AGP running out? How much better than a GF6600 is a GF6800?

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Here speaks a proud owner of a solid middle class computer. Upgraded my old rack last in February 2006, and added a new graphics card in September.

Maybe a mistake in hindsight, my budget dictated me to buy an IDE/ AGP ASUS motherboard for my Athlon XP 3000+. I have 512 MB of DDR-400 RAM. I wanted to make a core upgrade only, as to allow me to keep using my peripheral hardware - my smallish 80 GB IDE Samsung 7200 rpm/ 8 MB HDD, my then GF 3 graphics card and my single layer DVD burner, as well as my tower etc. It cost only some 230 Euro at the time and was quite a bargain, and quite a performance jump from my previous system. I added an AGP GF 6600 with 256 MB DDR in September.

As a replacement would bring with it an intolerable price tag, I'm doomed to upgrade my computer.

Point is, I made a nice deal today that I'll trade my GF 6600 for a GF 6800. Reason for this is that my computer trader plays the original UT with his clansfolk, running for best performance on Win98 SE. He bought the card for his system after wrecking his old card - sweet for me that his new card has no Win98 drivers and turns his system instable
Well, my GF 6600 does have Win98 SE drivers Now I'm certainly happy about that sais my inner opportunist. It will probably be a pure exchange, and I don't really feel bad about it as I'm also buying an additional GB of RAM anyway, and as both cards are roughly equivalent. But of course I make a slight improvement. I only don't know for how much. And, I still don't know if that's sufficient performance reserve for the next one and a half years.

Questions</font>

• How much better than a GF 6600 is a GF 6800?
• How long will AGP from reputable manufacturers will be available on the market?
• Should I hurry and look for one of the last decent AGPs in the next few months?

 

To answer #2 and 3, as this article so elequantly puts it, AGP refuses to die. That is, perhaps as a result of many refusing to buy more than a new video card to make their old wrecks, er, rigs, to make their computers Vista compliant. This is good news for you, as companies like PowerColor should continue to pump out those AGP cards. I wouldn't say you need to rush, just wait until something comes out that interests you.

 

As for A:

GF 6800 seems to be little better than 6600 because of the misleading number. However, just take a look yourself:

http://www.gph.benchmark.pl/

Select GF6600 on the left and 6800 on the right (or vice versa) and see on your own eyes. It's Polish, but the jargon is semi-English already as it is, and some specifications and acronyms are simply English, so you will be able to figure it out.

B:

I don't know. However, AGP is far from dying. AGP cards are harder and harder to find in a small hardware shop or a supermarket kind of network, but they will be there for a long time yet on auction sites, flea markets and the like. Thing is, their PCI-E counterparts are already like 25% cheaper. Contrary to the misleading AGP vs PCI-E bandwidth stat, cards offer practically the same performance. Therefore, if you have an AGP slot and you need only a new card, there's no reason why you should press it and get PCI-E. In fact, myself, I'll probably be buying an AGP card (I have a 5900XT and I need something better).

As for C:

Take a longer look at the URL I've given you. Compare cards. See which models are powerful - and numbers are misleading. Sometimes it's surprising how much difference the type of memory makes. For example, all 7300 cards tend to suck, but 7300GT with DDR3 beats 7600GS with DDR2. Then, 7600GT beats 7600GS. Or 7600GS with DDR3 is little worse than 7600GT. However, many manufacturers actually use DDRI type memory from Stone Age. Empirical data suggests that cards with DDR1 are going to have all right pwnsome specifications but also to suck badly in real life. In fact, your 6800 is more than likely to outpwn anything from series 7 with DDR1 RAM.

I believe series 7 is a risky purchase in the normal circumstances because there's already series 8 getting a lot of sweet pampering from nVidia.

Where I'm driving at is that in your case, going for a specific card type and getting it from a shop for the regular price isn't really a great solution. I think you should just wait for a bargain and if you see one, check out the card params and see if it interests you. You can use the online utility to compare that card with your 6800 and see if the difference in benchmark justifies the expense. Don't be misled by prices. There are many crappy cards costing more than some good cards.

 

Thanks Chev. The difference is remarkable. The GF 6800 is clearly better. And I was told the GF 6800 in question would have DDR-3 memory, which suggests according to this list the Ultra version ... however, to be on the safe side ...

6600________6800__________6800 Ultra

1200 MPix____vs 3900 MPix___vs 6400 MPix
2400 MTex___vs 3900 MTex___vs 6400 MTex
225 MVts/s___vs 406 MVts/s__vs 600 MVts/s
8.6 GB/s_____vs 21.9 GB/s___ vs 34.4 GB/s

If it's an Ultra I won't make it for free. The beast would be nearly three times faster! Wow.

 

I don't know what those numbers mean, but I have the 6600 and it looks like I'm way behind right now...

 

a) Tough question. Your pc looks to be about the same vintage as mine (once you get the ram upgrade). From what I remember there was at least a 30% performance difference at the time between the cards in most games. That was quite a while ago in computer years and as such there will be quite a difference between newer benchmarks (because of both new hardware, eg cpu's, ram speeds etc as well as newer games using the cards in different ways).
A 6800 with an additional half gig of memory should improve your gaming performance to no end (especially in games made around a year and a half ago).
b) It will probably depend on how long people hang onto their computers for. I can't see it going on for too long with mid-range cards simply because most comps running with agp mobo's would get bottlenecked by other components.
c)nah - they will always be ebayable and probably cheaper down the track. The 6800 will probably outlast the processor gaming wise and IMHO it would be better to save the cash and put it towards your next comp a couple of years down the track.

 

However, if you can spare the cash at any given moment, it's sometimes a good thing to grab a bargain on an auction (such as ebay, although I prefer our allegro.pl) and then sell yours when you're comfortable with your new item. This is much cheaper than any traditional way of replacing your components. For example, I'm expecting to get for my GFX card almost the same - or even a bit more, with some luck, than I gave for it like 1.5 years ago. If I were to go to some bazaar and swap the cards basically, they would likely give me half that. For now, I've got a P4 3GHZ / 1M cache / 800 FSB for 87 euro or 112 USD and I'm going to put my old Celeron 2.4 on auction and probably get more than a half of the price of the new one. Cheap upgrades rule.

 

Well, Update, I was informed that the card I am to aquire is a GF 6800 XT, XT for extreme with DDR3, means, it will be somewhat better than the thing in your comparison, but not nearly as bad-ass as the Ultra.

Chev: What does "wydajność geometryczna" and "przepustowość pamięci" mean?

 

XT is not quite extreme with GeForce. Radeons with the XT tag are better versions, but GeForces are generally cut down versions, such as my GF5900XT is a worse 5900, while Radeon 9600XT was like a twice better version of base 9600. But DDR3 is fast, very fast. It takes a very solid series 7 card to have this type of memory. Thankfully, 6800XT is actually very little worse than full 6800 (like 8700 and 8800 in 3DMark03, respectively), so it's still an upgrade for you. As a side-note, is the guy with Win 98 SE really unable to use the card with nVidia drivers?

"Wydajność geometryczna" translates as "geometric efficiency", but I'm not sure what the proper term is. "Przepustowość pamięci" is RAM bandwidth. I suppose the biggest factor in it is the memory bus bitrate (e.g. 64, 128, 256...). Cards with a crappy bitrate can actually work worse with 512 MB RAM than they do with 256, as is the case with 7600GS 512 MB.

So, as a side-reflection, just think of a card with a crappy bitrate on the memory bus and poor quality memory chips. It will have all the fancy tags on the box, but it will suck in games.

 

Not quite, he just doesn't get the card running. He has a computer shop. His know-how is beyond doubt.
His problem is that he has lots of customer specific programs on this comp, stuff he can't or doesn't want to restore on, say, XP? So he sais he's stuck with upgrading his old system. I certainly won't talk him out of it.

I agree that it will be a smaller upgrade for me. Still, my new RAM will be faster, my przepustowość pamięci will more than double, not to mention my wydajność geometryczna and wydajność wypełniania pikseli .

For him it'll be more or less status quo, as he had previously a GF4 Ti-4400 - kickass card, considering how old it was. My GF 6600 will be only slightly better.

 

Yep, you should be able to see smoother and nicer texture craft by your new card, as well as a general fps increase, though I'm not a big expert as for what does what between the card's specs and the game. RAM bandwidth is so important that it can actually make a 512 MB card run worse than the 256 MB counterpart if it's too low (as in the card bottlenecks and cripples itself with more RAM than its bandwidth can handle - such as 7600GS).

Hmm... if your friend owns a computer shop, maybe he could help you find some nice copper heatsinks to put on the memory chips of your card? I don't mean making him get them for free, nor are they expensive anyway, but they aren't just so easy to find and they can help. The graphical processor unit (GPU) is taken care of by a big fan, but the RAM sticks could use some help. My 5900XT has a funny solution... it has a big copper fan in the centre and the RAM chips are located around it. The previous owner put some copper radiators on them in addition to that. The result is that I got a cheap but efficient card with good cooling and it's overclocked all the time with no heating issues.

 

I traded the GF 6600 for the GF 6800 XT for 30 €. Okay price I think. The driver was somewhat tricky. Eventually it worked. With my additional 1 GB RAM and the new card NWN-2 works much smoother than before. Cool.

 

Ooops. I could get you a GF6800GS (the top model) for 100 euros and a little here. But oh well, if it works.

 

PS: My framerate in NWN2 in my standard settings nearly doubled after my upgrade

The game is still far from running smooth, but it's better now.

 

Out of curiosity, how much do you get and with what settings? BTW, turn off vsync, turn off xfire, and you'll be much happier. Reducing shadows to low has a big effect as well.

 

... shawows low, shadow maps max, textures high, AA2, resolution 1024x768 on my 19" LCD.

... as for xfire and vsync - how to switch that off? Didn't find it in the options.

 

Xfire I just uninstalled (it's the thing for multiplayer, alas), vsync you need to disable in your driver for all applications or just for NWN2 (remember to put the setting there for both executables - nwn2.exe, nwn2main.exe - or the AMD main one instead if you use it). That, or in the Video Options section of nwn.ini, insert "Enable VSync=0". If you can actually run the game with anti-aliasing, I suggest making that NWN2 profile in the driver and selecting 2*2 Quincunx anti-aliasing for it. The reason is that Quincunx 2*2 seems to be as fast as 2 and as good as 4. Almost as good as 4, so probably also just almost as fast as 2, but it may be worth it, so check it out if you're interested.