ATI Radeon HD 3850 review

What you need to know

Reviewed by: Rich Brown

Reviewed on: 11 December 2007

Tags: ATI, ATI Radeon HD 3850, chips, gaming, PCI Express

We like:

Fastest 3D card under £150; solid home-theatre capabilities; supports multiple card configurations with up to four cards in the same PC

We don't like:

CrossFire performance remains sketchy depending on the game; despite DirectX 10 support, actually switching those features on remains too challenging; newer, potentially faster Nvidia cards in the same price range are supposedly just around the corner

CNET UK judgement:

Despite the usual caveats of an ever-fluctuating 3D market, for the moment, at least, ATI's new Radeon HD 3850 graphics card delivers the best value for money in PC graphics hardware. Until now we haven't had an acceptable sub-£150 option for PC gaming this year. Thanks to AMD, now we do

Full review:

Finally, a midrange graphics card worth its silicon. ATI's new 256MB Radeon HD 3850 graphics card is the best-performing 3D card in its price class. For £125, it will let you play most current 3D games at reasonable resolutions and detail settings, bowling over Nvidia's GeForce 8600 GTS cards on every game. Continue Reading...