512MB HD3850 $159 after $30 MIR @ Newegg

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Spikesoldier

Originally posted by: Engineer
Free shipping now!

this along with the lack of reviews can only make me think that this isnt exactly a hot seller on newegg.

Considering it just showed up on the Egg a short while ago, it's not suprising.

As for the cooler, I'm looking at replacing (if it's loud) with an Accelro S1 from Arctic Cooling anway, so no biggie there. If it's quiet and cool (i.e. I can't heat it at all), I'll leave it alone. I would have done that on any cooler.

 

[Zap]

I wonder if pricing will be affected once the faster Nvidia 9600GT cards come out?

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Zap
I wonder if pricing will be affected once the faster Nvidia 9600GT cards come out?

Possibly. I guess it depends on the pricing of the 9600GT cards. If the price is about the same or lower, the HD3850 will obviously need to go down. I wonder if ATI can get any more out of these cards with driver tweaks, etc. to help close the gap with NVidia. This card's price, right now, is very good. In a month, it could literally suck if NVidia drops a better performing card at a cheaper price. I guess time will tell.

 

[mealsonwheels]

How does this card compare to a 7800GT?

 

[Doclife]

There is no comparison. The HD3850 is simply a much much faster card.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: mealsonwheels
How does this card compare to a 7800GT?

General comparison between 256M HD3850 and 7800GT.

Note: The card in this thread is faster (700MHz vs 669MHz standard). It also has 512M memory vs 256M of the comparison card from Tom's. I suspect that this card would be even faster, especially at higher resolutions, than the HD 3850 in Tom's tables.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Just a thought, but those rebate terms seem awfully similar to those used by the now-infamous Sapphire rebate "house" ...

 

[AzureKevin]

Has anybody bought this and received it yet? I just ordered it and I wanted to know if you've had any problems or if it's pretty good.

 

[Geforce man]

i wouldn't worry, and about the bare memory thing. MAD LOL'S. no OEM manufacturer does a good enough job on thermal interface on the memory, i always tear off the mem pads on any cooler that i get with a new card, and the memory temp DROPS 10c. they are insulators, and because the fan design on this on blows down onto the card, it doesn't matter how cheap of a knockoff it is, as long as its 100% attached correctly, id assume at least a 5-10c drop over the entire cards circuitry.

 

[Engineer]

ParoxysM from SD received the card and stated that Catalyst reported 1024M memory, but I assume it's reporting wrong. Stated that he had the core running at 780MHz and was hoping to push 800MHz.

The card is much shorter than I suspected and a little heavier. The heasink is about 15 plates sandwiched together with two long bolts and nuts with the fins compressed between the plates.

I'll have more time later to check it out before sending the rebate in (this weekend most likely).

 

[Engineer]

1st: Board is now out of stock.

Edit: Corrected artifacting with a change to motherboard BIOS. Runs UT3 very well now but I don't know how to benchmark yet on that game!

Can't get 3dmark03 or 06 to run. Both lock up on the banner startup screen. Not sure what's going on there.


Well, I installed this card in an older Asrock board (775Dual-VSTA which only has a PCIe 4X slot) board to test it today (while waiting for new 45nm processors to arrive) and it didn't go well. The drivers (and every other hardware program for that matter) does indeed show 1024MB of ram. Must be some sort of glitch or mistake.

Running almost any game resulted in large artifacts. After uninstalling and reinstalling the card and 3 sets of drivers (using driver sweeper in between installs), still nothing. After reading around, apparantly, this board has issues with HD3870/3850 cards. There is a BIOS update for the newer 4 core model for these cards but none on this board yet. I'll try to tear the system down tomorrow to borrow the E6300 chip and do a fresh install in the new Abit IP35-E board and see what happens.

FWIW, the card idled in the 45C range and went as high as 65C while running (cool in my house today). It was not noticable when at idle, but it ramped up both the fan and my power supply fan when running under load.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Now showing "Deactivated Item".

 

[Engineer]

Forgot to update.

Found a patch for 3Dmark and ran a few benchmarks.

3DMark06: 7,751
3DMark03: 28,000+

E6300
Asrock 775Dual-VSTA with PCIe 4X (yes, 4X).
2GB of 667MHz DDR2 5-5-5-15 2T

All stock speeds.

Will move to new system with Q9450, 4GB of Corsair XMS PC2-6400 ram and Abit IP35-E once built!

 

[emenk]

Egghead says: "Deactivated Item". :thumbsdown:

 

[Engineer]

Receive rebate today. Less than one month from mail to check.

Also, if anyone is still interested, you can get this card one last day (2/19/08) from Clubit for $149.99 AR and $20 coupon listed on site at Clubit. Search for HD 3850 at Clubit to find card and make sure to click on Extra Savings link to get and use $20 coupon.

 

[cubeless]

till live on ne... mush have got some more...

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: cubeless
till live on ne... mush have got some more...

But Clubit is more than $5.00 cheaper than Newegg and Newegg has an exchange only policy on this one (not sure of Clubit's RMA on this one).