agp 4x vs agp 8x.. any significant performance differences?

[fezz]

I haven an older system that I am trying to extend its gaming life. For my motherboard I have an ASUS P4S533 that only supports agp 4x.

Right now I have a BFG 6600GT OC in my system. It currently is adequate to my needs but within a few months I was thinking about replacing it with an BFG 7800GS 256MB OC.

I was just wondering if there would be any real performance increase from my 6600GT and if I would be significantly killing the potential of this card running it at 4x?

I know my best bet would just to build new but I dont have the kind of cash to spit out for a new rig.

full system specs are as follows:

ASUS P4S533
P4 2.8ghz // 533 FSB (the max the mobo will support)
1GB PC2700 RAM
BFG 6600GT
x2 160gig WD hds

oh how my system is aging

 

[locky28]

Man that thing is a grand-daddy...

Not sure about your question, I know that even today's PCI-E graphics cards would not use all the bandwidth available in an AGP 8x slot but I think 4x Might not cut it, check the spec requirments for the card.

 

[everett]

I do not have that MB, but my old msi k7n2 delta was agp 4X/8x, with an ati 9600pro. every time I would try to enable 8x under smartgart it would freeze when I would load a game. My stepfather had the same rig and his would run 8x with no problems. But as far as I could tell there was no differance between 4x or 8x.

 

[fezz]

hmm ill look into it. if upgrading the video card doesnt give that much of a performance boost ill just run this machine into the ground and save my money to build new later on.

 

[apache_lives]

the difference between 2x and 8x are less then 10%, so nothing significant no

I haven an older system that I am trying to extend its gaming life. For my motherboard I have an ASUS P4S533 that only supports agp 4x.

Right now I have a BFG 6600GT OC in my system. It currently is adequate to my needs but within a few months I was thinking about replacing it with an BFG 7800GS 256MB OC.

I was just wondering if there would be any real performance increase from my 6600GT and if I would be significantly killing the potential of this card running it at 4x?

I know my best bet would just to build new but I dont have the kind of cash to spit out for a new rig.

full system specs are as follows:

ASUS P4S533
P4 2.8ghz // 533 FSB (the max the mobo will support)
1GB PC2700 RAM
BFG 6600GT
x2 160gig WD hds

oh how my system is aging

 

[Datman]

AGP Platform Analysis, Part 1: New Cards, Old System
AGP Platform Analysis, Part 2: New Cards, Single-Core System

AGP Platform Analysis, Part 2: Page 6

Clearly, at the low 1024x768 resolution, the interface is not coming into play. Indeed, across all cards and resolutions the platform seems to be setting the speed as all cards perform similarly.

Now we are seeing the beginnings of separation in the pack, although this has nothing to do with AGP 4x, 8x and PCIe which perform identically in the 7600 GT. We are seeing the X1950 PRO pulling ahead because the resolution is beginning to tax the video cards.

Once again, even at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF, there is no difference between AGP 4x, 8x and PCI express in the 7600 GT cards. While the X1950 PROs show their muscles, there is no notable difference between the frame rates at 4x AGP or 8x AGP. Honestly, I expected to see some bottlenecking at this resolution between 4x AGP and 8x AGP. The AGP speed was set in the motherboard BIOS and there's no way of ensuring the switch was working properly, but there's no arguing with the 7600 GT AGP and PCI express similarity - they were separate cards using separate slots.

 

[pauldh]

Look at the links Bouncer provided as they will show you very little difference between AGP 4X and 8X. The problem is with an AGP 4X mobo comes a slower CPU and RAM, and that's where the real bottleneck is.

Anyway, a P4 2.8B (533 bus) would be just above the XP 2500+ in part 1. Don't worry about the AGP 4X, just look at how the top AGP cards stacked up in the games that matter to you.

 

[fezz]

looks good. thanks a bunch guys

 

[MarkG]

The benchmarks I've run on my 7800GS AGP4x system are only slightly lower than those published online from a similar AGP8x system with the same card, so probably not.

 

[Dr_asik]

oh how my system is aging

I'm so with you.

The 7800GS is cool but not a whole lot better than 6600GT. When I upgraded from a 9600SE to an X800XL it was black and white better, but 6600GT is already not abysmal so don't expect a miracle out of the 7800GS compared to what you have. I got the X800XL refurbished for 140$CAN. If you can have yours for cheap go for it. Otherwise, build a cheap AMD system it'll do better.

 

[s4fun]

It is only significant if it is an ATI board that crashes and experiences random lockups at 8x. I've seen more than a few of those. Sometimes even cranking up the AGP voltage doesn't even help. But other than the performance difference is neglible if you can consider instability a neglible difference. In short ATI sucks!

 

[JJMAN]

oh how my system is aging

I'm so with you.

The 7800GS is cool but not a whole lot better than 6600GT. When I upgraded from a 9600SE to an X800XL it was black and white better, but 6600GT is already not abysmal so don't expect a miracle out of the 7800GS compared to what you have. I got the X800XL refurbished for 140$CAN. If you can have yours for cheap go for it. Otherwise, build a cheap AMD system it'll do better.

Not to step on any ones toes but that 7800gs would be alot better than the 6600gt. He should notice a pretty fair difference. Mostly when you sock the AA and AF on is where he will notice the biggest difference. From the test here on Tom's it shows the 7800gs at about 50% faster or more than the 6600gt. Though the 6600gt is still a decent card though.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html?modelx=33&model1=543&model2=545&chart=204

But the main question, you will virtually see "NO" difference in a 4x and 8x difference. I know this topic has been posted several times on this forum alone and I probably sound like a broken record but you can set 2 machines side by side and set one to 4x and you will see "little" if "any" difference at all. OR at least in my experience that is.
One last note, I think if you have only $150 to spend, the 7800gs would be worth is in general. Other wise you would be best to save your dough and get a good PCIE board, cpu and video. Of course again thats alot more dough again. Good luck either way.