It has long been considered that the days of the accelerated graphics port (AGP) are counted, but some of the manufacturers and developers are still trying to make money on the market that does not see many updates these days. According to media reports, some of Nvidia’s add-in-card partners may be considering release of GeForce 7600 GT and even 7900 GT -based graphics cards for outdate systems. 

“PC gaming enthusiasts with tricked-out AGP systems have a lot invested in their computers so the new GeForce 7800 GS AGP GPU will allow them to extend the life of their systems, and keep their PCs on the bleeding edge,” said Ujesh Desai, general manager of desktop graphics processing units (GPUs) at Nvidia, while announcing the GeForce 7800 GS graphics cards.

But the things may not stop with the GeForce 7800 GS. A report over PC Inpact web-site claims that some suppliers of graphics cards among Nvidia Corp.’s platforms are mulling AGP flavours of the GeForce 7600 GT and 7900 GT graphics cards, which are Nvidia’s offerings for performance-mainstream and high-end market respectively. If the information is correct, end-users who still own previous-generation system with AGP 8x graphics slot will be able to update their computers to the latest graphics technology at $200 or $300 price-points depending on their demands. 

Earlier some industry experts expressed concerns about feasibility of new high-end graphics cards for AGP 8x platforms, as users in budget usually do not buy expensive graphics boards, whereas performance-minded customers have already transitioned to PCI Express platforms. 

The GeForce 7600 GT graphics processor has 12 pixel shader units, 5 vertex shader units, is clocked at 560MHz and comes with 256MB of 128-bit 1400MHz GDDR3 memory. The product is designed for performance-mainstream market and substitutes the popular GeForce 6600 GT product, which exists in both AGP 8x and PCI Express x16 versions. The GeForce 7900 GT product features 24 pixel processors, 8 vertex shader processors, is clocked at 450MHz and sports 1320MHz 256-bit GDDR3 memory. The product is aimed at sub-$300 per card marker. 

Nvidia Corp. did not return email seeking for additional comments on the matter.