Getting more out of your videocard

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 20, 2006 - 06:08 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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One the ways to get more FPS out of an old videocard is to replace the manufacturers cooling solution with a new, more powerful one.  Virtual-Hideout has a review of Arctic Cooling's Accelero X1 VGA Cooler, which is an inexpensive cooler that may help you get a few more Mhz out of the GPU or memory.

"With an expected availability of around the end of February 2006 and a proposed MSRP of around

$33 USD, I think it's a pretty good value.

New Catalysts for the New Year

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 19, 2006 - 06:10 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Neoseeker checks out the new 6.1 Catalyst release, and they even find some nice surprises.

"Since the RELEASE NOTES didn't mention any performance improvements, we got curious and have

worked up a quick run of benchmarks for ATI's Catalyst 6.1 release compared to the 5.13.

CrossFire vs. SLI

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 18, 2006 - 06:16 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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ATI's second go at Crossfire, with X1800's has seen a better reception than the first run.  Now that the drivers and hardware have improved, and it is actually possible to find a Master card to use in a Crossfire setup, it is time for a rematch against nVidia's SLI.   Head to Legit Reviews to see how they stack up.

Don't forget to look at Ryan's sneek peek of the 7300 GS, either.

"While ATI's first generation Crossfire platform proved ATI could offer a dual video c

Futuremark Overhauls the Gamer's Benchmark in 3DMark06

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 18, 2006 - 09:40 AM | Ryan Shrout
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The official PR just hit the wire, and Futuremark has announced availability of the new 3DMark06.  You can check out my preview of the new benchmark by clicking here. 

The Futuremark download page has a list of sources to get the large (580 MB+) file, but of course our favorite is

NVIDIA Announces Budget 7300 GS GPU

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 18, 2006 - 09:23 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Besides today's release of the 3DMark06 benchmark, NVIDIA is announcing a new budget level GPU called the 7300 GS.  Since I didn't get any samples on it, I'll just quickly go over the specs here.

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  GeForce 7300 GS


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  4 pixel pipes


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  3 vertex pipes


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  550 MHz core clock


• 
  
  400

Dual GPU's with low heat and power consumption

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 17, 2006 - 03:16 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Hardware Zone reviews an interesting product from MSI, the Geminium-Go, dual 6600 MXM's power this card, that produces far less heat and needs less power than you would expect.  While it still isn't going to work in a laptop, it can bring serious power to an HTPC or SFF system.

Plus, if you haven't read Ryan's review of the XFX GeForce 6800 GS review, shame on you!

"Though SLI for notebooks hasn't arrived yet, MSI has tak

Pushing your x1800 to the limit

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 13, 2006 - 05:55 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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NGOHQ has discovered that ATI's X1800 is extremely overclocking friendly.  Take a look and see how far they pushed it, and how easy it was to do.

""ATi has finally made the leap and given overclockers a reason to celebrate. In their new RADEON

X1800 series they have given us the ability to modify the GPU/DDR voltages without using a voltage

mod.

ATI's X1800 MasterCard

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 11, 2006 - 02:47 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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[H]ard|OCP has their hands on a matched set of x1800's, master and slave, and they see just how this new generation of videocard reposonds in a CrossFire setup.  If you have been holding off on the upgrade because of the poor availabilty of the Mastercards, this review will give you a good idea just what you are waiting for.

"The very nature of ATI's CrossFire platform is that you have a MasterCard that can be installed

with a slave card.

Out of the mouths of Booth Babes

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 9, 2006 - 03:56 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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According to a chat HEXUS had with a certain ...

G71 Well Behind X1900 XT

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 7, 2006 - 04:43 PM | Ryan Shrout
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According to the The Inq, ATI has a big lead of next-gen GPUs as the R580 is supposedly nearly ready and the G71 is still some time off.

IT SEEMS that Nvidia might not be out with its G71 as soon as expected. We heard that it might sample as soon as next week, but major OEMs and partners confirmed that they still haven't seen the hardware and that they've all had R580, Radeon X1900 XTX for some times now.

GeForce 7800 GTX 512 Stock Coming Back

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 7, 2006 - 04:40 PM | Ryan Shrout
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According to sources at CES, NVIDIA will have much more quanitity of hte 512 parts in the coming weeks. 

I CAN sell as many 7800 GTX 512 as I can get and that's a very good product for us," an Nvidia partner told us at the show. He, she or it wants to remain incognito but the very big partner said that it actually sold all of the cards and still has back orders to fulfil.

NVIDIA Already Ready with G71?

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 4, 2006 - 11:51 PM | Ryan Shrout
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NVIDIA apparently has the new G71 up its sleeve and ready for ATI's X1900 product...

NVIDIA'S latest graphic offering should start sampling as soon as next week. It's all in the promises now but we have a reason to believe that Nvidia is on the schedule with this one. We also heard that the chip should work around 700 MHz frequency and as we reported before it should feature 32 pixel pipelines.

ATI's X1900XTX name game explained

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 4, 2006 - 11:47 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Do they really think people are falling for this?

Its Platinum Edition, or PE, appeared in such short supply it became known as the 'Press Edition' or even 'Pathetic Edition' such was its scarcity. It was so rare that you could barely get it. We'll applaud ATI for actually learning something from past mistakes.

Competitor Nvidia had a similar branding problem with its Ultra line, which was dumped in favour of the GTX label.

Asus Radeon X1800 XT TOP Review

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 3, 2006 - 11:07 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Firingsquad has put together a review of the new Asus X1800 XT TOP graphics card that I also have in house for testing. 

At first glance, ASUS' Extreme X1800 XT TOP looks like no other Radeon X1800 XT card on the market. Sitting next to ATI's own Radeon X1800 XT reference board, the ASUS Extreme X1800 XT TOP looks massive. It even looks large sitting next to a GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB. But actually, the board is based entirely on ATI's reference board design for the Radeon X1800 XT.

Will NVIDIA's G71 Chip Use 32 pipelines?

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 29, 2005 - 03:29 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Lot's of questions in today's news...this time about NVIDIA's upcoming 90nm opposition to ATI's R580 in the form of the G71. 

As the G71 will be able to process 32 pixels per clock, it will physically have 32 pipelines but will have just 16 ROPs. This is no surprise to us as Nvidia's G70, Geforce 7800 GTX actually has 24 pipelines and 16 ROPs.

More Details on R580 and ATI's X1900XT?

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 29, 2005 - 03:27 PM | Ryan Shrout
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The Inquirer claims to have some good knowledge of the upcoming R580 specifications include a 695 MHz core clock and 1550 MHz memory clock!

OUR CHINESE colleagues have reported that R580 comes in a couple of flavours and our Theo wrote about this before. But this time these guys have a picture of the actual hardware and have some of the clock details. The card looks very much like the previous R520 based chip.

ATI's R580 Spotted

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 29, 2005 - 02:29 PM | Ryan Shrout
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It looks like the first images of ATI's upcoming R580 chip have hit the web over at HKEPC.  Nothing incredibly exciting really, though.  Check out this quote:

時ATi的尚未向廠商提交R580核心的正式規格，只知道將會分為3個版本，最高階的為Radeon X1900XTX，取代舊有以PE命名的方法，核心時脈為650MHz，記憶體時脈則為1550MHz。Radeon X1900XT核心時脈為625MHz，記憶體時脈則為1450MHz。而CrossFire版本亦會在同日發佈，æ 

ATI Radeon X1800 XL Overclocking

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 23, 2005 - 03:54 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Legit Reviews has an article online today that looks at overclocking an ATI X1800 XL well past its 500/500 stock speed.

First and most obvious you're going to need an X1800XL. We are using the reference board sent to us by ATI. All of the R520 GPU's come from ATI and that's the only thing that we can promise. It's up to the board partners on what type of memory will be used and how closely they will follow the reference design set by ATI. This is very important to keep in mind as this will affect your results.