HIS Radeon 3850 256MB GDDR3

This is where we land at the HIS Radeon 3850 256MB. Now believe it or not, you can purchase this card for roughly 150 USD/EUR and to be honest here; it's really not "that" much slower than the 3870. Quite honestly, this is the kick-ass product that will fight directly with NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 series of cards, seriously it will eat these green cards alive. This is just a LOT of performance for that money. But hey, if you do not believe me... have a peek at our benchmarks later on okay ?

The card itself is based on the reference design and is clocked at a default 670 MHz on the core frequency and 1650 MHz (effective) on it's gDDR3 memory.

As stated DVI connectors, both again dual-link DVI of course, yet in the middle see the find a 7-pin HDTV-out mini-din, a user can plug an S-video cable directly into the connector, or use a dongle for YPrPb (component) or composite outputs, or use the 3-way RCA HDTV analog connector.

At the back of the card we again see a 6-pin power connector. Don't forget to hook it up it your PSU. Tis a pretty looking card isn't it ?

The 3850 has two Crossfire connectors. So CrossfireX comes to mind. For 600 bucks you could hook up four of these and have a pretty interesting 1712 GigaFLOPS experience. Think about that for a moment.

Okay did the moment pass ? Good, let's continue... All HIS cards are bundled pretty much the same these days. You receive everything you need to get connected. I love it that the HDMI dongle is included even with these 150 USD based cards, that's value and commitment. The way it should be done. But this is HIS, they always have this stuff right.

• VIVO Cable
• HDTV Output cable
• DVI to VGA Dongle x 2
• DVI to HDMI Dongle x 1
• Crossfire™ Cable x 1
• Manual
• Driver CD
• Half-life 2 discount coupon

So yes,  I think the HIS Radeon HD 3850 is a pretty sexy card to look at. Not only to look at though, it will offer you a massive amount of performance for the money as we'll show you in this article. But we have one more Radeon HD 3850 card to be tested today. Let's move towards the next page and see what TUL has to offer.