Benchmarked: AGP 4X vs. 8X

[TheSmJ]

Has anyone ever tried forcing their current gen. (6800/X800) card to APG 4X and comparing the results to the same card forced to AGP 8X? I have, and the results were rather interesting:

Doom 3 Timedemo "Demo1.demo":

AGP 4X: 71.2
AGP 8X: 71.6

3DMark03

AGP 4X: 11877
AGP 8X: 11995

Funny how little a difference AGP 8X makes, eh? I always knew that the Ti4600 AGP 8X marketed cards (AKA the Ti4800) were bogus as the chip was incapable of filling the 4X pipe, let alone the 8X, but even the current gen. cards offer a negligible performance increase with double the bandwidth offered by AGP 8X?

Makes one wonder why they bothered to make an AGP 8X standard at all.

[Sputnik]

now why's everyone switching to PCIe video cards again? seems like we still have plenty of banwidth left in AGP. if you're trying to dump video from the card itself, it's a good switch, but last i checked, very few people did that

[entropy]

It's all to make you pay more for something you -don't- need, but to be "prepared for the future." If a company says, "AGP 4X Video" or, "AGP 8X Video" or, "PCI-E 16X Video" ... and you weren't computer savvy ... which one would you buy? ;) We could live with 4X for now, and 8X for quite some time to come ... 16X, though, we won't need for a long time. But DAMN! It just sounds so much faster and cooler [and needlessly expensive], doesn't it!? ;)

[gibbonsl]

i kinda wonder if it help with the SLI for the 6800 :confused: :cheers:

[mmonnin]

8x has always been a marketing gimmick. Same as ATA133. No single drive can do that just the same as no card could fill 4x. The newest ones may be able to now, just barely it seems from your test.

[RWB]

My understanding of 8X isn't better speed, but more like making a more smooth framerate. Something along those lines.

[KINGPIN]

The Problem Is That Your Fsb Is Lower, Agp 8x Is Ment To Work With 533 Or Higher Fsb Since Processor Does Not Accept Higher Data Rate So Extra Speed Of Card Is Useless , Try It On A 800 Fsb Processor

[mmonnin]

The FSB you mentioned is Intels quad pumped 133MHz FSB. 133*4 = 533. He has a LOT higher FSB than 533.

[KINGPIN]

the fsb is higher but it is not quad pumped so it is lower than intel's 200*4 processor whick has 800 mhz bus and it is effective speed though the clock is 200 mhz

[Geeky1]

that makes no sense (unless i'm missing something)