Teny said:
out of curiousity how much of a difference is ther between an AGP compared to an PCI-E?
like i said before, my friend got a PNY Geforce 6600 AGP, and if i bought an PNY Geforce 6600 PCI-E since there was a sell going on at Compusa selling it for $69.99, would mine be better than my friend or will it be the same?
The slots are different in size. PCI-E has more bandwidth than AGP does and more data lanes, so performance is a bit faster. Back when PCI-E was relatively new, there wasn't much performance difference between the two, but now PCI-E definately has the upper hand. AGP is starting to fade as a standard as more and more companies like Dell and HP have switched over to PCI-E. I can guarantee that 95%+ of pre-built PCs today will not have AGP. The market has completely shifted over to PCI-E and the only reason why video card manufacturers even bother with dumbed down AGP versions (like the 7900 GS) is for the sake of that ever decreasing market today.
EDIT>>> I realized I didn't completely awnser your question. If you got the same card as your friend but in PCI-E, no the performance won't be TOO big of a difference. At least not in terms of it being noticable.
In awnser of your most recent post, the X1650 is better than the X1600. When it comes to the X1650 vs. the 7600 GT, I think the X1650 beats out the 7600 GT by a hair, simply because it incorporates the latest technologies that the 7600 GT lacks. Then again, for a card that's been out in the market for almost two years and dominating the mid-range market, the 7600 GT is still a card to be reckoned with. Don't expect the X1650 to blow the 7600 GT out of the water, but think of it as ATI's (or AMD's) direct counterpart. Before, the only thing ATI had against the 7600 GT was the X1600 Pro, and that sucked ballsack in comparison with each other.
So the choice is really yours. They're about the same in nearly every aspect (price, performance etc) so it really comes down to the games you play and what you like in a game. HDR? FSAA? High resolution? Brand name is also a key factor. Some prefer NVIDIA and some ATI, but they're both great companies that have very competitive products.