pouët.net

Since my computer is very outdated (Celeron 2,8 GHz, RAM 512 MB, NVidia GeForce FX5700 LE), I ponder if there is much sense for me to make a partial upgrade and to change only the videocard. As my motherboard supports only AGP 8x, I chose as a possible solution Sapphire HD3650 AGP8x. I read that ATI's HD3650 GPU supports DirectX 10.1 (SM 4.0 or 4.1) and OpenGL 3.0. It turned out that the support of OpenGL 3.0 comes after ATI Catalyst Release 9.1, and there was no real support for GLSL 1.30. Is it really like this?
I don't need great performance, I just want to be able to test my code (I am not familiar with DirectX, just OpenGL and first steps in GLSL). Please share with me your comments - should I get this videocard.
And I know, I need a new computer...

The HD3650 GPU should support shader model 4.1, so if you really don't need performance (AGP won't give you that anyway), it's a pretty OK card. Didn't you find an AGP HD 4650? If you do, go for that instead. I've been using it and i'm pretty happy with it.

I think you can get 4650 agp for almost the same price, and apart from being faster (much faster shading, less so otherwise due to system limitations) it
does/will support OpenCL unlike the HD3x00 series.
IIRC the glsl support is (at least) at 1.3

Wow, won just by 1 second! Sorry psycho :D

BTW, the AGP HD4650 costs ~70-75€, and the HD3650 ~60-70€. It's not much difference, get the 4650, really.

Thanks xTr1m and Psycho, I'll definitely check the HD4650.