 6800Gs?

This is what I read over on Rage3d. That sucks. Really sucks.

--
Doug

pigdos schrieb:

This is what I read over on Rage3d. That sucks. Really sucks.

I don't understand your point. First, Nvidia makes _GPUs_ (ICs), not
videocards. Second, they stopped production of GPUs with native AGP
interface, but board makers still can make AGP cards by using the
AGP-PCIe brigde chip. Third, AGP is dead. The current crop of AGP cards
is still fast enough for the latest AGP systems, and next generation
cards also want a faster system that will have PCIe.

So what?

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote in news:412422F1d1adlU1
@individual.net:

pigdos schrieb:

This is what I read over on Rage3d. That sucks. Really sucks.

I don't understand your point. First, Nvidia makes _GPUs_ (ICs), not
videocards. Second, they stopped production of GPUs with native AGP
interface, but board makers still can make AGP cards by using the
AGP-PCIe brigde chip. Third, AGP is dead. The current crop of AGP cards
is still fast enough for the latest AGP systems, and next generation
cards also want a faster system that will have PCIe.

So what?

You make some excellent points Benjamin, however I'm still a little
confused as to why AGP has been ditched so quickly. GPU's still can't
consume the AGP 8x bandwidth.

It all seems a bit pushy by the developers to move everyone for monetary
purposes. It almost seems like hardware developers are thinking that AGP
was too good to begin with and has held back money making opportunities.

"Dean Jarratt" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
Benjamin Gawert wrote in news:412422F1d1adlU1
@individual.net:

pigdos schrieb:

This is what I read over on Rage3d. That sucks. Really sucks.

I don't understand your point. First, Nvidia makes _GPUs_ (ICs), not
videocards. Second, they stopped production of GPUs with native AGP
interface, but board makers still can make AGP cards by using the
AGP-PCIe brigde chip. Third, AGP is dead. The current crop of AGP cards
is still fast enough for the latest AGP systems, and next generation
cards also want a faster system that will have PCIe.

So what?

You make some excellent points Benjamin, however I'm still a little
confused as to why AGP has been ditched so quickly. GPU's still can't
consume the AGP 8x bandwidth.

It all seems a bit pushy by the developers to move everyone for monetary
purposes. It almost seems like hardware developers are thinking that AGP
was too good to begin with and has held back money making opportunities.

Yeah, they force us to buy new hardware.
The only advantage of PCIe is IMHO the possibility of SLI.
I am using my 6800gt on a crappy 4xAGP board...the difference to 8xAGP is
5%.

Cu, Michael

Currently 70% of the graphics card sold are AGP.
So AGP is still a money maker for NVIDIA and ATI.

"Benjamin Gawert" wrote in message
...
pigdos schrieb:

This is what I read over on Rage3d. That sucks. Really sucks.

I don't understand your point. First, Nvidia makes _GPUs_ (ICs), not
videocards. Second, they stopped production of GPUs with native AGP
interface, but board makers still can make AGP cards by using the AGP-PCIe
brigde chip. Third, AGP is dead. The current crop of AGP cards is still
fast enough for the latest AGP systems, and next generation cards also
want a faster system that will have PCIe.

So what?

Benjamin

tod schrieb:

Currently 70% of the graphics card sold are AGP.
So AGP is still a money maker for NVIDIA and ATI.

Thats BS. Over 80% of sales ATI and Nvidia make comes from system
builders, and these are using PCIe only for over a year now.

Benjamin

Dean Jarratt schrieb:

You make some excellent points Benjamin, however I'm still a little
confused as to why AGP has been ditched so quickly. GPU's still can't
consume the AGP 8x bandwidth.

No, AGP 4x would be still fast enough...

It all seems a bit pushy by the developers to move everyone for monetary
purposes. It almost seems like hardware developers are thinking that AGP
was too good to begin with and has held back money making opportunities.

You ignore that unlike AGP PCIe is not only for gfx cards. The problem
with AGP PCs is not the gfx interface (AGP) but the slow shared bus
(PCI) which is needed for expension boards. PCI _is_ a limiting factor
already, and the PCI enhancements (PCI64, PCI-X) have a higher bandwidth
but still suffer from the same problem (shared bus). So there was a need
for something really new, even when most home users didn't reach the limits.

Unlike AGP (which basically is just a faster PCI interface) and PCI
which both are parallel busses PCIe is a serial point-to-point
connection with accumulated bandwidth (which means you can combine
several lanes to increase bandwidth). That means PCIe devices don't have
to share bandwidth with other devices. Of course this also has
advantages to gfx cards while AGP is a single card system only which
also has several limitations and bottlenecks.

So it's clear that at some point simply a cut was necessary because the
limitations through PCI weren't getting better over time...

And honestly, I see no problem. Of course the majority of old systems
are AGP but what do you expect? It's not a PCIe specific problem that
doing an upgrade often comes with the need for upgrading other
components. Want examples? CPU too slow - new CPU has new socket or
different FSB - new mobo that supports CPU. Oops, the new mobo also
wants new RAM because the old RAM is too slow or also from a different
type (i.e. SDRAM). So that means buying new RAM, too. And after You're
done with that you probably find that the HD also is slow and that it's
better if the new disk you gonna buy doesn't has parallel ATA but SATA
because your new mobo has two or four ports waiting for a fast drive.
And so on...

I know that lots of people are upset because AGP is dead. But then, the
AGP cards that are still available (ATI X800 class or GF6800 series) are
more than fast enough even for the fastest AGP systems. Cards like the
7800GTX or ATI X1800 also want a system that has a fast CPU and also a
fast bus system (i.e. memory interface), otherwise most of the potential
of these cards is just wasted as is the money that has been spent for
them. And for people that have an older computer from i.e. the Athlon XP
generation or a socket 478 P4 every upgrade would also mean new mobo
which should be PCIe...

Benjamin

Dean Jarratt wrote:
You make some excellent points Benjamin, however I'm still a little
confused as to why AGP has been ditched so quickly. GPU's still can't
consume the AGP 8x bandwidth.

That's exactly the point, no AGP system ever practically used all the
available bandwidth. Even 8X. There were fundamental obstacles to
overcome in the AGP architecture that were bottlenecks to performance.
Plus, the entire system performance suffered from legacy interfaces like
PCI. PCIE provides far more total system bandwidth and the ability to
actually carry it, not just over the graphics bus.

Advances like the NForce architecture and the last KT400's were about
the best you would ever get in AGP. It seems very silly to put
something like a Athlon 64 X2 4200 in a system where both memory and
graphics performance would be limited by the system itself. There was
very little return for increasing processor and FSB speeds on AGP systems.

tod wrote:

Currently 70% of the graphics card sold are AGP.

And your source for that information is?

So AGP is still a money maker for NVIDIA and ATI.

"Benjamin Gawert" wrote in message
...
pigdos schrieb:

This is what I read over on Rage3d. That sucks. Really sucks.

I don't understand your point. First, Nvidia makes _GPUs_ (ICs), not
videocards. Second, they stopped production of GPUs with native AGP
interface, but board makers still can make AGP cards by using the
AGP-PCIe brigde chip. Third, AGP is dead. The current crop of AGP cards
is still fast enough for the latest AGP systems, and next generation
cards also want a faster system that will have PCIe.

So what?

Benjamin



--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

In article et,
says...
Currently 70% of the graphics card sold are AGP.

Did that hurt when you pulled it out?

So AGP is still a money maker for NVIDIA and ATI.

snip

You don't know much about business do you?

Bill