New video card....AGP or PCI?

I'm looking to buy a new high end video card and have been researching ATI vs. NVidia cards. They both come in AGP and PCI "flavors". In doing some research, it sounds like the PCI technology is more advanced, but that AGP is a newer technology. Is that correct?

What are your thoughts on buying a high end AGP card vs. the PCI model? Is using the single AGP slot an advantage over using one of the PCI slots?

I have a P4, 3.06MHz, 1GB of Ram and a 533 FSB. This is an expensive purchase and I would really appreciate some insight into which format of card to buy. I play a lot of games and want top performance.

Thank you for your input.

Texasbobby

 

Agp is newer then PCI. That new cards you are talking about are PCIe or PCI Express. PCI Express about doubles the bandwidth of the bus, making cards run even faster.

Right now there is the slightest difference between the PCIe cards and the AGP ones. If you cant wait a year for the next gen cards, that will make full usage of PCI Express, i would go with an AGP card.

Also if you choose to go with a PCI Express card make sure your motherboard has a PCI Express slot. Many do not right now, and they are just starting to become available in the market. I am going to assume that your motherboard does not have PCI Express slot. So you wont be able to use a PCIe graphics card, unless you change your motherboard.

For top notch your choices are ATI's X800 Platinum, or nVidia's 6800 Ultra.

IMO i like the nvidia, buts thats me. Look up benchmarks for the games you want to play. Then compare.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/

Take a look at the articles here. Especially the Doom3 graphics death match.



cooked

 

Also the fastet card you can get in regular PCI is a FX5200. Which is really bad.

The nVidia 6800 is not big and does not require a 420W PSU. The Ultra Version does.

Also the whole 6800 series, offers support for DirectX 9.0c. The pixel shading that 1s.NiX is talking about is actually Pixel Shader Model 3.0, and the cards also feature Vertex Shader Model 3.0.

The ATI card has proven to be faster in games engeneried simular to HL2, or at least are expected to be. The nVidia card has won over Doom3. However both cards are superior to anything that is out there now, and you will be happy with eather one. Keep in mind the nVidia card might come out to be 100 cheeper then the ATI card if you search around for prices.



cooked

 

Just to make it known that a PCI express does NOT run faster than a AGP card. And a 8x agp card may only run like .5% faster than a agp 4x card. The bandwidth is not needed right now because games and processors can't use that much yet.

 

The reason Doom3 is faster on an nVidia setup is because they have affiliated themselves with nVidia (TWIMTBP) which, from what I've heard, lets them use some of nVidia's own optimisations in their code.
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_twimtbp_gameslist.html

 

Great feedback....thank you.

I checked with Dell and you were right....my current MOBO won't accept a PCI Express card, so it's the AGP 8X for me.

I'm looking at the ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition.....smoking card, but you can't find one anywhere! Everyone seems to be "out of stock". Does anyone know who might have them in stock?

Thank you again for great input. You really helped with my decision.

 

nevermind