SUMMARY: When it comes to the aging Accelerated Graphics Port we're almost at an end of an era in the computing industry. Although the AGP port isn't quite dead yet and ATI as well as nVidia still recognize there is a market for users who are not yet ready to upgrade to PCI Express based systems. Today we've compared all eight of the current AGP graphics from ATI and nVidia including the Radeon X700PRO, X800XL, X850XT, X850XT PE and GeForce 6600GT, 6800, 6800GT and 6800 Ultra. Which one will it be for your AGP gaming machine? Read on for some answers!
nVidia have been playing in the AGP market of their latest cards from day one with the PCI Express release coinciding with AGP. While it wasn’t all that exciting for users of top of the range cards it was excellent news for people finally wanting to make a move from their old GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9800PRO as the GeForce 6600GT really hit the AGP market with force, it didn’t matter what brand it was… people wanted it.
To support the AGP market, nVidia uses the converter chip pictured above which is able to translate PCI Express to AGP and visa versa.
- GeForce 6600GT
As we just mentioned the 6600GT from nVidia would have to be this year’s hottest card - it has had the response ATI’s Radeon 9600XT received last year. It features excellent pricing and with performance to boot makes it a fantastic card for people who want an entry level gaming machine with some attitude.
While the 6600GT standard core is 500MHz and memory 1000MHz DDR the particular card (BFG) we have used today is clocked at a slightly higher 525MHz/1050MHz setup. With this said though because we are reviewing the chipset as opposed to the card, we did clock it down to stock speeds using coolbits to keep it fair.
- GeForce 6800
The 6800 is the entry level 6800 card and comes clocked at 325MHz at the core and 700MHz DDR on the memory. While the card has seemed to have been discontinued by a lot of manufactures, some people still do have stock and if you’re looking for something in the second hand market you shouldn’t have much trouble hunting one of these down. While a lot hasn’t been said about how the card sits in the market we will look today at where we feel it should be sitting.
- GeForce 6800GT / Ultra
The GeForce 6800GT and Ultra works similar to how the X850XT Platinum and Non Platinum work with one card having only slightly higher clock speeds then the other.
Unfortunately during our testing our Ultra did die and while trying to get a hold of another a lot of people didn’t have stock. Using coolbits we clocked our 6800GT to Ultra speeds and after comparing the overclocked 6800GT to some of our original 6800 Ultra tests, we found that the performance was spot on.
The 6800GT comes clocked at 350MHz core and 1000MHz DDR on the memory. The 6800 Ultra comes clocked slightly higher with a core of 400Mhz and a memory speed of 1100MHz DDR. It is quite common to see the 6800GT overclock to 6800 Ultra speeds without any troubles.
