Wednesday, May 13th 2009
PowerColor HD 4770 AGP Gets Listed, Fastest AGP Card in the Making?
ATI looks to be still in the mood to cater to the dying breed of AGP motherboard users. A Radeon HD 4770 graphics card made by PowerColor surfaced on Amazon.com (model: 1A1-G000004992), that boasts of support for the AGP interface, although a picture of the PCI-E variant accompanies it. The store claims it to be in stock, and priced at US $99, although PowerColor's website has no trace of it. We are in the process of finding out more about this card.
If indeed PowerColor made such a card, AGP users have something to rejoice: the fastest AGP accelerator, one that puts them into the current-generation of GPUs. The card features 640 stream processors, is DirectX 10.1 compliant, and features 512 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit memory interface. Until now, the fastest AGP card from ATI is the Radeon HD 3850 AGP.
Update (05/13): PowerColor responded to this article saying that the product is falsely advertised, and that the company neither has an HD 4770 AGP accelerator, nor is it currently in the works. In the course of the conversation however, the company disclosed that it is working on products based on the Radeon HD 4600 series (HD 4650, HD 4670) that are AGP-compatible.
If indeed PowerColor made such a card, AGP users have something to rejoice: the fastest AGP accelerator, one that puts them into the current-generation of GPUs. The card features 640 stream processors, is DirectX 10.1 compliant, and features 512 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit memory interface. Until now, the fastest AGP card from ATI is the Radeon HD 3850 AGP.
Update (05/13): PowerColor responded to this article saying that the product is falsely advertised, and that the company neither has an HD 4770 AGP accelerator, nor is it currently in the works. In the course of the conversation however, the company disclosed that it is working on products based on the Radeon HD 4600 series (HD 4650, HD 4670) that are AGP-compatible.
55 Comments on PowerColor HD 4770 AGP Gets Listed, Fastest AGP Card in the Making?
So a 4600 is coming out
1./ You can play at high resolutions (this is GPU bottleneck, not CPU)
2./ You can turn up shader effects, and AA etc. (this is again GPU stuff not CPU).
So if you are running a game on a 3850 on an older PC, on a 4770 you might not get a lot more FPS, but you can play with a higher resolution and with more shader based eye-candy. Remember, you only really need 60fps for smooth gameplay. While a new CPU might be able to do 120fps, the 60fps is quite good enough... so long as you are at a decent resolution and can turn AA on etc.
PLEASE NOTE however, that an "older" AGP based CPU could actually be a decent AMD processor (better than P4), or even a s775 based modern Intel. For example, I run a Q6600 on an AGP mainboard and the bottleneck is the HD3850 and not the processor.
By the way thanks again btarunr for posting all this cool stuff.:respect:
(Or something along the lines of that)
but seriously??? how many people still run AGP systems?? I doubt OEM's would start building budget AGP machines to cater for those who cant afford a PCI-E system.
but ANY AGP card now is going to be expensive, a few years back I was lookin for a 7900GS+ to replace my x850xt pe but MOST places were selling for what seemed to be at least £30-50 more then the going price for a X1900xTx which was all the rage back then.
The 4770 is a great way to improve an AGP system. Make it quieter. Less power. Less heat. And better performance. It will also have Dual link DVI and 2x DVI sockets for runing hi-res and multiple screens. Overall net positive.
But the question remains: marketing to this consumer group is difficult, because most ENTHUSIASTS are on PCIe now. And most consumers dont read up on tech nor buy extra bits for their ready-made all-in-one computers.
Not withstanding that, I have 3 machines I would upgrade to 4770, since they are already Q6600 and have quite enough CPU horsepower.
DID YOU VOTE? www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=agp+4770 click through to the poll on TPU. The link through google is to "rank it up" a bit.
But i am not against people making them, if they continue to do, hey i am not mad about it.
What is it with ppl crying for AGP to die? I mean are you directly affected by companies still supporting an old interface?
To me that's just selfish, live and let live ppl....
Anyways, for $99 this would have been a really sweet deal to keep my old HTPC AGP rig up to date, damn you Amazon for setting my hopes high for nothing :p
It's obvious they still see a market for these cards in old AGP rigs :)
But my point is, do you think this justifies the "Why wont AGP just die" attitude, when there's a lot of ppl out there who still have AGP systems, I mean, if I had to choose between having the price for my GTX285 going from $340 to $337.99 when I bought it, but having to sacrifice any chance to upgrade my old AGP rig, or even let my father upgrade his old PC at home, or my cousin get a new AGP card for his good ol gaming PC, I would gladly choose to pay the extra $2...
Now, I don't see this as an "AGP Tax", and I really have no idea of how much droping AGP production completely would affect the price for PCIe parts, but does it really affect me so much to just wish other ppl didn't have the opportunity to upgrade?
Anyway, in the end the card doesn't even exist so, we may finally be witness to the end of AGP, an end that was supposedly due about 4 years ago; and for today the HD3850 remains king among old AGP rigs... :rockout: