If AGP in chipset is slower than card's, is performance affected?

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peachsnowfalling

Geek Trainee
As noted in my other (and first) post in the thead titled "New videocard", I am looking for a new card. The only problem is, after searching around, I found out my Intel chipset is the 845 family series, which has a 4x AGP. The card I was thinking to get is 8x, and as I know little of these things (reading an article at How Stuff Works is the extent of my knowledge), I wanted to see if someone could clear this up. I already know this card supports 4x AGP, but my question is: how much is performance affected with a slower internal AGP than the video card? It seems logical to me it won't process as quickly as if they were both 8x, but just how much lessened performance can I expect? Would it just be easier (if more expensive) to get a new chipset? :rolleyes:

Thanks for helping. I'd really like to play Uru, Deus Ex 2, Half Life 2, and Thief III when they come out, but I need a new card for it, and the factory-included one is woefully out-of-date.

peachsnowfalling.
 
There's not much difference between 8x and 4x. The difference is not even noticeable, unless you run benchmarks. And even if you do, you'll fidn that the difference is very slim.
 
Thanks for the quick reply! I hope you're right :p. Now if only someone could help me understand all the different manufacturer's of ATI and GeForce cards. The one that's up for grabs is from "Gainward", but after looking around elsewhere I have seen some which seemed to have the same features for very different prices. I guess some manufacturers are more reputed than others. Anyone know anything of these Gainward people? :D

peachsnowfalling.
 
They're alright. So far, Gainward only puts out nVidia-based cards. Price is determined by the chipset used.
 
$100-$150 US. The card I found that I was talking about (from Gainward) is going for $150 right now at a retail price of $400-$450, but the bid is ending tomorrow and I can't get a confirmed Paypal account in time. I couldn't even remember the password I used for it, and they expect me to fax certain documents and wait 7 days for them to get back with me. Oh well. Do you know, perhaps, which card they suggested would be best for Thief III? Probably not; no one plays Thief anymore..

peachsnowfalling.
 
A good card in that price range---and this is brand new---is the ATi Radeon 9600. It's just a little over $100, depending on who made the actual card. Newegg is where I do business online 95% of the time. There might even be some 9600 Pro's in your price range. If Thief III is based on the latest Unreal engine, you could get by with a Radeon 8500 (now 9200,9000), but I'd just as well go for the 9600/Pro since it has DX9 implementation.
 
But, and pardon my ignorance, wouldn't buying one on Ebay be better? Unless this really is an illogical industry, I can't imagine a card costing $100 new would be 'better' than one at $400 new. Are those cards you speak of better than the nVidia GeForce FX5900 with 256MB of DDR ram?

Yes, Thief III is built on the Unreal engine, though, along with Deus Ex II, it has been heavily rewritten from the ground up. According to a fansite I go to often, the card must support "pixel and vertex shader 1.1" and "a card that fuly supports DX8 in hardware". I just wish they'd release official requirements; ISA have come out with Deus Ex II requirements already :rolleyes:.

I've heard good things about New Egg too. My friend had two guys buy all the components for his computer from them, and they certainly thought New Egg had the best prices. Maybe I'll have to think of buying new, but I just assumed I would get a better deal using Ebay.

peachsnowfalling.
 
Depends on the seller. Yeah, it might be cheaper, but what happens if the card craps out? You may not be able to get a replacement from the seller. Also, nVidia's DX9 implementation doesn't fall into line with the official DX9 that Microsoft put out. ATi's does. You've got a better recourse if the part fails or is DOA. Deus Ex II is out this Tuesday, so I'd hope they'd have the requirements out by now. If not, check the boxes on Tuesday.
Newegg has about the best prices on new hardware anywhere online. eBay is an auction, where you may or may not get a brand new item. You may very well get a better deal on eBay, just realize it's can be a little riskier. Also, you don't have to bid at Newegg. The price they show is what they are selling it for. Shipping may add a few bucks on, but they tend to offer free shipping on stuff. Most of the stuff I've bought has run like $6-8 for shipping. I see a lot of eBay'ers that have some huge $15-30 shipping fee.

The 5900 is faster than the Radeon 9600. The reason I put that up is because it looked like you weren't gonna be able to snag that card up due to some issues with Paypal.
 
As quoted in another forum (dedicated to the Thief game series, actually):

Yeah.

So, for Thief games, you'll get better contrast using an Nvidia card. But if you're trying to play the Dx9 games, with all the options cranked up, you'll get better performance with the Ati's.

Nvidia does 16bit and 32bit. Ati does 24bit.

I've been considering this heavily, lately, and I'm really torn. Thief1 is 16bit, so no loss there. But Thief2 (and other "old" games) will run 32bit. So you lose a little in there, and since it's an older game, the card really isn't being pushed.
Click to expand...

So now I'm torn. What should I do? I still want to play the first two Thief games. Gah.. Too many variables :(

I thank you for your assistance, but now it looks like I'm hopefully lost!

peachsnowfalling.
 
If I were you, I'd either go for any non-MX GeForce4 or ATI 9500 or better. You're gonna spend about the same amount either way, and the speed/quality for most games is very similar to the naked eye. However, ATI cards are truly DX9 compliant, and NVidia cards emulate many DX9 features in software. In other words, NVidia's aren't really DX9 cards. This of course hurts both performance and visual quality in DX9 games. On the other hand, ATI has *HORRIBLE* driver support for Linux, where NVidia has excelled in this area. If you don't plan on using Linux on your box (or at least not using it as your primary OS), I'd go with ATI. Definately better bang for $. If you are a *nux buff, go with NVidia or you'll surely regret it. :rolleyes:
 
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