Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP Dual DVI

[Caspar]

I've just bought a 'Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP Dual DVI' card. The problem is that it comes with instructions to fit a seperate power connector to the graphic card, on the card it has a 8pin female. The cable in the box is a 6pin cable! What the eck is going on!

The cable in the box is a single 4pin molex to 6pin, as below but mine has only 1x 4pin:



This is actually what came in the box (the above pic is clearer):




The card comes with a 8pin female, the pic is from ATI 4870 from google, but has the same connector:




ok, the problem I think is that I've got a AGP card, but a cable that fits the PCIe variant of the card! So the geezer I bought the card from, off ebay is trying to pull the wool?


I've found the below on ebay, the question is whether it's compatible?

£12.48 - from hong kong
Dual 6 pin to 8 Pin Power Cable Adapter for PCI Express


£12.95 - UK
single 6-Pin PCI Express to dual 8-Pin (6+2) PCI Express 2.0 Power Cable Adapter




£30.40 -US
ATI 4870 4850 X2 6 Pin to 8 Pin PCI-E Power Cable 8Pin


Will the cheapest work?

you may find the manual says 6 pin is ok? It does look like it is keyed to fit.

[MadGamer]

On my 4850 Mine could connect to my PSU via a 4,6 or 8 pin connector so as Zingle says it looks like it will fit without issues.

[Caspar]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

you may find the manual says 6 pin is ok? It does look like it is keyed to fit.

Thanks m8, I regret sending that abusive email to the ebay seller now! lol!

I've plugged in the cable and it fits just fine, but is the cable delivering enough juice. As I understand it, 6pin PCIe connectors allow 75W of elec, whereas 8pin deliver 150W. Since the board has a 8pin, this would imply that it needs the fully 150W, or at least over the 75W limitation of 6pin.

I suppose the issue is that I bought this card marked as NEW from ebay, and it does look unused tbfair, but it seems I'm untrusting of the fact the cable and connectors don't tally.

If it were shrinkwrapped then I'd have just assume all is as it's meant to be.

I think it may well ship with a 6 pin rather than an 8 pin. Ive found a 6 pin to 8 pin cheaper however I can not see how you can deliver more power that way? how many molex connectors go into your 6 pin?

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1807.html here is the link if you want it

---------- Post added at 12:04 ---------- Previous post was at 12:00 ----------

you are fine mate min reqs from sapphire

PCI Express based PC is required with one X16 lane graphic slot available on the motherboard.
1GB or greater system memory for better performance.
450Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended.
For ATI CrossfireX: 550 watt power supply or greater with two 6-pin connectors.
Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive.
DVD playback requires DVD driver
Blu-ray/HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive and playback software.
For a complete ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second ATI Radeon™ HD 3850 graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per board are required.

Ok this is for the pci e but it aint gonna be any different

[Caspar]

Bang on, thanks Zingle!