Benchmarking
Sapphire 3850 Ultimate runs at default clocks, but keep in mind that this is a passive card. Sapphire is the first one to put passive cooling on their new 55nm chip. The card itself is quite appealing, and 512MB definitely makes a difference, especially knowing that majority of available HD 3850’s have only 256MB. The memory increase provided a performance boost, and since textures in newer games definitely crave more memory, it’s proven to be quite helpful. You’ll soon see that Sapphire 3850 Ultimate is better than HD 3850 (identically clocked) with 256MB of memory.
Testbed:
Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)
Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)
Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18 (Supplied by OCZ)
while testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V
PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black ( Supplied by OCZ)
Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)
CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)
Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM
Futuremark tests
In 3DMarks, Sapphire Ultimate beats the reference card by a small margin. The memory did its job well, and it earned this card a result of 9745 marks in 3DMark06. That’s better than the reference HD 3850 card by 234 marks.
Gaming
Sapphire Ultimate beats the reference HD 3850 by about 6%. That’s only a couple of frames more, but bear in mind that Sapphire HD 3850 Ultimate will be completely silent during the task.
World in Conflict is a game where that extra 256MB of memory will definitely prove to be a good investment. At 1280x1024 and antialiasing on, gaming with reference ATI 3850 is out of the question. Sapphire Ultimate, on the other hand, will have no trouble whatsoever. At this resolution HD 3850 Ultimate beats HD 3850 256MB by about 25%, whereas at 2048x1536 it wins by 40%. However, this doesn’t mean that you’ll have pleasant gaming at these high resolutions, because even our overclocked GTX barely managed to get a decent and flowing frame rate.
In Company of Heroes, Ultimate HD 3850 with 512MB of memory beats ATI’s reference HD 3850 with 256MB of memory by 16%.
Temperatures
Initially, we were quite skeptical about Sapphire’s passive cooler, but we were pleasantly surprised. The core temperature was 7 degrees Celsius cooler than the temperature we measured on the reference card. If you want an even better result, you can place a large and quiet fan near the card that will help make this card even cooler. This method enabled us to lower the temperature to 64 degrees Celsius. A silent card is simply a great thing, especially considering that its cooler does a better job than the reference one.
Conclusion
If you want a passive card, Sapphire HD 3850 Ultimate is one of the best cards that money can buy at the moment. With HDMI and DX10.1 support, this is the card that will serve you for a long time. With 512MB GDDR3 memory and a 670MHz core, you can play all the latest games and enjoy the quiet.
Apart from some installation compatibility issues (the card might lean on your chipset cooler or memory modules) we have no complaints with Sapphire HD 3850 Ultimate. We recommend this card to anyone who might want a passive card that offers good performance at a reasonable price.
It's one of the fastest passively cooled DX10 cards on the market, and the only passive DX10.1 card so far, or should we say the only passive HD3800 series card. Thanks to its multimedia capabilities and silent running it's also an excellent choice for a powerful HTPC, which could bring HD gaming to your living room TV. It is modestly priced, too. The asking price in the EU is around 180 Euro and it should be available in a couple of weeks. All things considered, it wins our Top Value award hands down.
