HIS has launched its HD 3800 series graphics cards. HIS has decided to announce two cards, one branded Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 and the other is Radeon HD 3850 HDMI 256MB GDDR3. Both of these cards come with reference design and reference clocks.

Oddly, HIS has placed HDMI in Radeon 3850, which made us think that it has an integrated HDMI connector, but unfortunately that isn't a case. You will still need that DVI/HDMI adapter if you want to use HDMI. The HIS Radeon HD 3850 comes clocked at 668MHz for the core and 1656MHz for 256MB of GDDR3 memory. The second card is a Radeon HD 3870 that also uses reference dual slot cooling solution design and it comes clocked at 775MHz for the core and 2.4GHz for 512MB of GDDR4 memory. Both cards feature a 256-bit memory interface.

These cards, the same as any other HD 3800 on the market, also support DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1 and, of course, ATI CrossFireX. The overclocked HIS HD 3800 series, probably cooled with highly effective IceQ cooling, should come out in December, hopefully in time for Christmas shopping. Until then we will have to settle for the reference ones.

Our favorite European price search engine, Geizhals.at, has these two listed at €198 for HD 3870 and €150 for HD 3850, and both of them come from retailer Komplett.de, which still doesn't have them in stock. The famous retailer, Alternate.de, has HIS Radeon HD 3850 in stock for €169. You can find them here.