ABIT or ASUS?Best for new vid cards

[Thunderdog]

Just wondering if the new Asus, or abit MB's can handle the new (post ATI 9600) graphic  cards out now? I know that the 256MB Radion could not tap out its full potential because of (bandwidth?).

Glad I waited! ;D

[Mark H]

Any motherboard with 8x AGP will work with the newer 8x AGP cards without problems. The interface is standardized. Abit, Asus, Gigabyte and others will work well. I personally like Asus motherboards, but that is me.

[Carskick]

I vote ASUS as well.

BTW, Thunderdog, don't make the common mistake of judging a graphics card by it's memory. Until the GPUs get faster, more VRAM is a waste. 128MB is more than sufficent for anything with similar GPU power to a 9800 or less.

[Mark H]

AGP 8x has more bandwidth than any of the video cards need, including the ATI Radeon X800 or the Nvidia GeForce 6800.

[Thunderdog]

"Until the GPUs get faster, more VRAM is a waste. 128MB is more than sufficent for anything with similar GPU power to a 9800 or less. "
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Yes thats what I mean. Although I have no problem buying a vid card that will upgrade nicely to its full potential in a (couple?) years! ;)

When will the boards be able to tweek out the max graphic capability, thats what I want to know. (GPU?) or is this CPU?

***Also, are these NEW boards "PCI" capable? I want to try to make this available.

Sorry, but combat flight sims are the BIGGEST hogs for all this memory, and you never, never have enough!-

[Mark H]

I think the new motherboards with PCI express can handle more bandwidth than the fastest video cards. The same holds true for AGP 8x currently. The max graphics capability is handled by the GPU, so it will be dependent on the evolution of graphics cards. As I mentioned, they have a ways to go just to max out the bandwidth available to them on current and future motherboards.

[Thunderdog]

I just went to Toms Hardware for a look. They said that MB's will have 2 PCI express slots (in the future) so's you can hook up 2 dual graphic cards! similar to what Alienware is doing now. What a great way to upgrade, but apparently no one makes a marketable board with 2 PCI slots just yet for this purpose.

Very Cool!! ;D

[Carskick]

"Until the GPUs get faster, more VRAM is a waste. 128MB is more than sufficent for anything with similar GPU power to a 9800 or less. "
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Yes thats what I mean. Although I have no problem buying a vid card that will upgrade nicely to its full potential in a (couple?) years! ;)

When will the boards be able to tweek out the max graphic capability, thats what I want to know. (GPU?) or is this CPU?

***Also, are these NEW boards "PCI" capable? I want to try to make this available.

Sorry, but combat flight sims are the BIGGEST hogs for all this memory, and you never, never have enough!-

If you buy a video card with 256MB now, it will not upgrade to it's full potental latter because it will always have the same GPU (Graphics Processor), not be mistaken with the CPU.

And I'm not sure about AGP 8x not being used to it's full potential anymore. Is it's bandwidth 4.3GB/s or 4.3Gb/s? I've always been unclear, and this would provide the answer if AGP is or is not a bottleneck.

[Mark H]

AGP 8x is not a bottleneck right now. PCI Express is being implemented prior to AGP becoming a bottleneck, which is good in my opinion. I would have been a matter of time before AGP 8x became a bottleneck.

[Carskick]

It probably would be with an Nvida 6800Ultra or ATI 800XT

[Mark H]

It probably would be with an Nvida 6800Ultra or ATI 800XT

I believe that even these two cards have less bandwidth than AGP 8x.

[Carskick]

Well, as you said, we're getting close to the edge of AGP 8x's capabilities, so moving over should help. Also, have you seen the dual PCI-X video card capability for one monitor? If not, check it out.

http://nvidia.com/page/sli.html

[Neon]

I think Mark H actually indicated that we are not close to the edge of saturating the AGP8x  bus with current video cards, and most of the online reviewers seem to agree with him.

http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=554
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=443&catid=2

It looks like PCI Express is still a good idea, if not for immediate bandwidth needs, then for lower costs and simplified design.

[Carskick]

AGP 8x is not a bottleneck right now. PCI Express is being implemented prior to AGP becoming a bottleneck, which is good in my opinion. I would have been a matter of time before AGP 8x became a bottleneck.

I think he is saying that we may not be reaching the maximum bandwidth now, per say, but may likely and the near future. PCI express has many more possibilities than AGP, including faster bandwidth, multiple gfx cards, supporting all card types, etc. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

[Chandler]

I think it is going to be a while before we reach the limits of AGP8X or even AGP4X.  You can force AGP4X and not experience any noticeable performance decrease, and that standard is about 4 years old.

The other big problem was PCI limitations, but this appears to have been overcome somewhat these days, even though we're still stuck at 33MHz.  Chipsets like the nForce2 appear to have two separate PCI busses; a 33MHz one for the actual PCI slots, and a 66MHz one for all the onboard stuff.

[iansl]

I think this is what everyone's saying:

Even the best video cards right now do not fully take advantage of 8X AGP. PCI Express will be there when 8X finally becomes just not enough. That won't be any time soon, though. PCI Express is good for cheapness, though, as it is fairly standardized compared with the AGP bus. In the far future, all slots on a motherboard will be PCI Express.

I heard a little about the 'dual allignment' PCI Express graphics card, namely the article on the Alienware. Another thing I'm interested in is the single-video-card dual-out single-monitor thing that Apple has for their new 30-inch Cinema HD display. If I had the dough for the graphics card and the monitor, I'd get it; 4 or so megapixels is great for everything. I saw some other monitors here and there that offered 3200x2400 resolution and the one in Popular Science that gave you something like 10MP, but who can take advantage of this? Apple has always been innovative in this way and has happily let PC users on this thing (wonderings, please feel free not to interject here; I don't want to be harsh but I think I know what you'll say).

Anyways, how does this system work?

[trav]

. Also, have you seen the dual PCI-X video card capability for one monitor? If not, check it out.

http://nvidia.com/page/sli.html

Wow  does that sound cool! imagine the power for gamers and game developers!

[Hoot]

It won't matter unless the overall system bandwidth is there for the card to take advantage. Dual PCI-X is dumb. I'll tell you why. Because more than likely unless you filthy rich...AND you have taken the time to set yourself up with a Dual CPU setup to increase your bandwidth, and upped your ram to at least 2G  then you wont be getting your cost effectiveness benefit from it. You buy it, and in 8 months ATI has come out with a new single card that is 90% of your dual card for only $375.00. If your a dumb kid who just spent $800.00 on the dual PCI-X setup card ($5000.00 for the whole rig)  you'll feel royally scewed (alienware will do this to people). Because later you'll face the prospect of trying to sell it, and unless the GPU/S can be mae to be split up without cutting and soldering).. then your up the Red River Canyon without a paddle. now..... if your a developer like was mentioned that would be different. Then you could have maxumum GPU power to saturate and develop your polygons and such without worrying about cost. I don't ever see it becoming popular for reasons mentioned above.

[query]

Conversely, some people want the latest and greatest, without regard to the cost.

it's a matter of your priorities - there'll be someone to take your money no matter what you want to buy.  Why else could a company sell basically an economy car for $30,000-35,000 and make money at it.  BMW and Mini have built an empire by doing just that.

Different strokes for different folks.

[Carskick]

Hoot, it is a very cool idea for people who want to spend a bunch of money on a system to have comething better than everyone else for a year. Those who have lots of money or nothing better to spend it on can do that.

As of now, I cannot afford to do that. I'm lucky if I get a new video card every 3 years, and it's never a very high end one.

[Hoot]

Yeah, If you have alot of money maybe. I can afford one, or afford to build it myself, but won't because I like regular systems. For some reason I like understated systems that do the job well. That way I can constantly change just  a few items now and then and stay current.  Ther is a friend I have at viaarena that went all out and spent about $5000.00 plus fot his new system. I guess if it's what you really want to do that's fine. We all spend out monet on something high priced sooner or later anyway.   :o

[Thunderdog]

A new P4 3.0 dual system with the new asus board, PCI compatable, with just one good card will run around $1600.00 complete. Then to upgrade, you add another card in a year (9800 pro) for say 200.00. You will still outperform the newsest single card by a year or so!Id go with Azus at this time.

[Mark H]

A new P4 3.0 dual system with the new asus board, ....

There is no such thing as a dual P4 system as the chip isn't designed to allow a dual P4 system. You must be thinking about a dual Xeon system.

[Thunderdog]

P4 dual video card system IE: 2 vid cards! :P sorry! :-*