What do I give up using AGP 8X vs PCI-Express on my new rig?

inquiring

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Heres my rig setup:

AMD 4400X2
CORSAIR XMS PC4200 DDR 2 GB
ASROCK DUAL SATA 939 mobo
ATI RADEON 9800 Pro AGP 8X 128mb
Primary HDD Raptor 74GB
Secondary HDD WD 250 GB SATAII
Tertiary HDD WD 120Gb ATA 100 IDE
ENERMAX 550 W PS

How much am I slowing my rig by NOT using a PCI-EXPRESS video card here?
The mobo is slotted for PCI-Express however I had the 9800 Pro laying around and wanted to use it. How noticeable would using the RADEON Pro 9800 be vs a 256 or 512 Mb PCI-Express vid card?

Thanks.
 

pauldh

Illustrious
You are not giving up performance using AGP. Put in a X300 pci-e and it's a major downgrade. But You are limiting your choices and paying more if you buy an AGP card. If you have a 9800 pro use it, but don't buy one now unless it's used/cheap. I have 2-9800 pros and they are still not bad cards, but Comparing a 9800 pro to a high end PCI-e like the X1900XT or 7900GTX is like comparing moped to a sport bike. ie you are giving up alot of eye candy.
 

HoldenMcGroin

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the AGP bus and PCIe bus both separate, non-shared buses? If so, using either one wouldn't entail "giving up" anything. If I'm right then the question would be, which is the fastest one he feels like buying?
 

delanooch

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the newer high end video cards that are out now will rape your 9800 pro, you wouldnt want to buy a PCI-E card that equaled the performance of your 9800 AGP card , that just wouldnt make sense.

I say if you have all those nice components, dual core proc , lots of ram , fast Raptor HDD, why put in an aging video card that doesnt have all the features of todays cards?

If what you are asking is " Do I have a bottleneck for gaming?" yes you do, but if you are asking "is having this AGP video card in my machine slowing my system down?" I would say no.

/just fishing here
 

angry_ducky

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Heres my rig setup:

AMD 4400X2
CORSAIR XMS PC4200 DDR 2 GB
ASROCK DUAL SATA 939 mobo
ATI RADEON 9800 Pro AGP 8X 128mb
Primary HDD Raptor 74GB
Secondary HDD WD 250 GB SATAII
Tertiary HDD WD 120Gb ATA 100 IDE
ENERMAX 550 W PS

How much am I slowing my rig by NOT using a PCI-EXPRESS video card here?
The mobo is slotted for PCI-Express however I had the 9800 Pro laying around and wanted to use it. How noticeable would using the RADEON Pro 9800 be vs a 256 or 512 Mb PCI-Express vid card?

Thanks.

Perhaps you should get the X2 3800+ so that you can get a PCI-E card. But if you want to keep the 4400+, the 9800 will be okay for the time being until you get the $$$ for a PCI-E card.
 

theaxemaster

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Right. If you were to swap it for a (I know, non-existant) PCI-E 9800 you wouldn't see a noticable difference. But you have an upgrade path and that should be the main goal. If the level of detail is acceptable to you, then by all means keep what you've got.

There was a comparison chart on tom's somewhere that gave the percent performance increase for a given pair of graphics cards, that might be worth looking for.
 

KMBaron

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You are giving up alot of performance and options. You have a great CPU, lots of ram and a SLOW VIDEO CARD. True it rocked in it's day but now it's time to upgrade. And being tied to AGP will only allow you to go so far. You can't even buy most high end cards in AGP. Sure you can get a X850 XT which isnt a slow card, but You can also do alot better. Fact is a 9800 is old news. Time to upgrade is now.
 

GeneticWeapon

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If your buying a card, then buy PCIE. It's easy m'kay
:lol:

Hmm what cards have you bought in the past 6 months or so? :tongue:
Umm...I wasnt running a ULI chipset motherboard at the time I purchased these cards n00b :roll:






























......and besides....y'all know I'm retarded :|
 

inquiring

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By "giving up" I meant what loss in frame rate or AA or AF would I lose if I stayed with the 8X 9800Pro vs any PCE-16 vid card.

I game so I want no perf loss that way.

Thanks.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
By "giving up" I meant what loss in frame rate or AA or AF would I lose if I stayed with the 8X 9800Pro vs any PCE-16 vid card.

I repeat:

If a 9800 PRO PCI express card existed, performance would be EXACTLY the same as your AGP 9800 PRO.

You lose NOTHING.

There are of course more powerful cards out there, but that has nothing to do with the AGP/PCIe busses...
 

angry_ducky

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By "giving up" I meant what loss in frame rate or AA or AF would I lose if I stayed with the 8X 9800Pro vs any PCE-16 vid card.

I game so I want no perf loss that way.

Thanks.

If you don't have the money for a new PCI-E card, you'll lose nothing by using the 9800. Although I'd recommend the X2 3800+ and an Antec PSU to save some $$$ which you can put toward a PCI-E card. And getting this XMS RAM to save some more $$$.
 

inquiring

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Id spend up to about maybe $300 for a 16 pipe PCI-E video card but have no idea what brand or other features to buy except that Id also like a high clock speed. By the way I bought the CORSAIR XMS 3-2-2-6 DRAM with 2 CAS latency. Even though my BIOS is set to 8X AGP and the Catalyst Control Center is set to 8X AGP, SiSoftSandra Pro keeps telling me my fast write is not enabled (it IS enabled also in the BIOS). Anyone know whats up with that?
I welcome all ideas. Thanks.