Current G400 is not AGP 4X ?

[Picard]

Hi Folks,

I've just found this article :

Current G400 is not AGP 4X?

Is this true ?

[R-u-Ready]

the G400 will fit into a 4x agp slot but does not use 4x AGP technology.

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Flux capacitor overclocked to 1.31 jigawatts

[Jorden]

Meaning the next G400 will be placed on a board capable of 4x...

But since neither you or I have a 4x capable mobo, what do we care??

Is the current Picard bald??

Jorden.

[Nuno]

For the 1000th time:

Why the need AGP 4X if even AGP 2x isn´t used? Even quake3 doesn´t show any diference between 1x and 2x. Yes I see: Intel´s marketing is working at its best. And yes, besides AGP4X we all need a i820 motherboard along with some mighty Rambus to go along with it.

When the G400 board was released, there wasn´t a single AGP 4x platform available. So where would Matrox test the AGP 4x feature?

I´m not guessing here or something, do a forum search and you´ll see Haig (Matrox Tech support manager) confirming this in the 567th "G400 is not AGP 4x" post. What they did was to add AGP 4x compatibility what is a GREAT feature: The AGP 4x is different from the 1x/2x, even in voltage protocols. If you upgrade your system to a mobo with agp4x slot, you can take your G400 and just stick it in the slot and that is it. Even the TNT2 boards that can fit the AGP4x slot need a jumper changed in the pcb to support the agp4x voltage. Some TNT2 boards can´t even fit the AGP4x slot.

[Stil]

Quake2 doesn't show an improvement between 1X and 2X because Quake2 is not a high-vertex-count application. You will see a major performance boost between 1X and 2X for high poly apps like high-end cad apps.

Just goes to show that Quake2 is not the be-all-and-end-all OpenGL benchmark.

[andrei]

Captain's log, suplimental:

Wasn't the GeFarce supose to be 4x AGP ?! (don't kill me )

Wasn't Camino comming in SDRAM version to ?
Cape Cod 820 I mean.




[This message has been edited by andrei (edited 17 December 1999).]

[Nuno]

Stil: It´s Quake3 not 2. Search the forum and you´ll get several examples. High-vertex-count? I´m not an expert in the matter, but AGP tranfer speeds are important now mainly for texture data being moved as fast as possible between the graphic card and the main memory when the video card runs out of memory - unless you have a Intel i740, it does agp texturing all the time, as if the bloody thing wasn´t slow enough...
Maybe in high-end cad, but by the time the geometry data in games will be so intense that the AGP bus will be a bottleneck even AGP 4x will be obsolete.

Look, I´m not saying that AGP 1x = AGP 2x = AGP 4x. Of course AGP 4x is faster, but nothing takes advantage of it now. Kinda like T&L.

andrei: Ge-force is fully AGP4x compatible. of course it is, it was designed after the full AGP4x specs were out and they must had agp 4x platforms to test it. i820 and sdram is one of the worst ideas of all times. Yes, it supports sdram, but with a memory tranlator hub (or something like that) that acounts for a 10-20% performance hit.

[andrei]

Pentium II-III , chipset Intel 820,INTEL CAPE COD , 3 DIMM, Chipset INTEL 820, Bus 133 MHZ, AGP X4, UDMA 66, SB Creative 128 OnBoard, ATX,
166.7 $ (no VTA)

my curent mobo:
Pentium II-III , chipset DESCHUTES INTEL SEATTLE BX/2 , 3 DIMM, Chipset INTEL 440 BX, Bus 100 MHZ, Advanced Graphics Port, ATX,
133.5 $ (no VTA)

So says my retailer's offer.

Is it worth upgrading ? Will it give me a little boost from the BX arhitecture ? it is i820 afterall.

Instead of buying DRDRAM memory I'd rather buy an Atlas 10 K.

[[SITH}PELADO]

the benchs shows that a i820 with sdram is actually slower than a bx..

[andrei]

Darn Would a Copermine work on a BX chipset ? (from what I know it won't).

This sucks (for future upgrades), have to buy an i820 just to make the Copermine work, have to buy the DRDRAM version (VC 820) to have performance with the video card.

How would the Athlon 4x AGP mobos performe with SDRAM ?

Will 4x AGP work good only with DRDRAM memory ?

[Nuno]

andrei, that´s what I was talking about. If you "upgrade", you will be running slower because i820 doesn´t nativly supports sdram and the mobo needs an extra chip to translate the rambus calls to sdram.

Most modern BX board support coppermine. You´ll have to check your mobo manufacturer for a bios update. I can talk about Abit, all Abit slot1 BX boards (except BX6 and BH6 1.0x) support coppermine. You can even run a coppermine 133 Mhz fsb in a bx board, the only problem is that bx chipset doesn´t support agp 1/2 divider, but many people are reporting that G400 can handle 89 Mhz agp without a single problem.

I would avoid i820 like hell, at least if the rambus prices don´t drop like 10x.

[andrei]

Which type of memory for 4x AGP then ?
SDRAM, or DRDRAM ?
From what I make of it, and you people tell me, 4x AGP will only work good with rambus, at least on the Intel side.
How's the AMD side ?

My mobo has an 100 Mhz fsb, so can't put a Coppermine on it

[andrei]

I'm thinking at future 4x AGP cards and 4x AGP mobos, not at 2x AGP cards and compatibility with 4X AGP mobos when I'm asking what type of memory SDRAM or rambus.

[andrei]

Ahhh! Who the hell knows what I'm thinking... never mind.

[Nuno]

Andrei, there are 100 Mhz fsb coppermines. Regular PIII .25u, 512kb L2(Katmai) are PIII. Katmai 133 Mhz fsb are PIII B Coppermines 100 Mhz fsb are PIII E. Coppermines 133 Mhz fsb are PII EB.

If you mobo supports coppermine and 133 mhz fsb with 1/4 pci divisor, you can even use use coppermines 133 Mhz fsb, worring only with agp bus speeds. If it only supports 100 mhz fsb there are coppermines 100 fsb, dont worry.

About agp 4x and memory, that´s because the agp 4x spec bandwidth is higher than the pc100 sdram own bandwidth, so the agp speed is limited by the system memory bandwidth. But I staded above what I think about agp4x usefullness, so...