Testing and Overclocking:

To test the 3850, I have decided to use two games, as well as 3DMark03, 3DMark05, and 3DMark06.  To get an idea of how the 1GB of GDDR3 may be beneficial, I have used various resolutions and settings, which will be noted with each test.  The test system is as follows:

To overclock the 3850, I initially used the ATI Overdrive tool, however I found it to be too conservative for my liking.  Using the "Auto-Tune" feature, it came back with a core clock of 707MHz for the core and 893MHz for the memory.  Using the sliders in the Overdrive control panel limits the clocks to 720MHz and 950MHz respectively.  Instinctively, I turned to ATI Tool and ATI Tray Tools to take it a bit farther, however neither are fully compatible with 64-bit Vista.  What I ended up finding worked the best was to use RivaTuner to  change the clocks, and using the Artifact Scanner in ATI Tool to quickly find a stable limit.  What I came up with was 790MHz on the core, and 935MHz for the memory, which brings us within striking distance of a stock 3870. 

Crysis:

Our first test is what is essentially the ultimate punisher of graphics cards:  Crysis.  Conveniently, there is a really handy Crysis benchmark tool, known as (oddly enough) "Crysis Benchmark Tool".  This tool allows us to setup multiple runs in advance, run them all with a single push of a button, and then spit out the results in a Microsoft Word Document.  We test the 3850 at 1280x1024, 1680x1050, and 1920x1200, using 0xAA, 2xAA, 4xAA, and running each of those at both High and Very High settings, for a total of 18 tests.  The test was run with the 1.2 patch for Crysis.

As we can see here, Crysis has not been kind to the 3850, but then, it is rarely kind to any graphics card.  To play this game on the 3850, you will have to knock some settings down to medium.

Page 1: Intro Page 2: Specs & Requirements Page 3: The Bundle & Layout Page 4: Overclocking Page 4: Testing Part 1 Page 5: Testing Continued Page 5: Conclusion