A Look at GeForce 8800GTS
It's a long time coming, but we finally brace ourselves and took a look at NVIDIA's latest and greatest - the GeForce 8 series GPUs. This time, we're took the GeForce 8800GTS 640 and 320 MB versions and see what they have to offer, in terms of performance and image quality against the encumbent previous generation of cards, the GeForce 7950GT and Radeon X1950 Pro. It's a long read of 28 pages - we admit, we got a little bit carried away.Read the article here.
Internal Bridge Crossfire with Radeon X1950 Pro
This article took a long time to finish, but here it is. Here we take a look at what a pair of Radeon X1950 Pro in Crossfire setup have to offer. We were actually pretty excited about the potential of two Radeon X1950 Pro working together, however after testing we found this setup is not up to our expectations. Read on to find out why we chose not to recommend AMD's internal bridge Crossfire as the moment.Read the article here.
News from the Web
Gigabyte sent a press release regarding their latest series of graphics card based on NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 and 8500 series.Here's a snip:"April 17, 2007 – GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is again changing the face of silent graphics card solutions with the release of the breakthrough Silent-Pipe series third generation — Silent-Pipe 3™. Combining three GIGABYTE proprietary thermal designs: Silent-Pipe II™ recommended by Tom’s Hardware and awarded by AnandTech, Silent-Pipe™ known by gamers worldwide for its unmatched silent operation and Screen-Cooling™ for entry-level cards, Silent-Pipe 3™ delivers the very latest in advanced passive cooling technologies."
From top to bottom - GeForce 8600GTS, 8600GT and 8500GT.
Gigabyte didn't include any technical specifications with the press release, but you could check them out on Gigabyte's website, here. We haven't spent time to benchmark the thing properly, but these are cards definitely worth a look if you're looking for a mainstream card with good shader and FP blending performance. On a more personal note, those Silent Pipe II and III heatsink sure look impressive and quite effective too, we might add. Would be very easy to stick a 80 mm fan on both Gigabyte GeForce 8600 cards if you want more cooling performance.
MSI also sent word about their GeForce 8600 / 8500 series of cards.
"MSI, a leading manufacturer of computer products, proudly unveils its latest MSI graphics card - NX8600GTS/GT and NX8500GT Series. Incorporating the newest NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT/GTS and GeForce 8600 GT graphics processor which deliver superior cinematic resolution and high performance acceleration for today's demanding 3D graphic applications. The MSI NX8600GTS/GT and NX8500GT Series are the best choices with the most sensible prices for the most complete solution for the 3D and video application market."
Thankfully, MSI already have the technical specificatins of these cards up on their website, here.
| Core Clock (MHz) | Memory Clock (MHz) | Bus Width (bit) | Stream Processor | Capacity (MB) | Type | HDCP | |
| NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC | 700 | 1050 (2100 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | yes |
| NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD | 675 | 1000 (2000 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | yes |
| NX8600GTS-T2D256EZ-HD | 675 | 1000 (2000 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | yes |
| NX8600GT-T2D256EZ | 540 | 700 (1400 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | no |
| NX8500GT-TD256E | 460 | 400 (800 MHz effective) | 128 | 16 | 256 | DDR2 | no |
And finally, the GeForce 8600 / 8500 series from Leadtek.
"What’s more, bundled with a new award-winning game “Joint.Task.Force” (JTF), that has evolved into a game of modern military strategy to solve world crises, WinFast® PX8600 GTS, PX8600 GT and PX8500 GT give users an even more stunning and vicarious gaming experience. And not to forget that the 3DMark06 of WinFast® PX8500 GT with a core clock of 490 MHz has scored up to 13%, higher than GeForce 8500 GT to display superb picture quality and ultra-smooth images in movies and games with lightning execution. "
Surprisingly, no pictures of the card was in the press release. No mention of the card either in Leadtek's website. However, it did have some technical specifications:
| Core Clock (MHz) | Memory Clock (MHz) | Bus Width (bit) | Stream Processor | Capacity (MB) | Type | HDCP | |
| PX8600 GTS TDH Extreme | 710 | 1000 (2000 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | yes |
| PX8600 GTS TDH | 675 | 1000 (2000 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | yes |
| PX8600 GT TDH Extreme | 590 | 900 (1800 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | no |
| PX8600 GT TDH | 540 | 700 (1400 MHz effective) | 128 | 32 | 256 | GDDR3 | no |
| PX8500 GT TDH | 490 | 400 (800 MHz effective) | 128 | 16 | 256 | DDR2 | no |
Hopefully, we'll be taking a closer look at these cards very soon. For those of you who want to see what these cards have to offer, check out these articles:
- Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS Graphics Card Review at TechARP
- EVGA and MSI GeForce 8600 GTS Preview at NVNews
- ASUS P5-WDH Intel P975 motherboard review at Viperlair
- Foxconn N5M2AA-EKRS2H AMD Socket AM2 Motherboard Review at OCInside.de
- Kingwin coolers round up at The Overclocker Cafe
" As dual-core processors have been actively spreading in the market for the last years, multi-processing features are appearing in games and other non-professional applications. Dual-core processors have been rarely used in desktop computers up to now. They were mostly employed by professionals and rare enthusiasts, who worked with such applications as 3D modeling and rendering, as well as media processing and encoding, which were initially designed to support several CPUs."
Check out their article, here.
SATA Hard Drives on J-Micron and Intel controllers
After searching the web for answers and asking Gigabyte about our storage problems with the Gigabyte P965-DS3P, we finally found a fix for the problem. Since we still have a pair of 160 GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 and Western Digital Caviar SE 1600AJS in our labs, we've decided to take for a spin on Intel's ICH8R to see how it compares to J-Micron's controller. We also found that you can enable Volume Write Back Cache to enhance RAID 0 performance, even if Intel said this feature is restricted to RAID 5 only.Read the article here.
Radeon X1950 Pro Round Up
If you're looking to buy a graphics card now, you might be tempted to wait for the next generation of cards. But sometimes you may not have a choice on the matter. So, your best bet is to get a card that still have enough power to run the latest games and don't break your wallet. The Radeon X1950 Pro has proven to be quite the performer from a price / performance point of view. Today, we're going to take a look at three Radeon X1950 Pro cards on the market. They are the Gigabyte Radeon X1950 Pro, MSI RX1950 Pro T2D256E and Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro.Read the article here.
News from the Web
Kind of a slow week for news, but there are always a few busy bees here and there. Mike Chambers from NVNews.net sent an e-mail that they've finished a review of EVGA NForce 680i LT motherboard. Here's a snip:"The "Designed by NVIDIA" motherboard is engineered for the extreme gamer and will be priced as a sub-$200 motherboard. The NVIDIA nForce 680i LT includes dual x16 PCI Express slots with support for NVIDIA SLI technology and SLI-Ready memory. Engineered for best-in-class overclocking with overclocking and stability testing courtesy of NVIDIA nTune."
Read the review, here.
For AMD users and fans out there, OCInside recently have the chance to review ASRock's LiveNF6G-DVI motherboard based on NForce 6 chipset (with integrated GeForce 6100). The review is in German, so put your thinking caps on.
"This review will clarify if the ASRock ALiveNF6G-DVI MicroATX motherboard with onBoard GeForce 6100 graphics solution and provided HDMR DVI-D card can convince in a normal course of HTPC life, and if it is high overclockable.
The first look to the equipment already shows ASRock's main focus of this inexpensive mATX motherboard"
Read the review, here.
We first read about the OCZ Actuator 'gadget' at Legit Reviews. Now, Madshrimp have uploaded an article regarding this device. We wonder whether or not this kind of device will catch on mainstream gamers, but it sure is interesting nonetheless. It would be so cool to use this device in combination with LifeFX 3D teleconference - the Rachel demo from the old Radeon 8500 days.
"OCZ's latest brainchild is the Actuator, a device which tracks movement of your eyes, monitors brain waves and picks up facial muscle movements, it uses these recorded signals to link them to input commands on the computer, allowing you to play Tetris or even a first person shooter like UT2004. We visited the OCZ booth at Cebit where they had a live demo, (view)read our (video)report on this impressive technology which will change the way you interact with your PC!"
Read the review, here.
80 and 160 GB SATA Hard Drives Round Up
If you're in the market for a new hard drive, you may want to look at this. We tested 6 drives with capacities of 80 and 160 GB from Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital. They are Hitachi's Deskstar (HDS721616PLA P220 and HDS728080PLA PF20), Seagate's Barracuda 7200.9 (ST3160211A and ST380211AS) and Western Digital's Caviar SE (WD800AAJS and WD1600AAJS). See which drive we think has more value as far as gaming is concerned.Read the article here.
Here are some other articles you might want to look into if you want to know more about hard drives.
- Bit Tech's Introduction to Hard Drive Technology
- Microsoft's WHDC Storage section
- Intel Matrix Storage Technology guide on Changing / Choosing SATA modes
- Google's paper on Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population (pdf file)
- Bianca Schroeder and Garth Gibson's paper - What does an MTTF of 1,000,000 hours mean to you? (pdf file)
- Storage Review - 250 GB Hard Drive Round Up
- X-bit Labs - 400 GB Hard Drives in RAID 0, 5, 10 Arrays Performance Analysis
- X-bit Labs - 500 GB HDD Shootout Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 and Others!
News from the Web
Kingston sent a press release regarding their latest product. Here's a snip:"March 1 2007 – Kingston® Technology Company, Inc., today launched their HyperX 800MHz DDR2 low-latency memory modules in 4 GB and 2 GB capacities. The ability to reach high clocks with less power makes this memory the perfect choice for overclockers and hardware enthusiast."
Interested?
The official specs are:
- DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12 @ 2.0V
- CAS Latency: 4
- Dual channel memory kits available up to 4GB
"When it comes to high performance memory, Kingston has a name to keep up in the business. We already took some of the memory kits from Corsair, Team Group and OCZ for a spin, but Kingston was noticeably absent. About time we set this right, and we do this today by looking at two of their products: the PC6400CL4 and PC8500CL5, both 2Gb memory kits. Let's see how they stack up against some fierce competition."
Read the review, here.
There are some reviews you might want to read if you're looking for information to built your own PC. DDR2-800 modules is a must have, more so if you're planning to push Core 2 Duo processors to 400 MHz FSB. Of course, graphics cards comes next.
- DDR2 800 High End RAM Roundup at TweakPC.de
- Geforce 8800 GTS 320Mb Roundup - Six Models Compared at Madshrimps.be
- ASUS X1950 Pro Review (with Crossfire benchmarks) at Viperlair
- Foxconn N570SM2AA-8EKRS2H nForce 570 SLI AMD Socket AM2 Motherboard Review at OCInside.de
Last months' news.
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