AGP Isn't the Bottleneck - Yet...

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117070,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117070,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>"Lovers of high-end PC graphics rejoiced at news of the recent launch of desktops with PCI Express-based chip sets that promise dramatically faster graphics throughput than today's AGP 8X standard. But a preliminary look at two of the first PCI Express cards suggests that the spec will have more impact on future graphics headroom than on immediate performance gains.<br /><br />In fact, our tests showed practically no performance difference between graphics cards using the AGP 8X interface and those using PCI Express. Though PCI Express 16X supports concurrent transfers of up to 4 gigabytes per second compared with AGP 8X's 2.1 GBps of shared bandwidth, even today's most graphics-intensive PC games have yet to turn the AGP conduit into a bottleneck."<br /><br />Nothing terribly surprising here, but good to know nonetheless. For me, buying a PCI Express video card makes sense because it's more future-proof - I typically keep my graphic cards for two generations. That, and the <a href="http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=509">Shuttle SB81P</a> doesn't even have an AGP slot. 8)

[mcsouth]

Wow, a 50/50 split at the point that I voted! (38 voters at that point) I'm kinda split on this - I'm feeling like I need to upgrade my Radeon 9500 Pro, since it isn't happy with Unreal '04, but I'm also toying with the idea of building a new PC in a few months, so I may hold off upgrading until then. If I do build a new PC, it will definitely have PCI Express for a certain amount of future proofing. It is appearing that the writing is already on the wall - the latest generation of graphics cards seem to be coming out in PCI Express flavours first, followed by the AGP versions. I have to wonder if the generation that follows this will even be offered in AGP (maybe just the low end versions)? After all, finding PCI graphics cards has been hit and miss for some time now..............