ATI's radeon HD 3850 won't win any benchmarking contests, but it's still one of the most exciting video cards we've seen lately. While it's far from the fastest card on the block, it offers incredibly good performance for its $179 price. The chip at its heart is built on a smaller 55-nanometer process, which enables it to run cooler while using less power than earlier graphics processors. It's an excellent choice for a silent home theater system, with its whisper-quiet fan and power-saving profiles that kick in when idling. Along with S-Video and a pair of DVI ports, the card includes adapters for High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and component-video output.
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