AMD ATI Radeon HD 3850 graphics chip

The result is a graphics card that delivers 90 per cent of the performance of a stock 3870 right up to the point where the 256MB of memory becomes a limitation. So if you fancy using high levels of anti-aliasing you might be in for a disappointment, but the rest of us will be in clover. This really shows in Crysis at 1280 x 1024 on High Quality settings, where the game is perfectly playable without anti-aliasing although the frame rate drops by two thirds with 4x AA enabled. Higher resolutions in Crysis are beyond the 3850 but we’re dead impressed that you can play Crysis at decent settings on what is, to all intents and purposes, a budget graphics card. No doubt it helps that our test system uses a quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor, but, even so, the 3850 is doing its part.

Budget winner?

We gave the 3850 a quick run against its predecessor, the 2600 XT, and chose an Asus model that has 256MB of ultra-fast GDDR 4 memory, but the comparison was absurd. The 2600 XT sells for £80 but was eclipsed by the £105 reference 3850, which actually had better performance than a pair of 2600s in CrossFire. The Asus HD 3850 TOP opens the gap even wider, so while we quite liked the 2600 XT it has most definitely passed its sell-by date.

Thermal and Power Results

Temperate in °C, power draw in Watts

As Nvidia rules the high-end of the gaming market with the GeForce 8800 GTX and has the upper mid-range tied up with the G92-chipped 8800 GT and 512MB 8800 GTS, the question is how the HD 3850 compares at the £100 price point. Let’s take the Asus EN8600GT, which sells for £99 and which has 256MB of GDDR 3 memory just like the 3850. The comparison could hardly be more fair yet the AMD card destroys the 8600 GTS in every test. The only thing that counts in Nvidia's favour is its card's power draw: 50W compared to the 80W required by the 3850.

Now ask yourself, are you likely to spend £100, £200 or £300 on a new graphics card? A hundred quid gets you a standard 3850, £200 scores you an 8800 GT and £300 is what it costs for an 8800 GTX, so AMD ‘only’ wins in one segment but it’s the most important segment in the gaming graphics market by a long, long way.

Verdict

AMD’s new ATI Radeon HD 3850 sets an incredibly high standard for £100 graphics cards and that has to be good news for the casual gamer who demands value for money.