AGP 8x: Where Is The Advantage? (End)

As you see, there is no noticeable advantage of the AGP 8x mode compared with the AGP 4x: certain divergences fit into the measurement error range. The Nature test from 3DMark2001 SE with enabled anti-aliasing was the hardest trial and showed the advantage of 128MB memory: RADEON 9200 outran RADEON 9000 PRO in higher resolutions. Strangely enough, we didn’t see this on the Athlon XP platform.

Besides, you may notice that there are no differences in performance of RADEON 9000 PRO and RADEON 9200-based graphics cards in Direct3D applications in certain totally different modes. For instance, when we turned FSAA 2x in 1024x768 and higher screen-resolutions in Direct3D software and then tested with enabled and disabled anisotropic filtering, we got similar results. Since there is no such anomaly in OpenGL application we tested, we believe this to be a bug in drivers. It may appear only on the i875P platform with Windows XP and may be cured in next releases of ATI’s drivers, but it existed in our case.

So, we have just proven once again that AGP 8x, which can theoretically ensure twice higher bandwidth, has no advantages over AGP 4x today. The amount of data pumped along the bus must be too small to load it to the full. Today, all the textures usually fit into the local graphics memory and the AGP bus only serves to transfer geometry information. In the future, the amount of textures used in games may become high enough to require AGP texturing, but most probably PCI Express, a faster bus, will have come to computer systems by that time, making AGP 8x inadequate.

Conclusion

Gigabyte Maya II R9200 left a twofold impression. The product is very well-done, although the passive cooling system works at the breaking point. Fortunately, this card cannot be overclocked: it won’t die in the hands of some unfortunate user. The 128MB of slow (200MHz) memory don’t give RADEON 9200 any advantages except those modes with high resolution and enabled full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. But even this advantage is a mirage: you cannot reach an acceptable playability in such modes on a value graphics card.

AGP 8x support doesn’t provide any advantages. The card performed similarly in both AGP 4x and AGP 8x modes. The support of pixel and vertex shaders makes RADEON 9200 a more appealing buy than GeForce4 MX440, which doesn’t support pixel shaders at all. So, if you are somewhat pressed for money, but want to play rather new games, RADEON 9200 may be the choice for you. Its price is about $85; it supports DirectX 8.1 and runs pretty fast in most games.

Highs:

• Noiseless functioning;
• Small dimensions;
• 128MB graphics memory;
• Dual-display configurations support, DVI-I and TV-Out;
• High image quality;
• A free game included;
• Low price.

Lows:

• Slow graphics memory;
• Heats up a lot during work;
• V-Tuner utility doesn’t work with the card.