27 October 2008

GeForce GTX260 vs GTX260+ vs Radeon HD4870

GeForce GTX260 vs GTX260+ vs Radeon HD4870




Initially, the GT200 based GeForce GTX280 and GTX260 were priced so high, the price/performance ratio was so bad that it didn't make any sense to pay the huge premium over the little performance gain. Of course we are comparing it against Radeon HD4800 series. To boost sales, Nvidia cut GeForce GTX280 price by 62%; GTX260 by 33%, placing the latter in the same price point with Radeon HD4870.

Things got interesting when Nvidia launched a new GTX260 version known as GeForce GTX 260+ Core 216, containing 216 shader processors as compared to the original GTX260's 192 SP. Bla bla bla.. Let's not waste anymore time on complex technical details, time to watch the triple-threat match of GeForce GTX260 192SP vs GTX260+ 216SP vs Radeon HD 4870!



Test Platform


CPUIntel Core 2 Extreme QX6850
MotherboardGIGABYTE GA-X48T-DQ6
MemoryA-DATA DDR3-1066 Extreme CL7 2x1GB
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 192SP 896MB

Inno3D GeForce GTX 260 GOLD 216PS 896MB

ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
PowerGIGABYTE ODIN GT 1200W
OSWindows Vista SP1
DriverForceware 177.43

ATI Catalyst 8.8




Benchmark Result


GeForce GTX 260+
216SP 896MB
Radeon HD 4870
800SP 512MB
GeForce GTX 260
192SP 896MB
3DMark 05


16 x 10174871884017335
19 x 12169751836716712
16 x 10 8AA154151732815281
19 x 12 8AA142991623814025




3DMark 06


16 x 10142601412513948
19 x 12132461318312844
16 x 10 8AA9448106069339
19 x 12 8AA875597048607




3DMark Vantage


High (GPU)572651335321
Extreme (GPU)403036043712




Company of Hero (DX10, High)


16 x 1057.156.155.9
19 x 1254.552.952.2
16 x 10 8AA45.352.443.1
19 x 10 8AA38.948.536.1




Crysis (DX 10, High)


16 x 1041.4639.4639.21
19 x 1235.0633.0232.81
16 x 10 8AA30.5435.5429.25
19 x 10 8AA24.3329.3823.33




PT Boat (DX10, High)


16 x 1056.946.255.6
19 x 1254.343.952.8
16 x 10 8AA40.323.7 *39.1
19 x 12 8AA34.416.5 *33.2




Lost Planet (DX10, High)


16 x 1087.551.482.2
19 x 1271.142.868.1
16 x 10 8AA61.448.758.7
19 x 12 8AA49.740.948.1
*FPS drops dramatically when required vram >512MB


On average, the new GTX260 containing 216SP outperforms it's 192SP brother by around 5%.






Source: http://game.ali213.net/thread-2275669-1-1.html

26 October 2008

Radeon HD 4830 512MB Review Part4

AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 4830 Review Part4:
CoH, WIC, FEAR, UT3






Maximum quality; shader made @ DX10.

HD4830 is struggling to keep up at 1440x900, else they are pretty on par at other resolutions.







Very high settings on DX10 mode, tested using the in-game benchmark tool.








Maximum quality, again tested with in-game benchmark tool.

Clear victory for the RV770LE based card.







Maximum quality with V-sync disabled.

The result looks very inconclusive. But overall, with 20/29 benchmarks in hand, the winner is no doubt Radeon HD4830, in terms of raw performance.


Part1: Introduction & Specifications
Part2: Test System, 3Dmark06 & Vantage
Part3: CoD4, Assassin's Creed, HL2:EP2
Part4: CoH, WIC, FEAR, UT3


Source: http://diy.pconline.com.cn/graphics/reviews/0810/1452670.html

Radeon HD 4830 512MB Review Part3

AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 4830 Review Part3:
CoD4, Assassin's Creed, HL2:EP2




Maximum quality, V-sync off.

Close fight between HD4830 & 9800GT.







A clear win for the Radeons. The gap is more obvious at low resolution.







Again, everything at maximum quality.

This time round, the gap is wider at higher resolution, interesting phenomenon. On average, HD4830 is 5.2% faster than 9800GT here.


Part1: Introduction & Specifications
Part2: Test System, 3Dmark06 & Vantage
Part3: CoD4, Assassin's Creed, HL2:EP2
Part4: CoH, WIC, FEAR, UT3

Radeon HD 4830 512MB Review Part2

AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 4830 Review Part2:
Test System, 3Dmark06 & Vantage


Test Platform

CPU: Intel Core2 Quad QX9770 @ 3.6Ghz
Mainboard: Asus X48
Memory: Aeneon DDR2-1066 2x1GB @ 5-5-5-15
Storage: Seagate 7200.10 500GB SATA

Graphics:
Radeon HD4850 512MB (625/1986)
Sapphire Radeon HD4830 512MB (575/1800)
GeForce 9800GT 512MB (600/1500/1800)


OS: Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 DX10
Drivers: Catalyst 8.54 RC1/ Forceware 178.13 Vista WHQL






ATI cards are traditionally weak in 3Dmark06, so no big surprise here.






3Dmark Vantage tells a very different story, so it all goes down to the real world game tests.


Part1: Introduction & Specifications
Part2: Test System, 3Dmark06 & Vantage
Part3: CoD4, Assassin's Creed, HL2:EP2
Part4: CoH, WIC, FEAR, UT3

Radeon HD 4830 512MB Review Part1

AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 4830 Review Part1:
Introduction & Specifications





Just-another-card from AMD to cover the price point vacuum between Radeon HD 4670 & HD 4850, as well as to battle with Nvidia's Geforce 9800 GT. This card is based on the RV770LE core, which has 1 cluster of shader processors (usually defective) disabled, bringing the magic number to 640. Where the fully functional RV770 (HD4850/4870) have all the 800.

An interesting to note, AMD confirmed that disabling the cluster is a hardware-cut, so chances are it is impossible for anyone to "revive" the card with a modded BIOS. Let aside the controversy surrounding its "missing shaders", let's take a look at this extracted review:


Graphics cardsHD 4830 512MB (RV770LE)HD 4850 512MB (RV770)HD 3870 512MB (RV670) 9800 GT 512MB (G92)
Core clock 575MHz 625MHz 775MHz 600MHz
Shader clock 575MHz 625MHz 775MHz 1,500MHz
Memory clock
1,800MHz 2,000MHz 2,250MHz 1,800MHz
Bus width, size, type
256-bit, 512MB, GDDR3 256-bit, 512MB, GDDR4 256-bit, 512MB, GDDR3
Memory bandwidth 57.6GB/s 64GB/s 72.8GB/s 57.6GB/s
Process 55nm 65nm/55nm
Transistor count 956mil 956mil 666mil 754mil
Die size 260mm² 260mm² 192mm² 296mm²/230mm²
Peak GFLOPS 736 1,000 496 504
ROPs 12 16 16 16
TDP
110W 110W 105W 105W


Part1: Introduction & Specifications
Part2: Test System, 3Dmark06 & Vantage
Part3: CoD4, Assassin's Creed, HL2:EP2
Part4: CoH, WIC, FEAR, UT3

01 October 2008

British MI6 Agent Lost Camera Sold on Ebay

"A Nikon camera purchased from eBay for just 17 pounds contained sensitive data about terrorist suspects according to a report from Reuters. The camera, which was handed into a Hertfordshire police station, was apparently lost by a British MI6 agent and contained pictures of rocket launchers and missiles as well as the names, fingerprints and academic records of several members of the terrorist organisation.

It's not clear whether the data was on a removable memory card, or the camera's internal storage, but if it was the latter we think this might be a first."


More at: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/30/mi6-secrets-snapped-ebay & http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/wr_nm/us_britain_mi6

AMD Athlon X2 5400+ Black Edition Review Part1

AMD Athlon X2 5400+ Black Edition Review Part1:
Introduction, Specifications & Test Platform





What we have here today is the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition. The Black features an unlocked multiplier, which is an exclusive feature traditionally found only in top-of-the-range microprocessors, such as AMD's Athlon FX & Intel's Extreme Edition.

These cpus offer enormous overclocking potential as well as excellent price/performance ratio, specifically targeting at the "DIY Enthusiast" market.

Enough said, let's look at its specifications:


Model
Athlon X2 5400+ Black Edition
Socket AM2
Core Brisbane
Revision
G2
Clock Speed
2.8GHz
Hyper Transport 2000MHz
L1 Cache 2x 128KB
L2 Cache 2 x 512KB
Process 65 nm
64-bit Support Yes
Virtualization Technology Yes
Instructions MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW!+
Voltage 1.30 V/1.35 V
TDP 65W
Temperature
55~68C
Cooling Device Processor Only




Test Platform

Processors:
Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition (2.6Ghz)
Athlon X2 5400+ Black Edition (2.8Ghz)

Motherboard: MSI DKA790GX Platinum (790GX + SB750)
Memory: Corsair DDR2-1066 2x1GB @ 800/5-5-5-18-2T
Graphics: AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Storage: Seagate 320GB 7200.10 16MB SATA
Display: LG L226WTQ @ 1680x1050
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W

O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Chipset Driver: AMD 7-Series Chipset Driver for Vista x86
Graphics Driver: AMD Catalyst 8.8 for Vista x86




Cooling Device:



Zalman CNPS 9500 AM2


Part 1: Introduction, Specifications & Test Platform
Part 2: PCmark, 3Dmark Vantage & Cinebench
Part 3: CoJ, CoH & Crysis

AMD Athlon X2 5400+ Black Edition Review Part2

AMD Athlon X2 5400+ Black Edition Review Part2:
PCmark, 3Dmark Vantage & Cinebench





A rather proportional increase in performance as clock speed increases. The 5400+ about 7% faster on average over the 5000+ in PCmark Vantage, resulting 7.7% increase in clock speed.







The test result found on 3Dmark Vantage resembles the earlier one, about 8% increase in performance.







Cinebench R10, the biggest beneficiary of the 3, taking a 10% performance bump from the extra 200Mhz.







Everybody's favourite number crunching benchmark, the SuperPI.
The latter is 6.85% slower.


Part 1: Introduction, Specifications & Test Platform
Part 2: PCmark, 3Dmark Vantage & Cinebench
Part 3: CoJ, CoH & Crysis