Need to know about 3850 and 3650 AGP, been out of the loop.

Yashu

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
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Basically, I have searched and come up with various reports saying that ATI finally supports the cards, and some reports saying that special drivers are still required. I want to end all this confusion with a straight up question to the experts.

I have been out of the loop for a while in the PC world, but I want to give my AGP system one last upgrade. I have an Asus A8V Deluxe, opteron 170 @ 2.5ghz, and 2gb of ram. I also have 2TB on RAID5 with a rocketraid 1740, based on 4 WD 640gb hds, and I back it up with 2tb Maxtor external firewire drive.

I run windows XP x64 as well. I have trouble with 4gb of ram even if I underclock it, but there are no s939 boards at any of the local computer stores, even the independently owned ones.

I want to know if the Powercolor HD 3850 or 3650 installs with current the native AMD/ATI drivers on xp x64. MY current card is a 7800GS, and while it works alright, I want to give my system one last upgrade, I think it deserves it, *IF* I can verify that these new AGP cards actually, oficially work.

IF they don't, (and *ONLY* if they do not), I might buy a good s939 PCI-E motherboard on ebay and upgrade. I am not ready to upgrade processor, memory, video card, cooling, AND motherboard right now, so it it isn't an option. Please just give me a yay or nay on these AGP cards as well as the AGP x1950 pro, since I can order that one on ebay as well for a good price.

I used to post here many times a day, but I have been out of the loop, so I really don't knnow for sure if these work. Like I said, after searching, the results come up with varying answers, many are months old, so they might not even apply right now.

So, anyone know?

PS. Glad to be back on the H.
 
I am skeptical that you will see much difference between a 7800GS AGP and a 3850 AGP. I am certain you will not feel like you got your $110 worth.

As far as buying a 939 motherboard, I feel like you're trying to go it the hard way. I think if you look at the prices on the parts you would need to replace, you'll be shocked at how inexpensive it is.

2GB of DDR2-800 RAM can be found for under $25 (I recently got 2GB for $10 after a rebate deal).
An Intel e5200 CPU runs $83. You don't need more than stock cooling and voltages for this to run much faster than your current CPU. Equivalent AMD CPUs probably cost about the same or less.
Budget Intel P45 motherboards run well under $100 and Intel G31 boards run under $60; even the G31 boards have 4 SATA ports, while the P45 boards have 6. Equivalent AMD motherboards probably cost about the same.
Video cards that destroy the 3850 AGP go for well under $100.

I'm up to around $300 for CPU, motherboard, RAM and video card that runs rings around your system. Do it the easy way, man!
 
The 3850 is not a card that is "destroyed" for under 100 dollars. Even the 3650 benches the same as an 8600GT. The 3850 is not the best, but it handily beats the current nvidia midrange card (8600gt, or whatever the 9 series version is).

BTW, an 8600GTS is still around the same price as the 3850, and the hd3850 bests this card without issue.

As for upgrading everything... there is no way I have the time to do all of that and make sure to account for the fact that I use my PC as the source for my 2 channel critical listening, so keeping what I have (built to be quiet), is preferred. I think the 3850 can recieve a zalman cooler, thus making it even more quiet than my 7800gs, one of the only cards that no aftermarket cooler exists for.

I would have to spec out parts with quiet in mind, and I have been out of the loop (as the thread title says), so I don't know anything about this current generation of CPUs and motherboards. Last time I looked into things, nforce4 was the supreme leader, now I find out that there isn't even quality Vista support for it!

If I bought a new machine, aside from being silent, it would have to be built for the future in mind. That means latest sockets, latest RAM, latest platform so I can upgrade CPU and GPU down the line, and not be forced into planned obsolescence like I am now. It is funny that the AGP 8X slot still has enough bandwidth to not be a bottleneck for even some of the fastest current gen cards. Sure the time to accept the fact that they care not about AGP has come and gone, but since there IS an hd3850 out there on AGP, I want to know if it works on xp64.

A dual core Opteron, 4gb of ram, xp x64, and some of the best silent cooling and power, as well as one of the best silent cases (p18x), is still a good platform. The HD3850 would extend it's life into Vista, or even Windows 7. (Via has good support for their chipsets, and does not "forget" about them when a new version is released)

Anyway, it was a simple question, does the AGP (sapphire) hd3850 work under XP x64? I need to confirm it has native ATI driver support before I order it. Also, I would easily see a speed difference. Even with the x1950 pro. My CPU is certainly not the bottlneck, it is the GPU, a 7 series chip with only 16 pipelines. Trust me, the AGP slot itself is no bottleneck. I do not have a GPU fast enough for benchmarks to begin even showing a CPU bottleneck. The hd3650 can hang with the 8600gt, and the 3850 can easily best it. I am not looking to play Crysis at 1920X1440 here... I just want a good midrange, to upper midrange card, and the 3850 fits the bill. Since I have not even reached a CPU bottleneck situation, I am quite sure I will see a significant speed increase, that is, if it works on xp x64.

You guys might have time to build PCs all the time, but I have spent years setting this up as an audiphile reference source for music. I have it feeding bit-perfect digital (though ASIO compatable s/pdif) to a re-clocker to remove jitter and isolate power sources, and then to a non-oversampling DAC, and to a NAD c350 as an amp, or a restored NAD 2155, and a c160 as my preamp. I also have a tubed output buffer between the DAC and my pre, an several sets of speakers, some of which I cannot use due to the fact that I have a 21" CRT. A faster card would allow me to run games in native resolution on an LCD that is not affected by vintage (unshielded) speakers. (1600X1200 at least, I would never buy a panel less than that) I need to update my profile, itdoes not include the NAD preamp, nor the 2155 (Last true NAD "loose" poweramp) that I restored.

I respect that you gave me some options for a good budget PC, and I would probably go intel if i did build a new box, but for now, I want to try this 3850 while I plan bit more to make sure a new PC is also built with silence in mind.
 
Aha, you are doing audiophile stuff. I don't know too much about that stuff since I'm severely deaf.

Just googling for "3850 agp vs pci-express", I found this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ati-agp-3850-agp,1939-2.html

Right in the first paragraph, this article says:

"The second missing feature is also related to the lack of PCI Express: the AGP Radeon 3850 card does not support sound transmission through its HDMI adapter, as this feature also requires the PCI Express bus to function."

I don't know if that affects what you need to do.
 
There were alot of people wondering about the ATI support of these AGP cards and it wasnt very good news IIRC. The x1950 needs ALOT of power so i hope your PSU can handle it. There is a thread about these AGP here in the forum bout 10-15 pages long but most are bashing ATI and AGP so it may take ya a while to get the info you want. Find a guy called "honestjohn",he's here somewhere and he can help ya alot.
 
dont waste your money. I bought a sapphire 3850 agp and my 3dmark06 scores went from 1900 to 6900, but I still cant play COD4 at any constant frame rates. I have a amd 3800 venive on a epox 939 board. Im overclocked on the cpu to 2700 and i have overclocked the gpu to 810/936 and the game is still choppy.
 
I might jus get the x1950 pro, at least it is officially supported. I am angry, though, that they were only on the shelves for one run. Every store in the Houston metro area had the cards for a few months or less, and then they just went poof, like they never existed. I should have bought one then.

I have been searching H to see if *anyone* has some detailed info about the hd3850 or 3650, for that matter, on xp x64. I know it works on xp32 now, I have read may people reporting success on xp32 and even vista32, but not anything specific about xp x64. I am also sure that vista64 would probably fair even worse due to the complete neglect of just about every hardware company of this OS. 64bit is the future period. All my CAD and graphics software is 64bit, (adobe still needs to embrace it, but they follow the people, and unless people begin to use x64, adobe will not release an x64 suite).

It is a crime really, because almost every modern motherboard has the ability to hold 8gb of ram, sometimes even more. Major computer vendors put 4gb of ram in 32bit machines ALL THE TIME! What a waste!

Anyway, as far as AGP performance, I have seen the cards matched clock for clock and CPU matched as best as possible, and the AGP 3850 is within 3% or something of the PCIe version, that is within a margin of error, and also it may be due to the translator chip to convert the GPU to AGP.

The other day I was in the store and caught a glimpse of a regular 33mhz PCI Nvidia 8 series card, it was actually faster than any AGP card the store sold. It was the same story at other places. Stores stock plenty of FX5200s and 6200s, but this simple regular 33mhz PCI card could easily fly past a 6200, and one guy asked me if the FX5200 was good for COD4!

Almost everyone I know ownes a pretty good AGP box, and they deserve to run the latest software just as much as anyone else. What is being said to these people is "We know your computer is still fast enough to run current software, but we want you to throw it out and build/buy an entire new computer just to be able to use our video cards. Oh and BTW, we (ATI and Nvidia) have a translator chip that can allow PCIe GPUs to run on AGP, we just don't care to use it."

I am not at all convinced there is a dead AGP market. I see it every time I am in a computer store, any computer store. Several people look around looking for an AGP card to upgrade their computer, they are all told "this is what we have" while pointing to the stack of FX5200s and 6200s. Every single time I go there are people looking to spend real money on a fast, well supported AGP card.

I am going to digress, but there isn't even a socket 939 motherboard on the shelves. I looked everywhere... all AM2 or AM2+. So even if you are willing to buy a new motherboard and just eat the cost to be able to use a PCIe card, you are still out of luck. It is the biggest sham in the industry since I began to follow it decades ago. The last time I saw planned obsolescence this bad was back when Intel was using Rambus memory. Slot 1 was not this bad, EGA<VGA was not this bad, AT<ATX was not this bad... 3DFX could count, but they did not "plan" to fail as a company... Now, there is one example that is close to this but not nearly as wide spread across the industry, but it does give insight into how a company like this works. Nvidia bought ULi chipset maker, and then stopped supporting any ULi chipset. Anyone with an Asrock ULi board still does not have even one single chipset driver update to allow AGP to work in xp x64 (or any kind of stable vista suppoert), infact, there has not been one ULi chipset driver release after the Nvidia merger for anything. Via is the only chipset maker that still supports it's userbase, and I am proud to say that I use a Via based board. I will continue to do so even if I do upgrade.

The thing is, I was standing there, plenty of cash in hand, just like the other people standing next to me, in each store, willing to pay the price for a good AGP card, and even willing to buy a new motherboard with PCIe, but in all cases, no AGP card worth a red cent (the HD2400s aren't even supported at all by ATI, as in, less support than these 3850/3650 cards, so i don't even consider them to be part of this discussion), and no option to upgrade to PCIe without buying an entirely new CPU, motherboard, RAM, Cooling, and so on...

Even the Pentium Pro had more support back in the day. So did socket 7! Socket 7 boards hung on for long after Intel stopped making socket 7 chips. I have never seen such an attempt to force people to buy new everything just for a video card that would work fine in an AGP slot, without a performance loss. The fastest cards made today only saturate AGP bandwidth by a small margin.

OH, and about HDMI, I don't use it, never will due to DRM, so it is a non issue. The only time I have ever used HDMI is to extend DVI output to TV panels that do not have DVI input. DVI to HDMI on the card's port, and one can then use the display as a computer monitor. The sound from HDMI is actually s/pdif, but HDMI>HDMI requires a handshake, so it will never happen in my house. As far as audiophiles go, HDMI is just a toy that the industry cooked up to control media, audio and video. We stick to s/pdif coax or glass, or if the DAC has a USB input, it is essentually using a format called I2S, which is closer to the "native" language of many DAC chips. Some gear even has I2S input and output, but those guys are hardcore... they usually roll their own, or spend a LOT on hand made gear.

I would be happy with glass, but my sound card (Audigy4) resamples internally to 48k before output at selected bitrate, so I don't use it for music. I have a USB s/pdif that allows me to connect to it via ASIO for a bit-perfect output.

I know I went on a rant, it is interesting to think of all the things this industry has forced people to switch to and from...

If any more info on the card is noted, please let me know... I may buy an x1950 pro tonight if I cannot confirm this card on xp x64.
 
I forgot to say in my post above that there motherboard makers that will let you run a AGP card with a core 2 . I bought 2 mobo's for 59.99 each and i ran my 6800GT AGP with a E6400 proc. I know you may now want to spend alot but the mobo supports Pent D and core 2's. Just a thought.
 
ULI was bought by Nvidia, Nvidia shut down support for ULI chipsets. ULI never got to finish an xp x64 chipset driver that had working AGP (the 32bit driver works, but is also buggy, but in x64, it treats the slot as a 66mhz PCI slot)

As far as I know, boards with both AGP and PCIe used a specific ULI chipset (Asrock is one of the makers that was popular for a while before ULI support was dropped and many of their boards instantly became outdated. I think Asrock the company tried to mod the ULi drivers that were already released to keep up, but Nvidia has not updated once since the merger was complete a few years ago.)

I had the Asrock board. It had potential to be a good budget board. The x64 problems were being addressed when Nvidia bought them. Nvidia pushed out an unfinished set (version 2.20) to wash their hands of ULi. This unfinished set, when looked at closely, you can tell that full AGP 8X support was *almost* there in xp x64. It already worked in xp32, and there were some hacks one could do to attempt to "fix" what ULI never got to finish. Like I said, I think Asrock went as far as to mod the ULI unifieds to extend the life of their ULi products, but still 64bit support did not allow an AGP card to run any faster than if it was in a 66mhz PCI slot.

That still makes me laugh, that you can get a faster card for your 33mhz PCI slot then you can an AGP slot at most computer stores. Online is different due to better stock, but every computer store I have been to, once that 3850 and 3650 sold out, the only options were 6200s, FX5200s, and maybe an HD2400, but that card has less support than the 3850 does, that I do know for sure. I had tried an HD2600XT, and ATI refused to even admit that they existed for AGP. The AGP HD 2400 and 2600 cards weren't even in the unified drivers .inf, so it would tell you that you did not have ATI hardware when trying to install. I think the company that made the cards had to release some modded driver, but again, no 64bit support.

I have read lots of accounts that say the 3x50 cards DO work on xp x64, I have read about people using them, but I don't know how well they are supported, if you can use the real ATI cats, if they inadvertently cause a rift in time and space? I have read accounts of them not working too, but those posts were several driver revisions ago. Essentially, I have no clue what to expect.

I could just overclock the hell out of my 7800GS (and keep enjoying the fact that, at least with a good 21" CRT, 1024x768 doesn't look *that* bad in games.) G71 chip has major OC potential. I had a g70 7800GS and added a vmod and a wire bridge to keep it from going into protect mode. I don't remember my clocks but it was about 500/1500. This card can about do that stock, so I see a core speed of 600 entirely possible, and ram up to 1600. It still would not best a fully functional 3650, let alone a 3850.
 
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