Agp card ATI Sap. HD3850

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blinkmus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 8, 2003
Messages
242
I am thinking of buying one of these and just wanted an opinion from others who own the card...my current setup is a P4 3.2 gig proc. with 1 and 1/2 gigs memory. will this cpu be the bottleneck and if so will i see any improvement in graphics quality?

I now am running an HIS X1950 PRO.

I know most say build a new computer but I don't have enough money and don't see enough money coming in for the foreseeable future.
 
I don't have one but, since a complete upgrade is out of the question, you may want to go for it. Yes, you will be CPU bottlenecked. But so am I so I wouldn't let that stop me. An improvement in graphic quality? Probably not in 2d. In 3d you may get away with better settings. In your situation I would probably do it.
 
I went from a 1950 to a 3850 and Ive never looked back. I had nothing but trouble with that 1950.

Image quality is greater, speed is quite nice.

Its going to be part of a video center in a few days and I cant wait to start making movies with it.

Make a new computer when this one wont do what you need it to.

Im running 3 gigs of ram not sure how much a difference that will make and my cpu is just a 3.0 ...

I know you already know about the power supply needing to be pretty beefy ..

so would I recommend it.. you bet. Fallout 3 is quite stunning even on a agp system. but with this vid card its even better.
 
well with an outdated single core cpu many new games wont be very playable no matter what graphics card you use. Im sure it will be an improvement but several games where the x1950 is holding you back will likely still hold you back with that P4.
 
I play FPS and RPG, so hopefully it will do good, trying to wait a year to build again.

Thanks for all the comments...think i will order tomorrow.
 
I just bought one of these cards and had to use the ATI's AGP hotfix drivers to get it to install properly. Despite this, it seems to be running with no problems.

One thing I would suggest, since you seem to be on the fence about your upgrade, is to find a local store that carries it and accepts open box returns. Then you would have to the ability to compare the two cards gaming or using a benchmarking program without any risk.
 
Well I ordered the card today...hoping for the best, I am gonna have to start saving for a new rig this fall, probably end up giving this one to my son.

Thanks for all the input.
 
Hope your purchase worked out well for you.
I upgraded my P4 2.8c from an Nvidia based 7600GT to the Sapphire HD3850 agp card and it gave a nice boost to games.

I'm used to Nvidia cards and drivers so I'm partial to them but for an AGP system the ATI 3850 is the most powerful card available, to the best of my knowledge.

I always installed the "agp hotfix" drivers. I never tried the regular versions but some agp people don't require the hotfix type.

I had some problems with white lines around bodies of water in CoD5 and some older Medal Of Honor games just won't run for me with the ATI card but it was worth it in many other games.
 
yeah...i hope it works well also, I have the hotfix already downloaded, I wonder if anyone is having problem with this card in windows 7 beta, that has been my primary OS for about 6 months now have to wait and see...
 
In reference to windows 7 beta, in my travels around the net I cant remember anyone talking about problems. Nor have I read anything about troubles.
 
I have the same processor as you and upgraded to the 3850 over a year ago when it was selling for over $200 and replaced a VisionTek 1950. The 3850 is faster and runs much cooler and the card will throttle down when running 2D. Its a much better deal now at almost half what I paid. Yes, your processor will bottleneck the card, but I am still able to run just about any game except Crysis and GT4. I use my quad core rig and 9800 GTX for more strenuous games. I too recommend the latest hotfix driver from the Sapphire web site.
 
Ejay said:
...but I am still able to run just about any game except Crysis...
Click to expand...

So you are saying it won't run Crysis at all, or just not at high levels, I was able to play the Crysis demo on my current card with some low to med. settings.
 
blinkmus said:
So you are saying it won't run Crysis at all, or just not at high levels, I was able to play the Crysis demo on my current card with some low to med. settings.
Click to expand...

I tried the Crysis demo and the best I could do was medium settings with no AA and no AF, to get halfway decent framerates. The single core processor will not fully unleash this card.

D865 PERLL Intel motherboard and 2 Gig of ram. I do have a lot of overhead on the machine though with McAfee, and Webroot Spy Sweeper, along with some other junk, running in the background.
 
yeah...i do not use anti-virus, about the only thing i have running that is not a normal windows process is subsonic music streamer.

I myself would probably not play Crysis but my son would like to.
 
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