That is one beast of an AGP bus video card! WOW! It over-powers my X1950 Pro AGP by a longshot

Please let AGP die quietly now...

It's not that the card will be limited by the AGP bus, but rather the CPUs that AGP mobos still use. Hope I'm making sense here.

Point is, if you're still using an AGP motherboard, it's likely that the CPU you're still using on it will vastly limit this cards potential.

Well, honestly there are some agp boards that are running the Pentium D (preslor) cores, so I would doubt that the HD3850 agp card will be bottlenecked by that. One the other hand if you are running a standard Pentium 4, you will be bottlenecked by your processor

best card for owners with Intel Core 2 Duo and agp system's

sorry for my english

the Funny thing is a AGP card actually cost more than a PCIe card

Thats probably because of the presumably low production run for the AGP version wyz135.

Cheers

where can i buy one????

Besides from the fact AGP isn't all that tasty and so on, can we claim this if the 'fastest' AGP Card? and if so put it into 'Superlatives' Even if it is severely bottlenecked by people with AGP systems looking to upgrade.

sorry but half of you do not know what your talking about , agp based mobo's running am2 or intel core2 can still be bought . the 3850 agp will be around the performance of the 8800gts 320

nforce3 250/x2 3800/7800gs 3d mark 06-3715 why not one more upgrade

Please show me a agp based mobo that supports the L775 chipset that doesnt also have a pic-e slot. If you can, they are "very" few and far between. I know exactly what iam talking about.

There are .. but you are right... they are rare .

Trickling into the market now that the necessary driver has become available. $211 at ewiz.

$190.74 via froogle but now OOS.

about time they released a new AGP videocard for those of us who haven't upgrade our WHOLE computer to PCI-e. bang for the buck wise.... $215 for this card versus spending around $1000.oo or more to upgrade to a PCI-e based computer (as in fresh built with ALL new parts for a PCI-e pc) compared to merely buying 1 new agp card and gaining alittle more time until a total upgrade is in ones budget or feasible if one had bought a computer not to long ago that was agp. a worth while upgrade for AGP videocard users at this time. capable of playing all of todays latest games at good respectable quality and preformance.

At what to the point the video card will bottleneck. Will my system optimize the card performance? I have a P4 3.2HT 2GB mem?

To Isaac28

No,your processor is to weak for this card,but it might help in some games.

Hun88, Isaac28's processor " P4 3.2HT 2GB mem " is not to weak for this card. please do your research next time to prevent misunderstandings and/or errors. it will not be as fast as a PCI-e videocard but it will be a very big improvement over his old card and it will help him alot.

I just got this card...And I have to say for me it was a very good upgrade ..My old CARD was 9800xt..And CRYSIS Would only play on low settings @1024x768..Now it plays With everything on high settings @1024x768 And I'm getting better frame rates too..on a P4 3.0 ,2GB RAM.NO bottleneck.

I have a P4 3.4Ghz and 2GB of ram, and it can work up 4.1Ghz, so will that be enough to run games smoothly like Need For Speed ProStreet.

I have had both the Pentium 4 Northwood core and the Presscott core. Presscott core is by far superior and less of a bottleneck as it has double the onboard cache and supports SSE3 where as the Northwood doesn't.

I used to have a 3.4GHz Norhtwood P4 overclocked to 4.1GHz and it ran slower than the Presscott 3GHz overclocked to 3.3GHz.

Its not all about speed, its about the cache and steps that prevent you from bottlenecking.

Price check: $204 shipped @ ewiz via froogle vs $221 newegg.

Question: which models, if any, include an audio controller? Also do the DVI-HDMI adapters for HDMI audio differ for the 3000 series versus the 2000?

AGP is not dead. But this is probably the very last upgrade you will make. CPU has never really been bottleneck for most games the last 5 years since A64/Northwood. A 4Ghz system with PCIE 3850 might get you like 200fps at 1024x768, where your old P4 3.2Ghz or X2 4800 will be far behind, but at 1600x1200 4xAA with high quality settings the difference will narrow down to something like 50fps vs 40fps, and by the time you get to 1920x1200 you need much faster video card (ie 3870x2) to show any difference.

Nick:
My experience with P4C (Northwood), Prescott and P4EE systems is that in grand scheme of things they are about the same, clock for clock. IMHO dual core or HT doesn't help for games, with the few exceptions of Supreme Commander.

sorry, to clarify:
You're not CPU bottlenecked. You're just not stressing GPU enough... not using high enough game settings, resolution and AA.

the pictures of the cards at newegg show the powercolor with a six pin power connecter,the sapphire with an eight pin connecter. does anyone know why the difference and what could be the effect? thanks

2nd post above mine ^^^^

I ran two tests, 3d mark 05 and the ati tray tools benchmark. 3d mark 05 produced an extra 300 marks with both cores running at the identical speed. I believe that is down to the step SSE3 and the extra 512kb of cache.

ATI tray tools on the other hand gave me double the points after i swapped the northwood for the presscott. Northwood is a much cooler CPU and even though the Presscott runs hotter it seems to overclock better as well.

We all have our different systems and on mine the Presscott justifies my bottleneck issue.

I am running a P4 2.6 ghz, 2.5 Gb DDR ram (considering upgrading to 4 Gb). Will my performance be bottlenecked for this card and are there any links that provide solid information about system bottlenecks for video cards? Skeptical opinions tend to slow the decision process even faster.

I currently have:

-AMD 939 4800 x2
-nForce 3 mobo
-2GB RAM
-ATI x1950 Pro AGP

If I upgrade to the 3850 how much of a performance increase can I expect in frame rates over the x1950 Pro? Also, how does the power consumption compare to the x1950 Pro?

Thanks

post above i think performance will be noticeably better. my rig is about the same spec as yours but on still on the fence. a new motherboard,fast ddr2 and an am2 cpu are about the same price imo.

I am the poster from two posts above, who listed his system specs and asked a few questions. Well I have some answers.

I bought the 3850 AGP and here's what I found. Performance in 3d games and applications increased by 25-35% depending on the game. Not as much as I thought it would be. I suspect that I am getting CPU/mobo bottlenecked, so this will be my last AGP card. Power consumption was nearly identical at idle and actually a few watts less during full load compared to the x1950 Pro. That was impressive.

Drivers are still an issue. I had to use the Hotfix drivers found on Sapphire's website. No others would install.

Rob,

I have similar PC setup for crysis so I am amping to get this card. thanks for the comment.

Are using any AGP as in 2x 4x etc? Everytime I enable it, I get CTD after the load completes. This is with the HD2600XT, am hoping the HD3850 won't crash out there

LD

No more RAM won't improve performance unless your motherboard supports dual channel. Mine doesn't and when one of my corsair modules failed leaving me with 1gb of ram I got higher scores all around.

Ive got s P4 3.4 ghz gallatin core Extreme edition with 2 mb l3 cache....the SL7CH. the best socket 478 imho.
will this bottleneck the card?

Bottleneck schmottleneck. The 3850 is still faster, has higher IQ, lower power useage, and more features than any previous AGP card so it is irrelevant if the CPU does not allow the GPU to be utilized to its full potential. Did I mention it would still increase performance? No way could there not be significant benefit over a X1950XT or 7950GT.

Lil Dave

I've not tried it With AA enable...I figured it would just lower my fps Even more .My settings are 1024x768 no AA NO VSINC.But everything else is on high settings And in the timedemo My average is 21fps.I know that is not the greatest But for me It is still fun to play and looks really good

Sorry about that I forgot To put my name

Just let you guys know..THE sapphire version of this card Comes With the core and memory settings set @ 669/829..But I OC to 700/849..can even go higher But I figured I would keep it Where they claimed They said it was going to be at ...my temp 49°C @Idle and playing CRYSIS for two hours got as high as 61°C. Definitely a great card.

Rob, what program do you use to OC the GPU/memory? Are you using the stock HS/F?

Thanks.

Rob you should get the HIS version of this card. Default core clocks are 720MHz Engine and 1820MHz Memory.
Also HIS graphic cards come with that reknown Arctic Cooling Silencer for a whisper quiet environment.

A 3.4GHz Pentium 4 is no faster than a 3GHz Pentium 4 on my Motherboard. So for the moment with my X1950PRO AGP I am far from bottlenecking.

Lezduur you are a very lucky man to own the Gallatin core. You are the only Pentium 4 user that is most UNLIKELY to bottlneck.

MAX
I used ATI OVERDRIVE..And yes all stock.

Nick I don't think HIS Makes AGP Version of this card..Only pcie...But I've Heard that the Sapphire We'll go as high as 720/935..With the stock fan .

I'd like to see some reviews :| . But I guess they aren't going to review it with a pentium 4 CPU anyway .

ROB you are wrong mate. I just bought one with the specifications I mentioned.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-095-HT&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=403

HIS never fail to overclock and surprise. :D

Rob those are pretty much the standard clock cores with the HIS card. And since the HIS version uses a far better dual slot cooler you should have even more room for overclocking.

That's a really sweet Card Nick,,,Had it been out at the time when I got mine I would've gotten the HIS For sure ..But I am really happy with my SAPPHIRE So I really can't complain .. And good luck with your new card.

Cheers, I only just ordered it, it ain't even in stock until the end of this month so I got a while to wait.

Did you upgrade from an X1950series? If so what is it like over your previous GPU? 3D mark etc.

Where are the reviews ?

i ordered sapphire agp 2 weeks ago. it really rocks. ati overdrive 720//935. i upgraded mine fromm sapphire x1950 pro, the results spectacular!!! faster no lagg on high and shorter card than x1950 pro but wider.i will build an crossfire x system now but still buy new agp cards if it comes 4870 agp =)

system specs:
-asus p4p800se socket 478
-pentium 4 3.4ee sl7ch (gallatin) extreme edition.
-4 gigs of crucial ram ddr 400
-two 250 western digital hard drive raid 0
-windows xp pro 32 bit version
-Lg 22 inch moniter L226w resolution (1650x1050) DFC 5000:1

Hey nick thanks for your comments, my 6800gt just died and i thinking about this card,

My pc is similar to yours

P4 630 3.00ghz With hyper threading ,2m L2 cache, 1gb ddr 400 ,

Id rather a nivida card ,but they stopped making agp... and the last one (7800gs i think} they made is still way to overpriced for what it is

Please let us know how good it goes in a ol P4

Ive also read ATI has shocking driver support for this card

Any info would be great

^oh yeah , its a presscott

I also read that this card doesnt even have vista drivers!! witch makes the DX10 support useless...??>>>

Hello Guys , i read all of u but none of u told about power . Did u have to change ur power supply to run this card as for x1950 pro , or was it suficient to run it .
I read that u need a 12V 30A only dedicated for that card, i'm i wrong?

to styx well for me when i was using my x1950 pro i had a psu 350 watt 3.3V@28A 5V@35A 12V@15A and it worked fine no problems. as you see the 3850 uses 95 watts max power draw compared to x1950 uses alot more power. *when i change my card to 3850 i had put a 650 watt psu becuase i have added 4 gigs of ddr 400 ram and an 22 inch lg moniter

I found a review for this card, its only a little one but it may help answer some of your questions.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/02/14/agp-nth-coming

Oli I'm sure Catalyst 8.3 fully supports Vista. Although I am led to believe any Radeon HD2XXX or HD 3XXX AGP/PCI-E/CROSSFIRE graphic card is having stuttering issues at the moment. See the link below.

http://www.driverheaven.net/vista-radeon-display-drivers/156457-new-8-3-hotfix-crossfire-cards-none-crossfire.html

Oli there are still 7900GS's hanging about if you want to stick with Nvidia but the 3850 would easily outdo that card. I'm sure Catalyst 8.4 would have full support once they fix that glitch issue with D3D applications.

Well... I suppose I should buy the HD 3850... and a new PSU...
If I only had the money :( .

Styx - I am running 4 HDDs, 1 DVD, 1 cpu fan and 1 case fan on a 420w power supply. It says it draws 95w and I seem to be running fine.

Oli - I have a P4 3.0, 2mb and 1GB of DDR400.

I have the sapphire version of it and someone mentioned drivers were an issue? No way, the HD2600XT I had a few issues with but this HD3850 has been primo. 1280x960 with 8x AGP in Crysis runs fine but gets a bit laggy on MED, so I have a few things set on LOW (not that I care, it's the game I am enjoying). If I could FPS it, I'd let you know.

The 3870 doesn't run crysis well. I'd be happy with that 3850's performance

by the way, you show fps in crysis like this:

con_restricted = 0
r_DisplayInfo = 1

The con_restricted allows full access to console and r_DisplayInfo tells you the current render information.

Cheers to poor techies Radiator! Keeps us overclocking like mad!

And for all you pathetic fools who are posting as guests, SIGN UP!

I'm not overclocking at all , because my X1600 Pro has no temperature sensors -.- .
And the 300W PSU , that I have is running on an edge as it is .
If I had a bit better computer... with a C2D in it and 2 GB of RAM... and a PCI-e slot , then buying this thing would be easy , considering how much cheaper the PCI-e is than the AGP .
I really hate local store prices :S .

Hey Oli here,

Thanks davey

I dont really care about crises, i just wanna play company of heroes fast :-)

Can you do a benchmark in COH{ingame} if you got it,and maybe oblivion as its pretty demanding

You can use "fraps" for benchmarking FPS and other stuff also

Thanks

Oh and thanks for making us register now..... i even messed up the nividia password thing durppp

For the one who said that Prescott is faster than Northwood in games, is wrong. Prescott has a deeper pipeline, so is suitable for higher overclocks, hence better performance specially for linear applications like media encoding etc. But in branchy applications, the more shallow Northwood pipeline will outpeform the Prescott, in games the Northwood will smoke Prescott, in Multi Tasking and Media Encoding the Prescott is faster. My P4 EE bottlenecked considerably the HIS HD 3850 AGP and now I have a Pentium M overclocked to 2.70GHz which smokes it alive in gaming. This videocard is considerably faster than my GeCube X1950XT.

I have a couple of questions. I have a P4 3.0ghz, 800mhz bus, 2gb of dual channel memory. (I presently have a Radeon 9800pro video card. I have 2 hard drive, 1 CD & 1 DVD drive.) I have a 430watt powert supply. I have not overclocked in the past and am not familar with doing so. I have an Antec case with 5 fans in it. My mother board is only compatible with 1.5 V or 0.8 AGP 1x/4x/8x cards.My first question, Will the 430 watts run the HD3850 card in my system? And if so, which version would be best for me? If not, which ATi Radeon AGP card would you recommend? Please use simple language as I am not that knowledgeable about computers. Thank You, aj-rube.

aj-rube your PC should be able to handle it!

This card is great! Runs Crysis on medium with 29 FPS.

I have an ASUS P4P 800 Deluxe P4-C 2.6, 800 FSB, 2 gb kingston value on dual channel, I have 80gb WD & 160gb Seagate, Imation CDRW & Asus 1603 P3S DvDRW with 4 case cooking fans & Cooler Master Extreme Power 500T so I'm curious if my psu is sufficient to run this being more of a poweruser than a gamer.

EQ, Excel/PP, MSN/YAHOO, webcam, surfing at the same time

you guys arguing between Northwood vs Prescott and Single Core vs Dual Core are forgetting one major difference. The Front Side Bus of the different cpus you're comparing.

Presscotts start at 533MHz bus and chances are if you have a 1MB cache prescott you're using an 800MHz bus chip. Northwoods stopped at 800MHz bus but maxed out at 512KB L2 cache. So if you have a prescott with twice the cache and a higher FSB of course 3D Mark and ATI Benchmark will give you higher scores.

Also when you use cpus with different bus speeds in the same desktop you may have to tweak the ram timings for each cpu. Some BIOS calculate RAM speed as a fraction of the cpu Front Side Bus speed ergo the ram timings too. If your board calculates RAM speed independant of Front Side Bus speed then the timings can remain the same with both CPUs. 533MHz (4x133MHz) is 7.5ns per cycle and 800MHz (4x200MHz) is 5ns per cycle. If DDR2-800 required CL2 (2x7.5ns=15ns) on a 533MHz bus it will require CL3 on an 800MHz bus (3x5ns=15ns) because 2x5ns=10ns which is far less time than the ram is ready for.

Likewise if the timing values in number of "Ticks" are set for the faster cpu and remains the same when you swap to the slower cpu the ram run even slower than it needs to on the slower cpu.

there are rumors that power color released its predecessor, the HD4670 AGP, i wonder if it will out run HD 3850 AGP on performance


and may i ask you guys, is HD4670 a high end card that HD3850?

HD 4670 looks the same as HD 3850, actually slightly less powerful, so this is the best AGP card still. Too bad HD 4770 AGP was a hoax.

BTW, this card is more powerful than the 8800GS and less powerful than the 8800GT for PCI-e bus. That is good news for AGP users that this card has that kind of power because many still consider the 8800GT to be a solid card even in 2009.

I'm interested in buying Sapphire ATI Radeon HD3850(http://bit.ly/36g6Rt) 512MB GDDR3, 256bit,AGP 8x graphics card and I was wondering if my 450 WATT PSU will support this GPU.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 procesor 3000 , Socket 754.
2 GB of RAM DDR400
19'' Monitor

My PSU specs photo -> http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/4779/p7280244.jpg

Motherboad : Gigabyte K8NS specs -> http://bit.ly/15yynN
1 x AGP slot (8x/4x-AGP 3.0 compliant), supports 1.5v display card only.

I'm thinking that this GPU will bottleneck my system but I really wanna buy it..and I don't know exactly if my PSU supports it.

If someone sees this comment please reply here or PM me. Thanks!

I own the Sapphire HD3850 with the AGP bus and it's amazing...blazing fast and Iknow it isn't working at it's full potential becasue of my CPU(IP4 3.0)...The rest of my configuration:2GB of RAM,500GB HDD,500W PSU(no-name),.Works very well..I now wat to upgrade to 3GBs of RAM to take ful advantage of my motherboard which has 4DDR DIMMs(Conroe865PE).AGP systems like mine are quite rare and I already own a PCIEXpress and DDR2 motherboard but I just want to maxx out this configuration.HD3850-The King of AGP.

What are your thoughts on me running this card in my PC?

I'm running a Dual Xeon 3.2ghz 1MB Cach with 4gig of ram and windows XP SP3. SATA Radided hard disks?

My 512 ATI card just died and want something to replace it with have been looking around and this ATI HD3850 AGP HD looks really good