W1zzard
01-15-2008, 12:38 PM
[page=Introduction & Specifications]
Introduction
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/logo.jpg
AMD's latest generation of graphics cards is the HD 3000 Series, namely the HD 3850 and the HD 3870. Diamond has recently released a special version of the HD 3850 called the Ruby Edition. It features an improved dual-slot cooling solution and comes with more and faster memory.
<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>Radeon <br />
HD 2600 XT</td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8600 GTS</td>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 3850 </td>
<td><strong>Diamond<br />
HD 3850 Ruby </strong></td>
<td>GeForce<br /> 8800 GTS</td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8800 GT</td>
<td>Radeon <br />
HD 2900 XT </td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8800 GTX </td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8800 Ultra </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Shader units </th>
<td align="right">120</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">320</td>
<td align="right"><strong>320</strong></td>
<td align="right">96</td>
<td align="right">112</td>
<td align="right">320</td>
<td align="right">128</td>
<td align="right">128</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">4 x2 </td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right"><strong>16</strong></td>
<td align="right">20</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">16 x2 </td>
<td align="right">24</td>
<td align="right">24</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th>
<td align="right">RV630</td>
<td align="right">G84</td>
<td align="right">RV670</td>
<td align="right"><strong>RV670</strong></td>
<td align="right">G80</td>
<td align="right">G92</td>
<td align="right">R600</td>
<td align="right">G80</td>
<td align="right">G80</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Transistors</th>
<td align="right">390M </td>
<td align="right">289M</td>
<td align="right">666M </td>
<td align="right"><strong>666M</strong></td>
<td align="right">681M </td>
<td align="right">754M</td>
<td align="right">700M </td>
<td align="right">681M </td>
<td align="right">681M </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">256 MB</td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right"><strong>512 MB </strong></td>
<td align="right">320 MB<br />
640 MB </td>
<td align="right">512 MB </td>
<td align="right">512 MB</td>
<td align="right">768 MB</td>
<td align="right">768 MB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus Width </th>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 bit </strong></td>
<td align="right">320 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">512 bit </td>
<td align="right">384 bit </td>
<td align="right">384 bit </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right">675 MHz </td>
<td align="right">670 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>670 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">500 MHz </td>
<td align="right">600 MHz </td>
<td align="right">742 MHz </td>
<td align="right">575 MHz </td>
<td align="right">612 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">1100 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
<td align="right">828 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>830 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">825 MHz </td>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1080 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th>
<td align="right">$105</td>
<td align="right">$149</td>
<td align="right">$179</td>
<td align="right"><strong>$199</strong></td>
<td align="right">$260<br />
$350</td>
<td align="right">$249</td>
<td align="right">$380</td>
<td align="right">$530</td>
<td align="right">$650</td>
</tr>
</table>
Complete Specifications
666 million transistors on 55nm fabrication process
PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
256-bit GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
Ring Bus Memory Controller
Fully distributed design with 512-bit internal ring bus for memory reads and writes
Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 support
Shader Model 4.1
32-bit floating point texture filtering
Indexed cube map arrays
Independent blend modes per render target
Pixel coverage sample masking
Read/write multi-sample surfaces with shaders
Gather4 texture fetching
Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
320 stream processing units
Dynamic load balancing and resource allocation for vertex, geometry, and pixel shaders
Common instruction set and texture unit access supported for all types of shaders
Dedicated branch execution units and texture address processors
128-bit floating point precision for all operations
Command processor for reduced CPU overhead
Shader instruction and constant caches
Up to 80 texture fetches per clock cycle
Up to 128 textures per pixel
Fully associative multi-level texture cache design
DXTC and 3Dc+ texture compression
High resolution texture support (up to 8192 x 8192)
Fully associative texture Z/stencil cache designs
Double-sided hierarchical Z/stencil buffer
Early Z test, Re-Z, Z Range optimization, and Fast Z Clear
Lossless Z & stencil compression (up to 128:1)
Lossless color compression (up to 8:1)
8 render targets (MRTs) with anti-aliasing support
Physics processing support
Dynamic Geometry Acceleration
High performance vertex cache
Programmable tessellation unit
Accelerated geometry shader path for geometry amplification
Memory read/write cache for improved stream output performance
Anti-aliasing features
Multi-sample anti-aliasing (2, 4, or 8 samples per pixel)
Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality
Adaptive super-sampling and multi-sampling
Temporal anti-aliasing
Gamma correct
Super AA (ATI CrossFire™ configurations only)
All anti-aliasing features compatible with HDR rendering
Texture filtering features
2x/4x/8x/16x high quality adaptive anisotropic filtering modes (up to 128 taps per pixel)
128-bit floating point HDR texture filtering
Bicubic filtering
sRGB filtering (gamma/degamma)
Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF)
Depth & stencil texture (DST) format support
Shared exponent HDR (RGBE 9:9:9:5) texture format support
OpenGL 2.0 support
ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
Dedicated unified video decoder (UVD) for H.264/AVC and VC-1 video formats
High definition (HD) playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats
Hardware MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and DivX video decode acceleration
Motion compensation and IDCT
ATI Avivo Video Post Processor
Color space conversion
Chroma subsampling format conversion
Horizontal and vertical scaling
Gamma correction
Advanced vector adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing
De-blocking and noise reduction filtering
Detail enhancement
Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
Bad edit correction
Two independent display controllers
Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls and video overlays for each display
Full 30-bit display processing
Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction, color correction, and color space conversion
Spatial/temporal dithering provides 30-bit color quality on 24-bit and 18-bit displays
High quality pre- and post-scaling engines, with underscan support for all display outputs
Content-adaptive de-flicker filtering for interlaced displays
Fast, glitch-free mode switching
Hardware cursor
Two integrated dual-link DVI display outputs
Each supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)2
Each includes a dual-link HDCP encoder with on-chip key storage for high resolution playback of protected content
Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs
Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all resolutions up to 2048x15362
DisplayPort output support
Supports 24- and 30-bit displays at all resolutions up to 2560x16002
HDMI output support
Supports all display resolutions up to 1920x1080
Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support, enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution
Integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder
Provides high quality analog TV output (component/S-video/composite)
Supports SDTV and HDTV resolutions
Underscan and overscan compensation
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time
VGA mode support on all display outputs
ATI PowerPlay™
Advanced power management technology for optimal performance and power savings
Performance-on-Demand
Constantly monitors GPU activity, dynamically adjusting clocks and voltage based on user scenario
Clock and memory speed throttling
Voltage switching
Dynamic clock gating
Central thermal management – on-chip sensor monitors GPU temperature and triggers thermal actions as required
ATI CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology
Scale up rendering performance and image quality with two, three, or four GPUs
Integrated compositing engine
High performance dual channel bridge interconnect
[page=Packaging & Contents]
Packaging & Contents
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package2.jpg)
The black box of the Ruby Edition is dominated by a picture of the sexy Ruby to catch your attention. Also it should be noted that the box is much bigger than that of competing 3850 cards. On the back you have a couple of screenshots and some additional product detail.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/contents_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/contents.jpg)
You will receive:
Graphics card
Instruction Manual + Driver CD
DVI Adapter + HDMI Adapter
TV out cables and adapters
PCI-E power cable
CrossFire bridge
[page=The Card]
The Card
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card3_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card3.jpg)
The first you will notice is that the cooler of the Diamond HD 3850 is totally different to the stock reference cooler. It sits on the middle of the card, covered by a metal box. We will take a closer look at the cooler on the next page.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card2.jpg)
As promised the card uses a dual slot cooling solution for improved thermal performance.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/outputs_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/outputs.jpg)
The output configuration follows today's standard. Two DVI ports are available, both are dual link capable, so you can run two 2560x1600 displays at once. In case you still have an old analog VGA monitor you can connect it using the included DVI to VGA adapter. Also included with the package is an HDMI adapter that lets you connect your HD TV set directly to the card with full support for HDMI+HDCP+Audio.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/front_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/front.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/back_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/back.jpg)
Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/front_full.jpg), back (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/back_full.jpg)). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site.
[page=A Closer Look]
A Closer Look
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler2.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler3_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler3.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler4_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler4.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler5_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/cooler5.jpg)
The cooler consists of three parts. The black metal heatsink base makes contact with the GPU core, but does not touch the memory. The fan is sitting on top of that and creates airflow which goes through the fins and right across the memory. Considering the memory overclocks we saw with our cards this is a great solution and seems to work very well. On top of the base/fan assembly sits a metal casing for improved looks.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/crossfire_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/crossfire.jpg)
CrossFire is supported of course, even the new CrossFireX which will work with up to four GPUs in the future can be used once the ATI drivers support it.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/power_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/power.jpg)
Near the back of the card you find a single six pin PCI-Express power connector. It is required for operation at all times, even when the card is running in PCI-E 2.0 mode which has a higher power delivery capability over the bus.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/memory_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/memory.jpg)
The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4J52324QE-BJ1A. With 1.0 ns latency (= 1000 MHz) they should have some headroom left for overclocking.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/gpu_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/gpu.jpg)
The GPU is the ATI RV670 which is made in a 55nm process at TSMC.
[page=Test Setup]
Test System
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz<br />(Conroe, 2x 2048 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte P35C-DS3R<br />Intel P35</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 169.04<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.11</td>
</tr>
</table>
All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting
Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:
1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most gamer flatscreens today. A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1600 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to a wide range of users. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2048 x 1536, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to any consumer video card. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
[page=Company Of Heroes]
Company Of Heroes
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The real-time strategy game Company of Heroes (http://www.companyofheroesgame.com) is set during World War II where you take two American companies through several fights all over France to liberate the country from German occupation. Company of Heroes is the first game to use Relic's next-generation engine "Essence Engine" which includes support for HDR lighting, Shader Model 3.0, normal mapping, dynamic lighting and shadows. You are able to zoom in from the tactical view of the battle field to see the individual units fighting. Often you catch yourself admiring the detailed animations of the soldiers while the fight around you is raging. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.
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[page=Crysis]
Crysis
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After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis (http://www.ea.com/crysis/) in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers. We tested the DX9 version with graphics set to "High", which is the highest non-DX10 setting in the game.
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[page=Enemy Territory: Quake Wars]
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
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The first-person shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (http://www.enemyterritory.com) is set in the science-fiction universe of Quake and requires several classes to work together to achieve certain goals on a map. In the campaign mode you gain experience which you can use to buy upgrades for your class. The player gets to pick from five classes of either the Global Defense Force or the Strogg faction. As underlying game engine, the successful id Software Doom 3 engine has been licensed, but several features like MegaTextures have been added, giving the outdoor world a much more detailed appearance. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.
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[page=Far Cry]
Far Cry
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Far Cry (http://www.farcry-thegame.com) was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.
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[page=FEAR]
FEAR
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/fear.jpg
The first person shooter F.E.A.R (htttp://www.whatisfear.com), developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.
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[page=Prey]
Prey
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/prey.jpg
Prey (http://www.prey.com) is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.
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[page=Quake 4]
Quake 4
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/quake4.jpg
The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a scifi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 (http://www.quake4game.com) puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.
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[page=Splinter Cell 3]
Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory
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The Splinter Cell Series is endorsed by popular book author Tom Clancy. In the 2005 title Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory (http://www.splintercell.com) you play the NSA agent Sam Fisher who has to use stealth and finesse to make his way through a number of levels mainly set in eastern Asia. The game is based on a modified Unreal 2 engine with support for HDR, normal mapping, parallax mapping and soft shadows. A patch added Shader Model 2.0 support for ATI in addition to the Shader Model 3.0 support which was already part of the original shipping game.
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[page=STALKER]
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/stalker.jpg
Before its release in 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (http://www.stalker-game.com) was one of the most hyped games of the last years. This RPG/FPS hybrid game is set a few years in the future, after a nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The release of radiation causes strange things like mutations in the nearby area. You take the role of a Stalker who seeks fame and riches in the contaminated area around Chernobyl. The game engine features all the latest buzzwords like HDR, bullet physics, skeletal animation, soft shadows and weather effects. Stalker's vast outside world is richly modeled, you can interact with a large number of objects in the game thanks to the physics engine.
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[page=Supreme Commander]
Supreme Commander
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/supcom.jpg
If you hear people talk about a real-time strategy game with "massive numbers of units fighting" you can be sure they are talking about Supreme Commander (http://www.supremecommander.com). The unofficial successor to the Total Annihilation Series completely redefined some aspects of the RTS genre. In Supreme Commander you can zoom out so far that you can see the whole map on your screen and units are just little blips. This is much needed in fights when several hundred units go at each other. Supreme Commander is also one of the most demanding RTS games with support for up to four CPU cores - a dual-core system with high-end graphics is recommended for optimum game play.
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[page=Unreal Tournament 3]
Unreal Tournament 3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/ut3.jpg
The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3 (http://www.unrealtournament3.com). It is based on the all-new Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. As you would expect from a new 2007 title, the graphics are top notch, with large and detailed textures. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing. While video card vendors like ATI have found ways to force this in their drivers we did all our testing with AA disabled in DX9 at maximum settings.
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[page=X3]
X3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/x3.jpg
X3 (http://www.egosoft.com) is a space combat/trading simulation game with beautiful graphics. The game world is gigantic and there is always something new to see. Even though the user interface is not that great, the title has found many fans that love to explore the rich content. When you are flying in your spaceship you are sometimes tempted to just stop the action to take a look at the highly detailed ships and planets.
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[page=3DMark03]
3DMark03
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/3dmark03.jpg
Futuremark Corporation (http://www.futuremark.com) is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.
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[page=3DMark05]
3DMark05
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/3dmark05.jpg
Another benchmark from Futuremark (http://www.futuremark.com) is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.
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[page=3DMark06]
3DMark06
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/3dmark06.jpg
Even though it's based on Futuremark's 3DMark05, the new 3DMark06 adds new tests for Shader Model 3.0 and HDR rendering. It is also the first 3DMark to incorporate a CPU score into the final 3DMark score. All tests have received an overhaul, for example in the Canyon Flight test you can now see beautiful sun glare effects with the help of High Dynamic Range rendering.
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[page=Performance Summary, Perf/W, Perf/$]
Performance Summary
To create this graph we took all performance results of all benchmarks and all resolutions, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/perfrel.gif
Performance per Watt
This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results. To offset power consumption of the rest of the system we subtracted 50W from the average consumption.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/perfwatt.gif
Performance per Dollar
If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index. Please note that this is not an exact science, prices can vary and you may be able to get a great deal on Ebay, for example. Also some cards are not available on the general market anymore, so their prices typically tend to be higher than the current ones.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/perfdollar.gif
[page=Overclocking]
Overclocking
The Diamond HD 3850 is coming at the default clocks of the AMD reference design, but allows quite some nice overclocking. Having a better cooler certainly helps here. We used ATITool and AMD overclocking software to adjust the clocks in order to detect the maximum stable clock frequency.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/gpuz_oc.gif
The final overclocks of our card are 749 MHz Core (12 % overclock) and 1062 MHz Memory (28 % overclock). Especially the memory overclock is very impressive, considering that the chips were selected for 1000 MHz operation.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/temp.gif
The two slot cooler does quite a good job at keeping the card cool. Even though the temperatures are quite low it seems that the card overclocking is held back by the GPU and the voltage, not the temperature.
[page=Power Consumption]
Power Consumption
Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz<br />(Conroe, 2x 2048 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte P35C-DS3R<br />Intel P35</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 169.04<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.11</td>
</tr>
</table>
In order to characterize a video card's power consumption, the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.
The three result values are as following:
Idle: Windows sitting at the desktop (1024x768 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed.
Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (two per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Highest single reading
The power management of the HD 3850 is doing a good job at keeping the card's power consumption down in idle. Under load the power usage goes up a bit but is still fairly low which has a positive effect on the Performance per Watt metric.
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[page=Value & Conclusion]
Value and Conclusion
<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>
Diamond is selling their HD 3850 Ruby Edition for a price of $199 online.</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>
Very solid performance
Excellent performance/dollar ratio
10% faster than 3850 w/ 256 MB
Low power draw
Good overclocking
Affordable
Two slot cooling
HDMI+HDCP+Audio
PCI-E 2.0 support
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>
No highest end offering from AMD/ATI
Two slot cooling
Uses AMD reference clocks
</td></tr>
<tr><th>9.0</th>
<td>Diamond's HD3850 Ruby Edition is a great choice if you are looking for a Radeon HD 3850 that has a bit more punch than the AMD reference design. The extra GDDR3 memory, which brings the card to a total of 512 MB, increases performance by roughly 10% but also increases the price of the product a bit. What I don't understand is why Diamond left the clocks of their card at reference speed. In our overclocking tests we saw that the card can easily handle much higher clocks so it would be an easy way by Diamond to gain additional features that could be advertised and benefit the customer.<br />
Overall the performance of the HD 3850 is good enough to play all current games at their "high" detail setting. Also the card is a great addition to any media PC system because of the HDMI+HDCP+Audio support. Just attach the included adapter, connect your HDMI cable and you're ready to watch HD movies on your big screen.
</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/editorschoice.gif</td></tr>
</table>
Introduction
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/logo.jpg
AMD's latest generation of graphics cards is the HD 3000 Series, namely the HD 3850 and the HD 3870. Diamond has recently released a special version of the HD 3850 called the Ruby Edition. It features an improved dual-slot cooling solution and comes with more and faster memory.
<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>Radeon <br />
HD 2600 XT</td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8600 GTS</td>
<td>Radeon<br />
HD 3850 </td>
<td><strong>Diamond<br />
HD 3850 Ruby </strong></td>
<td>GeForce<br /> 8800 GTS</td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8800 GT</td>
<td>Radeon <br />
HD 2900 XT </td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8800 GTX </td>
<td>GeForce <br />
8800 Ultra </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Shader units </th>
<td align="right">120</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">320</td>
<td align="right"><strong>320</strong></td>
<td align="right">96</td>
<td align="right">112</td>
<td align="right">320</td>
<td align="right">128</td>
<td align="right">128</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">4 x2 </td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right"><strong>16</strong></td>
<td align="right">20</td>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">16 x2 </td>
<td align="right">24</td>
<td align="right">24</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th>
<td align="right">RV630</td>
<td align="right">G84</td>
<td align="right">RV670</td>
<td align="right"><strong>RV670</strong></td>
<td align="right">G80</td>
<td align="right">G92</td>
<td align="right">R600</td>
<td align="right">G80</td>
<td align="right">G80</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Transistors</th>
<td align="right">390M </td>
<td align="right">289M</td>
<td align="right">666M </td>
<td align="right"><strong>666M</strong></td>
<td align="right">681M </td>
<td align="right">754M</td>
<td align="right">700M </td>
<td align="right">681M </td>
<td align="right">681M </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">256 MB</td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right"><strong>512 MB </strong></td>
<td align="right">320 MB<br />
640 MB </td>
<td align="right">512 MB </td>
<td align="right">512 MB</td>
<td align="right">768 MB</td>
<td align="right">768 MB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus Width </th>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 bit </strong></td>
<td align="right">320 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">512 bit </td>
<td align="right">384 bit </td>
<td align="right">384 bit </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right">675 MHz </td>
<td align="right">670 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>670 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">500 MHz </td>
<td align="right">600 MHz </td>
<td align="right">742 MHz </td>
<td align="right">575 MHz </td>
<td align="right">612 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">1100 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
<td align="right">828 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>830 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">825 MHz </td>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1080 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th>
<td align="right">$105</td>
<td align="right">$149</td>
<td align="right">$179</td>
<td align="right"><strong>$199</strong></td>
<td align="right">$260<br />
$350</td>
<td align="right">$249</td>
<td align="right">$380</td>
<td align="right">$530</td>
<td align="right">$650</td>
</tr>
</table>
Complete Specifications
666 million transistors on 55nm fabrication process
PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
256-bit GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
Ring Bus Memory Controller
Fully distributed design with 512-bit internal ring bus for memory reads and writes
Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 support
Shader Model 4.1
32-bit floating point texture filtering
Indexed cube map arrays
Independent blend modes per render target
Pixel coverage sample masking
Read/write multi-sample surfaces with shaders
Gather4 texture fetching
Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
320 stream processing units
Dynamic load balancing and resource allocation for vertex, geometry, and pixel shaders
Common instruction set and texture unit access supported for all types of shaders
Dedicated branch execution units and texture address processors
128-bit floating point precision for all operations
Command processor for reduced CPU overhead
Shader instruction and constant caches
Up to 80 texture fetches per clock cycle
Up to 128 textures per pixel
Fully associative multi-level texture cache design
DXTC and 3Dc+ texture compression
High resolution texture support (up to 8192 x 8192)
Fully associative texture Z/stencil cache designs
Double-sided hierarchical Z/stencil buffer
Early Z test, Re-Z, Z Range optimization, and Fast Z Clear
Lossless Z & stencil compression (up to 128:1)
Lossless color compression (up to 8:1)
8 render targets (MRTs) with anti-aliasing support
Physics processing support
Dynamic Geometry Acceleration
High performance vertex cache
Programmable tessellation unit
Accelerated geometry shader path for geometry amplification
Memory read/write cache for improved stream output performance
Anti-aliasing features
Multi-sample anti-aliasing (2, 4, or 8 samples per pixel)
Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality
Adaptive super-sampling and multi-sampling
Temporal anti-aliasing
Gamma correct
Super AA (ATI CrossFire™ configurations only)
All anti-aliasing features compatible with HDR rendering
Texture filtering features
2x/4x/8x/16x high quality adaptive anisotropic filtering modes (up to 128 taps per pixel)
128-bit floating point HDR texture filtering
Bicubic filtering
sRGB filtering (gamma/degamma)
Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF)
Depth & stencil texture (DST) format support
Shared exponent HDR (RGBE 9:9:9:5) texture format support
OpenGL 2.0 support
ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
Dedicated unified video decoder (UVD) for H.264/AVC and VC-1 video formats
High definition (HD) playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats
Hardware MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and DivX video decode acceleration
Motion compensation and IDCT
ATI Avivo Video Post Processor
Color space conversion
Chroma subsampling format conversion
Horizontal and vertical scaling
Gamma correction
Advanced vector adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing
De-blocking and noise reduction filtering
Detail enhancement
Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
Bad edit correction
Two independent display controllers
Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls and video overlays for each display
Full 30-bit display processing
Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction, color correction, and color space conversion
Spatial/temporal dithering provides 30-bit color quality on 24-bit and 18-bit displays
High quality pre- and post-scaling engines, with underscan support for all display outputs
Content-adaptive de-flicker filtering for interlaced displays
Fast, glitch-free mode switching
Hardware cursor
Two integrated dual-link DVI display outputs
Each supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)2
Each includes a dual-link HDCP encoder with on-chip key storage for high resolution playback of protected content
Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs
Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all resolutions up to 2048x15362
DisplayPort output support
Supports 24- and 30-bit displays at all resolutions up to 2560x16002
HDMI output support
Supports all display resolutions up to 1920x1080
Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support, enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution
Integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder
Provides high quality analog TV output (component/S-video/composite)
Supports SDTV and HDTV resolutions
Underscan and overscan compensation
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time
VGA mode support on all display outputs
ATI PowerPlay™
Advanced power management technology for optimal performance and power savings
Performance-on-Demand
Constantly monitors GPU activity, dynamically adjusting clocks and voltage based on user scenario
Clock and memory speed throttling
Voltage switching
Dynamic clock gating
Central thermal management – on-chip sensor monitors GPU temperature and triggers thermal actions as required
ATI CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology
Scale up rendering performance and image quality with two, three, or four GPUs
Integrated compositing engine
High performance dual channel bridge interconnect
[page=Packaging & Contents]
Packaging & Contents
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/package2.jpg)
The black box of the Ruby Edition is dominated by a picture of the sexy Ruby to catch your attention. Also it should be noted that the box is much bigger than that of competing 3850 cards. On the back you have a couple of screenshots and some additional product detail.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/contents_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/contents.jpg)
You will receive:
Graphics card
Instruction Manual + Driver CD
DVI Adapter + HDMI Adapter
TV out cables and adapters
PCI-E power cable
CrossFire bridge
[page=The Card]
The Card
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card1.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card3_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card3.jpg)
The first you will notice is that the cooler of the Diamond HD 3850 is totally different to the stock reference cooler. It sits on the middle of the card, covered by a metal box. We will take a closer look at the cooler on the next page.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/card2.jpg)
As promised the card uses a dual slot cooling solution for improved thermal performance.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/outputs_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/outputs.jpg)
The output configuration follows today's standard. Two DVI ports are available, both are dual link capable, so you can run two 2560x1600 displays at once. In case you still have an old analog VGA monitor you can connect it using the included DVI to VGA adapter. Also included with the package is an HDMI adapter that lets you connect your HD TV set directly to the card with full support for HDMI+HDCP+Audio.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/front_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/front.jpg) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/back_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/back.jpg)
Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/front_full.jpg), back (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/back_full.jpg)). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site.
[page=A Closer Look]
A Closer Look
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The cooler consists of three parts. The black metal heatsink base makes contact with the GPU core, but does not touch the memory. The fan is sitting on top of that and creates airflow which goes through the fins and right across the memory. Considering the memory overclocks we saw with our cards this is a great solution and seems to work very well. On top of the base/fan assembly sits a metal casing for improved looks.
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CrossFire is supported of course, even the new CrossFireX which will work with up to four GPUs in the future can be used once the ATI drivers support it.
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Near the back of the card you find a single six pin PCI-Express power connector. It is required for operation at all times, even when the card is running in PCI-E 2.0 mode which has a higher power delivery capability over the bus.
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The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4J52324QE-BJ1A. With 1.0 ns latency (= 1000 MHz) they should have some headroom left for overclocking.
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The GPU is the ATI RV670 which is made in a 55nm process at TSMC.
[page=Test Setup]
Test System
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz<br />(Conroe, 2x 2048 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte P35C-DS3R<br />Intel P35</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 169.04<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.11</td>
</tr>
</table>
All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting
Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:
1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most gamer flatscreens today. A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1600 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to a wide range of users. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2048 x 1536, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to any consumer video card. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
[page=Company Of Heroes]
Company Of Heroes
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The real-time strategy game Company of Heroes (http://www.companyofheroesgame.com) is set during World War II where you take two American companies through several fights all over France to liberate the country from German occupation. Company of Heroes is the first game to use Relic's next-generation engine "Essence Engine" which includes support for HDR lighting, Shader Model 3.0, normal mapping, dynamic lighting and shadows. You are able to zoom in from the tactical view of the battle field to see the individual units fighting. Often you catch yourself admiring the detailed animations of the soldiers while the fight around you is raging. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.
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[page=Crysis]
Crysis
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After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis (http://www.ea.com/crysis/) in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers. We tested the DX9 version with graphics set to "High", which is the highest non-DX10 setting in the game.
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[page=Enemy Territory: Quake Wars]
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
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The first-person shooter Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (http://www.enemyterritory.com) is set in the science-fiction universe of Quake and requires several classes to work together to achieve certain goals on a map. In the campaign mode you gain experience which you can use to buy upgrades for your class. The player gets to pick from five classes of either the Global Defense Force or the Strogg faction. As underlying game engine, the successful id Software Doom 3 engine has been licensed, but several features like MegaTextures have been added, giving the outdoor world a much more detailed appearance. We tested the DX9 version of the game at maximum details.
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[page=Far Cry]
Far Cry
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Far Cry (http://www.farcry-thegame.com) was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.
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[page=FEAR]
FEAR
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The first person shooter F.E.A.R (htttp://www.whatisfear.com), developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.
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[page=Prey]
Prey
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Prey (http://www.prey.com) is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.
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[page=Quake 4]
Quake 4
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The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a scifi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 (http://www.quake4game.com) puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.
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[page=Splinter Cell 3]
Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory
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The Splinter Cell Series is endorsed by popular book author Tom Clancy. In the 2005 title Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory (http://www.splintercell.com) you play the NSA agent Sam Fisher who has to use stealth and finesse to make his way through a number of levels mainly set in eastern Asia. The game is based on a modified Unreal 2 engine with support for HDR, normal mapping, parallax mapping and soft shadows. A patch added Shader Model 2.0 support for ATI in addition to the Shader Model 3.0 support which was already part of the original shipping game.
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[page=STALKER]
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/stalker.jpg
Before its release in 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (http://www.stalker-game.com) was one of the most hyped games of the last years. This RPG/FPS hybrid game is set a few years in the future, after a nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The release of radiation causes strange things like mutations in the nearby area. You take the role of a Stalker who seeks fame and riches in the contaminated area around Chernobyl. The game engine features all the latest buzzwords like HDR, bullet physics, skeletal animation, soft shadows and weather effects. Stalker's vast outside world is richly modeled, you can interact with a large number of objects in the game thanks to the physics engine.
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[page=Supreme Commander]
Supreme Commander
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If you hear people talk about a real-time strategy game with "massive numbers of units fighting" you can be sure they are talking about Supreme Commander (http://www.supremecommander.com). The unofficial successor to the Total Annihilation Series completely redefined some aspects of the RTS genre. In Supreme Commander you can zoom out so far that you can see the whole map on your screen and units are just little blips. This is much needed in fights when several hundred units go at each other. Supreme Commander is also one of the most demanding RTS games with support for up to four CPU cores - a dual-core system with high-end graphics is recommended for optimum game play.
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[page=Unreal Tournament 3]
Unreal Tournament 3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/ut3.jpg
The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3 (http://www.unrealtournament3.com). It is based on the all-new Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. As you would expect from a new 2007 title, the graphics are top notch, with large and detailed textures. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing. While video card vendors like ATI have found ways to force this in their drivers we did all our testing with AA disabled in DX9 at maximum settings.
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[page=X3]
X3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/x3.jpg
X3 (http://www.egosoft.com) is a space combat/trading simulation game with beautiful graphics. The game world is gigantic and there is always something new to see. Even though the user interface is not that great, the title has found many fans that love to explore the rich content. When you are flying in your spaceship you are sometimes tempted to just stop the action to take a look at the highly detailed ships and planets.
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[page=3DMark03]
3DMark03
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/3dmark03.jpg
Futuremark Corporation (http://www.futuremark.com) is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.
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[page=3DMark05]
3DMark05
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/3dmark05.jpg
Another benchmark from Futuremark (http://www.futuremark.com) is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.
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[page=3DMark06]
3DMark06
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Even though it's based on Futuremark's 3DMark05, the new 3DMark06 adds new tests for Shader Model 3.0 and HDR rendering. It is also the first 3DMark to incorporate a CPU score into the final 3DMark score. All tests have received an overhaul, for example in the Canyon Flight test you can now see beautiful sun glare effects with the help of High Dynamic Range rendering.
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[page=Performance Summary, Perf/W, Perf/$]
Performance Summary
To create this graph we took all performance results of all benchmarks and all resolutions, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/perfrel.gif
Performance per Watt
This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results. To offset power consumption of the rest of the system we subtracted 50W from the average consumption.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/perfwatt.gif
Performance per Dollar
If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index. Please note that this is not an exact science, prices can vary and you may be able to get a great deal on Ebay, for example. Also some cards are not available on the general market anymore, so their prices typically tend to be higher than the current ones.
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[page=Overclocking]
Overclocking
The Diamond HD 3850 is coming at the default clocks of the AMD reference design, but allows quite some nice overclocking. Having a better cooler certainly helps here. We used ATITool and AMD overclocking software to adjust the clocks in order to detect the maximum stable clock frequency.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Diamond/HD_3850_Ruby_Edition/images/gpuz_oc.gif
The final overclocks of our card are 749 MHz Core (12 % overclock) and 1062 MHz Memory (28 % overclock). Especially the memory overclock is very impressive, considering that the chips were selected for 1000 MHz operation.
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The two slot cooler does quite a good job at keeping the card cool. Even though the temperatures are quite low it seems that the card overclocking is held back by the GPU and the voltage, not the temperature.
[page=Power Consumption]
Power Consumption
Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz<br />(Conroe, 2x 2048 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte P35C-DS3R<br />Intel P35</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 169.04<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.11</td>
</tr>
</table>
In order to characterize a video card's power consumption, the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.
The three result values are as following:
Idle: Windows sitting at the desktop (1024x768 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed.
Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (two per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Highest single reading
The power management of the HD 3850 is doing a good job at keeping the card's power consumption down in idle. Under load the power usage goes up a bit but is still fairly low which has a positive effect on the Performance per Watt metric.
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[page=Value & Conclusion]
Value and Conclusion
<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>
Diamond is selling their HD 3850 Ruby Edition for a price of $199 online.</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>
Very solid performance
Excellent performance/dollar ratio
10% faster than 3850 w/ 256 MB
Low power draw
Good overclocking
Affordable
Two slot cooling
HDMI+HDCP+Audio
PCI-E 2.0 support
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>
No highest end offering from AMD/ATI
Two slot cooling
Uses AMD reference clocks
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<tr><th>9.0</th>
<td>Diamond's HD3850 Ruby Edition is a great choice if you are looking for a Radeon HD 3850 that has a bit more punch than the AMD reference design. The extra GDDR3 memory, which brings the card to a total of 512 MB, increases performance by roughly 10% but also increases the price of the product a bit. What I don't understand is why Diamond left the clocks of their card at reference speed. In our overclocking tests we saw that the card can easily handle much higher clocks so it would be an easy way by Diamond to gain additional features that could be advertised and benefit the customer.<br />
Overall the performance of the HD 3850 is good enough to play all current games at their "high" detail setting. Also the card is a great addition to any media PC system because of the HDMI+HDCP+Audio support. Just attach the included adapter, connect your HDMI cable and you're ready to watch HD movies on your big screen.
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