News GeForce 6800 GS AGP spotted

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/12/08/geforce_6800_gs_agp_spotted/

 

yay, i might get this card i was looking for an update to my 5200 but nvidia wasnt releasing anything. companies should still support agp since most people dont have the money to build a new PC

 

im thinking of going the other way.
i have a 754 3000+ with a 6800gt AGP
my father wants to upgrade his 9800pro, Im thinking of ditching my current 754 mobo and getting that Epox 754 sli board and getting either a 7800gt or 6800gs. the cost for me would be either 310usd or 420usd - whatever my dad will give me for my 6800gt.

I think that anyone holding on to the AGP bus is making a bad move.
yes it costs more to upgrade to a socket 939 (or even 754 with no good upgrade path for cpu) but you plunk down 225usd for a 6800gs now and your stuck with the performance of that card. you buy a new mobo + processor (or maybe you already have a socket 939 or 754 processor) and when the time comes that the 6800gs isnt performing to your needs, plunk in another one! cheaper than what your paying now! I think thats a much smarter move than tossing a 6800gs once it wont play the latest games well. sure youll retire a motherboard and maybe a processor. Im sure you could find a good use for them

*edit
Bigz, it was 9:42pm here when you posted that, what time was it where your at?
I appreciate the up to the minute news, but do you get any sleep?!

or maybe we should ask "what am I doing checking BT at 11:40PM at night?"

 

Good news for me.
I (like many) am not ready to get rid of my perfectly good, high end motherboard, PSU, Etc. just to upgrade my 9800Pro graphics card.
If they won't make an AGP version of the high end cards, then I don't need one that badly

DB

 

I agree and disagree on two leves. #1 Being that it certainly is not* economical to invest in an AGP card and #2 Being that You can't use two of them in a Dual GPU solution.

1#.However it is reasonable to "Max out" your current AGP system entirely because of logical resons. Because you may of spent so much precious time and ends on it.

#2 It is logical to wait half a year to wait untill 6800GTs and X800XLs take a dive in the pricing margin. The X-Crotch and PS3 will certainly deduct the MSRP on those cards considering you can buy a console with a triple/dual core processor and a better GPU for 100 bones more. With the release of better graphics cards, everyone will see the 6800GT at 6600GT prices soon...

#3 (maybe) The 7800 AGP!!

 

I'm in Seattle at the moment.

 

I would love to see a 7800 AGP, if it does not come out i will buy a 6600 or a 6800 for my agp because i dont have cash for a full system update.

the only parts that my pc needs now is more ram and a grafics card and a new power suply (this one is realy noisy and not powerfull enough).

I have seen agp systems that can rape most pci express systems, exept in the grafics department because there is so litle choice. I bet that a 7800 agp can be as fast as a 7800 pcix, because the bandwith of the pcix is not being totaly used, and the only tech that uses most of the power bandwith of the pcix is SLI and most people dont have cash for 2 grafics card, hell some dont have enough for 1.

 

I just bought a X850XT PE (AGP) for a bargain £200, which is still the best card for AGP there is, and i have effectively given my Pc and extra 12-18mths of useful life.

By then i'll be ready to move to a PCI express,Vista powered Pc.

Just been playing BF2 at 1280x1024, 4xAA, 16xAF with ALL settings set to High, and getting a smooth 40-70fps (depending on map)....thats more than enough for me, and cant justify spending £1500 on Pc just to go PCI Express.

Plus, i havent had to switch to Nvidia, with their frankly appalling image quality, and as good as the 6800GS maybe, its not as good as the X850XT.

 

I will get this card or an x850 after crimbo

Im selling my 5900xt to a freind (it overclocks V. well and had the faster ram) do you think £60 is a good price to cahrge him?

 

I have two rigs that only have AGP slots in them and both are worthy of a decent AGP GFX card. I think the 6800 GS's will do nicely. A pair of AGP 7800,s might be a little OTT.

I know 3 people that have been trying to buy 6800 GT/Ultra AGP, to upgrade, but you try finding one, let alone 3!

I think I'll wait until they're in stock else where though.

 

Hmm... There are a lot of the high-end cards for AGP (and even PCI-e, to an extent) starting to dry up as I've seen. For one, the 6800ultra is outright gone. The AGP 6800GT may still exist, but it's getting scarcer by the day.

This leaves the question... What GPU are they using for the 6800GS AGP? I wouldn't trust The Inquirer on this issue; they've got to be freaking nuts if they believe that the 6800GS would use the same AGP-native NV40 cores that nVidia is apparently OUT OF, and then clocking it higher than the 6800ultra... These cores would've been good a LONG TIME AGO for OC ultra cards! What is nVidia doing having them sold off as bargain cards, with 4 pixel pipelines begging to be unlocked, leaving someone with a straight-off 6800ultra?

No, the Inquirer simply has to be full of fecal matter on this one. Rather, I suspect that they use the PCI-e native NV42 core as the 6800GS PCI-e, just it uses a bridge chip for AGP compatability;nVidia did this with the 6600 series, for instacnce, and with their popularity going down, I suspect nVidia (and their partners) may have a stockpile of those on hand to use for situations like this... But perhaps they might've gone farther slapping them onto some 7800GTX cards. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN have something better than an AthlonXP and still have AGP; my Athlon64 was got before PCI-e ever came to AMD; it was Intel's exclusive in early 2004.

 

I think they'll use NV42 and bridge back to AGP if need be.

 

I would personally be surprised if they didn't; it would be an economic nightmare for nVidia any other way; no other core (aside from the G70 of course) is capable of reaching 430MHz with any reliable level of yields, and a high clock rate (high for nVidia, that is) is part of the specifications of the 6800GS. It will be a nice card though, at least I think. Not as good as the AGP 6800, but a near-close substitute.

 

not as good as the AGP 6800? It's much faster than that - it's as fast as a 6800 GT in most cases.

 

How do the GS's compare to the GT's, from what I've heard they're worse across the board, but that doesn't seem to make sense for a card that comes out after the GT, has about the same price, and higher clocks

edit: Oh and bigz, unlucky about seattle, just remember, it will end, I know its horrible, but you'll get through it

 

Read our review - you'll see, for the most part, there is very little between the two.

 

I wasn't referring to performance; I was referring to how far they generally go when you tweak them. Bumping a 6800 to 16/6 pipelines, (with what appears to be a ~98% chance of success) and the ability to potentially clock it up to around 400MHz, would make it more appealing. That's why I said "better;" I'm fully aware of how much it falls short on the performance front, but by the same token, it's also less expensive in general. (it also usually only comes with 128MB of video RAM, a major downer)

 

Not sure about over in the UK, but in Canada I've seen 1 AGP8x X800 GTO for sale, from ncix.com

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16647&vpn=SP-X800GTO256E-OEM&manufacture=SAPPHIRE

The price is a bit higher then the price of a PCIe X800 GTO however, so I'm still waiting for a AGP 6800 GS before making a purchase decision.