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This is where I mentioned the 2600 and not the 3850. Exactly because Sapphire does indeed say 4x/8x but also mentions specs are subject to change without notice. I just hope someone from Sapphire is watching this forum

Exactly. btw, wouldn't the AGP x8 bandwidth be a limitation of some kind?

A 8800GTX doesn't flood a PCIe 16x slot, and is BARELY hindered by a PCIe 8x slot (floods it just slightly). The HD 3850 doesn't even come close to the same amount of bandwidth, and should not in any way be bottlenecked by the AGP 8x interface. It will, however, definitely flood a 4x AGP.

AGP's last hurrah can be seen by the fact that the only new AGP motherboards available are Via chipsets. When a good AGP board dies, there's not much to replace it with.

I made the mistake of moving a P4 2.8 Intel i865 PERL board, 2 gigs (4 x 512) DDR 400 and a Radeon 9800 Pro into a used case with a PSU taken out of an MSI Nvidia AM2 barebones, where I'd replaced it with a good Antec Truepower 500.

That cheap PSU died and took the AGP motherboard with it. Haven't tested the 2.8 Northwood, the RAM or the AIW 9800 Pro because I don't like Via boards, the last one I had wouldn't run Morrowind and it was flaky when starting up.

Anyone who considers an AGP card because they can't afford to upgrade all at once should save up for a new motherboard and CPU instead. After all, their good board might fail and there are no real choices in replacing it outside of finding a good used board on Ebay.

Sorry, my PSU is a Dell so I doubt it will fail. It already proved it doesn't care about power variations in a poor electrical network. So thanks a lot for the advice. Getting a power supply with power factor correction always pays off, no matter what the system is.

Does your PSU have the 6+2 or 8 pin connector for 8 pin power that the AGP 3850 needs? A salesperson at Fry's tried to sell me a one molex to 8 pin Xeon motherboard adapter when I asked for a 6+2 adapter for 8 pin PCIe power. Don't fall for that. MSI didn't even include one with the 3870x2 I bought, so it's PSU upgrade time again!

Regarding the old AGP box, this was the first time I just didn't toss out a barebones PSU. The budget motherboards are okay (usually Nvidia 405 6100 or AMD 690V or G) and the aluminum cases are okay, but the PSU's are trouble. I just didn't have the spare $50 for even an Ultra at Fry's that week and I wanted to put the AGP rig in the bedroom. It lasted a week or so before it died while I was playing HOMM III.

All of our current power supplies have active PFC and are tier 2, except for the 500 watt Truepower which is tier 3. They need to update this list with the new PSU's:
http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Tiere [...] ngs?t=anon

When I get the Antec TPQ 850, I'll get one of those chozzerai Via boards and see if everything else is okay, because I can use the 500 watt Truepower in the new AGP rig. It's worth it for the All in Wonder Radeon 9800 alone. That is, if the card's not fried along with the motherboard.

That's for sure! I have an Antec Neo 550 in my PC and an Antec Truepower 500 in my wife's and neither has a 6+2 connector for PCIe. I could not find any listed adapters for that new PCIe standard. That's why I have to get an Antec TPQ 850 next week, otherwise it's take a restocking fee on the MSI 3870x2.

I could see someone with a good socket 939 X2 upgrading to a newer PSU (the Antec Neo 650 has the right connector for $99 at Newegg), but I wouldn't pay $99 for a new PSU for a P4 rig, though I should have paid $50 for anything other than a barebones PSU!

AGP needs to rest in peace.

Those cards require, as far as I know, a 6-pin power connector. Like the 2600 XT AGP does. And as can be seen as an example on Visiontek's product page:

http://www.visiontek.com/products/ [...] P_512.html

Those adapters usually go from two 4-pin molex connectors to one 6-pin PCI-Express connector. Because, as I heard, they need power from two independent voltage lanes from the PSU. Some adapters only convert from one 4-pin connector to 6. But if the Sapphire 3850 wants 8-pin power, so be it.

Getting another PSU for a video card that requires external power, when you already have a good PSU, isn't smart. Looky here:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuc [...] ctors.html

and here

http://www.xoxide.com/4-pin-molex- [...] apter.html

and here

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cat [...] 3f4c8872db

and here

http://www.highpowersupply.com/product-ac-PCIX.htm

and I think I could go on. Look harder next time, maybe ?

To the guy with the dual p3's, sorry but putting a 3850 in a p3 system is going to bottleneck like no other. Most games don't support multi-threading, and the few that do, dual p3's won't be nearly adequate. For all intents and purposes, for gaming you have a single 1.4GHz P3, and that's going to bottleneck a 3850 like crazy. I would have gone with a x1950pro if I were you, and put the money saved towards a new board and CPU. Remember, you can get a cheap dual core, board, and RAM for about $200.

Ok, I want everyobody to please tell me why the guys who refurbish cars pick an old car chassis and put everything else new on it: engine, brakes, alloy wheels, gearbox, electrical gadgets, etc.

The cars they're making were certainly not made for such big engines. They always go "I like how old things look and I like how new things work." Certainly, in the computers' case it's not about looks, it's just about not throwing away a motherboard just because it's old. And in this particular case, I'd have to throw away the motherboard, the processors, the RAM, the case, the power supply. Why ? Because it's old. And too slow for some new games that are most likely crap. I'm not going to try and play Bioshock on it! But why not be able to play Far Cry with maximum details ? Or maybe Doom 3 ? Just because some people are way too hooked up on "the new" to realize the fact that older hardware does run new software in amazingly many cases ?

I too registered just to post on this topic. Fortunately my mobo supports agp 8x so no problems with upgrading to a 3850 agp (if it comes out i hope ) from my old trusty x800pro @ xtpe speeds (16pipes unlocked).

About pci-e being faster ya it is faster in a way but only the upmost high end gpus will ever reach its full or half potential like KlyeSTL said..

heres a link to what i meant (great find)
http://www.kyol.net/%7Eharrycat/Goldfinger.html

You do realize that all the car parts you listed is like buying a new CPU, RAM, mobo, PSU, etc? The car chassis is nothing more than a computer case.

Far as your system is concerned (since you brought up cars, I'll use a car analogy), your engine block is old and no longer being made by the manufactures. What happens when you're engine block cracks? You buy a new one and rebuild. Then again, you could pick up a used one at a junk yard, but is it really worth getting a used one in the long run?

Yes, but CPUs don't "crack" like engines indeed do. I'm not overclocking or running without a cooler. And it's not about which one should you get, new or old, it's about not throwing it away when you already have it. Of course you should get a new one when you have none at all.
Can someone count how many times I said "it's about not throwing the old stuff, and not about choosing old stuff over new stuff" ?

The engine block was being compared to a motherboard actually. Long story short, your system is outdated and obsolete. Adding that card to your system would be like dropping a V8 into a 1972 Ford Pinto. I might be old school, but even I know there's a point where it's cheaper and easier in the long run to build a new system then try to keep obsolete technology up to date.

Edit: Do I throw out the old computers? No. I just fixed up a 1.8Ghz Athlon with old parts I have laying around and gave it away for free. Would I had spend money into to bring it up to date? No. I sure wouldn't spend $150+ to add a new GPU in it when I can buy a brand new AM2+ mobo and a basic CPU for $150.

I said it before: outdated in terms of some present-day applications. I do video-encoding on this machine!

In my view, obsolete means anything before a 486 processor. Because they can't run Win 9x.

Cheaper and easier ? Again, selling an old machine that's sitting in your home is not going to get you enough money for a new, cheap system. So instead of getting a cheap dual-core system for $200 like someone said, and then a decent video card for more, the logic is "max out what you have" like someone else said. After putting a PCI SATA controller in an old system, the latest AGP video card that is compatible with it, USB 2.0 controller, TV tuner, best processor it can support, maximum amount of RAM and so on, it's maxed out. That's the most it can do. And you can run quite a few recent things on it. Not Crysis, maybe, but Far Cry works on a single 933 MHz processor. Maybe even less.
Adobe Premiere Pro, since 2.0, requires SSE2. But there's 1.5. And I could go on. It's limited, but you can still do things with it.

This is also a high-end system for its time. A nowadays' high-end system is worth a lot of money. Look at how much a Dell Precision Workstation T7400 costs nowadays, as an example. I know this system has poorer performance than nowadays' low-end systems, but again, low-end means there is room for upgrade.

On a side note, Socket 939 systems support a maximum of 4 GB RAM. That is, depending on the chipset and on wether you have a processor with AMD64 (I don't know if all of them do, since the Athlon 64 was invented).

Think what you will, I wasn't trying to impose my views on anyone. I'm tired of trying to prove Vista will run on anything down to a mere K5 100 MHz and XP on Pentium Overdrive 63 MHz to people who have been bombarded by aggresive advertising.