14 DAY TRIAL // Sapphire has launched yet another version of its HD 3850 graphics card, based on Advanced Micro Devices' RV 670 chip. The new graphics card comes with 1 GB of GDDR3 memory onboard, running at a clock of 829MHz (1.66GHz effective). The RV670 graphics processor comes with an out-of-the-box clock speed of 703MHz, 30MHz more than a reference Radeon HD 3850.
The HD 3850 series comes with AMD's latest Avivo HD Technology for improved video decoding and playback, while the built-in UVD (Unified Video decoder) allows for the hardware-accelerated decoding of high-definition video content (either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD) for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, which translates into reduced workloads for the system processor. The graphics card provides a new generation HDMI interconnect that lets the user link the computer to any HDMI-Ready display, such as home theater plasma screen or larger LCD displays.
The graphics card comes with the latest CrossfireX technology that lets the user scale the graphics computing power required by the latest gaming titles on the market. The Sapphire HD 3850 has two high speed connectors on each card that allows 2, 3 or even 4 graphics cards to be daisy-chained together (Three graphics cards and up will only be supported in the upcoming release of ATI Catalyst, version 8.3). Moreover, each card comes with Dual-DVI interconnects, which allows the user enjoy up to eight monitors at the same time, a perfect environment for gaming or increased productivity.
The Sapphire HD 3850 combines the Unified Shader Architecture with support for Shader Model 4.0 and the upcoming DirectX 10.1. The graphics card is fully compatible with the latest generation of PCI-Express 2.0 interface, that maximizes data transfer rates and lets the user enjoy a smooth gaming experience.