Back in November 2007, AMD launched the 55nm ATI RV670 GPU. With this launch, we were introduced to two new ATI video cards, the Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850. If you read some articles, then you already know that the RV670 is a derivative of the R600, which powers the Radeon HD 2900 XT. Our initial experience with AMD's new cards was pretty positive. The Radeon HD 3800 series offer good performance at nice price tag with impressive power characteristics. The card we have up on the block today is the ASUS Extreme AH3850 TOP edition. As you've probably already realized, this is a Radeon HD 3850 card which sports 256MB of GDDR3 memory. - HotHardware

ASUS Extreme AH3850 TOP Edition Graphics Review

The ASUS Extreme AH3850 TOP only differs from the ATI reference design in one way, there is a Company of Heroes decal on top of the cooler. Everything else appears to be the same as the reference card. The cooler is comprised of red plastic, including a small red fan, and copper heatsink. Interestingly, ASUS chose to put light blue caps on all of the connectors, to protect them from damage during shipping. Since it is based on the ATI reference design, the Extreme AH3850 TOP is a single slot card, which is a good thing. Another thing worth noting on this card is the two CrossFireX connectors.

Although the Extreme AH3850 TOP version is already overclocked, we took some time to see how much more we could squeeze out of this card. Recall that the Extreme AH3850 TOP's core comes clocked at 730MHz while the memory runs at 1900MHz effective, and a reference HD 3850 runs at 670MHz and 1660MHz effective, respectively. Using Overdrive and some trial and error, we were able to push the TOP edition to 775MHz for the core and 2100MHz for the memory. As usual, we have to state that your mileage may vary, as not all card are equal as such. So this is a good indication of what is feasible.

We were pleasantly surprised by the ASUS Extreme AH3850 TOP graphics card. We expected it to perform about on par with the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, but that wasn't the case. Thanks to its boosted clocks, the Extreme AH3850 TOP outshined both the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB and the reference Radeon HD 3850, especially when the cards were running at high resolutions. We are not sure why ASUS uses such big boxes for its cards, but we are consistently happy with their bundles, and the Extreme AH3850 TOP package is no exception and does come highly recommended.

A quick look around the web reveals that the regular ASUS Extreme AH3850 can be yours for around $180-200. We weren't able to find the overclocked TOP version that we checked out today, however which means we are uncertain about current retail availability. Regardless if we are talking about the Extreme AH3850 TOP or just the regular version, the bundle appears to be the same, which means both offer good value overall. For those of you uncomfortable with overclocking, but still want a boost in performance over the reference Radeon HD 3850, hopefully ASUS makes the TOP model more readily available soon.

While we found the ASUS Extreme AH3850 TOP edition to be impressive and easy to recommend, we were definitely disappointed when we couldn't find it at any of the major online resellers at the time of this writing. Would we recommend the regular Extreme AH3850? Yes, we probably would, but we'd still prefer the TOP model assuming it doesn't cost much more than the reference model.