Friday February 10, 2012 8:42 PM AEST

AGP not dead; runs high detail Crysis at 25 FPS

By Alex Bradner
22:59 Apr 23, 2008 | 3 Comments
Tags: AGP | Crysis | specs | HD3850 | ati | amd | 3850 | old | computer | pci-e | pcie
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AGP not dead; runs high detail Crysis at 25 FPS
 
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Atomic reviews the Sapphire AGP HD3850 and finds out how much life this hugely powerful card can bring to your old AGP machine.

Some of us can’t afford to worry about the latest graphics benchmarks. That’s because the PCI-E revolution has left us behind, and we’re still running on antiquated AGP systems because for one reason or other, we just can’t justify an “upgrade” (read: an entirely new computer) to play new games.

If you fall into this category, all is not lost -- there is a new graphics card that you need to know about. Sapphire has released, in AGP 8x form, the Radeon HD 3850 -- ATI’s second most powerful card ever (as of April 2008, the term "ever" has been accurate).

It retails for about $270, and may be the stepping-stone you need to get that last mile out of your old hardware - it’s one of the very rare breeds of AGP cards that support Shader Model 4.1. That alone unlocks a whole slather of new games and murders Vista’s minimum requirements!

It’s immensely powerful, but it’s not a magic bullet. Almost every game released in the last year assumes that you have your own personal supercomputer and will tax your CPU, memory, hard disk and power bill accordingly. While everything we threw at it was definitely playable and looked stunning, we still didn’t see blistering performance on modest hardware. But after a few tweaks and upgrades to our test benches, we managed to get Crysis running...

More about that and the results on the next page.

 
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Product Info
Specs:
AGP 4X/8X; Shader Model 4.1 and DirectX 10 support; 666 million transistors on 55nm fabrication process; hardware H.264/VC-1 decoder
Supplier:
Price when reviewed:
AUD$270
price check*
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3 Comments
ShiroKage
Sep 30, 2008 7:11 PM
who can afford a $270 graphics card but can't afford a new motherboard that can support pci-e? honestly...
Vanne
Oct 5, 2008 11:59 AM
Ah dunno, lotsa peeps out there that maybe can afford to buy a new mobo, but along with dat comes ram, cpu's and most prob a new psu, so it aint that simple.

I for one love the older tech and good on Saphire and HIS for doing this. Will put a smile on many face id recon :)

anon.irisX
Jan 13, 2009 4:21 PM
haha this is hilarious -- in a brilliant way! :D

Probably performs better than a PCI-e 3850... hehe

Long live AGP!
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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 133 | February, 2012

Atomic is a magazine aimed squarely at computer enthusiasts, gamers, and serious PC upgraders.

Every month we bring you the latest reviews of new technology and PC components, in depth features on everything from overclocking to console hacking, and gaming previews and interviews.
 
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