What was the most POWERFUL AGP video card ever made?

[MrMatt]

Just curious.


edit: meant most powerful, not the greatest ever.

 

[ViRGE]

It's probably a tossup between the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and the Radeon 9700 Pro. The 4200 was damn-near top of the line performance for under $200, and the 9700 Pro was a major generational leap.

 

[exar333]

9700Pro. That card was a beast for a long time.

 

[videogames101]

I always loved my 9800 Pro.

 

[MrMatt]

It's probably a tossup between the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and the Radeon 9700 Pro. The 4200 was damn-near top of the line performance for under $200, and the 9700 Pro was a major generational leap.

can't seem to find them for sale anywhere, well I can find a few but they're all 128meg versions. Was hoping to find a 512mb version somewhere. I have a rig with an AGP mobo, and a geforce 7800 GS (256 mb). I was hoping to do one last upgrade on it.

 

[Denithor]

If you are asking about recent cards I think the last good one was the Radeon 3850.

 

[ViRGE]

You asked for the greatest AGP card, not the most powerful AGP card. There's a very big difference here.

 

[MrMatt]

time to rephrase the question lol

 

[MrMatt]

so yeah, what is/was the most POWERFUL agp video card ever made

 

[Fox5]

Probably a 3850 or 8600gt. Pretty much every gen, someone takes a $100 card, jacks the price up to $200, and releases it for AGP.

On newegg, the most powerful AGP cards available are the 3850 and 4670, which are around the same performance. (I'd go with the 4670 though)

 

[Qbah]

The most powerful AGP card is the Radeon HD3850.

 

[MrMatt]

Probably a 3850 or 8600gt. Pretty much every gen, someone takes a $100 card, jacks the price up to $200, and releases it for AGP.

On newegg, the most powerful AGP cards available are the 3850 and 4670, which are around the same performance. (I'd go with the 4670 though)

so a 4670 is more powerful than a 3850 then? I'm browsing NewEgg right now..can't seem to find an AGP 8600GT even on froogle though.

 

[MrMatt]

The most powerful AGP card is the Radeon HD3850.

why is the 3850 better than the 4650 or 4670? Is it because the 3850 is 256 bit?

 

[exar333]

4670 is the most powerful, if you absolutely need AGP.

 

[evolucion8]

If you compare a stock HD 4670 AGP to a stock HD 3850 512MB AGP, of course the HD 4670 wins, but that's because the latter got higher clocks, plus better anti aliasing performance even though its crippled by it's 128-bit bus. But the most powerful AGP card ever made is the HIS HD 3850 IceQ 3 AGP 512MB, it came overclocked to 720Mhz and with a simple bios flash you could reach 800Mhz quite easily. In current benchmarks, the HD 4670 its slighly behind the HD 3870, specially in shader bound games. But when Anti Aliasing its on, both are equally fast with the slight edge going to the HD 4670.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3405&p=6

 

[T2k]

Just bought a 4670 few weeks ago for $100 to test it - it IS the most powerful AGP card 'til date, period.

 

[MrMatt]

If you compare a stock HD 4670 AGP to a stock HD 3850 512MB AGP, of course the HD 4670 wins, but that's because the latter got higher clocks, plus better anti aliasing performance even though its crippled by it's 128-bit bus. But the most powerful AGP card ever made is the HIS HD 3850 IceQ 3 AGP 512MB, it came overclocked to 720Mhz and with a simple bios flash you could reach 800Mhz quite easily. In current benchmarks, the HD 4670 its slighly behind the HD 3870, specially in shader bound games. But when Anti Aliasing its on, both are equally fast with the slight edge going to the HD 4670.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3405&p=6

Hmmm but it appears the 3850 never came in 1 GB, at least AGP. When that's taken into account the 4670 should come out on top, yes?



Also, what happened to nVidia? Did they fall off at the end of the AGP era? Seems no one talks about them (with regards to AGP) ever.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Just bought a 4670 few weeks ago for $100 to test it - it IS the most powerful AGP card 'til date, period.

I would imagine the 4670 will be faster than a 3850 more times than not, but I could be wrong on that. Weren't the specs of the two pretty close, but the 3850 has a good deal more memory bandwidth where as the 4670 has more clock speed? I'm pretty srue it's something along those lines.

 

[dguy6789]

Definitely the 4670.

 

[MrMatt]

Definitely the 4670.

OK, so here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3405&p=1 if you look at the chart and compare the 3870 to the 4670 the 3870 wins in clock speed, bus width, and transistor count. The only place the 4670 wins is in size, with 1GB compared to the 512MB the 3870 has. But I'm assuming the 3870 was never made in AGP?

 

[evolucion8]

Hmmm but it appears the 3850 never came in 1 GB, at least AGP. When that's taken into account the 4670 should come out on top, yes?



Also, what happened to nVidia? Did they fall off at the end of the AGP era? Seems no one talks about them (with regards to AGP) ever.

The HD 3850 AGP never came with 1GB flavors and it doesn't benefit from the 1GB frame buffer. In the end, both cards are just too close. Just think it as simple, stock card the HD 4670 will be faster, a premium SKU like the HD 3850 IceQ 3 AGP will be even faster, I haven't seen any premium HD 4670 SKU's yet, all comes at stock speed, but what I like the most of the HD 4670 is its low power consumption, great for an old AGP based HTC.

After the HD 4670 and HD 3850 series, the 3rd fastest AGP card was the GeCube X1950XT, I owned that card and it was the only card that gave me the wow factor like the X800XT PE did and my current card. It had the R580+ chip which was used in the X1950XTX even though it was crippled with slow 1.4GHz DDR3 RAM.

The last nVidia AGP card was the 7800GS and, there was some 7900GT cards disguised as 7800GS+. The X1950PRO AGP traded blows with the XFX 7950GT AGP, but in the end, the former had the edge in newer and shader intensive games. The AGP Port has some interesting stories

 

[dguy6789]

I've never heard of a 3870 in AGP.

 

[GaiaHunter]

It's probably a tossup between the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and the Radeon 9700 Pro. The 4200 was damn-near top of the line performance for under $200, and the 9700 Pro was a major generational leap.

I know the question was another, but what about the sapphire 9500 Pro?

That card could be softmod to 9700 Pro. I would rate that higher the 9700 Pro itself. Agree on the Ti4200. Pure love.

 

[T2k]

OK, so here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3405&p=1 if you look at the chart and compare the 3870 to the 4670 the 3870 wins in clock speed, bus width, and transistor count. The only place the 4670 wins is in size, with 1GB compared to the 512MB the 3870 has.

Umm.... did you actually realize that it's a next-gen 4800-series (R770) core derivative, unlike the crappy 3800-derivative 3850...?

 

[T2k]

I know the question was another, but what about the sapphire 9500 Pro?

That card could be softmod to 9700 Pro. I would rate that higher the 9700 Pro itself. Agree on the Ti4200. Pure love.

All of them are utter crap compared to the 4670.