Value of integrated graphics on mobo?

[Roland Scheidegger]

No, the Radeon 9200's and 9200SE's are very similarly
priced for the AGP and PCI versions - and at some
vendors they have *exactly* the same price.

For example, about five weeks ago I bought four
128 MB ATI Radeon 9200 PCI cards for $139.95 each
at FutureShop (Canadian electronics store chain).
The AGP version of the card at that store had exactly
the same price.

Are you sure though the PCI cards have a 128bit memory interface? AFAIK
PCI cards always have the name "9200" and not "9200SE" even if in fact
sometimes they only have the 64bit interface (you can see it easily, if
they have only 4 (tsop) memory chips in total, then they have a 64bit
memory interface).
And of course these 9200 cards are not exactly "up to date", they might
not be that old but the technology is rather outdated.

Roland

 

[Yoyoma_2]

Are you sure though the PCI cards have a 128bit memory interface? AFAIK
PCI cards always have the name "9200" and not "9200SE" even if in fact
sometimes they only have the 64bit interface (you can see it easily, if
they have only 4 (tsop) memory chips in total, then they have a 64bit
memory interface).
And of course these 9200 cards are not exactly "up to date", they might
not be that old but the technology is rather outdated.

Umm you can make a 128bit interface by just moving it twice rather than
once. The PCI bus doesn't support 128bit wide datatransfers anyway so
you just write twice. Another reason why AGP rules

Though i would still like to see a dual AGP system one day.

 

[Piotr Makley]

Umm you can make a 128bit interface by just moving it twice
rather than once. The PCI bus doesn't support 128bit wide
datatransfers anyway so you just write twice. Another reason
why AGP rules

Though i would still like to see a dual AGP system one day.

Do you mean to say that there are almost no dual monitor AGP
graphics cards?

 

[Rob Stow]

Do you mean to say that there are almost no dual monitor AGP
graphics cards?

There are many, many, dual monitor AGP cards out there -
it has almost become the standard for AGP cards.

Hence I took her (his?) remark as intending to convey a
desire for a machine with more than one AGP slot, to
which the answer is, "Forget it - it ain't going to happen."
Especially now with PCI-Express just around the corner.

 

[Stephan Grossklass]

Umm you can make a 128bit interface by just moving it twice rather than
once. The PCI bus doesn't support 128bit wide datatransfers anyway so
you just write twice. Another reason why AGP rules

Ahem. Roland was not referring to the system-to-graphics-card interface,
but the card's own memory interface. Apart from this, your first
statement is just plain wrong. Some graphics card basics may not hurt...

Stephan

 

[Yoyoma_2]

Do you mean to say that there are almost no dual monitor AGP
graphics cards?

No i mean there are almost no boards with dual AGP slots where you can
add a 2 quad monitor AGP cards if you want

 

[Yoyoma_2]

There are many, many, dual monitor AGP cards out there -
it has almost become the standard for AGP cards.

Hence I took her (his?) remark as intending to convey a
desire for a machine with more than one AGP slot, to
which the answer is, "Forget it - it ain't going to happen."
Especially now with PCI-Express just around the corner.

Yeah i clarified that in another post. The original intent was because
PCI-66mhz is still pretty slow, especially when handling large data.
PCI-X is really good but your right its not adopted yet. But what would
prevent a dual AGP slot motherboard? It could be usefull when trying to
render high-performance simulations that are sectioned. Though i don't
know if the bus supports it.

From what i know, PCI-X still won't have the same kind of access that
the AGP card has, like having to go through a PCI bridge, direct access
to memory with textures etc...

 

[Yoyoma_2]

Ahem. Roland was not referring to the system-to-graphics-card interface,
but the card's own memory interface. Apart from this, your first
statement is just plain wrong. Some graphics card basics may not hurt...

Nah trust me its not for my lack of graphic card basics, its the fact
that i didn't really read it well. The joys of being bilingual i guess
haha

Keep up the flaming, there's not enough animocity in the world!

 

[Yoyoma_2]

Yeah i clarified that in another post. The original intent was because
PCI-66mhz is still pretty slow, especially when handling large data.
PCI-X is really good but your right its not adopted yet. But what would
prevent a dual AGP slot motherboard? It could be usefull when trying to
render high-performance simulations that are sectioned. Though i don't
know if the bus supports it.

From what i know, PCI-X still won't have the same kind of access that
the AGP card has, like having to go through a PCI bridge, direct access
to memory with textures etc...

sorry forgot a "not" somewhere. like NOT having to go through a pci bridge.

 

[Roland Scheidegger]

Yeah i clarified that in another post. The original intent was
because PCI-66mhz is still pretty slow, especially when handling
large data. PCI-X is really good but your right its not adopted yet.
But what would prevent a dual AGP slot motherboard? It could be
usefull when trying to render high-performance simulations that are
sectioned. Though i don't know if the bus supports it.

Don't confuse PCI-X with PCI-Express. PCI-X is just an extension of PCI
and well adopted (in the server market). PCI-X might die together with
PCI and be replaced with PCI-Express though I guess it will take some
time (those markets don't adopt new standards fast).

From what i know, PCI-X still won't have the same kind of access that
the AGP card has, like having not to go through a PCI bridge, direct
access to memory with textures etc...

I don't think PCI-Express will miss any features which might make it
slower than AGP (PCI-X possibly yes, but then again I don't think PCI-X
graphic cards exist). And AGP isn't really all that different from PCI
anyway (AGP1x was basically just PCI-66 (32bit), in fact on the good old
bx chipset the agp port can be used as PCI-66 instead - of course the
board manufacturer has to decide that).