Overclocking and Cooling:
The ASUS EAH3850 TOP Overclocked Radeon HD3850 Graphics Card is overclocked at the factory, so users are already getting a bit of a performance boost over a stock HD3850 card. The typical card offers 668MHz and 1.65GHz speeds on the core and memory respectively, and this one actually runs at 750MHz and 1.90GHz. Just because it comes overclocked doesn't mean you can't try for more, though.
The below left screenshot shows the ATI Overdrive tab from the Catalyst Control Center with the card at the default speed. The below right screenshot shows the ASUS EAH3850 TOP maxed out to 770MHz on the core and 2.02GHz (indicated as 1010MHz) on the memory. Other software may allow the card to go even higher, but I decided to stick with these speeds to see how the card performed, and if it would remain stable and not overheat.
The chart below revisits 3DMark06, this time comparing the stock speed (750MHz/1.90GHz) results with the overclocked (770MHz/2.02GHz) results. As the data details, an increase of 362 Marks was possible, or roughly 3.6%.
While running through all of the tests on the EAH3850, I also kept an eye on the "GPU Temperature" display found on the ATI Overdrive tab. The chart below shows the temperature reported while idling at stock speeds, under a full load at stock speeds, and under a full load while overclocked. An ambient temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, as reported by a digital thermometer, was maintained throughout the tests.
When the temperature rose over 70C, the fan on the card's cooler would ramp up and get rather loud. It wouldn't take long for the temperature to drop back down, and these bursts of noise were generally rather short lived. Most of them seemed to occur while playing Company of Heroes, further proving to me that this game can really tax a video card. Whether at stock speed or overclocked, the maximum temperature was about that same, and not too extreme. There were never any issues with stability during any of the tests or subsequent game play.
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