8X AGP
 

I am assuming ATi's 9700 card will work on systems with 4x AGP slots. But, how much does this reduce its performance? I have an MB with 4XAGP, is it pointless to buy this card? If so, which motherboards out there have 8x AGP support?

I am reciting from a vague memory, but here goes - the 8X agp cards and motherboards are both backwards compatible. I think the current 8x cards on the market dont show much if any imporvement on 8x mobos over 4x mobos on current games. This seems to be the case for many new features on video cards. There are still features on the GF3 that havent been used by mainstream games, but they were major selling points a year and a half+ ago. 8x is a good thing, its just too early to see any benefits yet. They definately wont hurt your performance. If someone else has heard different, please let me know.

Check out http://www.asus.com They just released a 8X AGP card. but beware, ATI has some minor issues with their 9700 pro and 8x boards.

ATI states it's the MB fault and the MB companies say it's ATI

Just picked up a 9700 pro to replace my Ti4600 only gained 5 -10 FPS Hopefully I can spend some time tweaking this card to pull some more FPS

Now this was comparing my Ti 4600 @ 1024 x768 - 32bit to the ATI's 1200x1600 @32 bit but the refresh rate was killing my eyes.

Getting around 60 -70 FPS at that res on Omaha