Gigabyte's Radeon HD 4650: Are AGP Graphics Still Good Enough?

By Don Woligroski
published

Benchmark Results: Fallout 3

Our last game benchmark is the renowned RPG, Fallout 3. This benchmark allows us to capture minimum as well as average frame rates. First, we'll look at Medium setting results:

Finally, a game that's very playable on the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. There is a CPU bottleneck, but it looks to be at 40 FPS, which are high enough for comfortable gameplay in an RPG title. The Radeon HD 4650s hang in there at 1280x1024, but when the resolution is raised, they take a beating. The Radeon HD 3850, on the other hand, consistently keeps the average frame rate around the 40 FPS bottleneck.

Now, we'll raise the visual quality settings to High, which includes 4xAA and 8xAF:

The valiant Radeon HD 3850 hangs in there, but the Radeon HD 4650 isn't able to keep its chin up. As the resolution is raised to 1920x1200, even the Radeon HD 3850 drops slightly below 30 FPS.

Note the minimum frame rates on all of the Fallout 3 benchmarks. Even though the Radeon HD 3850 is achieving some playable average frame rates, the minimums will likely present some choppiness when things get busy on-screen.

Don Woligroski
115 Comments Comment from the forums
  • amdfangirl
    Don't they have an AGP HD 4670?
    Reply
  • drealar
    *Raise up hand*
    I'm still using an AGP HD 2600XT :D.
    Good to see that Gigabyte and actually Sapphire too coming up with another card for AGP. But frankly, we (most AGP users in my neighborhood ) are keeping our dollars for now since upgrading to a new system is the most likely option in 2010.

    Another thing is, from the benchmarks, it got me worried if I ever upgrade my GPU since most of the result shows CPU bottleneck. If these are the result for a dual core Athlon, then it must be worse for my single core P4 HT :(

    Oh BTW, are you reading the power consumption correctly?
    "Even the Radeon HD 3850 and its GDDR3 memory peak at a mere 7 W more than the PCIe Radeon HD 4650 under load."
    194 - 178 = 16W. So either the graph is wrong or you mis calculated.
    Reply
  • zinabas
    amdfangirlDon't they have an AGP HD 4670?
    a quick search for "agp 4670" on newegg gave me and (Core clock: 750 mhz, 1gb ddr3)

    I own a pcie version of it and I really think before part 2 of this article goes up you should acquire one.
    Reply
  • rambo117
    amdfangirlDon't they have an AGP HD 4670?
    yah, i just saw that on the egg today. Must have just come out.
    i liked the article btw. ouch at the performance numbers though xD
    Reply
  • zinabas

    Reply
  • zinabas
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161284
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131161

    links aren't working
    Reply
  • rambo117
    yah, this is the one i saw: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161284

    looks pretty nifty. iceq FTW!
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    AGP is like Windows XP, it just never dies :D

    Anyways, it's interesting to read something about legacy ports for a change. I never even figured out how to work with computer hardware when AGP was around, so I never got to mess around with it.
    Reply
  • one-shot
    Most of these benchmarks seem to show a CPU limitation across the board. I owned that same CPU, but used a PCI-E 7900GS with it at the time. I think if the CPU limitation was eliminated, we would see a better overall comparison. Also, if there is an AGP 4670, it would be beneficial to older machines to see the benefits of that GPU. It might show the two cards being equal due to the CPU limitation we're encountering.
    Reply
  • masterjaw
    I don't think there are lots of people out there who would still hold on to their AGP slots when PCI-e cards are becoming so cheaper and the performance is way better. Even doing a low-end system upgrade would still kick older system's ass all the way to the north pole. But still, another option for those who can't get over the AGPs. They must've been clearing up some old stocks.
    Reply