Asustek Computer, a leading producer of mainboards, graphics cards and other computer components, reportedly plans to address performance-mainstream market of graphics cards with a dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 3850-based solution. While the product is another proof of Asus’ engineering talent, it is unclear whether such graphics cards may become commercially successful, considering its competitors.

Asus EAH3850 X2 1GB graphics card will be based on two ATI Radeon HD 3850 graphics processing units with 512MB of memory. Asustek Computer will clock the chips at 668MHz (just like ATI/AMD recommends), whereas GDDR3 memory will be clocked at 1658MHz, reports VR-Zone web-site.

The manufacturer plans to sell its EAH3850 X2 1GB graphics cards for $350, which is comparable to the price of Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB and GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB graphics cards, which are based on one code-named G92 graphics processor with 128 unified shader processors.

ATI Radeon HD 3850 graphics solution is lower-clocked ATI Radeon HD 3870, which usually boast the speed of 775MHz (825MHz in case of Radeon HD 3870 X2), thus, Asus EAH3850 X2 1GB should be considerably,  but not dramatically, slower compared to ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. Unfortunately, since all multi-GPU solutions rely on driver support, in cases where ATI Catalyst drivers do not feature certain optimizations the novelty will be radically slower compared to its direct rivals from Nvidia.

Asustek Computer has not formally unveiled its Asus EAH3850 X2 1GB yet and did not comment on the news-story.