Apr 7, 2008 11:12 AM | 4 Comments

David Hollingworth is pleasantly surprised to find there’s a new card on the market for the AGP crowd – that’s good, because new stats confirm many gamers are still using AGP graphics.

There have been a couple of things that’s caught the attention of the Atomic corner recently, and, unsurprisingly, perhaps, they’re both gaming and hardware-related. They’re also rather linked, and as is often the case, it’s kinda split the team.

Valve’s hardware survey was recently completed and the results released. Given Valve’s penetration into the gaming market, thanks to both the continuing popularity of all flavours of Half Life and the Steam delivery platform, this survey is easily the largest of its kind, and a unique snapshot of the state of gaming hardware being used today. We love stats, so Josh and I have lost hours poring over findings like how many people are using 4:3 aspected monitors and how much RAM is commonly used by the majority of gamers. It’s neat stuff for hardware nerds, and even better for letting users know exactly where their own system stands in relation with a lot of other gamers. If you want to check it out http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html.

The second, and easily most contentious thing to come to our attention was pointed out to Josh and I by Atomic’s own online editor, Dave Field. He was very pleased to receive a brand new AGP – yes, you heard – graphics card for review the other week, a Sapphire HD3850. He – and I to be perfectly frank – thinks this is a marvellous thing. Old formats need love to, we believe, but Josh… well, he’s an early adopter, you see, and therefore a very early abandoner; he just cannot see the point of continuing to produce what he perceives as old and redundant hardware. Before we came to blows (thought it was discovered that if you rub Josh with the card, he falls into some kind of catatonic state), David and I fell back upon the aforementioned survey; I had a feeling that AGP use was far more prevalent than Josh might realise . . .

As it turned out, it was more prevalent than even I was guessing. AGP users make up nearly bang on 30 per cent of the market, and that’s a large segment for card makers to be ignoring. It also makes a lot of sense. Upgrading your PC can be a simple and cheap way to get more performance, but there comes a point where everything’s as good as it’s going to get, and for your next upgrade you’re going to have to get an entirely new machine. And if you don’t have that kind of money, you make do with the old board and old cards you’ve been using for years.

It’s nice to see a company that can look behind as well as ahead with its new hardware releases; I think this is an excellent move from Sapphire that will please a lot of lower end PC enthusiasts. The Valve survey shows that it’s a sound business move, too, as well as shedding light on a whole lot of other interesting data.

• The boys are back

geller Apr 7, 2008 11:29 AM	Can AGP cards like this 3850 handle current games though?
David Field Apr 7, 2008 11:47 AM	As long as there's a CPU able to supply an adequate frame rate of stuff to render, then yes. With the right motherboard, you can get an AMD 5000+ (possibly a 6000+, i'm going from memory here) which is very quick. Remember the AGP HD3850 is pretty much the same as the PCI-e HD3850 with a slightly slower bus, and the 3850 will tear up pretty much anything bar Crysis or everything-at-full-detail-and-30"-monitor-resolution. It also gives you VC-1/H.264 acceleration, so you get to play back Blu-ray and your CPU won't kill itself trying to playback new Flash 9 videos.
geller Apr 8, 2008 11:57 AM	Nice thanks, I'm considering going AMD, so I might go this route.
nonsg Jul 4, 2008 7:30 PM	Contents of this website are good and appreciative. Recommended to all. http://www.goagifts.com