Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > need AGP replacement
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spandea   09-24-2008 at 11:01:14 PM

ok folks, i know this has been covered before and i've searched, but couldn;t find anything related to the HW setup i have. this is what i have:

AMD FX-53, socket 940
1G OZC mem
ati radeon x800 256Mb (AGP)

it's time to upgrade (and probably the last upgrade i'll do to the box) the video card because the newer games require a newer shader model. i'm looking at the hd2600xt and the hd3850. i also plan on picking up another 2G of mem. is the hd3850 that much better than the 2600xt? i can't swing buying a whole new system right now, so this one-time upgrade will have to hold me over for another couple of years. what do you all think?

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NastyNick22   09-24-2008 at 11:18:25 PM
- -1 +

Just went through this myself.

The 3850 is a more powerful card than the 2600xt. In addition, ATI's standard drivers have been validated for the 3850 AGP while you have to use the hotfix for the 2600 AGP.

On the other hand, the 3850 has some pretty significant power requirements. The Sapphire Raedon 3850 requires a 450 watt or greater power supply with 30 amps on 12 volt with 2x4 power connector.

I was thinking about going with a 3850 instead of the 2600xt because the price difference wasn't that bad, but I would have had to replace my power supply which would have basically doubled the cost of the upgrade.

Be forewarned that the 2600xt also requires a separate power hookup.

I went with the HIS Radeon HD 2600 XT IceQ Turbo Video Card and it installed without any problem using the lastest ATI hotfix driver set.

The card is so quiet I though my computer was broken the first time I rebooted after I installed it.

Message quoted 1 times
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spandea   09-24-2008 at 11:21:28 PM
- 1 +

interesting .... i do have a 560w PS. i'm thinking that should handle the power requirements. what card did you upgrade from? did you see a huge difference in performance? i'm more looking into being able to play newer games than to run stuff at higher resolutions.

Reply to spandea
angry_ducky   09-24-2008 at 11:23:04 PM
- 0 +

Go for the 3850; there is quite a performance difference between it and the 2600 XT. I have a very similar setup to yours (except it's socket 939 and PCIe), and I just upgraded to a 2600XT from an X600. The increase in performance hasn't been as great as I thought it would, and your X800 is higher-end card than my X600. Just go ahead and get the 3850.

------------------------------ DFI nF4-DAGF
A64 3700+ @ 2.25GHz (11 x 205)
2GB G.Skill DDR400 @410
ASUS Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB
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spandea   09-24-2008 at 11:25:50 PM
- 0 +

sweet. like nastykick says, the price difference isn't that much. thanks for the info guys!

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angry_ducky   09-24-2008 at 11:30:58 PM
- 1 +

NastyNick22 wrote :

Be forewarned that the 2600xt also requires a separate power hookup.



Really? My HD2600XT didn't need any power connector, and it's running fine with a 430 watt power supply. Maybe it's that the PCI Express slot can provied more power than an AGP slot?

Message quoted 2 times
------------------------------ DFI nF4-DAGF
A64 3700+ @ 2.25GHz (11 x 205)
2GB G.Skill DDR400 @410
ASUS Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB
Reply to angry_ducky
megamanx00   09-25-2008 at 12:04:57 AM
- 0 +

angry_ducky wrote :

Really? My HD2600XT didn't need any power connector, and it's running fine with a 430 watt power supply. Maybe it's that the PCI Express slot can provied more power than an AGP slot?




Uh, yeah. PCI-E slots provide alot more power than AGP slots. Anyway go with the 3850 spandea. Your CPU may be a little limiting at stock speeds, but if you can get a good overclock out of it then I'm sure you will be able to appreciate the 3850's power.

------------------------------ Playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine Athlon 64 X2 5000+ @3.24 Brisbane | GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-DS4 | 4GB Mushkin DDR2 1066 | Plextor 760A| 2x 3850 512M CF| WD 1TB Black| Fortron Blue Storm II 500W | APEVIA X-Dreamer Black | Win XP Pro & Vista Buisness 32bit
 Reply to megamanx00
roofus   09-25-2008 at 12:24:07 AM
- 0 +

The 3850 is a nice card to give your platform a new lease on life. Dont even bother looking at the Nvidia offerings as they do not even have a reasonably good AGP card to compete against even the 2600.

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stridervm   09-25-2008 at 12:43:52 AM
- 0 +

About the 2600XT :

Depends on the 2600XT. Some versions do need the 6 pin cable. Most often the gDDR4 version. Most versions that don't need the 6 pin cable are the ones that use DDR2.

Reply to stridervm
Nik_I   09-25-2008 at 12:43:59 AM
- 0 +

angry_ducky wrote :

Really? My HD2600XT didn't need any power connector, and it's running fine with a 430 watt power supply. Maybe it's that the PCI Express slot can provied more power than an AGP slot?



the pci-e slot does provide a fair bit more power than the agp slot. if i remember correctly, the extra 4 pins that were added to the main motherboard connector (the current 24-pin and former 20-pin connector) supply extra power to the pci-e slots.

------------------------------ ECS A780GM-A, Phenom II x3 710, 4GB Corsair @800Mhz, HIS Radeon 4850, Seagate 7200.11 500GB, Auzentech X-Plosion 7.1 Cinema, LiteOn DL-DVD w/Lightscribe, ASUS TA-863, OCZ StealthXStream 500W, Samsung Syncmaster T240, Windows 7 Ultimate x64
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