The older generations
As a reference and to allow you to better judge the performances of recent AGP cards compared to your current hardware, we included some of the older generation : the GeForce FX 5900XT, 6800 GT and 6600 GT, as well as the Radeon 9800 Pro and X800 XT PE.
GeForce FX 5900XT
The very criticized GeForce FX line is still found in a number of PCs. Its architecture is poorly adapted to DirectX 9, and it should have significant problems with some of the more recent games. Indeed, some of Nvidia’s specific optimizations hinted at this and evidence showed that these cards were especially intended for DirectX 8, even though complete DirectX 9 support was available.
The GeForce FX 5900XT manages AGP natively and is equipped with 128 MB of 256 bit memory. It needs a supplementary molex power supply.
GeForce 6800 GT
The high end of the GeForce 6 line, the GeForce 6800 GT was very successful and offered good performances thanks to its revised architecture and Shader Model 3.0 support.
AGP is also native with this card. The GeForce 6800 GT is equipped with 256 Mo of memory linked to 256 bit bus. A molex power supply is also required.
GeForce 6600 GT
The GeForce 6600 GT was very successful and was sold in large volume. There are numerous users of this card, which represents a sort of reference for mid-level performances.
The GeForce 6600 GT was the first Nvidia GPU to manage Nvidia PCI Express natively. A bridge, called the HSI, was thus present on the AGP version, serving as an intermediary between the PCI Express and AGP interfaces. This card has 128 MB in 128 bits. Although there are 256 MB versions, the 128 MB is the most representative of its class.
Radeon 9800 Pro
A boosted version of the Radeon 9700 Pro, the 9800 Pro was a success. The first to feature DirectX 9 architecture, its implementation was very effective from the start. Even if we had to wait for the inefficiency of the GeForce FX to be confirmed for it to finally be given the merit it was due, this card was very popular. Five years later, how does this architecture fare?
The Radeon 9800 Pro manages AGP natively and has 128 Mo of memory with a 256 bit interface. A supplementary power connection of floppy disc type is necessary.
Radeon X800 XT PE
An evolution of previous Radeons, the X800 has twice the number of processing units and supports an extended version of Shader 2.0 (with Pixel Shader 2.0b), which allowed it to bypass some limitations. ATI thus focused on processing power, while Nvidia opted for a less powerful but more evolved architecture with the GeForce 6.
The card manages AGP natively and is equipped with 256 MB of memory in 256 bit. A molex connector is required.
