Legion pits the 256MB vs 512MB HD3850 against each other to see if the 3850 really benefits from 512MB of RAM. Just 6 games and 3 resolutions, but still some of you may be surprised by their findings.
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=721&p=0

Nice find and a good read. Im sure therell be a few games that need 512, but that list is smaller than I thought itd be

Awesome review, kind of makes me sad I just ordered a 3850 512mb card. On the other hand, the main reason I ordered it was because of the better fan.

Tuesday I'll post the results of my 2900Pro OC'd vs. my 3850 512mb OC'd

"Both the Radeon HD 3850 and 2600XT utilize a 128-bit wide memory bus, while the 2600XT actually produces a significantly larger memory bandwidth."

With a mistake like that on the first page, i'm wondering what i'm in for on page 2?

Hmm, I am guilty of skmming the meat of the article this morning and didn't notice that. But they must have edited that because it says 256-bit now.

Interesting find. I know that the 256MB 8800GT suffers greatly on res higher than 1280 x 1024, but looks like this isn't the case with the HD3850. I wonder why...

Yeah, the 8800GT 256MB gives up alot and it does sometimes start to drop off at 12x10 even. But then again they have lower memory clock speeds too not just half the mem. But it does seem that at high res where the 256MB 8800GT tanks, the HD3850 256MB hangs in there better.

LOL. Legionhardware is a joke for sure. Anyone who reads their site is bunch of noobs who believe everything they read.

Why don't they test Crysis or COD4? Why? Because 512meg version of kill 256mb version of the card horribly. Wait a minute they did tested Crysis. I can search any credible web site that would show Legionhardware has no credibility.

http://www.yougamers.com/articles/ [...] ally_need/
Vram tested on modern games.

^ yeah, I agree that those two games should have been included for sure.

Dang, replied and it got erased because IE crashed.

anywhoo, I like the idea, but the methodology is flawed.

A few quick points (quick cause it's second time writing them);

A) Test should've shown min fps, where there's likely a larger impact on limitations, such as memory.

B) Games should've also included those that show no difference and those known to have already produced differences in the GTS-320 vs GTS-640 test in the past, it seems like mentioned, that they ignored those test that are most stressful at high/very-high settings.

C) They picked cards that are known for their silence, not their performance, and these Sapphire Ultimate cards are underclocked on the memory, with the 512MB version running more than 100mhz (200+DDR) slower than the stock/reference number from ATi). So it adds a bandwidth limit to the test in addition, and thus could reduce any differences further.

D) Ultimate cards are expensive! These price differences are greater than some of those out there, where the price difference is far smaller than the 32% of their models.

Good idea, poor implementation IMO.

Yeah I know. Some of those benchies were soo off.

The problem is they just hire anyone to do the benchmarks these days who has no grasp on hardware. I know it doesn't take a genius to do benchmarks but some of these people really need to stop drinking when they do benchmarks. Steven Walton has been questioned again and again usually favoring Nvidia. And now this.

point in case... if you can afford a 3850 512mb, you can likely kick a few bucks extra for a 3870, ESPECIALLY since gigabyte (our good quality/money saving friends) have released one with ddr3 and "ultra durable 2" which does show it can compete VERY WELL and includes nwn2 and a zaleman fan (if you subtract them from the price the card only costs 130 bucks) it's A nice! :-p according to a review I read, the "ultra durable" tech, DOES make a performance difference in cirtain games due to the high quality capacitors and what not despite the "slower" memory... i dunno the details, but it got butted up against an asus with ddr4 and i think another brand... and i'm a hardcore asus fan (due to quality and how long my ti4200 has lasted)... but i'm buying this gigabyte card, it's good. :-p just go to newegg.com and search for 3870 to find it sitting at 209 bucks (but leave me one, because i'm getting it when i get my taxes back :-p)

the 3850 has pretty sedate clock and mem speeds anyway, if you oc'd both cards to the limit of the slowest one, then did the benchies again, maybe by someone who knows that a 2600xt and 3850 DO NOT have the same mem. bus width, then you'd see a difference. Whatever that benchmark on legions site says, dont save money by choosing a model with less memory. Loads of people did that and bought a 320mb gts and found it aged rather rapidly, whereas a 640mb gts will still be hanging in there nicely. Just look at what a 320mb does in crysis, i.e. alot less than the 640mb gts or even the 2900xt. In short, lower mem models of anything look like a bargain now, but will look quite sad quite quickly.