Sapphire HD3850

If an 8800GT looks tasty but a tad overkill, you want one of these babies. They're several hundreds of dollars cheaper.

This is the recent budget refresh to the 80nm based R600 core, known to the retail and channel world as the HD2900XT. Floating in with a cool new 55nm manufacturing process based on the RV670 Pro core, and featuring a single slot cooler and cheap price-point, the HD3850 is aimed squarely at the budget market.

Sapphire has been a leading supporter of the ATI faction for many years now and it’s no surprise it was first to bring the HD3850, and the HD3870 for that matter, to the market. Dressed as a reference ATI card but with a sticker of Ruby, the card is more or less a reference design from ATI. From frequencies to components to PCB layout, it’s a stock ATI reference offering.

The card offers exceptional value for money, however, with strong performance and a great bundle. Powering through the benchmarks, this budget killer knocked out 9,544 points in 3DMark06 and a maximum, minimum and average FPS in Crysis of 14.63, 7.10 and 11.45 at 1280x1024 resolution and all settings set to ‘very high’ with DX10. For a budget card, it quite simply wipes the floor with every other card type in the same price category.

The HD3850 may not have the raw performance that the 8800GT has but at anywhere from $100 to $200 cheaper, this card very quickly has preference swing into its field – and we’ve not even looked at the tasty extras yet.

As we said, the bundle is tops and that’s because it includes, a driver disk, additional cables and DVI to DSUB connectors, as well as a colossal software package. This includes licenses for PowerDVD 7, Cyberlink DVD Suite 5, the full version of 3DMark06 and a license for Valve’s Black Box collection – score! This Black Box license, when paired with a free Steam login and the installation of Steam on the computer, which just so happens to be on the driver disk, gives the ability to download and own full versions of Half Life 2: Episode Two as well as its pals, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. That, ladies and gentlemen, is value for money!

Add to the pot the fact these cards are known to be solid overclockers and you have, right in front of you, a whole package ready to aggressively take on the market.