Thursday, February 7th 2008
SAPPHIRE Launches 1GB HD 3850
SAPPHIRE Technology, industry leader in graphics upgrades for the PC, has just launched a new version of its successful HD 3850 with enhanced memory configuration of 1GB.
The new SAPPHIRE HD 3850 has 1GB of GDDR3 memory, running at 829MHz (1.66GHz effective). It has a core clock speed of 703MHz, higher than the standard model, which together with the large onboard memory delivers exciting levels of graphics performance especially in games or applications where large volumes of texture or data are involved.
The SAPPHIRE HD 3850 series incorporates the latest ATI Avivo HD Technology for enhanced Video display and features a built in UVD (Unified Video decoder) for the hardware accelerated decoding of Blu-ray and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, reducing CPU loading to a minimum. The HDMI adaptor delivers true audio and video output on a single cable for direct connection of an HDMI ready display, making the SAPPHIRE HD 3850 an ideal solution for gamers and video enthusiasts.
Featuring the latest CrossFireX technology, the SAPPHIRE HD 3850 has two high speed connectors on each card allowing 2, 3 or even 4 graphics cards to be daisy-chained together for enhanced performance when installed in a CrossFireX mainboard. As each card has two dual-link DVI connectors, this allows up to eight monitors to be used at the same time, or - with CrossFire enabled - two GPU's (and up to four with future driver releases) to provide a more powerful rendering solution.
All the new SAPPHIRE HD 3800 series combine a powerful unified shader architecture with support for Shader Model 4.0 and the forthcoming DirectX 10.1 connected via the latest PCI-Express Gen 2.0 interface. The architecture shares the 320 stream processors and 512-bit internal ring bus memory controller of the company's other high end models together with multiple rendering units and a programmable tessellation unit to deliver outstanding graphics performance. Now manufactured in a new 55nm process technology, the GPU in the HD 3000 series delivers this performance with lower power consumption and at lower cost than previous generations. A new feature known as ATI PowerPlay actively reduces power consumption depending on loading.
SAPPHIRE HD 3000 series graphics cards are Microsoft Windows Vista Premium certified and supported by the ATI Catalyst suite of software, ensuring customers have ongoing access to software updates for performance, stability and added features. Support for DirectX10.1 provides developers with access to enhanced programming techniques and new lighting effects.
General Specifications
Source:
SAPPHIRE
The new SAPPHIRE HD 3850 has 1GB of GDDR3 memory, running at 829MHz (1.66GHz effective). It has a core clock speed of 703MHz, higher than the standard model, which together with the large onboard memory delivers exciting levels of graphics performance especially in games or applications where large volumes of texture or data are involved.
The SAPPHIRE HD 3850 series incorporates the latest ATI Avivo HD Technology for enhanced Video display and features a built in UVD (Unified Video decoder) for the hardware accelerated decoding of Blu-ray and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, reducing CPU loading to a minimum. The HDMI adaptor delivers true audio and video output on a single cable for direct connection of an HDMI ready display, making the SAPPHIRE HD 3850 an ideal solution for gamers and video enthusiasts.
Featuring the latest CrossFireX technology, the SAPPHIRE HD 3850 has two high speed connectors on each card allowing 2, 3 or even 4 graphics cards to be daisy-chained together for enhanced performance when installed in a CrossFireX mainboard. As each card has two dual-link DVI connectors, this allows up to eight monitors to be used at the same time, or - with CrossFire enabled - two GPU's (and up to four with future driver releases) to provide a more powerful rendering solution.
All the new SAPPHIRE HD 3800 series combine a powerful unified shader architecture with support for Shader Model 4.0 and the forthcoming DirectX 10.1 connected via the latest PCI-Express Gen 2.0 interface. The architecture shares the 320 stream processors and 512-bit internal ring bus memory controller of the company's other high end models together with multiple rendering units and a programmable tessellation unit to deliver outstanding graphics performance. Now manufactured in a new 55nm process technology, the GPU in the HD 3000 series delivers this performance with lower power consumption and at lower cost than previous generations. A new feature known as ATI PowerPlay actively reduces power consumption depending on loading.
SAPPHIRE HD 3000 series graphics cards are Microsoft Windows Vista Premium certified and supported by the ATI Catalyst suite of software, ensuring customers have ongoing access to software updates for performance, stability and added features. Support for DirectX10.1 provides developers with access to enhanced programming techniques and new lighting effects.
General Specifications
33 Comments on SAPPHIRE Launches 1GB HD 3850
And by the time more games use that much memory, the 8800GT will be nothing but a memory!
The frame buffer is not shared so when you play at 2560 * 1600 with FSAA there could be a potential benefit from having 1 gig available compared to 512 megs. In Crossfire you don't get to add up the memory for the 4 cards to determine your frame buffer size. The RAM from only one card is available. Right now the 1 gig model from Sapphire is selling for $215 at Newegg.com. Sure it is too early to see 1 gig frame buffers in the mainstream but on the higher end it could really be an asset for even 4 "lowly" Radeon 3850s. Anyhow you could surely play Half Life 2 with something like 32x FSAA at 2560 * 1600 with four cards with that much RAM available.
I already have 4 Radeon 3870s in quad crossfire with a HP LP3065 30" monitor. They have 512 megs of RAM. I do wonder what could have been with all that much more RAM.
:confused:
if so this looks like a good deal once you start to OC ;)
:toast:
I got 2 sapphire 3850's 1 gig the day they came out on newegg. I was a little skeptical as I should be, but it turns out that these cards do very well in all areas that I needed them for. My Goal was to build a AMD spider since the idea of having approved parts working in together in order to utilize AMD OVERDRIVE was appealing to me since im not big on OC'ing due to the fact it takes so much friggen time getting it just right. But back to the cards. I started my build with just one of these cause I didnt want probs installing Winows Vista Ult 64 bit and wanted to make everything simple. Once the OS was installed with just one card, I decided to run AMD overdrive and compare with 3dmark06. Without OD i got a mere 7600 (around) then I took the sliderbar for performance up to 3/4 and nailed 10,990 very close to 11thou. Ok great now lets install the 2nd card. A day later both cards are in and I didnt bother running both without AMD overdrive I just went for the gusto and turn that slider bar all the way up and let it do its thing for 10 min. (takes that long since OD tests temps and such) After it was over, ran 3dmark06 again, and I can hardly believe this myself, 20,010.. WHOA! And by the way, I know every1 is tired of crysis now but this game uses over 600megs of vram using multi GPU's in "devmode" Thats per card! Im a little upset with my fps in this game, its just over 30fps average sometimes maxes at 50 or so but it drops anytime AI are around in the game to like 20fps or so. Whats up with that!? O ya, running the cards on the old drivers since I dont have 4 way cross fireX.
Specs AMD phenom 9600 black, msi-platimun MOBO 2x Sapphires 1 gigs. 2 seagate 250 gigs raid 0, 8 gigs g-skill 1066 ram, lite-on blu ray.