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[Mrbob]

Anand lays down the smack:

With this article, we were also trying to put an end to the ATI vs. NVIDIA PCI Express debate. Our conclusion? The debate was much ado about nothing - both solutions basically perform the same. ATI's native PCI Express offering does nothing to benefit performance and NVIDIA's bridged solution does nothing to hamper performance. The poor showing of NVIDIA under Far Cry and Warcraft III is some cause for concern, which we will be looking into going forward. We will keep you all updated on any and all findings with regards to that issue as we come across them.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2091&p=1

Look at those speed boosts over AGP8X!

This is why I'm staying away from first generation PCI Express!

 

[IJoel]

Hopefully the people that always scream "WAIT FOR PCI-E BEFORE YOU UPGRADE THIS YEAR" will get a clue.

 

[Slo]

No performance gain in ATI and a performance hit under nVidia? Looks like nVidia's bridging strategy didn't work out.

Either way, PCI-E looks teh lame.

 

[Slo]

Hopefully the people that always scream "WAIT FOR PCI-E BEFORE YOU UPGRADE THIS YEAR" will get a clue.

 

[Mrbob]

By the way it looks like Anand is using the 61.45 Nvidia drivers which are supposed to give Farcry a nice boost. Looking at the benches we can see it.

 

[GuntherBait]

You have to realize, the old cards (both NV and ATI) are based on "old" hardware rules. It's like porting pac-man from PS1 to PS2. It'll look the same and play the same because it's based on the same rules.

Think of AGP as a freeway. 8X AGP has 8 freeway lanes each way. PCI-E has 16X freeways each way. Most FPS and other graphic intensive games are NOT making full use of 4X AGP.

You're kidding yourself if you think PCI-E is a "revolutionary" thing right off the bat. It's made to scale over time.

Once new coding is made and it's solely developed around the PCI-E frame, the cards will start using more and more of that bandwidth.

Every sane person should know, that a high end system with 8X AGP is still going to be a kick ass system for a while now.

 

[Mashing]

I expected nothing less... the technology has to mature (hardware and drivers).

Besides, are there any current OSes that support PCI-E to it's fullest? An honest question, as I really don't know.

 

[Slo]

I'm not sure I follow. Isn't the improvement supposed to be in bus width and speed? I don't really see how "code" is going to take advantage of that.

Care to explain?

 

[myzhi]

It's all marketing hype. The performance difference between AGP 1X, 2X, 4X, and 8X were pretty much nothing. Mainly, because memory on the video cards offers 10-20X more bandwidth then MB. Using the MB ram, with it's much lower bandwidth, would severely affect gaming performance. Thus, nobody uses it. If more ram is need, expect video cards with more onboard ram, 512 MB, 1 GB, and etc., to come out before anyone would dear to use MB ram (AGP or PCI-E). PCI-E will go the way of AGP = just marketing hype for average Joe.

 

[GuntherBait]

I'm not sure I follow. Isn't the improvement supposed to be in bus width and speed? I don't really see how "code" is going to take advantage of that.

Care to explain?

"Code" refering to the GPU's that NV and ATI bring out in the next crop of cards. the X800 is based on a old set of parameters. The 6800 Ultra is the same way. The way the GPU communicates with the CPU and what "bus" it uses is all relative to the communication (ie if it's clear and fast) then that's how efficently the bus is used.

Most people don't realize that the "bus" or "bandwidth" between the GPU and the MB are directly affected by how the communication is translated between the two. You get more bandwidth with PCI-E, but 8X AGP has a whole hell of a lot still left un-tapped.

So that in mind, the GPU, the drivers for the GPU and how well XP or whatever OS you use is really how fast your system "can" be in terms of gaming or video editting.

 

[Mrbob]

I agree that PCI-Express has a much greater potential upside to it versus AGP8X. I've always disagreed this upside would be shown right away. Many peepz I have read saying "Wait for PCI-Express before upgrading". By the time PCI Express struts its stuff over AGP8X it will be time to upgrade once more. I figure in a year or two we will actually start to see strides from PCI-Express over AGP8X.

 

[GuntherBait]

I agree that PCI-Express has a much greater potential upside to it versus AGP8X. I've always disagreed this upside would be shown right away. Many peepz I have read saying "Wait for PCI-Express before upgrading". By the time PCI Express struts its stuff over AGP8X it will be time to upgrade once more. I figure in a year or two we will actually start to see strides from PCI-Express over AGP8X.

I have always said:

"Wait till PCI-E is out, then buy the best top of the line shit that is on sale. "

 

[teh_pwn]

What the hell did you expect? Because an interface has more bandwidth, the video card will magically get a performance jump?

The 9800 Pro and 5950 Ultra just barely took full advantage of AGP X4. AGP X8 isn't a bottleneck for the x800 pro and 5600 Ultra.

 

[Mrbob]

What the hell did you expect? Because an interface has more bandwidth, the video card will magically get a performance jump?

The 9800 Pro and 5950 Ultra just barely took full advantage of AGP X4. AGP X8 isn't a bottleneck for the x800 pro and 5600 Ultra.

Did you look at the benches? It isn't that the scores aren't up. It is that the scores are down when moving to PCI-EXPRESS. Some of the scores are down big time when using a PCI-Express variant of the same card (Farcry, Warcraft III).

 

[Hitokage]

1. PCI-E is a scalable tech. There are actually different bandwidth grades for devices. That being said, latency might the problem here.

2. PCI-E isn't meant to replace just AGP, it's meant to replace ALL expansion slots.

 

[dynamitejim]

I thought the game/graphics card would divert to main system memory mostly when all the graphics card memory was being used up. It doesn't seem like that's happening with these 256Mb cards. Why not test at 1600x1200 with 6xAA and 16xAF(trilinear)? I'm sure that would put some actual strain on the amount of memory used.

 

[Slo]

"Code" refering to the GPU's that NV and ATI bring out in the next crop of cards. the X800 is based on a old set of parameters. The 6800 Ultra is the same way. The way the GPU communicates with the CPU and what "bus" it uses is all relative to the communication (ie if it's clear and fast) then that's how efficently the bus is used.

So it's a driver/hardware issue. That I can agree with. The actual game code will not change in the least.

 

[GigaDrive]

I fucking hate PCs and cannot wait until they either die, or something revolutionary happens to them that makes them GOOD for gaming, and not a money pit.

until then I will await the Xbox 2 as that will be an awesome closed platform with plenty of power for about 3 or 4 years (until Xbox 3 comes out!)

 

[teh_pwn]

"Did you look at the benches? It isn't that the scores aren't up. It is that the scores are down when moving to PCI-EXPRESS. Some of the scores are down big time when using a PCI-Express variant of the same card (Farcry, Warcraft III)."

I'd expect a small drop due to it being new tech that hasn't been optimized. But you're right, that's bigger than expected.

This is why I decided to build my new computer a couple of months ago. Because even if all this stuff comes out (PCI-E, DDR2, SATA2.0, 64-bit processors with software to support, etc.), they'd be new and likely get many revisions.

 

[Duckhuntdog]

Until games are specifically coded to take advantage of PCI-E, you aren't going to see shit and therefore these benchmarks are worthless.

 

[Mrbob]

These benchmarks aren't worthless.

They are very informative if you were looking at taking the plunge at first gen PCI-Xpress.

Tip: Stay with AGP.

 

[Takuan]

I'm not surprised at all. If I remember correctly, early AGP benchmarks showed minimal improvement over PCI, and even significantly after the difference wasn't huge (it was there, but PCI wasn't left in the dust). These technologies are never what they're hyped to be.

 

[CrimsonSkies]

I'm waiting for PCI-E for future upgrade ability to the system I build.

 

[The Shadow]

Hopefully the people that always scream "WAIT FOR PCI-E BEFORE YOU UPGRADE THIS YEAR" will get a clue.

Oh snap!

I HOPE YOU READ THIS AND STICK IT IN THE REAR SLO!!!



I'm upgrading as soon as I get my money. I wish I could slug all you jerks that told me to wait.

 

[tedtropy]

AGP didn't exactly wow and win everybody over the moment it hit the market, and neither will PCI-X. Just like AGP, however, it'll be a technology that matures and becomes beneficial in time. For now, I'm not exactly rushing out to buy a mobo that supports it as no cards are even maxing out the capability of AGP 8X. All in due time...

 

[Slo]

I've already apologized like twice. Look on the bright side. Stuff is cheaper now then it was back then.

 

[myzhi]

AGP didn't exactly wow and win everybody over the moment it hit the market, and neither will PCI-X. Just like AGP, however, it'll be a technology that matures and becomes beneficial in time. For now, I'm not exactly rushing out to buy a mobo that supports it as no cards are even maxing out the capability of AGP 8X. All in due time...

When did AGP become mature, given that AGP 1X-8X barely offers improved performance? The only reason why AGP became beneficial is because companies stop making high end cards for the PCI slot. Probably due to the fact that marketing hype fool average Joe into believing that an AGP card offers huge performance gains over a PCI. Thus, video companies had to make their high end stuff on AGP, or else, their product would look weak. I see a repeat with PCI-E video cards.

 

[The Shadow]

I've already apologized like twice. Look on the bright side. Stuff is cheaper now then it was back then.

A SMILEY FACE IS NOT AN APOLOGY SIR!

I'm so angry, only a pint of your blood will serve as proper retribution. I demand your blood as well as the names of your co-conspirators.

 

[Slo]

My only accomplice was Mai Harry Bawls. He deserves a good licken'.

 

[The Shadow]

My only accomplice was Mai Harry Bawls. He deserves a good kicken'.

YES

 

[GuntherBait]

A SMILEY FACE IS NOT AN APOLOGY SIR!

I'm so angry, only a pint of your blood will serve as proper retribution. I demand your blood as well as the names of your co-conspirators.

WTF?