Anybody?
 
I would appreciate any response.

Well, its dual Channel DDR333, AGP8x, all the trimings of the Intel Granite Bay chipset except that ONLY the B revision has Hyperthreading support.
I would personally wait for intels Springdale/Canterwood 800FSB offerings later in spring! 8)

Thank you for your relpy Immortal.
 
Intel seems to be a little behind in this competition.
Is there any 850 family chipsets (or something similar that uses RDRAM) that can support AGP 8x yet?
Personally I stick to my current Intel 845pe, but I have a picky friend who just wants to pay the money and live with the best for few hours.

Well, that's probably what He's going to get.
 
I've not heard good reports on the SIS chipsets, but a couple of the Granite Bay boards (which have 8X) have been getting good reviews. You might want to check:
 
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,852008,00.asp
 
I'd pay special attention to the ASUS...
 
Personally I like the 845PE and feel it's a very stable solution, but that's only good for 4X. The question is whether or not there will be much of a speed difference between 4 and 8x.

AGP8x 8x will only give you a speed boost if you have a low amount of GFX RAM, say 32MB...
 
Since all current GFX cards have 64/128 and even now 256MB, then 8x has really no point becuase even Unreal II doesnt need that much textures.
 
the only scenario when 8x will become useful is when a game is so advanced that it needs to use 128MB RAM every tenth of a second for textures and then AGP 8x's extra bandwidth will be able to keep filling up the memmory.
 
Its also been shpwn, there isnt muich difference between 8x and 4x.
 
Stick with 4x, save some money, wait for canterwood/springdale....

You are right...
but you know, you may want to have a system that is up-gradable. It has become a norm for people from 5 years ago to ask for upgradeability. It is just the matter of wanting the best there is, so you may keep your system a bit longer. the fact is every year and a half you eventually have to buy a new computer (if you want to be up to date) and having the best system there is may only extend the time to, say, ... two years?
People have to understand when you buy any new system there is always a new one coming out to obsolete your system. You just have to do what you do and be happy with what you have.
;(

I really appreciate all the replies and all the useful information that you guys have posted.
Thank you