Sapphire Technology, one of the world’s largest producers of graphics cards, is planning to release three graphics cards featuring ATI Rialto bridge, which allows GPUs originally architected for PCI Express to work on platforms supporting AGP 4x or 8x. The new cards fully support DirectX 10 and are based on the latest ATI Radeon HD 2000-series GPUs. The new graphics boards are Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT (800MHz core, 1400MHz memory) with up to 512MB of GDDR3 memory, HD 2600 Pro (600MHz core, 1000MHz memory) with up to 512MB GDDR3 memory onboard and HD 2400 Pro (525MHz core, 800MHz memory) with up to 256MB of GDDR2 memory onboard.
Both Radeon HD 2600 and 2400 are fully compatible with DirectX 10 and feature advanced Avivo HD video engine, however, the model HD 2600 sports 120 stream processors, 8 texture units and 4 render back ends, whereas the model HD 2400 has only 40 SPs, 4 TUs and 4 RBEs. Even though some end-users may find the new graphics cards useful, as all of them is likely to be priced at below $199, it is unlikely that the new graphics cards will allow them to play modern games, as microprocessors on the vast majority of AGP systems are outdated for contemporary games, whereas DDR memory upgrades are already more expensive compared to DDR2 memory upgrades. It is unclear when Sapphire starts to sell the new AGP graphics boards.
News source: Xbit Laboratories
Both Radeon HD 2600 and 2400 are fully compatible with DirectX 10 and feature advanced Avivo HD video engine, however, the model HD 2600 sports 120 stream processors, 8 texture units and 4 render back ends, whereas the model HD 2400 has only 40 SPs, 4 TUs and 4 RBEs. Even though some end-users may find the new graphics cards useful, as all of them is likely to be priced at below $199, it is unlikely that the new graphics cards will allow them to play modern games, as microprocessors on the vast majority of AGP systems are outdated for contemporary games, whereas DDR memory upgrades are already more expensive compared to DDR2 memory upgrades. It is unclear when Sapphire starts to sell the new AGP graphics boards.
News source: Xbit Laboratories
Radish™
So buy a card you can't use in your current pc just in case you upgrade your current pc to PCIe? /confused
But it has gotten to the point, where it is almost just cheaper to go for DDR2 and PCI-E, rather than updating the AGP card, and get a slightly better performance boost.
To say that you can't run vista and new processors with agp is irresponcible at the very least.
I'm pleased to see a manufacturer step forward and take a chance on AGP. It is still a large and healthy market. Now if only we could see someone do the same thing with nvidia cards...
But I won't upgrade the graphics until mid 2008 at the earliest. Should be able to get a nice card by then.
But this is great news for people with AGP boards.
This will make many AGP users very happy including me
I'm running a P4 3.4ee oc'ed to 3.75 and runs Vista smooth like butter, can't wait to replace my x800xt with this. I knew it was a good move passing on the x1950/xt agp's
It's another story if all they need is smooth HD video playback.
so forget it...
Even though some end-users may find the new graphics cards useful, as all of them is likely to be priced at below $199, it is unlikely that the new graphics cards will allow them to play modern games, as microprocessors on the vast majority of AGP systems are outdated for contemporary games, whereas DDR memory upgrades are already more expensive compared to DDR2 memory upgrades. It is unclear when Sapphire starts to sell the new AGP graphics boards.
I absatively posilutely call BS on that. I currently have a P4 Northwood-C-powered system (ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe mobo) running *Vista Ultimate* (the graphics are from an ATI AIW 9700 Pro, which hasn't even been *manufactured* since 2005), and I have a WEI of 4.1 (the CPU is the weak link); however, even C&C3 has a minimum WEI of 3.0 (and a recommended WEI of 4.1). There are certainly faster CPUs (even faster CPUs that will fit this same motherboard) that take the AGP bus (my Northwood-C is 2.6 GHz OC'd to 2.85 using the stock HSF; there are faster stock N-Cs, not to mention Original Prescotts and Athlons). Where has the reporter been living; under a rock or in a cave?
Then there are the LGA775-based systems with the 865PE chipset. These systems started out with the Prescott-B; most were updated to support the Pentium-D (some even support Core Dup and Core2Duo), and all have AGP (not PCIe) graphics slots. And don't even get me *started* on the non-Intel chipset makers (such as VIA and SiS).
There are Quite A Few customers that would buy DX10-based AGP cards (including me) simply because it lets me delay laying out even more money for a complete changeover (while DDR2 is less expensive than DDR, it requires a motherboard change, which requires a CPU change, which requires a graphics card change). So it's one change vs. *four* changes (and that doesn't count the PSU upgrade, which will certainly be a requirement). Why spend additional money when it's not necessary?
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Mode...-VSTA&s=AM2
They also sell a boatload of these lame little boards here which have the VIA chipset on them, and offer Core 2 support, DDR400/DDR2-533 support, and either an AGP slot or a PCI-Ex4 slot wired up as an x16 one.
Just need nVidia to do the same too.
a dx10 card for agp systems with nvidia chipset = bliss
Last edited by pjak on 22 May 2007 - 01:44
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