The HD3850 is an interesting card in the grand scheme of ATI's lineup and Diamond's 512MB version of the card is also interesting in that the card lies right in the middle of the 3850 to HD3870 price range. The price for this card online is $199.99, on Diamond's website and $179.99 at the lowest price available, which is $10 more than the 256MB version of this card. Compared to its lower memory sibling, the 256MB HD3850, a 512MB 3850 provides more performance for just a little more money. The 3850 from Diamond comes default clocked, meaning that the performance increase only comes from the extra memory on the card.
Buying a new video card always carries risks on something coming newer or something coming faster in a few days for the same price point. ATI launched the 3870/3850 late last year and the rest of 2008 will be interesting in terms of price/performance across the board versus NVIDIA's offerings. The area where the 3850 512MB shines, however is in the overclocking. The Diamond cards were able to maintain an 800MHz core clock with a 1.932GHz memory clock well above the clocks of the default 3850 setting. The cards ran in Crossfire mode without issue with enabling it a matter of checking a box in the drivers and letting it run.
