DIAMOND Viper Radeon HD 3850 DirectX 10.1 3850PE3512O 512MB 256-Bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: Excellent purchase for about 80% of top-of-the-line (single card) performance. Runs nice and cool (35c idle, ~50c after a few hours of Crysis). Does not exhibit the reported fan control issues of 256MB 3850s. Installed and runs flawlessly on nForce4 mobo and with even a 400w PSU.

Cons: Catalyst drivers use ~20MB more RAM than Forceware. Adaptive AA does not work with Guild Wars (Catalyst 7.12). Catalyst Control Center requires .NET 2.0 unless you use ATI Tray Tools which has not been updated for 38x0 support yet.

Overall Review: Board runs @ stock 3850 clocks (don't know why New Egg doesn't say) and is ~1/2 inch longer than the 7800GT it replaced. X2 3800+ @ 2.4, Asus A8N-E, 2GB OCZ Plat r2 DDR400, 400w Antec Smart Power v2, 2x Seagate SATA drives + BenQ DVD-RW, X-Fi ExtremeMusic, Xp Pro Sp3 RC.

Pros: Wow. Just Wow. first of all, look at the price.... i mean how much of a steal is it for xxx$. this videocard has the same processing chip as the 3870 so its very similar. the hd3870 cost about 220-240$ and you only get 2-3 fps more at resolutions of 1024 x 768 to 1280 x 1024 on the 3870 than the 3850. Techpowerup.com has an awesome review on this product . it shows that it is able to keep up with the 8800gt on resolutions of 1280 x 1024. the games tested were crysis, call of duty 4, supreme commander, world in conflict and a bunch of others and it it shows that it performs just as well as a 3870 / 8800gt. if youre planning to game under 1280 x 1024 you have to get this card. you wont even regret it. save your self 50- 70$ :). btw you can overclock this card to 720 gpu core and 900 memory w/out breaking a sweat. it stays really cool, about 35 on idle and it never exceeds 55 . thats pertty darn cool. low power consumption as well due to the 55nm technology :). BEST PRICE VS PERFORMANC

Cons: i wished sli/crossfire motherboards are backwards compatible lol. i dont wanna spend another 150 on a crossfire motherboardsince i have an sli motherboard :(. if i got a crossfire board, i would have purchased a 2nd one right away.

Pros: An excellent card, especially for the price. runs crysis at a consistent 45-60 frames per second with medium-high graphics enabled at 1024x768, unable to test much higher resolutions because of an old monitor. almost dead silent. you can't hear anything from my case.

Cons: it seems a little warm, but nothing extreme.

Overall Review: for the price, you really can't beat this card.

Pros: can play Call of duty 4 at max detail (no initializing) in my 1600x1050 flat panel with FPS between 40 and 60

Cons: This card comes factory over clocked to 725 MHz what makes it unstable. I under clocked it to 700 MHz using ATI software utility control panel and resolve that problem.

Overall Review: Didn’t get the mail in rebate

Pros: Price... for those of you who painstakingly wait with your humble systems, waiting for the right time to feel 'ok' about splurging on yourself... DO IT. The release of finally buying a card with so many big numbers is great. 320 streams!@ 512mb on board! Fit perfectly into my Gateway 505GR as an upgrade from ATI Sapphire Radeon X600PRO. Has HDCP, will output to monitors with high native resolution requirements (like the 22" acer widescreen i just bought from newegg for 219$ shipped). Software drivers automatically calibrate your overclocking potential and adjust your card speeds, if you don't want to try it out. Put me one notch below highest overclocks even with my lame system.

Cons: Takes over the PCI-e space so I can't use my other slot... but not really a con, since I don't need anything else! No 3.0 shader tech, but apparently 2.0 + whatever ATI has come up with claims to do the trick.

Overall Review: Must be comfortable installing graphics cards. This one is HUGE compared to my other one, and I had to spend a few short minutes planning my route of attack. Ended up fitting exactly right. Hard to reach under to hold that little tab for your PCI-e security latch but I did it (small hands?) Any limitations on this card are going to be due to your processing power. I am running a p4 HT 3.0 with only 1gb RAM, so MAXING half-life 2 does not make for seamless gameplay. I also play WoW and found I can max all settings with minimal lag in the most populated zones, and can easily customize here and there to get things seamless (take things down to medium, or high from ultra high...) The newer processing technology thats available will really unleash this card, but it will kick A if you're a holdout with a regular p4 HT like me.

Pros: Best card on the market for playing Blu-rays/HD DVDs. Fully accelerates H.264 and VC-1 while Nvidia only does H.264.

Cons: Stock fan runs at 100% all the time and is much louder than the rest of my system. ATI Tray Tools/RTuner are unable to control the fan speed.

Overall Review: I took the heatsink/fan apart and saw that the fan was a standard 80x80x15mm fan, so I bought a quieter one with a 3 pin connector.

Pros: - Good FPS in some of the latest games I've thrown at it w/ high settings (Call of Duty 4, BioShock, etc..) - Fan does a good job cooling and runs quiet

Cons: - Not the fastest card out there, but then again, it doesn't cost a ton either.

Overall Review: I haven't owned an AMD/ATI card since the original Radeon card came out, but my GeForce 7900GS needed replacing and it was almost impossible to find the 8800GT in stock at a reasonable price, so I decided I've give the Radeon cards a shot again. So far so good. I installed the latest Omega drivers, they seem to work well, and my gaming performance has been quite good. I haven't gotten around to overclocking yet but I've heard good things. Overall, definitely a good bang for the buck.

Pros: Replaced a reference 3850 256MB card with this one, and I am very happy I did. The fan on this card works as it should and ramps up or down depending on GPU temp. It is slightly louder than the 256MB card's fan, but then again that fan barely spun. No other fan control software is needed as this card works out of the box. I did a lot of research on video cards, and this was a great selection.

Cons: Not the prettiest card on the market, but then again I am not sure why people care about that in the first place. I tried asking Diamond about the fan controller on this card before I bought it, and the service was poor at best. Hopefully, I will not have to talk with them again.

Overall Review: The 3850 cards offer incredible value at the current price points. The 3850 is 50-60% less than the higher end cards but is only 20% or so slower in performance. If you don't want to spend $200-$300+, then this card is the best choice.