Is AGP a dead end?

[livin]

Friend of mine has an Athlon 4000+ single core and a nForce 3 motherboard. His video card is an X800 AGP card. He wants an upgrade of the video card, but want to stick with AGP. I said PCI Express is faster, but he will need a new motherboard. I didn't rally have a good arguement otherwise. Anything worthwhile about PCI Express in terms of speed?

[Leezard]

AGP isn't dead YET but it will go the way of the PCI video card sooner rather than later. You can get a decent AGP card, but why? That's just shooting yourself in the foot for future upgrades.

[VoOdoO]

Well, you are correct in saying that a PCI Express card would be better, but also like you say, he will need a new motherboard ... and CPU, possibly a new PSU as well ... and likely DDR2. Factoring in cost, it's likely that it will be an expensive upgrade. At the same time, he already has an X800, and while the 7900GS or whatever his AGP upgrade choice would be, would undoubtedly be faster, it might not provide the kind of boost he is looking for.

Question you really want to ask is; Why are you upgrading in the first place? Do you really need a new graphics card or are you just wanting to upgrade on a whim? If your friend doesn't need an upgrade, then he's better off saving his cash for now. If he does need an upgrade for a specific game or application, then chances are that considering he already has an X800 and 4000+, no AGP upgrade will give him the kind of performance he is looking for from an upgrade. He's already at the mid range of AGP graphics.

[livin]

I guess the main thing is there won't be any new mobo tech with AGP as well. Tried explaining this, but he doesn't want to move away from his nF3. I pretty much told him he may as well stick with the X800 then since his future upgrade path is limited.