this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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Following up from my HD 3870 video — this time I picked up an untested HD 3850 from 2007 for $9.90. Cleaned it, repasted it and threw it at 6 games on a Core 2 Duo rig. • GTA San Andreas • CoD4 Modern Warfare • Tomb Raider Underworld • Just Cause 2 • NFS Most Wanted • Crysis Temps hit 106°C but it survived.

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Lame ass ai bullshit thumbnail.

[–] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

For $10, that's quite impressive. I'm familiar with several of those games, including Just Cause 2, which I have run on i7-4785t (iGPU only) at 630p, hitting 69fps (albeit it AA off etc, AF 4x, textures high, shadows low, medium water and object details etc).

OTOH, the i7-4785T doesn't hit 90+ degrees to do it :) (sits around 70) and sips ~40W.

EDIT: from the video, the test rig was -

Test Bench Specs:

  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 3.8GHz OC
  • RAM: 8GB DDR2
  • GPU: ATI Radeon HD 3850 512MB
  • Storage: 1TB SATA SSD
  • PSU: 450W 80+ Bronze
  • OS: Windows 7 x64
[–] RiskRig91@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Haha yeah the temps were wild! The i5-4785T is way more power efficient. The whole point here was to see if this ancient dedicated GPU could still hold up — and somehow it did despite trying to melt itself!

[–] GustavoM@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

At that rate, you'd be better buying one of those minipc's and game on it instead.

t. I have a orange pi 5 max and I'm quite sure I can run most (if not all) games you've mentioned.

[–] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Pressing x to doubt on the orange pi 5 - box86 ain't that good, yet, surely? :)

PS: OP appears to have a VERY old rig - perhaps they can't (or don't want to) upgrade to mini-pc?

  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 3.8GHz OC
  • RAM: 8GB DDR2
  • GPU: ATI Radeon HD 3850 512MB
  • Storage: 1TB SATA SSD
  • PSU: 450W 80+ Bronze
  • OS: Windows 7 x64

FWIW, I can run all of the games demonstrated on my Lenovo M93p tiny at good speeds (and that only takes about fifty watts of power / cost $50-70 USD)

[–] RiskRig91@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Haha the old rig is intentional — it's a retro build for testing old GPUs. That's kind of the whole point of the channel!

Yes, I figured as much :)

[–] GustavoM@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nowadays it's all about FEX -- they've done some significant changes thanks to valve. Including reducing all the "chit-chat" between layers, making the game be as "native-like" as possible. Also, what you've said/implied seems to be the case regarding OP's rig -- no comment on that.