Radeon HD 3850 512MB $159AR

great deal, had to bite. Looks like a decent cooler too, so this should OC up to near 3870 speeds. Look at the rebate closely tho - must be POSTMARKED within 16 days of PURCHASE. I'm sending that rebate out the second it hits my door :) BTW Apollo website also lists this as stock overclocked at 700 (Turbo-Cool EC Edition) for this model number.
 
lawrence131 said:
great deal, had to bite. Looks like a decent cooler too, so this should OC up to near 3870 speeds. Look at the rebate closely tho - must be POSTMARKED within 16 days of PURCHASE. I'm sending that rebate out the second it hits my door :) BTW Apollo website also lists this as stock overclocked at 700 (Turbo-Cool EC Edition) for this model number.
Click to expand...

let us know when you get it.
 
I saw this a few days ago and googled around, trying to find something about Apollo. I ended up giving up on the deal for lack of information on the company. If anyone has experience with them, i'd love to hear it.

The vendor's website is http://www.apollovcard.com/, and it looks like a teenager spent an afternoon creating it. The news hasn't been updated since the 2003 introduction of the FX5900 series.
 
Mine shipped same day, arriving 1-17, so we'll see. Apollo has been making vidcards as long as I can remember since the S3 GPU days. I haven't seen them in years so thought they just died out, but apparently not. Good observation about the short PCB, I compared it to others that had open fan designs and it seems that the standard length ones have a ton of empty space with no components on it. This card looks like a shorter and more cramped version of the Gigabyte with Zalman cooler. Even the heatsink looks like a copy of the Zalman design. I have no components under my vidcard in a huge case so if the cooling is subpar, I'll be gettin an accelero with 12cm yate fan and trying to break 3870 speeds on the GPU, the ram will of course be limited by whatever chips they decided to use.

I'll post a review in 2 days :)
 
Well, i found one guy who has good things to say about Apollo. I am getting impatient for a new card and want a 512 MB 3850, so i might as well try this out.

I'll report back if there are any problems.
 
Got mine an hour ago. The RAM chips say:
SAMSUNG 743
X4J52324QE-BC12
RA
EG1316CC

I'm gonna put a VF900 on it and see how it goes. Still have to install Windows, so it will be a while.
 
Flandry said:
Well, i found one guy who has good things to say about Apollo. I am getting impatient for a new card and want a 512 MB 3850, so i might as well try this out.

I'll report back if there are any problems.
Click to expand...

He did say something about the Apollo but DOESNT have any experience with it.
 
so tempted to get one too, but i must resist. it is after all, only a 3850 ;p. if it wasn't dual slot, i'd be all up for it... i wonder if they could shorten the height of the fins and just lengthen them so that they cover more of the card, but not be so high... doh!

any warranty info?
 
It looks just like the one on newegg. The cooler is pretty nice, but I didn't see how it performed. It does seem like a short card, but I'm not sure what the standard length is. The stock core is 670, like newegg says.

I'm moving today, otherwise I'd take some pictures.
 
RaZeR said:
It looks just like the one on newegg. The cooler is pretty nice, but I didn't see how it performed. It does seem like a short card, but I'm not sure what the standard length is. The stock core is 670, like newegg says.

I'm moving today, otherwise I'd take some pictures.
Click to expand...

How is the overclock ?
 
creamypie said:
He did say something about the Apollo but DOESNT have any experience with it.
Click to expand...

Right here:

2 - I would personally go with the 8800GT. If you need an AMD card go with the 3870 one. I have owned a few Apollo cards and never had any issues with them. In fact I gave my mother my old Apollo GeForce 5200FX 128MB (PCI - best card I ever owned - for its time) and its still going strong with a hefty overclock.
Click to expand...
 
How much faster is the 3850 than a 7900GT SC anyone have an idea. I have been holding out for a new card and am wondering if this will be a good step until I can afford the next gen.
 
I know what is missing in this card, and it is HDMI connection. That is why it is shorter.
 
annaconda said:
I know what is missing in this card, and it is HDMI connection. That is why it is shorter.
Click to expand...

yah... no hdmi stuff. i wonder if this card really has the 5.1 capabilities... wondering if this thing is missing anything. in the product description from their online page it says that there's integrated hdmi port.

Advance to the next generation of gaming with incredible performance, life-like graphics and support for the latest Microsoft?DirectX?10.1. With PCI Express?2.0 support, you’re ready for games that will demand faster throughput. And thanks to plug-and-play ATI CrossFire X?upgradeability, it is easy to turbo-charge your 3D performance with Xturbo III silent cooling design. Enjoy the ultimate image quality to spare with resolutions upscaled beyond 1080p with integrated HDMI port including built-in 5.1 surround audio, HDCP and native support for Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies playback.
Click to expand...

i'd usually take that as meaning you can plug any ol' hdmi cable into it and woolah sound + video. maybe it's that whole dvi -> hdmi adapter instead which this thing supposedly does not come with as it's not seen in any of the pics. another rather personal preference is the lack of any solid state capacitors also stays me from making an impulse buy. since this seems to be a proprietary pcb board layout, i wonder if aftermarket coolers are compatible. i like the price and length of this thing, but hate the height of the cooler and uknown factor of it. if it was so simple to design such a short board, why didn't ati stick to it? why have the stock card be so long? voltage regulation or whatever they call it problems? i know next to nothing about power regulators, capacitors, and what not but there's a lot of stuff missing from this shorter card. hopefully it has the same power requirements, usage, overclockability, and won't blow-uppa-bility as the other 3850's.

any warranty info?
 
Just got my card an hour ago and went straight to 770/2000 with Rivatuner since ATI Overdrive wouldn't let me go past 730. Load temp is 56C with stock cooler, ran Lightsmark 2007 and CinebenchR10 video benchmarks fine with no artifacting and 99% GPU load. Gonna go play games for a couple hours at this setting and update later tonight.

Windows XP picks up some Microsoft UAA HD audio devices that the ATI driver didn't pickup, so I assume this has to do with HDMI audio pass-through or something? Whatever the case, I ignored it and everything seems to be working still.
 
ooooh sweet. sounds awesome. dang... more tempted than ever now.
 
Ok card is 100% stable at 770/2000, gamed all night but can't get 3dmark06 to run. It won't even initialize I think because of the driver error that I haven't fixed with the MS UAA device. Other benchies are fine and no artifacting in any game or video. Temps never go past 56C either so cooling seems pretty sufficient with this card.

The cost savings on the card I think is mostly with the packaging and lack of HDMI. It comes with a 1 page manual, no games, and 1 driver CD. But the hardware seems solid. Will try for 800+ GPU this weekend.
 
Best Buy has a Visiontek for $159, no rebate. Linky.

I personally use this card and have had no issues. If the card's broken you can always return to B&M.;)
 
annaconda said:
BestBuy card is 256mb only this is 512MB card we are talking about here.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the BB card is $179 including tax and shipping to my door. The Apollo card was $189 shipped so even without rebate probably still a better deal unless you need the HDMI audio pass-through. I was concerned at first because the box literally looks like it belongs to a $30 budget card. There are no specs listed on the box OR the manual. The manual is from the 90's and has a picture of an old case, how to plug in a video card, and how a big CRT monitor plugs into the d-sub connector :)

Apparently the company uses the same box and manual for every product, but now I am very pleased with the purchase after using it pretty heavily for several hours. You can consider it an OEM product with the bare package, but so far a solid one.
 
And if they're anything like Gecube, their US branch is totally nonexistant, they don't have a phone number, and won't answer your emails. Oh and their rebates get sent to the same place as Gecube's.. so that's not a good sign.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top