ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB Crossfire

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Max Slowik
Beth
AMD
May. 14, 2008

Specifications

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Introduction

Let's see, if one HD 3850 is two-thirds of an 8800 GTX for one-third the price, then two must be...

CrossFire and SLI are so interesting to us, though. We know it'd make more sense to just spend more money on a really fast card, but--two video cards! Given that you can definitely get two 3850s for $300, it seems like a reasonable upgrade option, even though I normally rail pretty hard against mid-range multi-GPU configurations.

The main weakness of the 3850 is its clean performance drop when anti-aliasing is enabled. Without that, it really does scream. Will an extra $150 give it that 4xAA shine?

The Card & Bundle

(Copied from our previous HD 3850 article: same card, now with twice more card.) The card is about the same size as the HD 2600 XT and the X1950 Pro of old. Small for enthusiasts, big for everone else. It's a medium-sized card (9.5 x 3.1 x 11.7 inches, 1.8lbs.). What we've got on the bench is an OEM sample, so it's just the card.

It has two DVI-D connectors and a TV-out connector, a sixteen lane PCI-Express 2.0 connector, two CrossFire connectors at the top, and a 6-pin molex power connector pointing towards the front of the card.

The heatsink has many subtle changes from older single-slot Radeon coolers, starting with more densly-packed fins, a wider fan opening, and a much queter fan with swept edges--not a traditional blower. The base of the heatsink extends towards the front of the card to passively cool the power regulation hardware. The card uses a mix of electrolytic and aluminum capacitors for power regulation.

At the back of the card, the heatsink exhausts into a scoop that redirects the air towards the card's top.

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Page 1 of 9

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Page 1: Introduction, The Card & Bundle
Page 2: Testing Methodology and Specifications
Page 3: Testing - HL2 Episode 1
Page 4: Testing - F.E.A.R.
Page 5: Testing - Company of Heroes
Page 6: Testing - Prey
Page 7: Testing - 3Dmark 06 & HQV
Page 8: Performance Summary, Power & Noise, and Overclocking
Page 9: Conclusion

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