Ranger REG
Explorer
What about current PCI-Express (8x?) video card vs. AGP 8x video card?
Yet Another Video Card Thread
- Thread starter John Crichton
- Start date
Allanon
Explorer
There are some benchmarks which seem to hint that PCI-Express cards have a slight advantage towards AGP cards. But then again, there are also benchmarks which seem to show the opposite. In the end, there really is too small a difference for it to matter in any real world situation.Ranger REG said:
The only thing PCI-Express has going for it besides it for the moment greater bandwidth is that it will be possible to use two video cards at the same time. Nvidia already has this option on there NForce4-SLI motherboards and ATI should be releasing there version somewhere around januari/februari 2005. This option presents users with a possible upgrade path in which they buy a reasonably expersive card now, which when it slows down can be upgraded by buying the same card again which hopefully has then dropped in price.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Two video cards? For multiple monitors or to improve graphic performance on one monitor? I mean, I have heard of dual-processor PCs that doubles the performance so, is that what they're trying to accomplish in the graphic performance?Allanon said:
Krieg
First Post
Ranger REG said:
Each video card only handles one half of the scan lines on a single monitor. With each card only doing half the work they can reproduce the image faster. It's the same concept behind dual channel memory or parallel computing and is not a new idea. 3dfx originally used the technology (SLI - Scan Line Interleaving) in the late 90's with their Voodoo 2 cards.
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ender_wiggin
First Post
It all depends on what computer you have right now. If you are looking just for a video card, I believe AGP is the right way to go. High end video cards for AGP are $100 dollar cheaper than their rare PCIex16 counterparts. Also, they will last you for a very long time. However, if you need to upgrade your entire rig, I would wait for a few months before PCI becomes entirely mainstream, then buy a nForce4 motherboard.
Also, I would not get SLI - their reasoning is all wrong. Two 6600s would net you the performance of 1 6800. There's not denying that. Also, 6800 costs double the 6600. So all is right, right? Wrong. If you buy a $180 6600 right now, and then wait two years for the price to drop $100, the total performance of those two cards on SLI will be much less than what you paid for it. The reason for this is that prices decay exponentially; a 400 dollar card might take a year to decrease to 200, but it will take another year (or more) to go down to 100.
I know that was really confusing, and I apologize because I can't express this any more clearly, but the bottom line is that getting an expensive SLI motherboard at the moment is not a good idea.
Also, I would not get SLI - their reasoning is all wrong. Two 6600s would net you the performance of 1 6800. There's not denying that. Also, 6800 costs double the 6600. So all is right, right? Wrong. If you buy a $180 6600 right now, and then wait two years for the price to drop $100, the total performance of those two cards on SLI will be much less than what you paid for it. The reason for this is that prices decay exponentially; a 400 dollar card might take a year to decrease to 200, but it will take another year (or more) to go down to 100.
I know that was really confusing, and I apologize because I can't express this any more clearly, but the bottom line is that getting an expensive SLI motherboard at the moment is not a good idea.
drothgery said:
Ironically, this is exactly one of the original reason why AGP was supposed to be better than the PCI bus cards of the day (which 1x AGP also didn't offer a performance boost over). It really is of little use except to machine manufatureres who can shave some money by not including a graphics card with as much memory. It is not a high performance solution by any stretch of the imagination. It is adiquate for basic gaming, but it is nothing I would recomend.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Great. Guess I'll have to wait for competing motherboards with a PCI-Express port/slot.Rackhir said:
*Pauses*. Wait a hinky minute.
Are we going to have a variety of PCI-Express slots? I mean it's bad enough that we have gone through AGPx2/x4/x8 (I'm currently using an AGP x8 video card that is backward compatible to x4, or so it says on the box, since my MB only have an AGP x4 slot). Are we going to see the same new & improved version every two years?
I have a suspicion that the industry is slowing technology down so you're force to buy the next version later when they have the capabilities to offer the highest-end version now.
Ranger REG said:
I think they tryed to do the two video card for one monitor a few years ago, but there was a noticable line on the monitor in middle of screen. Nvidia solved this buy putting a little "bridge chip" between the 2 video cards. I saw a write up on in in a PC mag a few months back.
Krieg
First Post
Ranger REG said:
One nice aspect of PCI-E is that it is modular. Since it is a serial solution each PCI lane has an individual connection to to the bridge. It is designed so that multiple x1 lanes can be combined for greater bandwith. So right from the get go the potential is there for an x1 card that can handle 250MB in each direction (500MB combined) up to a x16 card that can handle a peak bandwith of 4GB (8GB combined).
So even as PCI Express grows to accomodate faster data transfer it is going to be backwards compatible. There is also enough overhead that it is going to be awhile before it is an issue.
KenM said:
The 3dfx SLI technology was pretty seamless. Each card handled every other scan line across the entire screen rather than the entire top or bottom half. They also included a bridge so that the two cards worked together.
BTW 3dfx was eventually bought out by Nvidia. Want to guess where Nvidia's SLI technology came from?
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