ATI Radeon HD 3850 review

Performance
Along with those new features, the Radeon HD 3850 also retains all of the highlights of the Radeon 2900's core technology, which makes sense, as the core design of the 3850 is a derivation of that of the higher-end chips'. Mostly that refers to its suitability as a home-theatre card.

3DMark06
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1280x1024

ATI Radeon HD 3850 (CrossFire)

13,366

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

11,294

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT

10,823

ATI Radeon HD 3870

10,465

ATI Radeon HD 3850

9,397

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS

6,112

Bioshock
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

2,048 x 1,536 (high quality)

ATI Radeon HD 3850 (CrossFire)

64

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT

50

ATI Radeon HD 3870

45

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

41

ATI Radeon HD 3850

36

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS

16

Company of Heroes
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,920 x 1,440 (ultra quality, 4xaa)

ATI Radeon HD 3850 (CrossFire)

85

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

80

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT

60

ATI Radeon HD 3870

57

ATI Radeon HD 3850

40

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS

22

World in Conflict
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,920 x 1,440 (very high quality, 4xaa 4xaf)

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

28

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT

20

ATI Radeon HD 3870

20

ATI Radeon HD 3850

12

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS

8

ATI Radeon HD 3850 (CrossFire)

6

Crysis
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600 x 1,200 (high quality)

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

29

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT

24

ATI Radeon HD 3870

24

ATI Radeon HD 3850

18

ATI Radeon HD 3850 (CrossFire)

13

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS

9

Like the Radeon 2000 cards, the Radeon 3850 is HDCP compliant, which means it can display protected HD DVD and Blu-ray content at resolutions up to 2,560x1,600 pixels from your PC, if you have such an optical drive and a supporting monitor or TV.