Intel AGP vs PCI cards

[Dustin_Broke]

I currently own the ATI Radeon 7200 that is PCI card Now I was wondering that is this card going to be better than the Intel 3D Direct AGP that is 32mb? The onboard Intel video chip is using the AGP 2X bus instead of PCI bus. I did look at the speed specs for AGP 2X and I noticed that the AGP 2X transfer speed is: 533 MBps and clock rate is 133 MHz. PCI cards are only 132 MBps and 33 MHz or 133 MHz. As you see the transfer rate for AGP 2X is alot faster than PCI so I thought my onboard Intel AGP will be overall still better than the Radeon 7200 PCI card. By the way both the onboard Intel video chip and Radeon 7200 have 32mb of video ram. I think the onboard video chip is connected to the north bridge so that's why it is using AGP.


Here are specs of my motherboard.


http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/Trigem/Anaheim%2B3/

 

[rolli59]

I think they are both at the bottom http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-geforce-radeon,2646-7.html If it is Intel 740 it is definitely worse. http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/502403-graphics-card-ranking-5th-time-last.html

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

What are you using it for?

They are both old... VERY OLD, and outside of 2D they are rather useless nowadays, and the differences are more theoretical than practical.

The chipset the intel is based on is DX6, the VPU for the R7200 is DX7, and their capabilities are weak even from a 2D persepective, it's not the interface holding them back, I doubt the R7200 would saturate a PCI bus, let alone AGP.

You could put them both on PCIe2.0 16X slots and they would still be glacial, because it would be like putting 20in slick on a yugo, doesn't really help the main issue.

If your looking to play games, just get a console, or a second hand PC from post 2005.

 

[Dustin_Broke]

Well I wanted to just compair the two types of video adapters. I know that todays are better but I just wanted to compair which is better out of the two. Please don't tell me about todays cards since I know they are better.

 

[Dustin_Broke]

I do think that overall the Intel video adapter is better since it's using the AGP bus instead of PCI bus like the Radeon 7200.

 

[rolli59]

It is a Intel 740 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_810
There are other architectural differences that affect performance of GPU's so regardless of interface it looks like the 7200 is better.
As an example you can buy a 9500GT http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187083 for the PCI interface, according to your logic it would be worse than the Intel 82810.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I wasn't telling you about todays, I only told you about the ones you listed, simply suggesting that depending on what you're doing with them they aren't very good for any real heavy listing.

BTW, you're wrong, and obviously missed the point of the comment about AGP and PCI/PCIe.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

There are other architectural differences that affect performance of GPU's so regardless of interface it looks like the 7200 is better.

Wait... you mean those slicks aren't going to make the Yugo go faster !?! [:jaydeejohn:5]

 

[rolli59]

Wait... you mean those slicks aren't going to make the Yugo go faster !?! [:jaydeejohn:5]

Just having fun digging up old stuff. Those were the days, even a new release of MS office would choke down a system if it was not up to date.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Oh yeah, I still have an old Matrox PCI card in my laptop docking station driving 2 external monitor.

I was thinking of putting in the old AIW PCI card I have (pre- Radeon series) and see if it would work just as TV in/out since I only need 1 monitor output if I move the other to the GMA onboard, but just don't have the time to play with it for XP drivers, etc.

However I still have a ton of the old stuff at the cottage collecting 'heritage' for when I'm old and some grandkids ask me about computers I can whip out the original PC and a Vic20. 😉

 

[spentshells]

7200 will be faster without a doubt

 

[Dustin_Broke]

So even the bus speed of AGP is alot faster on the Intel740 the PCI Radeon 7200 is still going to be alot better? I thought any AGP cards were alot better than PCI cards since PCI cards are like 133 MBps and AGP 2X are like 533 MBps. Are you sure that the Radeon 7200 will still be better even it's on a slow bus? Just making sure.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Like I said the PCI slot isn't holding back the R7200, it couldn't handle large texture transfers and buffer swaps that would need more than PCI and AGP2X isn't really doing anything for the intel, it's just so weak.

 

[Dustin_Broke]

So are you saying that the Intel740 is not even using 533MBps? So is it using the same speed as PCI? Are you kinda saying that the Intel740 is downclocking to PCI speed even it's using a AGP 2X bus?


Also for the Radeon 7200 it seems like you are saying that it could use AGP for it but since mine is not AGP and it's PCI doesn't that mean it still limited compaired to if it were AGP? Or will both PCI and AGP versions of the Radeon 7200 will perform the same?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeah I'm essentially saying that the intel 740 doesn't get benefit from that extrabandwidth, it may 'use' it momentarily under very rare occasions, but it would be like hook a hibachi to a gas pipeline instead of a small cylinder, the extra throughput does nothing to improve it.

The main thing is that these units are even before things like HyperMemory, so it's not even able to use the added bandwidth for offloading other tasks, it's is simply for shunting data to feed the GPU, and while it might be able to send larger textures along that pipe and back, the GPU can't really process them, it's working it's but off just doing calculations. And worse still just double checked, because wasn't sure, but intel 740 doesn't support texture acceleration anyways, so even another reason it can't make use of the added bandwidth of AGP.

It's so weak a card it just gets no benefit, and while there may be a theoretical difference between the two for the R7200, from my memory the tests does by one of the old school testers (IIRC Spode'sAbode), showed only a difference in the 8500/9200 series (not sure if the 9000 series got even the same benefit), but it's been a while. However the R7200 is very weak too (although a bit better than the intel) it's even a shadow of the R7500 too, and IIRC the PCI model is even underclocked memory and core (but would need to check and don't have time) so might even need even AGP less.

I don't think either would see much difference from the PCI-AGP change, and evn if they do it would likely be more theoretical than practical since even an X1300 actually was 'usable' on PCI although slower than AGP, but not hugely so.

It really come down to it being more about the core than the interface.

 

[Dustin_Broke]

Well I kinda wonder about this but if what matters the most is the GPU then why people say PCI sucks or they saw it's slow etc. I mean if PCI cards are as good as AGP then people should still like PCI cards.

 

[jasonpwns]

There is PCI-E, which is at a way faster bandwidth then AGP and PCI.

 

[Dustin_Broke]

Well I know that PCI-E is the best now but I was wondering that if PCI cards are good as AGP or so then why people say that AGP was always better and PCI cards are slower so not good?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Because you're asking about cards that perform at maybe 1/32 - 1/128+ the performance of current cards, the influence of the interface on your cards it negligible, whereas on even the current low-end card it's much greater an impact since they can process more calculations and physically address much larger chunks data and larger textures.

For current cards PCI is very limiting, even AGP2-4X would be limiting, but for VPUs like yours (about a decade old and low-end even then) it doesn't make a difference.