A Closer Look

The base that makes contact with the GPU is made from Copper; all other parts are made from Aluminum. Because of the single slot design hot air is not exhaust out of the case but circulated inside, for a product in this class it shouldn't be an issue though.


This card is compatible with CrossFire and CrossFireX once it is available. You can combine this card with any HD 3850 and HD 3870 (not the X2) to run in CrossFire. When two different cards are paired they will clock down / limit the memory to the smallest common denominator. So if you use a HD 3850 256 MB with this 1024 MB card, both cards will run with 256 MB of memory enabled. In the future AMD will let you use CrossFireX which allows more than two cards to work together in CrossFire.


The power connector on the back is required to supply power to the card. It is also required when running in PCI-E 2.0 mode, which would be able to supply all power over the bus. For compatibility reasons the power connector remains active because the power conversion circuitry is optimized for power delivery via that route.


The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Qimonda (formerly Infineon) and carry the model number HYB18H1G321AF-10. With 1.0 ns latency (= 1000 MHz) they should have some headroom left for overclocking. Please note that like on all other HD 3850 designs Sapphire uses eight memory chips, but with a bigger capacity (128 MB each).


As GPU the ATI RV670 is used which is made in a 55nm process at TSMC.