7600 to come as AGP too

AGP JUST REFUSES to die. With OEM shipments of both desktops and notebooks featuring 100% PCIe graphic chips, the only market left for AGP is an upgrade one. And it's still huge. Judging by the data we have been able to gather from various sources, AGP market share is still between 65% and 70% of total computers.

The launch of Nvidia 7900 and 7600 series on Thursday didn't contain AGP at all, but several Taiwanese manufacturers are gearing up to produce yet another wave of boards featuring Nvidia's BR02 AGP-to-PCIe-to-AGP chips. The product will probably go by the name 7600GS AGP, and it will feature a PCB very similar to the 6600GT.

Suggested specs are 500MHz core clock speed - BR02 chip supposedly has problems with chips clocked over 500MHz) and 256MB of GDDR-3 memory clocked at either 1000 ( conservative Taiwanese VGA manufacturer - or 1300MHz ( overclocking-friendly Taiwanese VGA manufacturer.

Of course, the main purpose of 7600GS is to get full Windows Vista Aero glass support for the AGP platform, for those not powered with GeForce series 6 or users of ATI Radeon 9200 and below.

So, if you still have an AGP machine and would not trade your Mobile Athlon XP clocked at 2.5G and nForce2 SoundStorm solution, not to worry. 7600GS just might be the answer to keep you waiting for the first wave of DX10 mainstream parts, which is currently scheduled to hit the street during CeBIT of 2007. µ