|  | | PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 Xtreme Review @ NGOHQ.com |
Today thanks to PowerColor we have the opportunity to test one of AMD’s newest GPU’s – The Radeon HD 3850. This version is not a stock HD 3850 card. The card we received from PowerColor is their Xtreme edition with 512MB of GDDR3. The Xtreme edition is a factory-overclocked card, equipped with a ZEROtherm VGA Cooler to offer better cooling performance. The reference Radeon HD 3850 card has 320 stream processors; the core is clocked at 670 MHz and has 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.66 GHz.
The PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 Xtreme’s core is clocked at 720 MHz and has 512MB GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.8 GHz. This is a major difference from the default specifications. The Radeon HD 3870 is aimed to replace the Radeon HD 2900 PRO and to challenge the GeForce 8800 GT, while the Radeon HD 3850 is aimed between the Radeon HD 2600 XT and the Radeon HD 3850 and meant to challenge Nvidia’s GeForce 8600 GTS. Read More
Last edited by Regeneration; November 15th, 2007 at 09:33 PM..
| | | | 30 Comments | | | Hey it's not half as bad as I expected.
Small mistake in page 3 paragraph 3: Microsoft is planning planning to release
Much much cooler than the 8800GT, why didn't AMD launch at higher clocks (just like nvidia did with their thermal analysis trick)? | | | | this kinda kicks 8600's ass  | | | | Sweet review very nice, at least the card has some proven oc potemtial... | | | | I'm waiting for Radeon HD 3870 review
suggestion: when this card arrives to you, card you test it against Radeon x1950XTX | | | | Look what happens with the doom3 timedemo here. and the HL2 benchmark here (again german)
I see this card has potential. | | | | in those benchmarks...it beat's the hell out of nvidia and 2900xt | | | | Nice review and not really that impressed with the card. As mentioned in the final section I think at first glance there could be some cooling modifications made. Powercolor out of the box has some great cooling ideas but in todays world I think manufacturers in general need to address cooling and step it up a notch. What are a few ramsinks worth ? | | | | read on AnandTech that this 3850 almost beats the crap out'a my x1950XTX ... hard to believe | | | | i told you guys this card would beat the 8600, and the 3870 looks like it just might own the 8800, though i think this one could do it if oc'd a tiny bit, they should have released with higher clock's like unixlord mentioned
I do hope someone better then powercolor starts making these though, not the biggest fan of powercolor, i think other companies would have done this card better. |
Last edited by blindartist; November 15th, 2007 at 03:20 PM..
| Quote | | | | | I'm expecting something from HIS or GeCube | | | | HIS usualy doesnt perform as well as id like, id like to see something from sapphire or diamond |
Last edited by blindartist; November 15th, 2007 at 05:02 PM..
| Quote | | | | | great review rege
nice card Quote:
Originally Posted by Unixlord  just like nvidia did with their thermal analysis trick | ????? wth are you talking about???? | | | | Quote: |
????? wth are you talking about????
| Before the release they got all it sent back along with the various case configurations for thermal analysis. Then they increased the hell out of the clock in order to gain an advantage over ATI's solution. Nvidia is not stupid, they would never shoot themselves in the foot unless it would hurt their competitor badly and this is exactly what they've done. Cheating for a short term victory. Course I'd still buy nvidia even if the 3870 somehow creamed it (for other reasons). | | | | sorry unix dident understand it (your first post)
now i see what are you talking about
about nvidia cheats
that is normal thing from firm like that
it is almost like amds Thunderbird, they could not to keep up with intel so they overclocked already tooo hot core so PCs was dieing without any reasons | | | | Well, I just woke up after serious lack of sleeping thanks to this review, I'm going to update some stuff. If you see anything strange/typo, please let me know. | | | | Quote: |
it is almost like amds Thunderbird, they could not to keep up with intel so they overclocked already tooo hot core so PCs was dieing without any reasons
| Yes and later Intel was launching cpus that got so hot that they would throttle the frequency while idle and that's what spurred the aftermarket cooling market we see today. | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Unixlord Yes and later Intel was launching cpus that got so hot that they would throttle the frequency while idle and that's what spurred the aftermarket cooling market we see today. | true unix
i agree Quote:
Originally Posted by Regeneration Well, I just woke up after serious lack of sleeping thanks to this review, I'm going to update some stuff. If you see anything strange/typo, please let me know. | welcome back
just dont crash site |
Last edited by gen.Rage1991hrv; November 15th, 2007 at 07:05 PM..
| Quote | | | | | Nice, did you review the card by yourself Regeneration?
Are the memory chips covered by the main cooler or they are not being cooled? (in the 3850 & 3870 review in guru3d they showed one card with that flower cooler and another with the slot cooler, its confusing)
I think its a great card for its price, I wonder if the ATi driver engeneers will be able to improve its performance (like they did in the x800 era) and compaitility with linux later... |
Last edited by xiaomhome; November 16th, 2007 at 03:06 AM..
| Quote | | | | | Great Review! Read very nicely 
Just something i noted, i dont know if anyone else noted it too
The number of transistors the Radeon HD 3850 has:
666million
I found it a bit funny ( LOL - ironic).... In , i guess/suppose -in certain Christian escatholgy/propehcy/belief - Mark of the beast?
It is probably not the proper place to bring it up in (dont blame you if you delete this post) , but i just found it funny, if not a bit coincidental ....
-Ed | | | | I WANT IT!! | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by xiaomhome Nice, did you review the card by yourself Regeneration?
Are the memory chips covered by the main cooler or they are not being cooled? (in the 3850 & 3870 review in guru3d they showed one card with that flower cooler and another with the slot cooler, its confusing) | Yes, I did and there were no memory ramsinks on it (HD 3850 Xtreme Edition). | | | | If it isn't too late could you do more Opengl benchmarks (Doom3, ETQW, UT3, Nexuiz etc)? This area seems to have improved from the previous generation. | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Unixlord If it isn't too late could you do more Opengl benchmarks (Doom3, ETQW, UT3, Nexuiz etc)? This area seems to have improved from the previous generation. | Quake 4 is based on Doom 3’s engine, and Bioshock is based on UT3’s engine. Well, I want to write two additional articles: Overclocking the RV670 and RV670 Crossfire. Sadly, I don’t receive the proper cooperation from the manufacturers for these tasks, but if I could get them to provide the tools I need, then I will use more OpenGL titles in these articles. | | | | Quake4, Doom3 and ETQW all have (theoretically) the same basic engine but both their performance and their image quality is surprisingly different as is their nvidia/ati comparison. | | | | if bioshock is opengl then i dunno why you guys are complaining about ati's "poor opengl support", my old rig with the x1950pro @ xt runs bioshock perfectly at max settings. |
Last edited by blindartist; November 16th, 2007 at 03:31 PM..
| Quote | | | | | Excellent review Regen!! It's nice to see a review by someone whose judgment I can trust. Most of the other sites leave me wondering if I can believe them, or if they've been bought off. The other small detail I appreciate was the fact that you ran many of your tests at 1680x1050, which is the standard resolution for most mid-range widescreen LCDs. It's like I never see this in other reviews.
I guess I'm now going to have to alter my opinion of the HD3800 series. In fact this card might be a worthwhile upgrade for the X1900XT in my secondary system, even though I don't intend to ever install Vista.
Oh and on that subject, I have to say I agree with you about the DX10 hype. As well as your comments about Crysis! Keep up the good work. | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Regeneration Quake 4 is based on Doom 3’s engine, and Bioshock is based on UT3’s engine. | Unreal Engine 3 isn't a DX based engine? | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by zme-ul Unreal Engine 3 isn't a DX based engine? | DirectX 9 and 10, but Unixlord asked about it as well. | | | | UT3 will run on Linux and Mac OSes (The client has been released to the public yet) using Opengl. But unfortunately you can't test the opengl renderer on windows (No option to enable it... yet). So including that was more of an optimistic mistake on my part.
When it is released I'm going to do some cross OS benchmarking with all those titles. | | | | PS3 is OpenGL based platform ... isn't it?? so that's how it will run on linux | |
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