SAPPHIRE Launches 1GB HD 3850

[candle_86]

hmmm but nah, no need

 

[WarEagleAU]

Its nice to see them offer more memory for those who can fork up the 50 (at most) extra bucks for a 3870

 

[Makaveli]

Did you even read what I said? When OCed, the 1GB of memory makes a larger difference. And besides, there are games that do make use of the 1GB, even before OCing. Just look at the PT Boats demo to see what difference it's capable of.

Not only that, that review has the worst numbers I've seen out of a 1GB GT.

Now, is the 1GB GT worth the extra money? Depends. If you can find a G92 GTS for about the same price, then probably not. But if you find one significantly cheaper than a GTS, or for only a small premium over a 512MB GT, then it is a good value.

I read what you said but even when overclocked still not worth it, you can count the number of games that use 1GB of memory on one hand!

And by the time more games use that much memory, the 8800GT will be nothing but a memory!

 

[Wile E]

I read what you said but even when overclocked still not worth it, you can count the number of games that use 1GB of memory on one hand!

And by the time more games use that much memory, the 8800GT will be nothing but a memory!

Again, you can't say it's not worth it. That depends strictly on the premium you pay for it.

 

[Makaveli]

lol ok Wile E, I guess we will agree to disagree. I guess both our opinons are valid depending on what side of the table you are on.

 

[Wile E]

lol ok Wile E, I guess we will agree to disagree. I guess both our opinons are valid depending on what side of the table you are on.

lol. That works, I suppose.

 

[Robert-The-Rambler]

These Are only great for Quad Crossfire

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.

 

[intel igent]

isnt a 3850 just a downclocked 3870 to begin with?



if so this looks like a good deal once you start to OC

 

[MERC!]

I own 2 of these!

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.