ASUS EAH3850 TOP Graphics Card

Back in November 2007, AMD launched the 55nm ATI RV670 GPU. With this launch, we were introduced to two new ATI video cards, the Radeon HD 3870 and 3850. If you read our launch article, then you already know that the RV670 is a derivative of the R600, which powers the Radeon HD 2900 XT. Our initial experience with AMD's new cards was pretty positive. The Radeon HD 3870 and 3850 offer good performance at nice MSRPs with impressive power characteristics.
After launch articles, though, everyone anxiously waits for the retail board reviews. This article will be our first look at a full retail board based on the new RV670 GPU. The card we have up on the review block today is the ASUS EAH3850 TOP (full model number: EAH3850/G/HTDI/256M). As you've probably already realized, this is a Radeon HD 3850 card, as such it sports 256MB of GDDR3 memory and DirectX 10.1 support.
To see how this retail version of a Radeon HD 3850 performs, we're going to pit it against a variety of cards, including a Radeon X1950 Pro, GeForce 8600 GT and a 256MB 8800 GT. It should be interesting to see where ASUS' EAH3850 falls in this pack in our benchmarks. Before we get to those, though, let's take a look at the specifications and features of the EAH3850.

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| FEATURES | |
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Exclusive Hottest DX10 Game bundle: Company of Heroes - Opposing Fronts ASUS Splendid: ASUS Gamer OSD: |
ASUS Video Security Online: ASUS Smart Doctor: |
SPECIFICATIONS | |
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Memory: 256 MB DDR3 |
Clocks: |
666 million transistors on 55nm fabrication process 256bit 8-channel GDDR3/4 memory interface Ring Bus Memory Controller
Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
Full support for Microsoft DirectX 10 / 10.1
Dynamic Geometry Acceleration
Anti-aliasing features
CrossFire Multi-GPU Technology
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Texture filtering features
ATI Avivo HD Video and Display Platform
PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface OpenGL 2.0 support
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As you can see on the box above, ASUS decided to include the highly-acclaimed RTS game Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. The entire front of the box is designed around this fact, and the front of the box is actually a flap that lifts up to reveal even more CoH info. There's even a handle on the top of the box, so that it's a little easier to carry around and show off to your friends.
When we opened the box, we were happy to see that ASUS packs the box's contents with their safe arrival in mind. Styrofoam surrounds the card, so it will most likely arrive in working condition. The box holds more than just the card, though, of course. ASUS also throws in a driver CD, a software/utility CD, the CoH: Opposing Fronts game (although our copy seems to be missing from the review kit we were sent), an ASUS-branded CD case, a setup guide, a TV-out (component video) cable, a composite to S-video adapter, a power cable, a CrossFire connector bridge, a DVI-to-VGA adapter, and a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. Overall, it's a pretty good bundle.






