Home
Amd

Asus DirectCU and DirectCU II for AMD: 6850, 6870, 6950, and 6970 Boards Under the Microscope

Author:
Date: February 26, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: Asus
Tagged: hd, EAH6970, EAH6950, EAH6870, EAH6850, DirectCU II, DirectCU, ati, asus, amd

AMD Gets the Direct CU Treatment

In the previous roundup I covered the DirectCU II models from Asus featuring NVIDIA based chips.  These boards included the GTX 580, 570, and 560 products.  All of these were DirectCU II based with all the updated features that are included as compared to the original DirectCU products.  With the AMD parts Asus has split the top four products into two categories; DirectCU II and the original DirectCU.  When we start looking at thermal properties and price points, we will see why Asus took this route.

asus_4amd_01.jpg

AMD has had a strong couple of years with their graphics chips.  While they were not able to take the single GPU performance crown in this previous generation, their products were very capable and competitive across the board and at every price point.  In fact, there are some features that these cards have at particular price points that make them very desirable in quite a few applications.  In particular are the 2 GB of memory on the HD 6900 series cards where the competition from NVIDIA at those price points features 1 GB and 1.25 GB.  In titles such as Skyrim, with the HD texture DLC enabled, these cards start to limit performance at 1920x1080 and above due to the memory requirements needed for these higher resolution textures.

Read the entire article here.

Podcast #190 - PCAudioLabs system giveaway, the future of NAND Memory, potential Ivy Bridge delays and more!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | February 23, 2012 - 04:10 PM |
Tagged: Thinkpad, podcast, piledriver, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, gpu, cpu, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #190 - 02/23/2012

Join us this week as we talk about a PCAudioLabs system giveaway, the future of NAND Memory, potential Ivy Bridge delays and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:24:53

Program Schedule: 

  1. 0:00:31 Introduction
  2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  3. http://pcper.com/podcast
  4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  5. 0:01:45 Intel, PCAudioLabs and PC Perspective Rok Box System Sweepstakes!!
  6. 0:03:45 How We Review Laptops At PC Perspective
  7. 0:05:30 MSI Graphics Card Division Interview: Alex Chang Takes our Q's
  8. 0:09:10 Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review: Kickin' It Old School
  9. 0:12:00 NAND Flash Memory - A Future Not So Bleak After All
  10. 0:27:15 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
  11. 0:28:30 Mass Effect 3 is Coming, Pre-Order Now and Get Battlefield 3 (PC) Free
  12. 0:31:00 Intel may delay shipments of Ivy Bridge processors
  13. 0:35:10 VIA teams with Tensilica to roll their own SSD controller
  14. 0:40:53 HP dates NVIDIA on Valentine's Day. We get Z1 workstation.
  15. 0:46:30 Wi-Fi on Rosepoint SoC die. Intel flexes before ARM wrestle.
  16. 0:51:15 Of Near Threshold Voltage and Atomic Transistors
  17. 0:55:15 AMD and Cyclos reduces clock power usage with Piledriver
  18. 1:04:00 Intel becomes a 22nm foundry -- yes, for other people.
  19. 1:11:35 Contest Reminder - http://pcper.com/contest
  20. 1:11:55 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: IKEA DIODER + HOLY AWESOME https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LmEQUm1PUXU/T0W8e-KQz0I/AAAAAAAAYNA/XB64fVxgLvo/w402/engagement.jpg
    2. Ken: SUPAboy
    3. Jeremy: Hardware Leaderboard
    1. Josh: Get it while you still can!
    2. Allyn: Nintendo 1982 Game & Watch Donkey Kong (counter to Ken's pick)
  21. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  22. http://pcper.com/podcast   
  23. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  24. Closing

Source:

If it wasn't for a certain person AMD might have bought the other GPU guys

Subject: General Tech | February 23, 2012 - 04:05 PM |
Tagged: amd, nvidia, jen-hsun huang, hector ruiz

Take this story at The Inquirer with a grain of salt as the source might just have a bit of an axe to grind with their former employer; regardless it makes for an interesting read.  The idea that Jen-Hsun's desire to be top boss of the company that absorbed the one he was running at the time certainly fits the personality he shows publicly.  Then again Hector lasted a mere 2 years after the purchase of ATI so perhaps a change in leadership at that time would have changed AMD's future somewhat.  ATI could still be around and AMD might be more focused on SoC and HPC as opposed to the APU route they took.

nvidia_ceo_tattoo.jpg

"CHIP DESIGNER AMD wanted to cut a deal with Nvidia before settling for buying ATI instead, according to former AMD employees.

AMD completed a deal to buy ATI for $5.4bn in 2006, but only after it couldn't agree on terms with Nvidia, according to former AMD employees interviewed by Forbes. One of the stumbling blocks to the deal was Nvidia's colourful CEO Jen-Hsun Huang wanting to become the CEO of the combined company, effectively ousting then AMD CEO Hector Ruiz."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

 

Source: The Inquirer

AMD and Cyclos reduces clock power usage with Piledriver

Subject: General Tech, Processors | February 22, 2012 - 06:01 PM |
Tagged: amd, Cyclos, piledriver

AMD has its own announcements about power consumption for the International Solid-State Circuits Conference this week. A few days ago we reported on Intel’s success integrating Wi-Fi transceivers into the CPU to reduce power consumption. Cyclos Semiconductor discussed their resonant clock mesh (RCM) technology which reduces waste energy dissipated when keeping the chip synchronized. AMD announced that this technology would be introduced in their upcoming Piledriver APUs and Opteron processors.

amd-new.png

Excuse me, good sir. Do you have the time?

Tom’s Hardware put up an article to discuss the announcement with a small explanation of what is going on.

Inductive-capacitive oscillators are leveraged in mesh-based high-performance clock distribution networks to deliver "high-precision timing while dissipating almost no power." In effect, RCM promises to recycle clock power to enable lower power consumption or higher clock speeds.

For a more specific explanation, I turned to Josh Walrath. Chips are timed by a clock signal -- any overclocker will attest to that. Over time chips became larger and more complex which of course requires a larger and more complex system to propagate the clock signal through. Slowly but surely those circuits became large enough that the energy they dissipate simply by being powered becomes less and less negligible.

What Cyclos contributes is cleverly using inductor-capacitor circuits to keep the energy stored in the clock circuit mesh. With more of the energy stored in the mesh it just requires a small energy shove to trigger the signal after the initial charge. Also, less energy lost also means less heat dissipation which helps your battery as well as your heatsink.

Cyclos Semiconductor states that power savings are between 5 to 30 percent dependent on the chip design. In AMD’s case, they expect approximately 5 to 10 percent power savings in their Piledriver implementation. While AMD is the first implementation of Cyclos’ technology, it is not known what Intel currently has done or will potentially do to solve the problem.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Sapphire's new nettop will be great; at the right price

Subject: General Tech | February 22, 2012 - 04:25 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, amd, E450

The new nettop that Sapphire will be selling will be great for HTPC usage but you might not want to pick it up if you will be gaming.  The E450 AMD processor inside the machine does have an onboard HD 6350 which will handle 1080p streaming beautifully but as it is the low end of the Llano scale gaming may not be impressive.  Its power consumption will be 30W so neither heat nor power will be an issue.  It ships with Free DOS but will accept WinXP and Win7 for those who want a familiar interface.  The Inquirer expects this device to be less than its Atom powered predecessor which puts the price at or below $400USD.

sapphire-minipc-hd3-230x230.jpg

"GRAPHICS CARD VENDOR Sapphire has announced its AMD Fusion based Edge-HD3 all-in-one nettop PC.

Sapphire claims its Edge-HD3 is about the size of a paperback novel and, while that depends on what type of paperbacks you read, there's no denying that the system is small. Sapphire has slipped an AMD E450 Fusion chip, 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 320GB 2.5in hard drive into the case."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

 

Source: The Inquirer

Sapphire overclocks the HD7950

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 20, 2012 - 02:48 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, hd 7950, hd 7950 OC, factory overclocked, cape verde, amd

There are a lot of custom Cape Verde boards to chose from, with varying clock speeds and custom coolers which is great for those who like something unique out of the box.  X-bit Labs received an overclocked HD7950 board from Sapphire which sports both a 100MHz overclock on the GPU and a custom low noise cooler.  The back of the card is fairly normal, with a dual-link DVI-I port, one HDMI 1.4a connector and two DisplayPort 1.2 ports available.  Overclocking potential on the card was impressive, with a final 1.15 volts allowing stable performance at 1100MHz GPU and 7360 MHz effective on the memory and a temperature of 74C at full load thanks to the cooler.  Even better is the fact that the cooler operates relatively quietly even at that high overclock.

XBT_04_sp795_fr_big.jpg

"Today we are going to review a graphics accelerator with phenomenally efficient cooling system with very low noise, high performance and superb overclocking potential, which even some Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards could wish for."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

 

Source: X-bit Labs

MSI Graphics Card Division Interview: Alex Chang Takes our Q's

Author:
Date: February 17, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: MSI Computer
Tagged: xtreme edition, video cards, Twin Frozr, nvidia, msi, military class, Lightning, amd, Alex Chang

MSI's Alex Chang Speaks Up

MSI was founded in 1986 and started producing motherboards and video cards for the quickly growing PC market.  Throughout the life of the company they have further diversified their offerings to include barebones systems, notebooks, networking/communication devices, and industrial products.  While MSI has a nice base of products, they are still primarily a motherboard and video card company.  In the past 10 years MSI has become one of the top brands in North America for video cards, and they have taken a very aggressive approach to design with these products.

msi_logo_fx.jpg

I had the chance to send MSI quite a few questions concerning their video card business and how they develop their products.

What is your name, title, and how long have you worked at MSI?

My name is Bob, and I’m…. actually, I’m just Alex Chang. I’m the Associate Marketing Manager. I’ve been with the company for 2 years.

Typically how long does it take from the original reference design card release to when we can first expect to see a Twin Frozr III based card hit retail?  How much longer does it take to create the “Lightning” based products?

Historically, we’ve seen the introduction of a non-reference thermal solution within 2-4 weeks of product launch. As an example, GTX580 was launched in November 2010, and by December there was already a reference PCB GTX580 w/ the Twin Frozr II cooler.

In the case of Lightning cards, the development timeframe is longer due to more R&D, validation, and procurement of components. With GTX580, the timeframe was around 6 months, but moving forward MSI is pulling in the launch timeframe of our flagship products.

r5770_cont1.jpg

Continue reading our interview with MSI's Alex Chang!!

Can you effectively patch up a Bulldozer?

Subject: Processors | February 17, 2012 - 01:52 PM |
Tagged: fx-8150, FX, cpu, bulldozer, amd, 990fx

AMD's $270 flagship processor, the 3.6GHz FX-8150 had a mixed reception as the hype which lead up to the release built up our expectations to a point that the processor could not live up to.  Part of the disappointment has been blamed on the Windows 7 thread scheduler, which AMD described as not being optimized for their architecture, which lead to the release of hotfix files KB2645594 and KB2646060.  TechPowerUp revisited their benchmarks to see if these patches effectively increase the performance of multi-threaded tasks; single threaded tasks are dependant on processor speed so they should be unaffected by the patches.

dozer patch.jpg

"After settling on the market, with all the quirks and bugs supposedly fixed, all the hype and disappointment blown away, we put AMD's FX-8150 under the scope. Benchmarks are done with and without the Windows 7 hotfix and in depth overclocking should resolve any doubts you have about AMD's flagship processor."

Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:

Processors

 

Source: TechPowerUp

Podcast #189 - AMD Radeon HD 7750 and 7770, Mechanical Keyboards from Rosewill, Windows on ARM and more!

Subject: Editorial | February 16, 2012 - 03:49 PM |
Tagged: WOA, rosewill, podcast, nvidia, Intel, gpu, cpu, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #189 - 02/16/2012

Join us this week as we talk about AMD Radeon HD 7750 and 7770, Mechanical Keyboards from Rosewill, Windows on ARM and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:18:31

Program Schedule:

  1. 0:00:29 Introduction
  2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  3. http://pcper.com/podcast
  4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  5. 0:01:45 AMD Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 Cape Verde GPU Review
  6. 0:20:15 Rosewill Second Generation Mechanical Keyboard Review: RK-9000, RK-9000BR, RK-9000BL, RK-9000RE
  7. 0:23:20 ASUS Transformer Prime TF201 Keyboard Dock Review
  8. 0:25:45 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
  9. 0:27:45 WOA! We wanted Windows 8 on ARM details. We got them.
  10. 0:31:00 Intel Haswell Processors To Launch In First Half of 2013
  11. 0:37:25 CTO Eric Demers to Leave AMD
  12. 0:41:15 OCZ Launches Z-Drive R4 CloudServ 16TB Solid State Storage System
  13. 0:46:00 Asustek? Your Ultrabook orders are ah pulled.
  14. 0:48:25 Take that Moore! Electron beam etching set to take us to the 10nm process
  15. 1:00:55 Email from James
  16. 1:02:45 Email from Dave
  17. 1:05:45 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: HINGES!!!  YouTube video 
    2. Jeremy: SilverSands Active Directories Migration tool
    1. Josh: Apparently quite fun.
    2. Allyn: NewerTech Power2U
  18. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  19. http://pcper.com/podcast   
  20. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  21. Closing

Source: PC Perspective

Meet the new mid-range; AMD's HD7770 and HD7750

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 15, 2012 - 02:33 PM |
Tagged: xfx, southern islands, hd 7770, hd 7750, cape verde, amd, radeon, factory overclocked

The days of the HD 6870 are numbered as today we see the arrival of the new sub-$200 GPUs from AMD, the HD7770 and HD7750.  The stock HD 7770 run at 1GHz with 640 stream processors, 40 texture units and 16 ROPs and the 1GB of memory rides on a 128-bit bus at 4.5GHz.  The stock HD7750 has a slower core, running at 800MHz and a lower stream processor count of 512 as well as only 32 Texture units, with the memory subsystem unchanged from the HD7770.

Those who were disappointed by the lack of custom coolers and factory overclocks at the release of the HD 7970 will be happy to see the variety of HD7700 series cards.  For instance [H]ard|OCP reviewed the XFX R7770 Black Edition Super Overclocked which has a custom cooler, a 120MHz overclock on the core and a 300Mhz on the memory, effectively 5.2GHz.  [H] proved that there is more memory headroom available in this card, adding another 1.1GHz without needing to adjust the voltage.  For those who are willing to risk upping the power there might be even more speed possible from this card. 

You can also catch Ryan's review of the same card as well as an MSI version and a stock HD 7750.

H_7770.jpg

"Today marks the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 7700 series of GPUs in the sub-$200 bracket. We've got a retail XFX R7770 Black Edition Super Overclocked video card just itching to show us what it can do. Will this Radeon HD 7770 based video card hold up to the likes of the Radeon HD 6870 and GeForce GTX 560 Ti? You may be surprised."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

 

Source: [H]ard|OCP

PC Perspective
Upcoming Events
  • 5/22 @ 7:00pm PDT / 10:00pm EDT
    PC Perspective Podcast
  • 5/23 @ 6:00pm PDT / 9:00pm EDT
    This Week in Computer Hardware