AGP 3850 vs. 4670 (battle of the dinosaurs)

[lemonadesoda]

OK, predict which model is the faster. Based on stock clocks. If you think positions will change due to higher OC potential of 4670, please comment.

In the red corner, AGP 3850
Graphics Engine - HD3850 = RV670 PRO
Engine Clock - 668Mhz
Memory Clock - 700Mhz x 2
Memory - 512MB GDDR3
Memory Interface - 256bit
Peak memory bandwidth - 44.80 GB/sec
Max power requirement - 100W

Shaders - 320
Texture Units - 16
Up to 80 texture fetches per clock cycle
DirectX - 10.1
Shader Model 4.1
OpenGL 2.0
Bus Interface - AGP 8X

In the other red corner, AGP 4670
Graphics Engine - HD4670 = RV730 XT
Engine Clock - 750Mhz
Memory Clock - 800Mhz x 2
Memory - 1024MB DDR3
Memory Interface - 128bit
Peak memory bandwidth - 25.60 GB/sec
Max power requirement - 59W

Shaders - 320
Texture Units - 32
Up to 128 texture fetches per clock cycle
DirectX - 10.1
Shader Model 4.1
OpenGL 2.0
Bus Interface - AGP 8X

[lemonadesoda]

Neck and neck on PCIe (thx to w1z's great and thorough reviews):

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Personally for AGP I'd be inclined to go for the 4670, since it uses almost half as much power and would only be bottlenecked by the RAM a bit. But really it'd be very close with AGP in terms of performance.

[stormseeker]

Be aware that many mobos have problems with AGP cards since HD2k series.

[stefanels]

I'll go for the HD4670 because i don't like the HD3850's (i owned 3 and all of them had problems)

[LittleLizard]

when the 4670 came out, much reviews said that is basically a 3850 masked with 4xxx series features. so it will win the 4670 by a little, little bit.

[KainXS]

I don't know, the HD 3850 and the HD4670 are both decent cards, both overclock really good too, both would be a nice choice but I would give the edge to the HD4670 since it uses less power

[daragez]

I'll go for HD4670!....

[valrond]

I vote for the 4670. I own a 3850 AGP, and it's good, overclocks easily (I get it to 800/1000, can go a little higher), but the 4670 is less power hungry and deals better with FSAA.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by valrond

the 4670 is less power hungry and deals better with FSAA.

^ what he said

[nadimac]

I played most of the past games that have gone perfectly with my 3850 AGP I am thinking of switching to the 4670 AGP but I think the 4670 is not better by the consumption of energy that I do not matter much. for me the 4670 has much more memory and core the only difference besides the consumption of energy is the 128bit interface.

buy the new card? or do you keep the card you have lasted?

P4-3GHz
Super Talent 2GB-DDR400
Asus-p4pm800
Samsung 160 GB Sata
Maxtor 250 GB Sata
Sound Blaster X-Fi 24bit
3850 AGP 512 MB
CoolerMater Extreme Power Plus 460 Watt

PLZ help!

[Mussels]

save the money, buy a new PC. the rest of your specs would work with a pentium dual core (not pentium D, dont get em confused), a modern, cheap 775 board and 2-4GB of DDR2 800MHz. I'm sure asrock will still have a board or two out there with AGP and PCI-E, to ease the upgrade.

[lemonadesoda]

^^ what he said.

The P4-3GHz is rubbish (velmi špatný) and is holding you back. I ungraded from a P4-3Ghz Northwood to a P4-3.2Ghz Gallatin Extreme Edition and things improved about 10%. I then upgraded to Q6600 and things improved 100%. Even on the 3850.

Dont waste your time trying to improve the performance of the GPU. The CPU is the bottleneck for you.

[T3kl0rd]

You can't get Hotfix drivers for HD 4xxx cards currently, so if you want the best AGP card you can use right away, get the HD 3850.

Why would you even consider getting a HD 4670 to replace the HD 3850 when they are almost identical in performance? Save the money like the others said and get a modern build.

[Jeffredo]

My old second PC has an X850 Pro AGP flashed to an XT (along with an Athlon64 3700+). If that video card ever dies I'm certainly not getting anything to replace it.

[Baam]

Newegg has one in stock, I would go with the 4670 myself if i needed an AGP card. Its around the same price as the 3850.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131161

[T3kl0rd]

HD 4670 seems to edge the HD 3850 in benchmarks, but again there are no Hotfix drivers for the HD 4xxx series so you are stuck with an AGP card you can't use unless you can get the regular Catalyst drivers to work. (which almost no one can) If you are using a non dual core CPU, the slight edge of the HD 4670 will make no difference over the HD 3850 per the CPU bottleneck, so in that case you may as well get a HD 3850.

[lemonadesoda]

I've NEVER had a problem using stock drivers on my Powercolor AGP 3850. I have to say I'm a bit confused with all the trouble people have and the need for hotfix drivers. Perhaps this is a Vista issue; I'm on W2K3.

[sttubs]

Originally Posted by T3kl0rd

HD 4670 seems to edge the HD 3850 in benchmarks, but again there are no Hotfix drivers for the HD 4xxx series so you are stuck with an AGP card you can't use unless you can get the regular Catalyst drivers to work. (which almost no one can) If you are using a non dual core CPU, the slight edge of the HD 4670 will make no difference over the HD 3850 per the CPU bottleneck, so in that case you may as well get a HD 3850.

Can you post the link to these benchmarks, I can't find any that inlcude the AGP version of these cards.

[T3kl0rd]

The HD 4670 AGP is brand new and no one benchmarks AGP cards anymore hardly. The PCI-e benchmarks should apply accurately to the AGP versions as well. The only difference in the cards is the slot type which isn't a bottle neck for these cards. You can go to GPUReview.com to find a lot of HD 4670 benchmarks for PCI-e.

Most people get the "No compatible hardware not found" error when installing the stock CCC drivers, so getting them to work normally is the exception not the rule.

BTW, You can take one of the votes in this thread poll for the HD 3850 and move it over to the HD 4670. I thought this thread was HD 3850 vs HD 4650, I read it too fast, sorry. The HD 4670 definitely edges the HD 3850 slightly but not the HD 4650 hence my original vote for the HD 3850.

[The_Gunslinger]

Thanks for the info guys, i am in need of replacing a noisy HIS x1950 Pro on an AGP system, this is looking like a simple option, the system is still running XP Pro, so i'm not sure about the hotfix driver issue, will have to do a little research, but i was wondering about the difference between these cards, so thank you

[T3kl0rd]

Originally Posted by The_Gunslinger

Thanks for the info guys, i am in need of replacing a noisy HIS x1950 Pro on an AGP system, this is looking like a simple option, the system is still running XP Pro, so i'm not sure about the hotfix driver issue, will have to do a little research, but i was wondering about the difference between these cards, so thank you

I'm not an expert on AMD processors but assume yours is ballpark of a P4. In which case, it will make no difference to you which you get because both will be bottlenecked. I would get whichever is cheaper.

Actually when I look at the specs of your current GPU, upgrading doesn't make much sense for you as you won't see much of a difference if any at all in performance with your single core CPU. There would be very little to no difference with my P4 HT if I used your current GPU instead of mine.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by T3kl0rd

I'm not an expert on AMD processors but assume yours is ballpark of a P4. In which case, it will make no difference to you which you get because both will be bottlenecked. I would get whichever is cheaper.

Actually when I look at the specs of your current GPU, upgrading doesn't make much sense for you as you won't see much of a difference if any at all in performance with your single core CPU. There would be very little to no difference with my P4 HT if I used your current GPU instead of mine.

his CPU is an older single core with only single channel memory support.

it'll hold back just about any modern video card

[The_Gunslinger]

sorry, my bad, i forgot the system specs where in there.

it's running an Athlon 64 FX60 now on a K8NSNXP-939 motherboard with 3gb of patriot RAM running cas 2.5 in dual channel

i'll go update the system specs in my profile, sorry about that.

and no... i wasnt planning on changing this card, i dont really play games, and it handles all the media i throw at it including 1080p files.... unfortunately it sounds right now like the fan is about to explode, and i cant be bothered with pulling the whole cooler off and trying to fix/replace it, when i can grab one of the HIS 4670 ones from ebuyer for £86, hopefully would be a nice simple switch out provided the catalyst 9.1 drivers are ok for that (i'm using control panel and ATI tray tools rather than CCC)

the only "downstep" i can see is the 128bit interface rather than the 256 the x1950 runs, however.... WTF were HIS doing when they decided to use a molex socket for the additional power support, i'd need to either source or adapt a connector from the 6pin PCIe supply i have to the molex fitting (i dont have a spare molex, and have the 6 and 8 pin connectors available for GPU's !)

[Mussels]

molex sockets were used as standard on AGP cards, since PCI-E power wasnt invented until *drumroll* PCI-E video cards were