x1950 bottlenecked?

[PaddyG]

My current set up is;
pentium 4 3.06ghz
1.2gb ram
6600gt
i have a asus p4v800d-x mobo with both agp and a pciex16 (at x4 speed)

Would i see a decent performance increase by upgrading to an x1950 pro/xt, or would it be bottlenecked by current rig or the x4 slot.

I will be upgrading my whole system in the near future and this is just to give me some added "umph" in the meantime, and hopefully to decrease the cost when i move to a c2d processor.

Thanks in advance

Patrick

 

[angelkiller]

To answer your question, your P4 should not bottleneck a X1950pro. The 4x slot may, but not your CPU. Note that the most powerful AGP card made is the x1950pro. (Not XT)

My advice would be to save your money for now. The x1950 is gonna set you back at least ~$175. Wait to you upgrade to a C2D/PCI-E motherboard. Only because after you do upgrade, your AGP X1950 is gonna be useless. I think our 6600gt will hold you until then.

 

[Primitivus]

I agree with angelkiller but it depends on how near the "near future" is to you, because you would see a decent performance increase

 

[Kurita]

A pentium 4 3GHz shouldnt bottleneck an x1950pro in all but the most demanding of games.

The 4x slot also shouldnt be too much of a problem for an x1950pro, as shown by this article:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2007/02/01/agp-platform-analysis_uk/page6.html
The x1950pro doesnt show any bottlenecking between AGP8x and AGP4x, so Im guessing there shouldnt be too much of a difference between PCI-e16x and PCI-e4x.

An 1950XT I dont think will be CPU-bound in most cases, but I cant vouch for being socket limited. Does anyone reading know/has the hardware to test this?

Whatever you do though, dont bother buying an AGP card for your computer due to its lack of portability and increased cost. Buying the PCI-e varieties, even if they are bottlenecked a little, can still be moved onto your new system when you build it.