AMD ATI Radeon HD 3850 graphics chip

The result is that the 3850 has 80 per cent of the performance of the 3870 for about 60 per cent of the cost. Gang up two 3850s in CrossFire and you’ll very likely find that the drivers let the side down but when things work properly you’ll have 30 per cent more performance than the 3870 for 25 per cent more expenditure or, to put it another way, for about the same price as a new Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS.

3DMark06 Results

Longer bars are better

Frankly, we’d advise you to steer well clear of CrossFire for the time being although we can’t wait to see CrossFire X in operation early in 2008. In theory, it’ll be great to gang up three or four 3850 cards, but in practice we’ll believe it when we see it. We just hope that CrossFire X forces AMD to properly sort out CrossFire so it runs on two cards without a hitch.

Crysis Results

Frames per second
Longer bars are better

Let’s ignore CrossFire and look at the 3850 in isolation starting with a comparison of this factory overclocked Asus TOP model with the reference 3850. Asus includes a copy of Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts in the box, but more importantly it raises the clock speeds from 669MHz and 1650MHz to 730MHz and 1900MHz.

FEAR: Extraction Point Results

Frames per second
Longer bars are better