AGP 8x vs 4x Hype?

Well, the title basically says what I want to know. Anyhow, I ordered all of the components to build a new system, as some of you know, and I just got my video card in today. It is the MSI G4Ti4200 128MB DDR w/ Tv out, yadda yadda. The thing is, I was really expecting an 8x AGP card. BUT, as you can see with this post that didn't happen. It is rated to run at 4x AGP. Now, I've heard mostly that the 8X AGP bandwidth isn't really that much of a performance increase, but my new motherboard handles it, and why not? I mean, I'm trying to get the most bang for the buck, is this 4x going to run neck and neck with an 8x? Or should I not bother opening the box and go ahead and trade it out for an 8x?

Please.. the honest truth. Also, just looking at a few specs, it did seem the 8X AGP cards rate at about 10GB+ on bandwidth, vs 8GB on the 4x.

Thanks a ton!

AGP 8x cards does deliver more bandwith then 4x, however the GPU can't produce that much data in one second. no video card actually fully exceed the 4x agp limit (not sure about FX) but 8x is useless right now.

Hmmmm.. But in say a year, or more will I be regretting not having got the 8x version?

Basically as I see it now, none of the current games, or any that are being released currently (because they've been under development for years) are going to use the 8x technology. However, in a year or so things will shift around a bit.

Perhaps I could upgrade again in a year, but I'd rather not.

Although having to RMA the card and pick another, and wait for it just to build the system would suck as well.. Hmm decisions decisions..

if you want to take the use of the 8x speeds you would still need to get a better video card 4200 don't produce that much data for 8x.

Heh.. I can understand your point about the 4200 not producing enough data to really need the bandwidth. However, I honestly believe that the 1x-8x difference isn't that big of a performance factor. It really relies on Vram Speed and the GPU core speed. I will probably clock the 4200 to about 315/580 ish.. so it should run pretty decent for 1.5-2 years. In that time we'll just see whats out there =)

Neofate said:

Please.. the honest truth. Also, just looking at a few specs, it did seem the 8X AGP cards rate at about 10GB+ on bandwidth, vs 8GB on the 4x.

Thanks a ton!

Click to expand...

If it really matters to you. 4XAGP over 2XAGP gains all 30 3DMarks. You really care about 8XAGP now? How often do you set a resolution above 1600X1200?

4XAGP transfers 1066MB/sec. Roughly 1GB/sec. AGP8X is double that.

Not sure what specs you're reading but they're wrong=)

It merits mentioning that the truly heavy data transfers take place between the local video card memory and the GPU. This is why modern 3D graphics cards have 6-18GB/s data transfer rate on card between the memory and GPU. Obviously if you need say 18GB/s (ATI 9700) to maximize performance whether the bus passes 1 or 2 GB/s is rather unimportant. Bus traffic lies well below the 1GB/s level of AGP 4X, and will remain so for the useful life of current motherboards and video cards. But 8 is bigger than 4, so it must be better

AGP texturing is and always was a sham. Intel invented AGP solely to make the AMD K6 platform seem outdated, as it at one point had no AGP capable chipsets. But AGP texturing has alway been unusably slow, and continues to be even at 8X transfer rates. AGP has alway been of dubious value, as anytime the local video memory footprint is exceeded the performance hit from using system memory (AGP texturing) is so severe that more realistic loads must be placed on the video card. For the longest time AGP was completely useless, but as bus traffic increased over the years the increased bus bandwidth provided by AGP finally began to pay dividends over the PCI bus. But make no mistake, AGP 4X does the trick nicely and will continue to do so for some time.

LOL- virtually NO difference betrween AGP8X and AGP4X, I just read a legnthy comparison, and AGHP4X is even faster in most benchies.

The bottlenecks are not the AGP config's between 8x and 4x

This will tell you everything you need to know

Here's a comparison between AGP4X vs. AGP8X.

8X at this point in time is a marketing gimmick....to prove it run your system at 2X and see what marks you get, then run it at 4X and see what you get......heck my system wont even let me run 4X for some reason but it doesnt really bother me because my performance is right where it should be

"AGP 8x vs 4x Hype?"

The answer is yes

Ugmore Baggage said:

"AGP 8x vs 4x Hype?"

The answer is yes

Click to expand...

Just wait for fall/winter(maybe even in 2004). There coming out with Serial AGP, capable of roughly 12.5GB/s. Is it me or is that just ridiculous?

12.5GB/s?? how big do they think textures are going to get - they would have to start selling games on mini harddisks with the textures that would have to fill that surely....

bandwidth only shows performance when theres something to fill it

but I aint read about serial AGP have you got the link?