Question about getting a HD 3850 AGP

[ghost recon88]

I'm currently running:

P4 running @ 3.3GHz with HT
2GB DDR
865PE chipset

I have a 9000 Pro I wanna upgrade, and it appears the best video card I can get is the HD 3850. Now I know a lot of people are gonna say "well just sell your current system and put your money towards a new system". Well I basically got this system for free, and so I figured I could put a little money into it and at least get a new video card so I could play some new(er) games. I don't feel like investing $300+ into a entirely brand new computer.

From what I've been reading, a socket 478 P4 at over 3.2GHz isn't as big of a bottleneck as people make it out to be since games these days are more GPU dependent instead of CPU dependent. So my question is, just how much will the P4 bottleneck it, or is it fast enough to keep up with the HD 3850? Also I see there is a Powercolor, HIS, Sapphire, and Visiontek version of the card. What version what you guys recommend getting?

 

[will889]

Your system would bottleneck about the same as a 754/939 AMD 3000+ (give or take). If it were me I would still get it - use it with your listed system for a while then later stick in an older AGP based OC'ed AMD X2 (42-4400 etc...) system if you can nab one in a forum.

 

[sgrinavi]

FWIW Visiontek has the best warranty, but I have had better OCs out of PowerColor. If I were in your shoes I would just get the cheapest used one I could find.

I'm not sure what games you are referring to, I went from an OC'd AMD 4200 x2 to a Intel Core 2 with the same 8800GTX -- it was like night and day.... with all my apps and any game that I tried......

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Don't even bother getting a 3850.

Benchmarks

 

[ghost recon88]

Alright good to know. So I guess I'll ether get a X1950 Pro 512MB or HD 2600XT 512MB. Which card would you guys go with for gaming? HD 2600XT is DX10, but is only 128-bit.

 

[will889]

I would still get an HD3850, but only if you knew you were going to transition it to a cheap AsRock C2D AGP board, or other older AGP based AMD board within a year or so. If not then the other choices would apply. Maybe you can snag an X1950 pro for cheap in the FSFT forums. Of course if it were me I would take it apart, sell the mobo-processor-keep drives, get a Fry's special E7***/cheap ECS mobo and get a PCIe version. More work but ultimately worth it because you can later transition all parts to a much better mobo and have the PCIe upgrade path. But, for now it looks like an X1950 Pro for about $50.00 in FSFT is you best bet if you plan on holding into that particular system for some duration.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: ghost recon88
Alright good to know. So I guess I'll ether get a X1950 Pro 512MB or HD 2600XT 512MB. Which card would you guys go with for gaming? HD 2600XT is DX10, but is only 128-bit.

For new games, don't spend anything. Save up for a new system. I'm finally upgrading from my P4 in October or November.

Here is newegg's decreasing selection of AGP graphics cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...639&name=AGP%204X%2f8X

 

[will889]

^lmao the 7600GT AGP is way overpriced.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Absolutely NOT

I bought a 3850 AGP card for my P4 HT machine RDR which was clocked to 3.45Ghz and i couldn't even play DODS at 1280x1024

 

[happy medium]

Ive played Call of Duty 4 , Crysis, Need for speed Pro Street, F.E.A.R, Quake 4, Half life 2 eposode 1 and 2., Bioshock.

All those games where playable on my system. I play at 1280 x 1024 and I wish I had a little more gpu so I could turn up the details. With a 3850 agp you should be just fine. Yea you'll have a bottleneck but it's still a great gpu for 100$.

See my system below.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: happy medium
Ive played Call of Duty 4 , Crysis, Need for speed Pro Street, F.E.A.R, Quake 4, Half life 2 eposode 1 and 2., Bioshock.

All those games where playable on my system. I play at 1280 x 1024 and I wish I had a little more gpu so I could turn up the details. With a 3850 agp you should be just fine. Yea you'll have a bottleneck but it's still a great gpu for 100$.

See my system below.

but you don't or never had a 3850 agp right?

 

[happy medium]

I don't need a 3850 agp to know that if you get 40fps (low/med details) with a 7800gs and pent4 @3.3 . That you should still get 40fps with a 3850 with med/high details and a 3.3 pent4. It's called a cpu bottleneck.
In any case he should be able to run most newer games @med detail at a decent fps.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Well, I had one and its not worth it to me. Just my opinion. Maybe your board gave better fps; your claims seem exaggerated. Anyways good luck OP, im out.

 

[evolucion8]

The Pentium 4 will bottleneck this card significantly, but you will still be able to raise eye candy like FSAA etc. When I swapped my Pentium 4 EE 3.4GHz, the fastest Pentium 4 for gaming to my current CPU, my gaming performance increased significantly, I used to score 4,987 regardless of the CPU with my X1950XT, when I moved to the HD 3850, it increased to 7,491, quite close to the Athlon 64X2 4400+ score using the same card. When I upgraded just my CPU alone with my X1950XT AGP, my 3DMark05 score moved from 7,784 to 10,312, and I was a little CPU bound with the X1950XT, now I'm CPU limited with the HD 3850, I score the same with the 3DMark05 but it's an old bench which will not take advantage of the RV670 architecture. So better of going to the X1950PRO for your gaming needs, the HD 2600XT performs horribly slow on games before the 2005 era, but after those games, it can match and outperforms the X1950PRO, sometimes by a large margin.