AGP Bus - 4x vs. 8x

[gammite]

folks,

for the last couple of days i have been trying to find out if there is a good reason for me to change my motherboard from a 4x AGP to an 8x AGP. i have done searches here and a couple of other forums that i frequent.

i need a better video card so that i can play hd video and also play world of warcraft and i plan on getting the ati radeon 9800 pro. but my current motherboard only has 4x agp as i am using a ati radeon 7000 with only 32mb of ram. the 9800 pro is backward compatible but would i be losing much?

i have been to tom's hardware and a couple of other reputable sites but i can not get any definitive information.

can anyone point me in the right direction?

[glockjs]

i would go next gen...look into pci-x. agp isnt gonna be around for much longer. max agp is at 8x...pci-x is 16x

[redwudz]

Sure, you will get some improvement, even with the 8X AGP running at 4X speed. But if you plan to play many of the newer video games, it may not be enough for full screen, full speed. Same with HD video.

Motherboards aren't that expensive. The price of a new one may be as much as the 8X AGP card. You didn't fill out your Computer Details, so no one has any idea what type of system you have, though. A little difficult to give advice in that case.

[Scottie]

I just upgraded my daughters computer from a Athlon 1.1 Ghz AGP 4X to a Sempron 2800 8X she has a ATI Radeon 9200 128 MB 8 X card and I notice a big difference wile playing Battlefield and some other games I'm not sure it thats was because of the CPU though.

[fmctm1sw]

i would go next gen...look into pci-x. agp isnt gonna be around for much longer. max agp is at 8x...pci-x is 16x

I don't know glock. There is still a wide base of AGP stuff out there. By the time PCI-express catches up, we all may need new computers anyway. I guess it depends on how much money you have to spend.

[gammite]

thanks for the thoughts fellas.

i intentionally did not put any details about my current setup as i am solely interested in the performance difference between 4x and 8x. i did not want to cloud the discussion.

let's just say that my system is optimized to encode video. i have a oc'ed moble athlon, a gig ddr 3200, a terrabyte of hd space, 4 - 16x-/+ burners and a dual monitor setup with a very stable motherboard that i am hesistant to part with. i also have a few other computers running throughout the house for other tasks, like a htpc and a media server.

when it comes to computers i am not an early adopter. i like for my equipment to be proven and not overpriced. otherwise i would go get a 939 nforce 3 - pci express board and a x800 xt. money is really not the issue. price vs. performance vs. reliability vs. support is the the issue.

as far as world of warcraft is concerned i currently have it installed on my toshiba laptop that only has 512 mb of ddr 2100 and a 64mb nvidia geforce 4. i actually created an install partition on the laptop that only has windows xp sp1 and WoW installed. and it runs pretty good. i know that i am not getting the best performance possible but it is definitely enjoyable to play. my boss who has a x800 pro and plays warcraft was surprised at the performance that i was getting out of my laptop with WoW.

so anyway, can anyone point me in the direction of any 4x vs. 8x info?

[rallynavvie]

I know for certain we're not using PCI-E graphics to their full potential. As for 8x AGP from 4x we may be somewhere over 4x with the latest run of video cards, but I think if you're looking at the ATi 9000-series and the GeForce 4 or 5 cards you probably won't miss much having 4x. I've only got 4x AGP running a GF4 4400 on my old workstation and it ran FarCry surprisingly well.

[gammite]

i picked up my 9800 pro today and installed it on my 4x mobo. the install went fine and everything is up and running. i ran through some demos and it is readily apparent that my system is alot different than when i was running the radeon 7000.

as i type this on one monitor, world of warcraft is installing on the other monitor. i am actually making a gaming only partition on my computer. the only thing that i have installed on it is xp pro sp2, applicable drivers and warcraft. i think that this will improve the performance of the system while gaming as there is absolutely nothing running in the background.

i can't wait to see the difference with the 9800 vs. the 64 mb nvidia geforce 4 i was playing warcraft with on my laptop.

[888888]

I know this is kind of after the fact... but I remember reading that performance difference between 4x and 8x is in the low single digits.

[gammite]

well folks after playing for a couple of days this 9800 pro is everything that i wanted. it is in the 4x agp slot and everything is fine. with world of warcraft, i have all of the settings maxed out and am playing at 1024 X 768 with absolutely no lag or choppiness. everthing is great!

also, after some research, i found out that the fastest cards today are not even utilzing the 8x agp bus. so take that as you will. ymmv.