- Joined
- Jan 29, 2006
- Location
- Berkeley, CA
VisionTek Radeon HD 3850 256MB
Hi, I joined about 2 years ago and I usually lurk and stuff. But now it's time to give back! With my first review.
Intro
So people know the 3870 is amazing. What about the 3850, for those who can't find a reasonably priced 3870, or don't want to pay as much? Is the 3850 enough for most people? Let's find out...
In the Box
As you can see, there's a reasonable amount of goodies, encased in a nice white foam packing. I'm not exactly sure what everything in the box is. But hopefully you can tell from looking at the picture!
The CD, which has not been tested yet, has drivers and John Woo's Stranglehold.
A closer look
The card. It looks pretty sexy! The single slot fan is nice and sleek.
The back of it.
The fan removed, so I could change the TIM to ICD7 (IC Diamond 7 carat )
There's several nicks and a noticeable long scratch on this stock cooler. not good.
ICD7 will take care of it...
I used some ICD7 to polish the heatsink first... sorry, my camera sucks, but it got shinier and hopefully the nicks were lessened.
Performance
I installed Catalyst 7.11 w/ CCC, and then the Crysis hotfix.
FPS are done with Fraps.
Test System
CPU: E6300 Allendale @ 3.2GHz
Motherboard: Abit IP35-E
Memory: 1x2 GB OCZ HPC Reaper PC6400 @ DDR912
3dmark06
1280X1024, noAA, noAF
9612
Team Fortess 2
1680x1050, Maximum Settings, 90 field of view
2fort, 20 users, homebrew demo (
Download Here
Avg: 44.657 - Min: 16 - Max: 225
Counter-Strike: Source
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
de_dust (HDR enabled!), 20 person deathmatch server. Average from a few minutes of gameplay.
Avg: 53.125 - Min: 30 - Max: 88
Guild Wars
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
Lion's Arch. Walked around the whole place, while panning around.
Avg: 110.127 - Min: 4 - Max: 159
F.E.A.R. Multiplayer
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
Really apologize, but I forget the map name.
Avg: 56.619 - Min: 19 - Max: 139
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
Demo map, taken from start of level and then playing for a few minutes.
Avg: 38.735 - Min: 23 - Max: 67 (OC'd to 749/1017)
Crysis Demo
1680x1050, all High, no AA
Used the built in demo and did two runs.
Avg FPS: 19
Temperatures
At ambient 20 C (which is what all above tests were performed at):
Load 82 C
Then, TIM was replaced with ICD7.
I experimented with ATI Tool 0.27b4 and Rivatuner 0.26 to try to control fan speeds.
I have 3 case fans that are medium loud.
70% Barely audible
80% Faint whirring noise
90% Whirring gets louder
100% Lite version of a leaf blower (About 60-70% volume of x19xx stock cooler @ 100%)
I elected to use ATI Tool (temp display feature) at 70% constant fan speed.
At ambient 22 C:
Idle 49
Load 65 (ATI Tool artifact finder)
The delta is pretty low compared to stock. But it keeps it well below 82 or even 83, which I had seen on the stock fan self adjustments.
EDIT: So after I wrote this I rebooted and CCC acted weird and didn't show in my tray. I opened up ATI Tool and it showed idle 43 C @ ambient 22 C, with 0% fan speed... during 3dmark06 it hit 71 C.
After that 3dmark session, with CCC tray icon still missing, I have idle at 35/36 C. As Borat would say, "very nice, I like!"
Overclocking
The fun part
I used the ATI Overdrive auto detect, while it was on the stock fan settings and stock TIM.
I got Core 759MHz - Memory 1050MHz and then my computer pooped out (actually could have
been my RAM)
ATI Tool is artifact free at Core 749MHz - Memory 1017MHz.
This represents a Core 12% - Memory 23% increase from stock!
It seems like I got 10-20% more FPS in games, so the scaling is pretty good.
I did a few benchmarks, with the old settings:
3dmark06
10505 (9.3% increase) - @749/1004
10563 (10% increase) - @749/1017
TF2
Avg: 48.875 - Min: 16 - Max: 223
CSS de_dust HDR -- non deathmatch server
Avg: 64.979 - Min: 32 - Max: 123
F.E.A.R. subjective test
Nicely playable
Conclusion
Pros
- Cheap (for this much power!)
- Great stock cooler when you adjust the fan speed
- Reasonable power consumption (see other reviews on the nets)
- Looks sexy
- Only takes up one slot
- Great performance for older and most modern games, at <= 1680x1050
Cons
- Sucks on Crysis @ Very High tweak w/ AA (1-2 fps I believe)
- Crysis is reasonably playable on a mostly Medium, some High
Final thoughts:
This 3850 plays most games with ease on 1680x1050. Games that are a tad old can be run at max settings and are like butter. Crysis -- it's a beautiful game, but I'm not into single player games -- errr I mean, it runs great at medium!
The 3850 is enough to make most people very happy, especially with the easy 10%+ boost in frames from overclocking. At 60%, even 70% the stock fan is unnoticeable and it keeps temps reasonable. And I hear that volt mods unlock magic in this card...
Thanks for reading. I hope this has helped you out!
-mystfied
Hi, I joined about 2 years ago and I usually lurk and stuff. But now it's time to give back! With my first review.
Intro
So people know the 3870 is amazing. What about the 3850, for those who can't find a reasonably priced 3870, or don't want to pay as much? Is the 3850 enough for most people? Let's find out...
In the Box
As you can see, there's a reasonable amount of goodies, encased in a nice white foam packing. I'm not exactly sure what everything in the box is. But hopefully you can tell from looking at the picture!
The CD, which has not been tested yet, has drivers and John Woo's Stranglehold.
A closer look
The card. It looks pretty sexy! The single slot fan is nice and sleek.
The back of it.
The fan removed, so I could change the TIM to ICD7 (IC Diamond 7 carat
)
There's several nicks and a noticeable long scratch on this stock cooler.
not good. ICD7 will take care of it...
I used some ICD7 to polish the heatsink first... sorry, my camera sucks, but it got shinier and hopefully the nicks were lessened.
Performance
I installed Catalyst 7.11 w/ CCC, and then the Crysis hotfix.
FPS are done with Fraps.
Test System
CPU: E6300 Allendale @ 3.2GHz
Motherboard: Abit IP35-E
Memory: 1x2 GB OCZ HPC Reaper PC6400 @ DDR912
3dmark06
1280X1024, noAA, noAF
9612
Team Fortess 2
1680x1050, Maximum Settings, 90 field of view
2fort, 20 users, homebrew demo (
Download Here
Avg: 44.657 - Min: 16 - Max: 225
Counter-Strike: Source
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
de_dust (HDR enabled!), 20 person deathmatch server. Average from a few minutes of gameplay.
Avg: 53.125 - Min: 30 - Max: 88
Guild Wars
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
Lion's Arch. Walked around the whole place, while panning around.
Avg: 110.127 - Min: 4 - Max: 159
F.E.A.R. Multiplayer
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
Really apologize, but I forget the map name.
Avg: 56.619 - Min: 19 - Max: 139
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
1680x1050, Maximum Settings
Demo map, taken from start of level and then playing for a few minutes.
Avg: 38.735 - Min: 23 - Max: 67 (OC'd to 749/1017)
Crysis Demo
1680x1050, all High, no AA
Used the built in demo and did two runs.
Avg FPS: 19
Temperatures
At ambient 20 C (which is what all above tests were performed at):
Load 82 C
Then, TIM was replaced with ICD7.
I experimented with ATI Tool 0.27b4 and Rivatuner 0.26 to try to control fan speeds.
I have 3 case fans that are medium loud.
70% Barely audible
80% Faint whirring noise
90% Whirring gets louder
100% Lite version of a leaf blower (About 60-70% volume of x19xx stock cooler @ 100%)
I elected to use ATI Tool (temp display feature) at 70% constant fan speed.
At ambient 22 C:
Idle 49
Load 65 (ATI Tool artifact finder)
The delta is pretty low compared to stock. But it keeps it well below 82 or even 83, which I had seen on the stock fan self adjustments.
EDIT: So after I wrote this I rebooted and CCC acted weird and didn't show in my tray. I opened up ATI Tool and it showed idle 43 C @ ambient 22 C, with 0% fan speed... during 3dmark06 it hit 71 C.
After that 3dmark session, with CCC tray icon still missing, I have idle at 35/36 C. As Borat would say, "very nice, I like!"
Overclocking
The fun part
I used the ATI Overdrive auto detect, while it was on the stock fan settings and stock TIM.
I got Core 759MHz - Memory 1050MHz and then my computer pooped out (actually could have
been my RAM)
ATI Tool is artifact free at Core 749MHz - Memory 1017MHz.
This represents a Core 12% - Memory 23% increase from stock!
It seems like I got 10-20% more FPS in games, so the scaling is pretty good.
I did a few benchmarks, with the old settings:
3dmark06
10563 (10% increase) - @749/1017
TF2
Avg: 48.875 - Min: 16 - Max: 223
CSS de_dust HDR -- non deathmatch server
Avg: 64.979 - Min: 32 - Max: 123
F.E.A.R. subjective test
Nicely playable
Conclusion
Pros
- Cheap (for this much power!)
- Great stock cooler when you adjust the fan speed
- Reasonable power consumption (see other reviews on the nets)
- Looks sexy
- Only takes up one slot
- Great performance for older and most modern games, at <= 1680x1050
Cons
- Sucks on Crysis @ Very High tweak w/ AA (1-2 fps I believe)
- Crysis is reasonably playable on a mostly Medium, some High
Final thoughts:
This 3850 plays most games with ease on 1680x1050. Games that are a tad old can be run at max settings and are like butter. Crysis -- it's a beautiful game, but I'm not into single player games -- errr I mean, it runs great at medium!
The 3850 is enough to make most people very happy, especially with the easy 10%+ boost in frames from overclocking. At 60%, even 70% the stock fan is unnoticeable and it keeps temps reasonable. And I hear that volt mods unlock magic in this card...
Thanks for reading. I hope this has helped you out!
-mystfied
Last edited:
