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Thread ID: 45177 2004-05-12 23:13:00 ATI Radeon 9600XT or GeForce FX5700??? MartynC (5610) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
236042 2004-05-15 15:22:00 Thanks for the info Pete. :)

What about the latest generation of video cards e.g. the Radeon X800xt, will they be reaching the bandwidth limits of 4x agp yet, or have they surpassed it?
kiki (762)
236043 2004-05-16 05:57:00 I'd say so.
They're developing (or have developed) a new interface - named PCI-X ( tihink - help me ppl!)

This is suposedly way faster than AGP and will take over AGP.

The new cards are the first cards that will use this type fo interface (PCI X mobos are coming out now)
fergie (424)
236044 2004-05-16 06:39:00 I think the correct term is PCI-E (Short for PCI-Express). PCI-X is something different not to be confused with PCI Express.

PCI Express will be out on the new BTX motherboard standard I believe and offers a lot more bandwidth than 8x agp can by allocating more channels as needed. Whether the new cards can use up that available bandwidth is something else.
kiki (762)
236045 2004-05-19 00:50:00 Hi Everyone

A big thankyou for all your help & ideas with this. I am thinking of going with the ATI Radeon 9600XT Bravo now, or waiting for the 9800 to come down abit.
The only thing i am not sure about is having 128Megs Video Ram on the ATI vs 256Megs on the GeForce, will it effect anything (i will have 1GB system RAM)??? ?:|
MartynC (5610)
236046 2004-05-19 01:02:00 As mentioned earlier, 256MB of RAM will not offer any real performance gains over the 128MB except at very high resolutions. To be honest with a 9600 you probably won't be running extreme quality settings at high resolutions anyway so the 256MB becomes irrelevent. I researched the 9800Pro in both 128 and 256 configurations and the 256MB is way overpriced for the tiny performance gain. The 128MB is plenty at this stage....although in another 12 months..... :-) Sb0h (3744)
236047 2004-05-19 01:09:00 Actually I see Ascent have the GeCube 9600XT on "special" at the moment for $320 and the 256MB version of the same card for $344, so for the extra $24 get the 256MB. Sb0h (3744)
236048 2004-05-19 02:30:00 > As mentioned earlier, 256MB of RAM will not offer any real performance gains over the 128MB except at very high resolutions.

Around 18 months ago when trying to decide on my graphics card I was reading reports that 64MB was recommended as cards with 128MB were a bit of an overkill since the extra RAM wouldn't be utilised. Now we have to choose between 128MB and 256MB.

Technology never stands still. :-)
Susan B (19)
236049 2004-05-19 05:24:00 The card with 256MB of memory will generally be slower generally so will generally not perform as well in current games that don't need that much memory in the first place. -=JM=- (16)
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