ATI Radeon HD 3850
Enthusiast DirectX 10 graphics at a mainstream price
Wherever Nvidia treads, ATI must surely follow. Or is it the other way round? With their latest 3D chipset launches, Nvidia and AMD's PC graphics subsidiary have once again mirrored each other extremely closely.
There's an absolutely uncanny resemblance between ATI's new Radeon HD 3800 series and Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT.
More than anything, both chipsets aim to bring the performance and features of current high end DirectX 10 3D cards down to a much more mainstream price point. The only differences are in the fine details and final pricing.
MusicRadar Rating
Pros
Unprecedented shader power at this price point. Slim single-slot form factor and significantly reduced power consumption. Added DX10.1 functionality
Cons
Anti-aliasing still performed in the shader units. Quad-card Crossfire support a bit of a gimmick
Verdict
Finally, a genuinely affordable but powerful card with full DirectX 10 support
Review Policy
All MusicRadar's reviews are by independent product specialists, who are not aligned to any gear manufacturer or retailer. Our experts also write for renowned magazines such as Guitarist, Total Guitar, Computer Music, Future Music and Rhythm. All are part of Future PLC, the biggest publisher of music making magazines in the world.
Specification
Graphics core clockspeed
668
API support
DirectX 10.1
Graphics memory type
GDDR3
Graphics memory clock
1.65
Graphics memory
256
Video output
DVI-I
Features
1656 MHz memory clock; 668 MHz core clock
