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What is Crossfire X
With the release of the Radeon X1950 Pro (RV570 GPU), ATI has completely revised CrossFire's connection infrastructure to further eliminate the need for past Y-dongle/Master card and slave card configurations for CrossFire to operate. ATI's CrossFire connector is now a ribbon-like connector attached to the top of each graphics adapter, similar to nVidia's SLi bridges, but different in physical and logical natures.[5] As such, Master Cards no longer exist, and are not required for maximum performance. Two dongles can be used per card; these were put to full use with the release of CrossFire X. Radeon HD 2900 and HD 3000 series cards use the same ribbon connectors, but the HD 3800 series of cards only require one ribbon connector, to facilitate CrossFire X.[6] Unlike older series of Radeon cards, different HD 3800 series cards can be combined in CrossFire, each with separate clock control.
Since the release of the codenamed Spider desktop platform from AMD on November 19, 2007, the CrossFire setup has been updated with support for a maximum of four video cards with the 790FX chipset; the CrossFire branding was then changed to "ATI CrossFire X". The setup, according to internal testing by AMD, will bring at least 3.2x performance increase in several games and applications which required massive graphics capabilities of the computer system, the setup is targeted to the enthusiast market. Later developments include a dual GPU solution to be released early 2008, the "ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2", featuring only one CrossFire connector for dual card, four GPU scalability.
HD Decoding with UVD
The UVD is based on an ATI Xilleon video processor, incorporated into the same die of the GPU and part of the AVIVO HD for hardware decoding videos, along with the Advanced Video Processor (AVP). The UVD, as stated by ATI, handles decoding of H.264/AVC, and VC-1 video codecs almost entirely in hardware. The decoder meets the performance and profile requirements of Blu-ray and HD DVD, decoding H.264 bitstreams up to a bitrate of 40 Mbit/s. It has context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) support and dual-stream decoding support, which would make picture-in-picture possible.
Click to enlarge
Unlike video acceleration blocks in previous generation GPUs, UVD offloads almost the entire video-decoder process for VC-1 and H.264, requiring minimal host (CPU) attention. For example, neither ATI Radeon R520 series' AVIVO nor NVidia Geforce 7 series' PureVideo assist front-end bitstream/entropy decompression in VC-1 and H.264 - the host CPU performs this work.[3] In addition to handling VLC/CAVLC/CABAC, frequency transform, pixel prediction and inloop deblocking, UVD also contains an advanced video post-processing block. Post-processing includes denoising, deinterlacing, and scaling/resizing. AMD has also stated that the UVD component being corporated into the GPU core only occupies 4.7 mm˛ in area on 65 nm fabrication process node.
DirectX 10.1
If you have played video games for any length of time you have more than likely noticed that whenever we see a change in DirectX version number we also usually see a number of changes in features for our games. Personally I can remember using DirectX 7 in a number of games, and during that time games were pretty much 2 dimensional in their game play. Today we are at version 10.1 and with this version we can expect to see features such as updated shader model, improved anti-aliasing support, more flexible data access, and tighter specifications for better application compatibility. These features will enable exciting new techniques, such as real-time global illumination, that will define the future direction of interactive 3D graphics.
The new ATI Radeon HD 3800 series of GPUs are the first to be designed for DirectX 10.1, as well as other cutting edge technologies, including PCI Express 2.0, Unified Video Decoder (UVD), hardware accelerated tessellation, and power efficient 55nm transistor design. The products are perfectly positioned to deliver a superior gaming experience at compelling prices.
The Packing
Sapphire has done a very nice job of decorating the shipping carton for the HD3850 graphics card, on the front of the carton you start off with a sword welding babe that should make the younger males happy. The earthen tones used on the carton make a perfect background for the various badges that are applied to the carton. The top five iconic symbols tell you a great deal about this video card. To start off with we now know that the card has 1gb of memory to work with which is about double of what you normally see in video cards. Next up you have the info letting you know that the card is HDMI compatible and that it supports HD Audio as well as PCI-E 2.0 and the last symbol lets you know the carton contains a registered copy of Future Mark's 3DMark06 benchmarking software.
The rear of the carton has one section that explains the features of the Sapphire HD3850 and below that you will find 14 web sites or magazines that have awarded ATI some form of an award. Directly below that you will see all of the accepted logos or example Underwriters Labs, EN ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS 14001.
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