Agp 8x.....

TacT

http://www.xabre.com/products/

So everyones out buying their gf4's etc with agp 4x and here we are awaiting agp8X.......

Personally I've just upgraded and won't be going for a new motherboard for quite some time, the funny thing is if I am going to upgrade my gfx card and I suppose I don't want to be that far behind (agp 8x is a major jump) so the question is will the 8x cards run on a 4X chipset?

Vice versa too I suppose if you have an 8x chipset controller will it accept a 4X card to make upgrading a bit less hassle free or are they going to make it so complicated you need to be a rocket scientist to upgrade your bleeding system :rolleyes:

Last but not least is this going to finally drive video card prices right down so we can enjoy an upgrade without worrying about it being so expensive we don't want to do it again in a few months time....

zAbbo

I suppose theres an option in the bios for swicthing 8x to 4x(similar to the 4x, 2x option). As for the other way, it would be poor on the manufacturer to not make a product backward compatibile

leeroybrown

I'd reckon that most 8x AGP cards would definitely go back to 4x and probably even 2x.

Doodee

the first 8x AGP card is from VIA I think,
I'd say that 8xAGP cards are much like Ram in that u can up or down the speed it runs at (much like 4x and 2x)

also, since its only new and no games will really take advantage of it there is no point really, IMO the best new 8x AGP card that will be out before it takes off is going to be the ATI R300 chip (Next Radeon) that is ment to be out before fall, N-Vidia wont be releasing their till the next quater (Fall)
so.....
Its pointless to just upgrade cause something is new, you'll end up with no money and there really isnt any need for it,
wait about 3 months and the price of all 8x stuff will shoot down in price like norm,

ThrAx

the best new 8x AGP card that will be out before it takes off is going to be the ATI R300

Correction: Matrox Parhelia 512 WILL be better

Gerry

agp8x will not make very much difference, high end graphics cards have been doing their damndest to avoid getting textures across the agp bus, it is mainly used for geometry, which afaik is not maxing out the 4x bus yet. If it has lower latency that will help though. Agp is hyped and hyped, but it has made very little real difference to performance, much like udma 100/133.

I don't think it would be very intelligent for an agp8x card to not support 4x mode, considering the vast installed base of agp 4x machines. I'd say they will also support agp 2x.

And vice versa, it would be a little thick for a motherboard chipset to only support 8x cards, that would be called shooting yourself in the foot.

Thrax, go out and read some reviews of the parhelia. Its about level with a geforce3 ti200 in speed terms. The r300 will probably blow nvidia out of the water.