Thread: Radeon Hd 3850

THE RADEON HD 3850 and the Radeon HD 3870 series
is ATIs answer to Nvidia's GeForce 8800 series. The Radeon HD 3850 in question today is a midrange card that attempts to offer great value to midrange users that don't game at very high resolutions. The Rade¬on HD 3850 256MB is priced around the Rs 10,500 with the Pro version with 512MB memory can be had for around Rs 12,500.

Before we get going with the performance numbers, let's look at the new RV670 core that powers the Rade¬on HD 3850. The RV670 is a tweaked version of the R600 that powered the Radeon HD 2900 series. The new core is shrunk to a 55nm fabrication, making it smal er and more power efficient. Another change comes in the form of a 256¬bit memory interface and 256MB of GDDR3 memory, clearly classifying the Rade¬on HD 3850 as a midrange card. With DirectX 10.1 along with PCI Express 2.0 compliance and UVD decoder onboard, the HD 3850 has all the latest features incorporated in terms of gaming and video decoding support.

We fired our updated set of gaming benchmarks to test the ATI's latest offering and the results were quite pleasing. The card bagged a score of9110 in 3DMark 2006 which is about 14 per¬cent lower to the GeForce 8800GT which is priced almost 40 percent higher. Its performance in Company of Heroes was quite commend¬able as well with 62 frames at 1680xl050 as opposed to 93 in case of the GeForce 8800GT. Overall the card is capable oflogging 40-50 frames per second on almost all the latest games (except Crysis) as long as the resolu¬tion is not above 1680xl050(native resolution for a 22-inch monitor).

Overclocking the card from its default clocks of 669/829 MHz (core/memo¬ry) to 759/899 MHz, pushed the performance up by 6-12 percent. A more efficient dual slot cooler along with faster memory chips can most definitely push the performance by almost 20%. Another advantage for the Radeon HD 3850 is its relatively lower power consumption; a branded 450-500W power supply unit will eas¬ily suffice the 3850. The performance yield can be directly attributed to the fact that the Radeon HD 3850 houses the same core as its meatier sibling the Radeon HD 3870. The only difference being the clock speeds and the memory configuration. The Radeon 3870 comes with 512MB of memory, making it more suitable for gaming at 1600x1200
and above.

Currently the Radeon HD 3850 is available with GeCube and Sapphire; both are premium ATI partners renowned for quality prod¬ucts. Looking at the present day scenario where there is a clear absence of any solid offering in the 10K price segment, the Radeon HD 3850 is a good product. It allows gamers on a strapped budget to enjoy the latest games with maximum detail levels, without having to spend too much. The extra cash saved (against the 8800GT) can go into an additional 1 GB of RAM and a faster processor for an overall better system.