Soon after the Microsoft's announce- ment that no current generation graphics cards will be supporting their latest DirectX version, both ATI and Nvidia announced their next-gen cards. But ATI cashed in on the latest DirectX 10.1 earlier by launching their 3000 series card.

The ATI Radeon HD3850 and HD3450 are the new kids on the block, based on 55nm technology and with HDMI support. The HD3850 is mainly targeted at mid-range gamers, and the HD3450 is an entry-level card. The HD3850 card comes with a dedicated HDMI port, and considering the fact that the 2900 series never had a dedicated HDMI port, it is a welcome change. It also has support for ATI's CrossFireX multi GPU setup; so now you can plug in two to three cards in tandem on an ATI CrossFireX ready motherboard and enjoy a mesmerizing gaming experience. Both these cards have 5.1 surround sound and all other regular features of the 2900 series such as DVI, CrossFire, and HDTV capability.

We stressed both these cards with our usual gaming tests, including Company of Heroes, Crysis and Unreal Tournament. The HD3850 performed well in all our tests. Its score of 10943 in 3D Mark06 was higher than the HD2900XT, and is similar to what we got from Zebronics GeForce 8800GT. In Company of Heroes it scored 103 fps with max settings, which consi- dering its price is quite good. In Crysis and Unreal Tournament, the score was 26 fps and 55.3 fps, which is good for the price.

Being an entry-level card we didn't have many expectations from the HD3450, but it performed well. It scored 1534 3D Marks in the 3DMark test. And the fact that we could play all the test games with minimum settings bodes well, considering that this is a card meant to just enhance Vista capability rather than play games. Both these cards face much tougher competition from Nvidia's 9 series cards, which has just been launched.

ATI Radeon HD 3850 Rs00 12,0	Performance Coolness
Pros DirectX 10.1, HDMI port Cons Average gaming benchmark score Sold by Aditya Infotech Tel: 011-26223810 sales@adityagroup.com www.adityagroup.com	Specs 900 MHz memory clock speed, 715MHz core clock speed, 512MB DDR3 RAM, 256-bit Memory bus, 340 Stream Processor, HDMI, DVI, CrossFire support Verdict

ATI Radeon HD3450 Rs 2,400	Performance Coolness
Pros DirectX 10.1, affordable Cons No dedicated HDMI port Sold by Aditya Infotech Tel: 011-26223810 sales@adityagroup.comwww.adityagroup.com	Specs 181 million transistors, 64-bit DDR3 memory interface, 40 stream processor, HDMI, DVI, VGA, CrossFire support Verdict

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