Custom Search
Tampilkan postingan dengan label vga card. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label vga card. Tampilkan semua postingan

Selasa, 03 Februari 2009

Radeon™ HD 4800

-- GIGABYTE Unveils the Power of HD with Radeon™ HD 4800 Series Graphics Accelerators --The next generation GDDR 5 memory inside for cinematic gaming experience



Taipei, Taiwan, June 25, 2008 –GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to announce their latest GV-R4800 series graphics cards. The GV-R487-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B are built on the highly anticipated ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series GPU ─ which utilizes second generation 55nm manufacturing process and GDDR 5 video memory architecture. It delivers best-in-class performance with new clock speed and break-through efficiency power management for tomorrow’s demanding applications. Additionally, the GIGABYTE GV-R487-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B feature a wide range of the latest graphics technologies, including TeraScale graphics engine, CrossFireX™, UVD 2 and PowerPlay™, to prepare gamers for bandwidth-hungry games, incredible HD fidelity and 3D applications.

GIGABYTE GV-R487-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B come equipped with ATI's latest TeraScale graphics engine, combining 1 teraFLOPS of GPU compute power, 800 stream processors and next generation GDDR5 memory to increase the physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience. In addition, with enhanced anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering, the GV-R475-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B create striking graphics with unparalleled realism so you can max out the settings of the most demanding next generation games or revitalize your favorite titles. Also, the GIGABYTE GV-R4800 series are provided with DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities to support Shader Model 4.1 for life-like realism 3D gaming effects.

Benefiting from Avivo™ HD video and display technology, the GV-R487-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B fully support even most processing-intensive content for HDTV and HD video enthusiasts, universal connectivity to TVs and displays, and HDMI with 7.1 digital surround audio. Take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities and one-cable HDMI™ connectivity solution to high definition home theaters.

For more details of GIGABYTE GV-R487-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA website: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Default.aspx

Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 Graphics Card


-- GIGABYTE Presents the Power of Graphics Supercomputing with Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 Graphics Card --
-- Redefining HD Gaming for Extreme Gamers --


Taipei, Taiwan, August 12, 2008 – GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to launch their latest GV-R4870 X2 graphics card. The GV-R487X2-2GH-B is built on the highly anticipated ATI RadeonTM HD 4870 X2 GPU ─ which utilizes second generation 55nm manufacturing process and GDDR5 with dual 256-bit video memory architecture. It delivers blazing frame rates with supercomputing graphics power for tomorrow's demanding applications. In addition, the GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B features a wide range of the latest graphics technologies, including Dual TeraScale graphics engine, dual mode ATI CrossFireX™, UVD 2 and PowerPlay™, to offer supreme scalability so gamers can take their games to new heights.

The GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B features ATI's latest Dual TeraScale graphics engine, boasting its 2.4 teraFLOPS of GPU computing power with 1600 stream processors and nearly two billion transistors. With incredible 2GB GDDR5 memory, the GV-R487X2-2GH-B is equipped with nearly two times the memory bandwidth of the previous generation, delivering true physics gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience. In combination with 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) and high performance anisotropic filtering, the GV-R487X2-2GH-B is able to create true-to-life graphics for everything from grass to facial features so you can max out the settings of the most demanding next generation games or revitalize your favorite titles. Also, the GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B graphics card provides DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities to support Shader Model 4.1 for life-like realism and stunning 3D gaming effects.

Benefiting from Avivo™ HD video and display technology, the GV-R487X2-2GH-B fully supports UVD 2 for decoding processing-intensive content for 1080p HDTV and HD video with additional support for dynamic contrast and enhanced DVD upscaling. The GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B also provides advanced connectivity to TVs and displays with HDMI with 7.1 digital surround audio support. Delivering the ultimate solution for high definition home theaters, the GV-R487X2-2GH-B is able to take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities and one-cable HDMI™ connectivity.

To help reduce PC power consumption, the GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B is equipped with ATI PowerPlay™ technology, maximizing performance per watt by delivering the highest level high performance when needed and conserving power when the demand on the GPU is low. GIGABYTE graphics products are also 100% RoHS compliant, from manufacturing to on the store shelves, GIGABYTE provides greener computing solutions with better power efficiency.

For more details of the GIGABYTE GV-R487X2-2GH-B, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA website at:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Default.aspx

Radeon™ HD 4600

-- GIGABYTE Unleashes Next-Gen Mainstream GPU Powered by Radeon™ HD 4600 Series Graphics Accelerators --
-- Featuring native HDMI port for incredible visual fidelity --




Taipei, Taiwan, September 10, 2008 – GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to launch their latest mainstream Radeon™ HD 4600 series graphics cards. The GIGABYTE GV-R467D3-512I and GV-R465OC-512I are built on the highly anticipated ATI Radeon™ HD 4670 and 4650 GPUs ─ respectively utilizing GDDR3 and GDDR2 video memory architecture and are able to deliver best-in-class performance with new clock speeds and provide break-through power efficiency management for tomorrow’s demanding applications. In addition to supporting a wide range of the latest graphics technologies including dual mode CrossFireX™, Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1, PCI Express 2.0 and UVD 2, the GIGABYTE GV-R4600 series are also equipped with the industry-leading GIGABYTE unique features including Ultra Durable 2 technology, GamerHUD™ Lite performance tuner and native HDMI port for HD gaming and Blu-ray movie playback

The Radeon™ HD 4600 series GPUs feature the same engine architecture as the award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series, allowing the GV-R467D3-512I and GV-R465OC-512I to reach up to 3 times the performance of previous generation GPUs. Additionally, the powerful Radeon™ HD 4600 GPUs incorporate 320 stream processing units, delivering enough processing power to tackle the most demanding HD games and providing the highest levels of sophisticated anisotropic filtering (AF) and anti-aliasing (AA) to truly bring HD games to life. The GIGABYTE GV-R4600 series also feature DirectX® 10.1 graphics capabilities with support for Shader Model 4.1, delivering the most life-like 3D gaming effects.

Benefiting from Avivo™ HD video and display technology, the GV-R467D3-512I and GV-R465OC-512I fully support UVD 2 for decoding processing-intensive content for digital output at all resolutions up to 1080p and integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder for high quality analog TV output. The GIGABYTE GV-R4600 Series also provide real one-cable HDMI™ connectivity to TVs and displays with HDMI with up to 2 channel 48 kHz stereo or 7.1 AC3, enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution. With the ability to take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities, dynamic contrast and enhanced DVD upscaling, the GV-R467D3-512I and GV-R465OC-512I provide the ultimate high definition solution for home theater systems.

For more details of GIGABYTE GV-R467D3-512I and GV-R465OC-512I, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA website: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Default.aspx

Radeon™ HD 4850 Graphics

-- GIGABYTE Launches 3 Proprietary Designed Radeon™ HD 4850 Graphics Accelerators with Ultra Durable 2 Technology --
-- 3 unique designs delivering the ultimate in HD performance: Fan Cooled, Passive Cooled and OC version --




Taipei, Taiwan, September 11, 2008 – GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today announced their latest in-house designed GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series graphics cards featuring GIGABYTE’s own Ultra Durable 2 Technology.

Built on the highly anticipated ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 GPU which utilizes second generation 55nm manufacturing process and GDDR 5 video memory architecture, the GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series VGA cards deliver best-in-class performance with higher clock speeds and provide break-through power efficiency management for tomorrow’s demanding applications. In addition to featuring a wide range of the latest graphics technologies including TeraScale graphics engine and CrossFireX™, the GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series are also equipped with the industry-leading GIGABYTE unique features including Ultra Durable 2 technology, GamerHUD™ tweaking utility and Multi-Core™ cooling design, setting a new standard for HD gaming performance.

In order to satisfy the individual needs of gamers, power users and home theater enthusiasts alike, the GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series VGA cards offer 3 unique designs: the GV-R485ZL-512H featuring the Zalman VF830 fan, the passive cooled GV-R485MC-1GH featuring GIGABYTE’s Multi-Core™ cooling design with 3 cooling points instead of the traditional single node connecting the heat pipes to the fins for better performance especially during heavy loading and the GV-R485OC-1GH featuring a 12% core overclock to 700MHz (originally clocked at 625MHz) for the ultimate 3D rendering performance. The GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series are also equipped with GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable 2 technology, featuring the latest high quality, highly efficient components designed to keep temperatures low and maximize total performance.

The GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series come equipped with ATI's latest graphics technologies including the TeraScale graphics engine, combining 1 teraFLOPS of GPU compute power, 800 stream processors to increase physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience. With enhanced anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering, the GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series are able to provide striking graphics quality with unparalleled realism, allowing users to max out the settings of the most demanding next generation games or revitalize favorite titles. The GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series also feature DirectX® 10.1 graphics capabilities with support for Shader Model 4.1, delivering the most life-like 3D gaming effects.

Benefiting from Avivo™ HD video and display technology, the GIGABYTE GV-R487-512H-B and GV-R485-512H-B fully support even most processing-intensive content for HDTV and HD video enthusiasts, universal connectivity to TVs and displays and HDMI with 7.1 digital surround audio. The GIGABYTE GV-R4850 series also allows users to take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities and one-cable HDMI™ connectivity for a cinema quality experience at home.

For more details of GIGABYTE GV-R485ZL-512H, GV-R485MC-1GH and GV-R485OC-1GH, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA website: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Default.aspx

GeForce® GTX 260

-- GIGABYTE Unveils Next Generation GeForce® GTX 260 OC Graphics Accelerator --
-- Setting New Records for Extreme Gaming Performance --




Taipei Taiwan, Sep. 16, 2008 - GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched their next generation graphic accelerators, the GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B, equipped with NVIDIA's latest GeForce® GTX 260 OC graphics processor. Delivering a 5-10% performance boost over the previous GeForce® GTX 260, the GeForce® GTX 260 OC with its 216 stream processors and 448bit, 896 GB GDDR3 memory provides a sophisticated level of 3D game rendering to take your game play to the next level. Supporting HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) and Full HD to 1,080P, the GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B also provides the highest quality, High-Definition video for the ultimate home theater experience.

Supporting NVIDIA’s PhysX™ Technology, the GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B enables a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260 OC. In addition to providing a completely unique gaming experience, it also compliant with CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) Technology, unlocking the power of the processor core of the GeForce GTX 260 OC to accelerate the most demanding system tasks such as video transcoding for an up to 7x performance enhancement over traditional CPUs.

The GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B also feature NVIDIA's latest advanced Lumenex™ Engine Technology, delivering stunning image quality and floating point accuracy at ultra-fast frame rates. The latest 16x Anti-aliasing Technology provides lightning fast, high-quality anti-aliasing up to 16x sample rates, which helps to eliminate jagged edges. 128-bit floating point High Dynamic Range (HDR) Lighting supports twice the precision of prior generations for incredibly realistic lighting effects with support for anti-aliasing.

Integrated with industry leading 3-way NVIDIA SLI Technology, the GV-N26OC-896H-B offers amazing performance scaling by implementing 3-way AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) for the world's fastest gaming solution under Windows Vista with solid, state-of-the-art drivers. With DirectX® 10 support and adopting the latest Unified Shader architecture with full support for Shader Model 4.0, the GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B is able to deliver the most realistic gaming effects and lets users take full advantage of all the advanced features Microsoft® Windows Vista Premium, including the full Aero Interface.

The GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B is equipped with NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology and supports Dual Dual-Link DVI, transforming your home theater into the latest highest quality, High-Definition cinema. Whether playing your favorite game at max settings, or watching the latest Blu-ray DVD movie, the GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B has the power to immerse you in the experience.

For more details about the GIGABYTE GV-N26OC-896H-B, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA website at: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Default.aspx

Gigabyte GTX295-Golden Systems Launches Gigabyte GTX295


Golden Systems Electronics (GSE) today announced the launch of GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B in the Middle East region. The new GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B supports NVIDIA's latest dual graphics processors-GTX295 and features 896MB GDDR3 memory and 480 stream processors to enable gamers to enjoy unrivaled graphics performance. Additionally, the GV-N295-18I-B is equipped with the latest NVIDIA SLI®, NVIDIA PureVideo® HD, NVIDIA PhysX™, NVIDIA CUDA™ technology and Microsoft DirectX 10. Output interfaces support Dual-Link DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI with HDCP. The GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B gives gamers extremely high resolutions.

“The new GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B is an absolute delight for gamers offering realistic gaming experience with the very high resolutions. The latest graphics accelerator provides unrivaled graphics performance using NVIDIA’s latest dual graphics processors-GTX295. We are confident the new GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B will be well received in the region,” says Iman Mozaffari, Product Manager– Golden Systems Electronics.

High Gaming Resolution
GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B with NVIDIA PhysX technology provides a new class of physical gaming interaction for a more realistic gaming experience. Via NVIDIA PhysX technology, gamers are able to experience realistic 3D game effects such as complex characters and explosion. NVIDIA CUDA technology further enables the GPU’s processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks delivering incredible performance improvements over traditional CPUs. Integrated with unique NVIDIA SLI® Technology, GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B is able to offer amazing performance scaling for the world’s fastest gaming solution under Windows Vista with solid, state-of-the-art drivers.

Delicate Image
GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B integrated with NVIDIA PureVideo® HD technology enables gamers to enjoy ultimate HD Movie experience on a PC with HDCP image protection. GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B supports the latest video output interfaces, including Dual Dual-Link DVI and HDMI, for the highest dual 2560X1600 screen resolution. With this design, you do not have to worry about handling tomorrow’s output interface applications.

GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B dual GPU processor high-end graphics accelerator is equipped with full functions providing high performance processing speed and delicate 3D images. This card provides you an unrivaled graphics experience and is your best choice

For more details of GIGABYTE GV-N295-18I-B, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA website: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Default.aspx

source : www.tbreak.com

Kamis, 22 Januari 2009

Palit Launches GeForce GTX285 with NVIDIA PhysX and CUDA


Graphic Cards | Just Announced

Manila, Philippines -- Palit Microsystems announces the Palit GeForce GTX285. Armed with NVIDIA PhysX and NVIDIA CUDA technology, the GeForce GTX285 is ready to enable a total new class of physical gaming interaction!

The Palit GeForce GTX285 features a core speed of 648MHz and 2.5GHz on its 1GB of GDDR3 memory with a 512bit interface. It supports the latest NVIDIA PhysX technology providing real-time physics simulations in leading edge PC and console games. With up to 50% more performance than prior generation GPUs, GeForce GTX 285’s GPUs tear through complex DirectX 10 environments and cinematic effects at blazing frame rates in extreme HD resolution!

Palit’s GeForce GTX285 also supports NVIDIA CUDA technology, unlocking the power of the GPU’s processing cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks (such as video transcoding) to deliver up to 20x the performance over traditional CPUs.

The Palit GeForce GTX285 graphics card with NVIDIA CUDA technology not only provides a world-class gaming experience, it also delivers Graphics Plus. Experience jaw-dropping NVIDIA PhysX gaming effects, stereoscopic 3D, and lightning fast video and image processing all accelerated by the GPU!

source : www.hardwarezone.com

GIGABYTE Announces GeForce 7800 GT VGA Card


Graphic Cards | Just Announced

Taipei, Taiwan 11th August 2005 – GIGABYTE launched the GV-NX78T256V-B, yet another high definition next generation GIGABYTE Gaming VGA solution based on the NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT graphics processor. Following close on the heels of several remarkable VGA card innovations from GIGABYTE, such as the proprietary 3D1 series of dual GPU cards, innovative fanless thermal designs that use Silent-pipe cooling technology and the famous GIGABYTE Turbo Force performance tuner, the new GV-NX78T256V-B introduces an incredible 20 pixel pipeline in what is arguably the industry’s powerful and technically advanced graphics accelerator card. The new high-end VGA card from GIGABYTE also supports a host of industry wide technological advancements such as Microsoft DirectX 9.0C and OpenGL 2.0, and is fully compatible with 64-bit operating systems.

The NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT GPU featured on the new GV-NX78T256V-B boasts NVIDIA’s top-three mainstream architectures, the Power of 3, which comprise Shader Model 3.0, HDR (High dynamic-range), and SLI technology. The GeForce 7 series is fitted out a fourth generation graphics engine that streamlines the creation of complex visual effects through features such as the CineFX 4.0 engine that allows developers to create unique 3D game features and effects in both game animation and high-definition video; moreover, the specialized engine possesses full support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0, that provides infinite program command length creating photorealistic scenes and environments in games. Additionally, the video accelerator card also supports HDR (High dynamic-range) rendering technology, which takes advantage of subtle light, texture, and color intricacies to creative incredibly realistic environments by representing color and intensity values with higher levels of precision. Naturally, NVIDIA SLI technology is featured on the GV-NX78T256V-B, which delivers powerful, elegant and super-rich graphics for games and other graphics-intensive applications. What’s more, for discerning PC gamers, the GV-NX78T256V-B incorporates Intellisample™ 4.0 that delivers Transparency Supersampling technology to improves the quality of finely detailed environments that may otherwise be aliased and blocky when rendered by traditional means.

In addition to NVIDIA’s industry leading 3D gaming technologies, the GV-NX78T256V-B also incorporates PureVideo technology that ensures support for new video formats, while its motion estimation engine (MEE) allows the card to record and play video files simultaneously without interrupting system performance. An added value the GV-NX78T256V-B provides is its high-definition MPEG-2 and WMV HD hardware accelerator that take on much of the heavy lifting during playback of Hi-Def video. Other video playback enhancements include a unique color correction mechanism that will help to create a home theater from a PC.

The GV-NX78T256V-B is equipped with video in and out (VIVO), HDTV, DVI-I, D-SUB output, and comes bundled with an impressive range of software, including Cyberlink PowerDirector 3.0 ME, PowerDVD 6.0, Spell Force, and Xpand Rally. The GV-NX78T256V-B is expected to be available on the shelf in end of June. For more details, please visit the official GIGABYTE VGA website: http://tw.giga-byte.com/VGA.

Jumat, 02 Januari 2009

Zotac/Sharaf DF GTX 260 Promotion


Published 26 November 2008

ZOTAC today announced that it is holding a special promotion exclusively at Sharaf DG on its GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! edition cards. The leading manufacturer of NVIDIA-based graphics cards and motherboards will offer customers a new premium software bundle featuring Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2 with its award-winning ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! edition cards as an exclusive promotion for Sharaf DG’s weekend customers from November 27-28, 2008. Customers who purchase ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! edition cards will be eligible for a big draw at Sharaf DG where they will have a chance to win ZOTAC NITRO devices.

“To celebrate the upcoming holiday season, ZOTAC is pleased to offer customers Ubisoft’s highly anticipated Far Cry 2 game with our ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! cards. Sharaf DG is the leading power retailer in the UAE, which attracts a number of shoppers and gaming enthusiasts and this promotion will run exclusively for them at Sharaf DG over the weekend. We plan to later extend this promotion through SKY Electronics’ channel partners for a limited period,” says Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim, Regional Manager – Middle East for ZOTAC International.

Gamers buying ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! edition at Sharaf DG’s retail outlets will get Ubisoft’s highly anticipated Far Cry 2 game with the box. Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2 puts gamers in control of a mercenary in a highly detailed central African environment. Far Cry 2 treats gamers to an open, interactive environment with realistic details and weather effects for a highly immersive gaming experience that blurs the line between the game and reality. With Far Cry 2, users can take advantage of the 3D power available with their new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 260 AMP2! edition and experience stunning visuals right out of the box.

This special promotion will run exclusively at all Sharaf DG outlets from November 27-28, 2008 and later through ZOTAC’s Middle East Distributor, SKY Electronics for a limited period.

source : www.tbreak.com

Kamis, 01 Januari 2009

NVIDIA announces Quadro FX5800 Graphics Card with 4GB RAM


Published 18 November 2008

Professionals searching for oil, diagnosing illness or styling the next high-performance luxury vehicle all have one thing in common, the need for advanced visual computing solutions. NVIDIA Corporation, the world leader in visual computing technologies, today unveiled the most powerful professional graphics card in graphics history —the NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 5800.

“The size and complexity of data is growing at an exponential rate. The challenge for today’s professional is to make sense of the mountain of data by distilling it into a form they can comprehend, analyse and use to make impactful decisions,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. “At stake can be billions of investment dollars, or even people’s lives. The Quadro FX 5800 has advanced features to allow massive datasets to be viewed beyond traditional 3D enabling professionals to make fast and accurate decisions.”

The Quadro FX 5800 graphics card offers unprecedented performance and scalability to rapidly visualise and interpret massive datasets that until now were unattainable on a workstation graphics board. Offering up to 240 CUDA™ programmable parallel cores and the industries first 4GB of graphics memory, the Quadro FX 5800 graphics card is ideally suited for oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, styling and design, and scientific visualisation. Other advanced features of the Quadro FX 5800 graphics card include:

• Interactive 4D modeling with time lapse capabilities
• Massive memory bandwidth of up to 102 GB per second
• Fill rates that exceed 52 billion texels per second and geometry performance of 300 million triangles per second
• Support for next-generation OpenGL and Microsoft DirectX 10 applications
• Advanced multi-system and multi-device visualisation environments with Quadro G-Sync II

“Landmark’s recently launched GeoProbe® R5000 software empowers geoscientists with an unprecedented ability to visualise large-scale regional datasets at full resolution from a standard Linux® workstation,” said Nicholas Purday, manager of Geophysical Technologies at Landmark. “The NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 graphics card has a more powerful GPU and superior triangle performance, which make it possible for the GeoProbe application to quickly render large surfaces, and allow us to move many computing-intensive processes to the graphics card, significantly enhancing the overall user experience.” Landmark is an industry leading software and technology services brand of Halliburton, one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the energy industry.

“The advanced textured graphics capabilities of the Quadro FX 5800 are enabling CyberHeart to provide 3D radiosurgical target visualisation and definition tools for the purpose of treating cardiac arrhythmias,” said Thilaka Sumanaweera, CTO, CyberHeart. “Our applications are processing very large data sets acquired by the state-of-the-art 64-slice CT scanners using respiratory- and cardiac-gating. The Quadro FX cards provide us with the extreme bandwidth necessary to support our cutting-edge technology, and essentially, save lives.” CyberHeart, Inc., is a medical device company developing a non-invasive radiosurgical system for cardiac applications.

The Quadro FX 5800 GPU features true 10-bit color enabling billions rather than millions of color variations for rich, vivid image quality with the broadest dynamic range. Professionals now benefit from viewing their models with higher degrees of precision and realism never before possible.

“Our customers are making important decisions about future products on the basis of RTT-powered 3D real-time models,” said Ludwig Fuchs, cofounder and CEO of RTT. “The new Quadro FX 5800 will be the platform of choice to bring that arena to the next level. Higher levels of realism, physical correctness and large models are now made possible through a double number of cores and a generous frame buffer.” Realtime Technology AG, is a leading supplier of real-time visualisation technology and virtual prototyping solutions to the automotive, aerospace, industrial and consumer goods design industries.

Pricing and Availability
NVIDIA Quadro solutions are widely available through leading PC manufacturers and workstation system integrators and NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (EMEA). For more information about the full lineup of NVIDIA professional solutions please visit www.nvidia.co.uk/quadro.

source : www.tbreak.com

Sabtu, 27 Desember 2008

XFX GeForce GTX260 XXX Edition Video Card


Author: Ben Sun · 07-22-2008
With the recent launch of the ATI HD4870 and HD4850, NVIDIA's strategy for their GTX cards has changed for the better for the consumer, for the worse for NVIDIA at least for the short term. ATI's launches have forced NVIDIA to lower the prices on their cards to match ATI's market price and cut down on their margins. Today, what was a $399 GTX260 is now selling online for $299 amazingly enough. Similarly, what was a $649 GTX280s are selling for $499 meaning the margins on these new cards is down for NVIDIA, hence the good news and bad news of lower prices.
The GT200 chip was launched last month by NVIDIA as their next-generation graphics chip. There are two versions of this chip available, the GTX280 and the GTX260. I've covered the GTX 280 in a couple of reviews already, but today I'm reviewing the GeForce GTX260. The company that manufactures this particular card is XFX a division of Pine Technologies. It will be an interesting look at a card that has dropped in price to be more competitive with the competition. The GeForce GTX260 XXX Edition is an overclocked card from the reference clocks, and should be a good performer. As prices keep dropping this is a good thing for the consumer looking for a high-end card.
The GeForce GTX260 is the “little brother” to the GTX280 card that is NVIDIA's flagship at the moment. The card is built upon TSMC's 65 nanometer process, with 1.4 Billion transistors. This is the largest graphics card in terms of transistor count in the world. The GTX260 has 192 Stream Processors which is less than the 240 SPs the GTX280 sports.
NVIDIA was the first graphics chip maker on the market with DirectX 10.0 support with the GeForce 8800GTX and GeForce 8800GTS cards in 2006. The key features of DX10 include Unified Shader support, support for Pixel and Vertex Shader 4.0 and Windows Vista Aero Glass support (the GUI). Games that support DirectX 10 include: Crysis, Hellgate London, Lost Planet and many others that have hit the market in recent months.

source : www.motherboards.org

ATI All-In-Wonder HD Video Card


Author: Ben Sun · 08-27-2008
ATI has been at the forefront of multimedia applications for their video cards for years. The first “All-In-Wonder” video card was released way back in 1996 with the ability to play TV on the PC. Since then ATI has released many AIW products until the release of the AIW X1900 their last AIW card in 2006. The gap of two years has seen the release of many video chip families including the HD2xxx, HD3xxx and the HD4xxx families of video cards.
One of the problems with designing their AIW line of VGA cards is that they are generally six months behind the family launch, so that a new chip is released before the AIW would normally be ready to release. This is one of the reasons why ATI has stayed out of the AIW release for the last two years as no less than three different chip families have been released since the X1900 and was four generations ago, if you count the X1950XTX cards. ATI announced the AIW HD on June 26 and today that is the card on the test bench for us to see how well it works and why it’s a viable product.
The ATI/AMD All-In-Wonder HD is based upon ATI’s Radeon HD 3650 mid-range graphics card that was released last year. Based upon TSMC’s 55nm process, with a total of 378 million transistors, the HD 3650 is the middle brother of the HD3xxx family of cards which includes the HD3870, the HD3650 and the HD 3450. Codenamed the RV635, the HD 3650 on the card is clocked at 725MHz for the core, 600MHz for the memory which is GDDR2 and has a 128-bit memory interface.
The total memory bandwidth available on the card is 19.2GB/second which is found by multiplying the memory clock speed by the memory bus interface and dividing it by 8 to change bits into bytes. The internal memory bandwidth of the A-I-W card is doubled due to the memory ring bus which makes the memory bus internally of 256-bit. The A-I-W HD has a fill rate of Key features of the HD 3650 include support for Microsoft’s DirectX 10.1 API which supports improved image quality features and better support for Global Illumination. The HD 3650 supports up to up 8x MSAA (Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing), Coverage Sample Anti-Aliasing which allows the effective anti-aliasing to go up to 24x, and 16x AF. But the key features of the HD 3650 have been covered in many of my reviews so I’ll cover the new features of the AIW HD card.
ATI has used their Unified Video Decoder to play back and decode DVD movies, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies with less stress on the CPU by doing the decoding on the graphics card. UVD2 supports H.264/AVC and VC1 formats meaning that all of the High Definition Content is supported by the UVD2. One benefit of the A-I-W HD is the inclusion of the Theater 650 chip which was introduced with the HDTV Wonder a couple of years ago. One thing that has really hit home recently is the emergence of the Green initiative to save the environment by reducing energy consumption and emissions. The HD 3650 has ATI’s PowerPlay technology which monitors GPU activity and adjusts clock speeds to user needs. In 2D for example, the HD 3650 will have clock throttling, voltage switching and Dynamic clock gating to save energy when not needed.
Digital TV will take over the place of analog TV in February of the year 2009. The transition means that many older TV sets will require a converter box to display television shows after that transition date or may not work at all. The AIW HD card is designed to allow the user to watch the Digital signals from many sources including analog (NTSC), digital/HDTV (ATSC) and unencrypted digital cable (ClearQAM) with time-shifting functionality. Analog TV is disappearing on February of 2009, so everything will be digital. One thing to note is that cable companies like Time Warner Cable encrypt a lot of their channels so that only the basic cable package can be viewed with ClearQAM due to the fact that the cable companies will want to sell their CableCards and packages beyond the basic one. Mileage may vary and some cable companies allow wider access to stations than others. There is still a lot of grey area as to how well the reception will be with your local cable company, and what channels will be available to you to view.

source : www.motherboards.org

ATI Radeon HD 4550 Versus EVGA GeForce 9500GT


Author: Ben Sun · 09-30-2008
ATI has been releasing new video cards on a fast pace recently with the release of the HD 4870, 4850, 4870 X2, 4670, 4650, and now the 4550 each targeting different video card segments from the high-end to the mainstream value segments. The 4870 and 4850 are the king of the hill of their respective price segments with the 4870 x2 being the top of the hill in terms of pure performance. But not every end-user wants to spend $500+ on a video card. 2/3s of the retail video card purchases are made in the under $100 level. The HD 4670 and 4650 cards target the upper level of that but what about the $50 level? That’s where today’s launch of the ATI Radeon HD 4550 comes in. EVGA, an NVIDIA partner has dropped their 9500GT card to match the price of the ATI HD 4550 and it should be an interesting performance comparison between the two cards at this price point in terms of target markets, gaming and features.
The ATI Radeon HD 4550 is based upon ATI’s RV710 chip. It is manufactured at TSMC, ATI’s and NVIDIA’s chip foundry partner on their 55 nanometer process. ATI has now moved to the 55 nanometer process for their entire lineup top to bottom and their experience shows as they have designed chips to draw less power and have high performance for a lower price point.
One of the big selling points of the HD 4550 is as a Home Theater PC card. The reference card has a Display Port, a DVI port, and a VGA port. The card has a port for HDMI audio, meaning that you can get 7.1 sound out of the HDMI port. The HDMI and Display Ports allow the user to have the ultimate in choice as to the type of monitor to use with the card, whether a big screen HDTV or a LCD monitor for gaming.
The Radeon HD 4550 has 80 Stream Processors. By way of comparison the previous generation HD 3450 has 40 SPs, so this should make the HD 4550 performance much higher than the older chip. The RV710 has a 128-bit memory interface which along with the 1.6GHz effective memory clock speed offers a memory bandwidth of 12.8GB/second.
ATI’s version of the Stream Processor is different than NVIDIA’s in significant ways. The RV710 has two SIMD cores and each of the cores has eight stream processors. Each of the Stream Processors is capable of a 5D operation, meaning that there’s a total of 80 Stream Processors on the HD 4550. The 80 SPs allow the HD 4550 to have 48 GigaFLOPs of computing power.
ATI has had a GPGPU client in the works for a while now. As NVIDIA is pushing the PhysX hardware physics software ATI partnered with Intel to promote the Havok Physics software. Note that ATI could probably support PhysX on their hardware but it’s a matter of licensing and NVIDIA allowing it to happen. ATI supports open standards for software and therefore supports Havok. We’ll have to wait and see if they’ll enable PhysX support.
ATI decided to move to a new architecture with the HD 38xx series, being the first video card company to support Microsoft’s DirectX 10.1 in hardware. Key features of DirectX 10.1 include Indexed cube map arrays, independent blend modes per render target, Pixel coverage sample masking, read/write multi-sample surfaces with shaders, and Gather4 texture fetches.
The Radeon HD 4550 has the ability to do a maximum of 4x MSAA. The other members of the HD 4xxx family can do 8x MSAA but the performance of the Radeon HD 4550 and the number of render backends on the card means that the card cannot do 8X MSAA unless two cards are in CrossfireX mode. In any event, 8x MSAA would be totally unplayable on all but the most basic games and shouldn’t be a factor on deciding whether to buy this card.
ATI is really pushing High Definition playback with this card and with all HD 4xxx series cards. THE HD 4550 has ATI’s Unified Video Decoder 2 which has full hardware acceleration for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2. The UVD2 also supports Picture-in-picture allowing you to watch a Blu-Ray movie for example and simultaneously watch the cast commentary. The HD 4550 has two independent display controllers, allowing for dual monitor use.
ATI’s multiple GPU solution is called CrossfireX. The HD 4550 is capable of improving gaming performance with more than one graphics card. Of course this means that the HD 4550 would need a second HD 4550 to come close to the performance of the next level of card, the HD 4650 as the HD 4650 has double or more SPs and has the performance to back it up. There is no Crossfire bridge on this card so the reference card can’t do Crossfire but partner cards can.

source : www.motherboards.org

Gigabyte 9800GT 512MB Video Card


Author: Ben Sun · 10-03-2008

NVIDIA has been releasing new high-end video cards nearly every six months for nearly 10 years now. The first video card on this release schedule was the Riva 128 card from 1997. This was followed by several generations of video cards including the GeForce FX, the GeForce 6800 Ultra. The latest high-end card from NVIDIA is the GeForce GTX 280 which much has been written about. But as was noted in the HD 4650 review, most sales are in the under $100 price range and not in the $300 range that the HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 260 would require. NVIDIA and ATI have released new cards for the under $200 price point, the GeForce 9800GT and the HD 4850 respectively. The Gigabyte 9800GT 512MB is the card on the review slate today.
The GeForce 9800GT is based upon NVIDIA’s G92a chip. This is the same core chip that is used on the GeForce 9800GTX and 9800GTX+ cards. As NVIDIA transitions their G9x core chips to the 55 nanometer process the GeForce 9800GT will be moved to the new process. The current 9800GT chips are based upon the tried and true 65 nanometer process that NVIDIA has used since the GeForce 8800GT was launched which was the same core as this one and as we’ll see is the same chip.
The 9800GT is a reuse of the same chip used on the 8800GT from early 2008. The key features remain the same with the 9800GT having 112 Stream Processors, 16 less than the 9800GTX and 9800GTX+ cards which have 128 SPs. The number of texturing units and ROPs (Outputted Pixels) are the same between the 9800GT and 8800GT cards as well, being 56 Texture mapping units and 16 pixels outputted per second.
The Gigabyte 9800GT has a core clock speed of 600MHz, which gives a pixel fill rate of 9.6 Gigapixels/second and a texture fill rate of 38.4 Gigatexels/second. 9800GT has a 256-bit memory interface, meaning that the Gigabyte 9800GT which has a memory clock speed of 900MHz/1.8GHz effective has a memory bandwidth of 57.6GB/second.
The 9800GT supports all of the DirectX 10.0 features found on modern games like Age of Conan, STALKER Clear Skies, and other games that have been released. The key features of DirectX 10 include unified shaders, Geometry Shaders, Texture arrays, Geometry instancing and more. The 9800GT has support for up to 4x MSAA and 16x AF in a single clock with 8x MSAA and 16x AF available in a single pass of two clock cycles.
The Gigabyte 9800GT is RoHS compliant. RoHS stands for the Restriction of Hazardous Substances in the manufacturing of electronic and electrical equipment. RoHS restricts the use of Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated biphenyls and Polybrominated diphenyl ether to 1 part per 1000 or 0.1%.
The one feature on the 9800GT which differentiates it from the 8800GT is support for HybridPower. The Green Initiative, which calls for the lowering of carbon emissions and saving the environment, is something that computer component manufacturers are pushing and HybridPower allows users to use less electricity due to its functionality. The Gigabyte 9800GT can be turned off when in 2D mode, having the integrated graphics of the NVIDIA chipset motherboard take over. In this instance the power savings can be immense as the 9800GT has a TDP of 105W.
Gigabyte has transferred their Ultra Durable 2 technology over to the video card side from the motherboard side of their business. Ultra Durable 2 indicates their products use Low RDS (on) MOSFETs, Ferrite Core Chokes and Lower ESR Solid Capacitors on the 9800GT. The Low RDS (on) MOSFETs provide ultra cooling, the Ferrite Core Choke design provides low power loss, and the all solid capacitors provide a longer life than standard capacitors. Turbo Force combines Gigabyte’s T3 technology with their V-Tuner overclocking utility. T3 stands for Performance Assurance Tuning, Stability Tuning and Power Optimization Tuning. Gigabyte says that the Turbo Force technology enhances performance over 10% over standard tuning.

source : www.motherboards.org

ATI Radeon HD 4350 versus EVGA GeForce 9400GT


Author: Ben Sun · 10-10-2008

The battle for the video card dollar has never been closer between NVIDIA and ATI. Every card in ATI’s lineup has a similarly performing and priced card in NVIDIA’s lineup. NVIDIA, in fact, has redrawn their price/performance ratio in response to ATI’s launches of the HD 4870 X2, 4870, 4670, 4550 and the recent launch of the ATI HD 4350. One problem with the multiple launches and multiple price drops is the dilution of the video card market where many cards are competing against other cards that were never meant to compete with. This is great for the consumer, with the financial crisis impacting everyone including banks and mortgage companies but bad for the companies who designed their marketing around certain profit margins.
The vast majority of video card purchases are made at the under $100 range in price. This market is marked by competition not only from the two graphics card company’s offerings but also from the integrated graphics available on the market from Intel and AMD solutions as the integrated graphics come with the motherboard and when looking at price/performance one has to ask is it worth spending the sub $30 on a discrete video card or is it better to have integrated graphics as part of the cost of a new system and buy a more expensive discrete card later. On the Intel side of things, a discrete graphics card makes sense as the Intel integrated graphics available to most everyone is a joke. On the AMD side of things where the HD 3300 and NVIDIA GeForce 8300 are solutions the choice is harder.
ATI launched the Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 cards a few short months ago. The 4870 card and the GeForce GTX260 cards have been battling for the under $300 price range, while the 4850 battles with the GeForce 9800GTX for the under $200 price range. ATI has recently announced the HD 4670 and 4550 cards for the under $100 price point. That theoretically leaves a $40 price point open for cards and ATI has recently launched the HD 4350 to fit that price point. NVIDIA has countered by reducing their 9400GT cards to that price point meaning that it should be an interesting battle of sub $40 cards. ATI and EVGA have sent respective cards on the HD 4350 and the 9400GT for review and that is the battle royal today.
In many respects the Radeon HD 4350 is the smaller brother of the HD 4550 that I reviewed less than a month ago. The HD 4350 has 80 Stream Processors, 8 Texture units and 4 ROPS which is the same number as found on the HD 4550 cards. It is built upon TSMC’s 55 nanometer press with 242 million transistors ATI built the HD 4XXX series stressing performance per watt and the HD 4350 design is.
The HD4350 has a 64-bit memory bus. The memory bus on the video card combined with the memory clock speed determines how much memory bandwidth a card has. The HD 4350 has a memory clock speed of 1 GHz effective, meaning that the card has 8GB of memory bandwidth available to it. The card uses DDR2 memory which is very inexpensive memory right now but the card is inexpensive so it’s a good fit.
ATI’s big push on video cards is on DirectX 10.1 features. The DirectX 10.1 feature set is going to be more featured in the near future with big game companies like EA and Sega announcing support for it and DirectX 11 video cards needing to support DirectX 10.1 to be compliant. NVIDIA argues, with some justification that DirectX 10.1 is a minor feature update to DirectX 10.0. In any event cards like the HD 4350 do not have the performance to take full advantage of DirectX 10.1 and it shouldn’t be a major factor either way.
ATI’s Universal Video Decoder is their decode software for HD content like Blu-Ray disks and H.264 video playback software. The HD 4350 is capable of full speed Blu-Ray playback but ATI states that it might not have the horsepower to do picture in a picture dual stream playback that the other HD 4xxx series can do. The HD 4350 reference card is designed to offer HDMI Audio (7.1) through the included HDMI port making it ideal for the Home Theater PC enthusiast

source : www.motherboards.org

ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB



Author: Ben Sun · 10-13-2008

ATI has been releasing new video cards like there was no tomorrow recently. With the recent announcement of their moving away from owning their own Fabs and to a design powerhouse with some interest in a Fab company. AMD has decided to focus on building chipsets; CPUs and graphics cards at their Fabs have been sprung off into a new company Foundry Corporation which they own 44% of.
The high end of the graphics market has been dominated by the HD 4870 X2 cards which have two HD 4870 chips. The 512MB version of the HD 4870 has also been a success with performance that either matched or beat the GeForce GTX 260 in most cases and came close to the GeForce GTX 280 in some situations especially where computational power was important. ATI is launching the 1GB version of the HD 4870 today which is the same card as the HD 4870 with 1GB of memory.
The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is based upon ATI’s RV770XT chip that was announced earlier this year in the form of the HD 4870 512MB card. The chip is built at TSMC’s 55 nanometer process, allowing and is the second generation 55 nanometer chip. ATI’s first generation 55 nanometer chip was the HD 3xxx series and the second one is more efficient in terms of power usage to performance ratio. The HD 4870 is capable of doing 1.2 TeraFLOPS of computing power, compared to the 1 TeraFLOP on the HD 4850 and the 933 GigaFLOPS on the GeForce GTX 280.
ATI and S3 are the two companies that are supporting DirectX 10.1 on the market today. S3 is a minor player in the computer graphics card market with small market share compared to NVIDIA and ATI. DirectX 10.1 includes improvements to the Shaders and anti-aliasing of multiple render targets. The next major inflection point in graphics is DirectX 11 which is due sometime in the next two years. As games use features like Tessellation in DirectX 11, it should be interesting to see if developers use.
Graphics card memory has changed over the years going from SDRAM to DDR memory, to DDR2 memory to DDR3 memory. ATI used DDR4 memory in the last generation video cards based upon the HD 2900 but there isn’t much DDR4 memory in use today. GDDR3 memory on the other hand has been prevalent on graphics cards from both ATI and NVIDIA camps. GDDR5 memory has the effective ability to double the memory bandwidth of that offered by GDDR3 memory on the same clock speed. With a clock speed of 900MHz and a 256-bit memory bus bandwidth this means the HD 4870 has a effective memory bandwidth of 115.2GB/second.
The ATI card has the ability to work together with other HD4870 cards to improve performance. Their version of multiple graphics card solutions is called Crossfire. Depending on the motherboard being used and the number of expansion slots on that are on that motherboard. Some of the ATI chipset motherboards on the AMD side of things have four PCI Express x16 Generation 2.0 graphics card slots allowing up to four 4870 graphics cards to be installed at one time giving massive increases in performance over a single card.
ATI is really pushing the Universal Video Decoder 2 on their HD 4xxx series. They have had the distinction of having a video decoder the Theater series of chips on many older video cards. This allowed them to do hardware DVD decoding in a time when most video cards did software DVD decoding. The UVD2 has the ability to play two simultaneous HD content streams ala picture in a picture capability. This is useful for people that want to watch the DVD commentary at the same time as the actual movie on a Blu-Ray disc for example.

source : www.motherboards.org

MSI R4870 T21G ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB


Author: Ben Sun · 11-12-2008

Micro Star Incorporated, MSI is one of those companies that have been making video cards, motherboards and other computer equipment for years. A Tier-1 motherboard maker based in Taiwan, MSI has recently fell a bit out of favor with the enthusiast community for several years due to lack of visibility in the motherboard space.
ATI has completed a monumental comeback against their arch-rival NVIDIA due to price/performance leadership and NVIDIA's problems with their motherboards and graphics chips on their mobile graphics platform. ATI has released the HD 4870 512MB, 4870 X2, 4850, 4670, 4550, 4350, the 4870 1GB and the HD 4830 in the span of three months now has a top to bottom line up from $529 to $35 that NVIDIA has had to retool their own lineup to match.
Today's card on the review bench is the MSI Radeon HD 4870 1GB card based upon ATI's top single GPU solution with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. This card is retailing online at Newegg for $299 and is the direct competitor to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260+ card retailing for a similar price point. So what's the card all about? Does 1GB really make a difference in a gaming environment? Will updated drivers and a modest speed increase show a performance difference between the 1GB and 512MB models? Let's find out.
The HD 4870 is based upon ATI's RV770XT chip which was launched back in August of this year. The RV770XT has 956 million transistors and is built on TSMC's 55 nanometer process, offering higher performance and lower power consumption compared to earlier video cards like the HD 2900XT which was built on the 65 nanometer process and drew a lot of power.
The HD 4870 has 800 Stream Processors which is not exactly the same as NVIDIA's 256 SPs on the GeForce GTX 280. The HD 4870 has 10 SIMD cores each with 16 SP clusters capable of doing a single 5D operation in single clock cycle. This adds up to 800 Stream Processors in ATI's documentation. The Radeon HD 4870 has 40 texture units that more than double the number of texture units on the previous generation HD 3870. The number of render back ends (ROPs) is the same as the HD 3870 but does nearly double the output of it when AA and 64-bit color is used.
ATI has really been pushing the DirectX 10.1 standard as the next big thing in graphics. Unfortunately for them they really haven't had much luck in getting DirectX 10.1 games out as they don't develop games. As we move forward, the graphics API will change to DirectX 11, necessitating support for DirectX 10.1 due to the fact that the later revisions of DirectX require backwards compatibility with older versions meaning that the companies that support the features will get rewarded with certification and those who don't won't.
MSI's card is overclocked from the standard HD 4870. The standard card has a clock speed of 750MHz. The MSI card has a core clock speed of 780MHz, a 30MHz improvement over the default clocked cards. The memory clock is the same as on the reference clocked card which is 900MHz. Due to the nature of GDDR5 memory the memory bandwidth is effectively doubled over that of GDDR3 memory. The HD 4870 has a 256-bit memory bus meaning this card has an effective memory bandwidth of 115.2GB/second.
The advent of High Definition Videos and HDTVs has caused both NVIDIA and ATI to release hardware on their new video cards to decode/encode the HD media. Blu-Ray discs have won the HD optical media war with HD-DVD and the HD 4870 is ready for it. The Universal Video Decoder 2nd generation built into the HD 4870 can run two video streams simultaneously. This allows the end-user to watch the movie and run the special features of the BRD simultaneously in Picture in Picture (PIP) mode. The other feature that the UVD2 brought to the table with the HD 4xxx series is the ability to dynamically adjust the contrast of a video.

source : www.motherboards.org

XFX GeForce GTX 260/216 Black Edition


Author: Ben Sun · 11-18-2008

The holiday season is upon us and there are a slew of new game releases out for the PC. One of the burning questions when buying games during a holiday season is what hardware to best run the games on. After all, while the integrated graphics of the Intel G45 chipset are much improved in features and performance over the previous generations, no gamer will want to play a game with those integrated graphics.
Recent graphic card releases including the 4830 and the 4850 x2 and the various NVIDIA counterparts have taken the sub-$300 graphics chip to a new level of performance and features. However, as a gamer wanting the best performance out of a high-end system a minimum specification of the $200-300 price range with the HD 4870 and GeForce GTX 260 216 core should be looked at.
Today's release of the Big Bang II drivers from NVIDIA means that there will be substantial performance increases in the performance of their cards. XFX sent a GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition card for review and I took the opportunity to test it today with both the video card test platform and a few new games that have been released in recent weeks to show performance with the latest drivers in the latest hottest games. With this review I hope to answer the question which video card is the best bang for the buck for the $200-300 price range this holiday season and what games that really stands out from the others.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 216 core architecture should look familiar to anyone having seen their launches the last few months as it is identical to the GeForce GTX260 in virtually every respect except for one, the number of Shader Processors. The original GeForce GTX 260 had 192 SPs or 6 clusters of 32 SPs each. The new GeForce GTX 260 216 has 216 SPs as the name suggests, meaning that the 7th cluster was activated for this chip out of the 8 on the GeForce GTX 280 has.
NVIDIA states that the entirety of their production of GeForce GTX 260s should be based upon the 216 core variant, meaning that the older variant will be phased out with remaining inventory sold. The GeForce GTX 260 is based upon NVIDIA's GT200 chip and has 1.4 Billion transistors on the 55 nanometer process. The GTX 260 216 was launched a short month or two ago with two companies making the initial cards. Today the other manufacturers are joining in and the card being used for this review is the XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition.
The memory bandwidth on the GeForce GTX is found by multiplying the memory clock speed by the bus, multiplying that result by 2 and dividing the final result by eight. On the XFX GTX 260 Black Edition the memory bandwidth is 128.8GB/second or 448-bit/8x2.3GHzx2. This is nearly the same bandwidth that is found on the GeForce GTX 280 reference clocked cards and is higher than the GTX 260s on the market today.
NVIDIA was the first graphics card manufacturer to fully support DirectX 10.0 which was a new API in 2006 with the release of the GeForce 8800 GTX. This card supported Pixel Shader 4.0, Vertex Shader 4.0, and Geometry Shaders and was NVIDIA's first card to have a Unified Shader Architecture. Today virtually all games being released support some DirectX 10.0 features. One ulterior motive for doing this review was moving to all new benchmarks with mostly DirectX 10.0 support.
One of the more compelling features of the NVIDIA cards is the ability to support CUDA and PhysX. Using the graphics card to solve computational problems makes sense as the graphics chips are capable of TeraFLOPS computing power in the form of the HD 4850 or HD 4850 cards and the GeForce GTX 260 is nearly capable of that feat. PhysX allows the game to use the graphics card to do the physics calculations and overall performance can be done due to this. Early next year EA will be announcing the first PhysX AAA title Mirror's Edge. XFX has taken the base GeForce GTX 260 card and improved it immeasurably by increasing the clock speed from 575MHz to a whopping 666MHz. Is the GTX 260 Black Edition the Devil's card? Nope, just the fastest darn GeForce GTX 260 216 on the market today. The Shader Clock is set at a modest increase to 1440MHz, but this shouldn't be a bottleneck for this video card anyway.

source :www.motherboards.org

MSI R4670 2D512


Author: Ben Sun · 12-19-2008

The holiday season is upon us and I hope everyone has a safe and sane holiday season as we will celebrate Christmas next week and the New Year's the week after that. This is the time of year for Christmas gifts and one of the best gifts that a person can give to a computer user is a new video card as it can improve the game playing experience on the computer immensely.
ATI announced the HD 4870 series of cards in June of 2008. The 4870 was a great card at launch as it offered great performance for a good price as compared to the competition, the GeForce GTX 260 which had launched at a much higher price and similar performance. This caused NVIDIA to lower their prices to compete. The vast majority of computer video card sales are not in the $300 price range that the HD 4870 was targeted at.
Most video card purchases are made in the under $200 price range and ATI decided to target this price range with the HD 4850 which was a lower clocked, DDR3 memory 4870 card. Even more sales are made on under $100 video cards and the ATI HD 4670 is poised right at that price point with a MSRP of just $79. Today, I'm reviewing the MSI R4670 2d512/D3 card. While a lot of headlines are generated justifiably so by the HD 4870, the X2 and the GTX 280, let's see what MSI can do with their 4670 card.
MSI's HD 4670 is based upon ATI's RV730 graphics chip which is in turn based upon TSMC's 55 nanometer process with 514 million transistors and a die size of 146 square millimeters. The 4670 HAS 320 Stream Processors which is 40% of the total that is on the HD 4870 cards. Comparing the HD 4670 to the HD 3650 which it replaces, it has doubled the transistor count on a 20% larger die size on the same process.
The HD 4670 has 8 SIMD cores each of which has 40 Stream Processors to make up the 320 SPs on the card. This compares with the HD 4870 which has 10 SIMD cores with 80 Stream Processors. The HD 4670 has 32 texture filtering units compared to the HD 3870 which had 16. The previous generation HD 3650 had 8 texture filtering units meaning that the HD 4670 has four times the filtering rate of its immediate predecessor.

Product:
EVGA X58 SLI
Manufacturer:
EVGA
Part number:
32-BL-E758-A1
Information:
EVGA
Street price:
$299
If there's one technology that impressed me the most this year, it has to be Intel's Core i7 release. To this date I am still stunned by it's performance. It's so good that starting from Q1 2009, all test systems in the Guru3D lab will be Core i7 based until something better comes along. I'm that excited about the technology!
What's a little less exciting is that Intel only has one chipset available for for the Core i7 series processors, making the upgrade pretty expensive. However, this is an enthusiast user product. Targeted at the same enthusiast user that would purchase say a nForce 790 Ultra SLI and QX9770 processor. When you look at it from that point of view the Core i7 upgrade path doesn't look so hideously expensive anymore as in fact, if you purchase a 299 Core i7 920 processor and a decent 299 USD X58 motherboard .. you'll be going much faster than the QX9770 system I just mentioned, and you have the ability to go both ATI and NVIDIA multi GPU wise, which is a great flexibility to have.
Of course you need to plant DDR3 memory on this motherboard as well, 3 DIMMS recommended, but two give gruesomely fast performance as well. It's suffice to say that the Core i7 combo is fast .. extremely fast. And therefore we have been covering all related Core i7 products a lot. Up-to this point we tested two Core i7 processors, a Core i7 Multi-GPU performance article and no less than four X58 motherboard reviews.
Today we'll test the fifth X58 motherboard in a row, this time from the folks at eVGA. They recently released their eVGA X58 SLI motherboard loaded with features. Tagged with a 299 USD sales price this motherboard seem to be very impressive. But since it's eVGA, they decided that this motherboard should be all about overclocking, and nothing else.
So hypothetically, if you were planning to purchase this product, pop in a Core i7 processor and leave things as they are .. well, you'd be wasting money really. In this article we'll show you why that is. We'll cover the motherboard from A to Z, and to spice it up a little I'll slap on some water-cooling and overclock our processor towards 4.2 GHz, stable.
That should be fun right? Have a peek at the motherboard and browse onwards to the next page please.
source : www.motherboards.org