So, the Radeon HD 3850 seems to be a bit of a silent card in the sense that we haven't heard too much about it since its release. Everyone is so wrapped up in the GeForce 8800 GT that people are beginning to forget what exactly AMD have on offer. This is great news for NVIDIA but not so great for AMD. Following on with the overclocking theme that's been in our graphics card test bed over the past few weeks, we have the TOP version of the Radeon HD 3850 from ASUS today. We'll have a look at how it performs and where exactly it sits in the market, with our main goal to see if it's really worth considering as a graphics card for people on a budget. - TweakTown

ASUS Extreme AH3850 256MB TOP Video Card Review

As we have come to expect from ASUS we have another big box which gives us all the standard information that we have become so accustomed to seeing. The box follows the Company of Heroes theme that we have seen on some of their higher end models lately. Across the bottom we can see the model along with the TOP logo displayed. We can also see the Vista logo along with the ASUS GamerOSD and a mention of 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Also shown is the fact that PCI Express 2.0 is supported. Turning the box there are some more details on the card along with the system requirements. The package isn't too bad at all.

As with most high-end cards these days the cooler really manages to take up the majority of the card. You can see that the Company of Heroes theme has also been carried over to the top of the heatsink. Moving around the card we have a PCI Express connector at one end of the card, and if we keep on moving around we have our CrossFire connector located at the top of the card. We can also see that it's a single slot cooler like the GeForce 8800 GT which is a big plus for some people. ASUS have bumped up the speed of the card with the core going to 730MHz and the memory running at 1900MHz effective.

The Radeon HD 3850 really is a better performing card than we previously thought, and the overclock that ASUS has applied to the card really helps line it up with the more expensive GeForce 8800 GT and Radeon HD 3870 in some cases. As always, the biggest flaw on the AMD cards is the diminishing performance we see when we turn on anti-aliasing. It's an issue that AMD really have to look at and has been going on for two generations now. ASUS have done a good job with the card as performance is great and the package on a whole is very good with things like a full version game included being a nice touch.

The other good news about the Radeon HD 3850 is that it doesn't suffer stock availability issues and that at the price range it sits at it really doesn't have any competition. Ultimately though, all these new cards are just a small stepping stone to what we will see next year. NVIDIA aren't interested in losing the performance crown, and no doubt AMD want to get it back. AMD have the ability to create an excellent performing card but are unfortunately let down by anti-aliasing performance.