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World of Warcraft Performance Guide
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2005 - 08:06 PM | Ryan Shrout
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If you have been playing or thinking of playing World of Warcraft, otherwise known as WoW, then you'll want to read what Anand has put together as a performance guide. He has looked at both GPU and CPU performance in the game.
The balance between GPU and CPU performance isn't all that matters to World of Warcraft. Memory size is also a very important factor in building a smooth running WoW box. As with any high end gaming box, less than 512MB of memory is simply unacceptable for WoW.
ATI Theatre 550 Pro Review
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2005 - 07:54 PM | Ryan Shrout
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The gang at PCStats is looking at the new Powercolor branded Theatre 550 TV tuner card today.
As you've probably guessed by now, the Powercolor Theatre 550 Pro works as a TV-tuner ought to. Its combination of great image quality and perfect frame rates made us very happy campers indeed. ATI appears to have the makings of a hit on their hands with the Theatre Pro 550 chip.
We were less thrilled with the bundled Cyberlink PowerCinema 3 software.
Has SLI Improved Yet?
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 23, 2005 - 12:17 PM | Ryan Shrout
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HardOCP has come back to the table with an updated look at the status of SLI gaming. Since we last heard from them on this topic, a new driver has been released that promised additional SLI support for everyone! Did it happen?
We are still very concerned with the frequency of driver releases and bug fixes, however. As you can see in our gameplay testing, this driver has quite a few problems. Right now, there is a temperature issue bug, and a bug with Coolbits not allowing overclocking in SLI.
Graphics Card Reviews
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 22, 2005 - 12:07 AM | Ryan Shrout
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I have a couple of GPU reviews here for you tonight.
First, PenStarSys has reviewed the Sapphire Radeon X800 XL. Though he over enthusiastically points out a $299 price point, the card is still a good performer.
Next, the gang at HotHardware are looking at a pair of cards from HIS: the X850 XT and the X800 XL.
Club 3D X800 XL PCI Express Reviewed
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 18, 2005 - 07:10 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Definitely one of the lesser known GPU vendors, the Club 3D X800 XL PCIe card is being reviewed by the gang at Viperlair today.
I've not had a chance to look at a Club-3D product before; I've seen them in the shops occasionally along with other brands but for some reason I've not actually picked one up.
ATI Raises Prices on GPUs??
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 18, 2005 - 07:03 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Scott Wasson of the Tech Report has a bit of an editorial on the price gouging on vendors and the new ATI video cards. It turns out, it may not completely be the vendors fault after all...
The moral of the story, it seems to me, is clear: ATI's second set of lower pricing numbers for the X800 and X800 XL was essentially incorrect. In reality, in the market, the 16-pipe Radeon X800 XL competes with the 16-pipe GeForce 6800 GT.
SLI Transforms 3DMark05 Leaderboard
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 16, 2005 - 11:50 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Today NVIDIA sent out a press wire stating "NVIDIA® SLI™ TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMS THE PC ENTHUSIAST SEGMENT" and I thought after reading that, hot damn let's see what's new. This was the subtitle: Award-Winning Dual GPU Solution Sweeps 3DMark05 Hall of Fame.
Now I'm not against using the 3Dmark genre for testing, or for benchmarks, or even for comparison, but to say that because of SLI on the top of the 3DMark05 Hall of Fame NVIDIA has "transformed the enthusiast segment" is a bit much...
NVIDIA® SLI™ TECHN
ATI Mobility Radeon X700
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 16, 2005 - 10:59 AM | Ryan Shrout
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The gang at HardOCP have written up a bit on the ATI Mobility Radeon X700 core using an Acer Travelmate notebook.
For the class of notebook that this is the Mobility Radeon X700 is at the top of its game. It allows the highest level of playable quality settings we have seen yet for this class of notebook. Though the gaming experience isn't going to be as great as a desktop replacement laptop you can still have a whole lot of fun on the go gaming with this notebook.
Some Random GPU News
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 15, 2005 - 12:42 PM | Ryan Shrout
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The Inquirer has some interesting GPU-based news this afternoon. First, they found the NVIDIA is looking into
VisionTek XTASY X850 XT Review
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 15, 2005 - 01:10 AM | Ryan Shrout
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HardOCP has reviewed the VisionTek branded X850 XT GPU today and though they seem to like the card, availability is STILL an issue.
The MSRP on the VisionTek XTASY X850 XT is $499. Searching various online stores we did find the VisionTek XTASY X850 XT at one retailer on sale for $488 but it was out of stock. At other online retailers we did find it in stock and found the price to be anywhere from $499 all the way to $614 at one retailer.
ATI Multi-GPU Technology and More from CeBit
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 13, 2005 - 03:10 AM | Ryan Shrout
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With still more CeBit coverage, Hexus has visited the Asus booth and found more than a few interesting tid bits for you all to read about. The most note worthy is a spotting of the ATI MVP technology for dual GPUs in a single system. They also have the dual 6800 Ultra and 6600 GT cards pictured, the Intel 955 motherboard and a Pentium M board on display as well.
MVP supports split frame rendering using supertiling, where the screen is split up into tiled areas with each tile processed
More Dual 6800 Ultra Pics!
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 13, 2005 - 02:57 AM | Ryan Shrout
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You need to stop by HardOCP to see the updated, hi resolution photos they have coming in from CeBIT of the Asus dual 6800 Ultra card -- two 6800U GPUs on a single card??? Outrageous.
Notes on this are that the card uses 512MB of DDR3 (256 per GPU) and will require a special motherboard. Of course we saw Gigabytes dual 6600 require a special motherboard, but it did run on our ASUS SLI board just fine. So time will tell.
Is ATI Close with Multi GPU Technology?
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 11, 2005 - 11:34 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Fudo at the Inquirer seems to think so...
Anyway ATI has its marchitecture ready and we learned that you will be able to do ATI Multiple VPU with two different cards. You will be able to plug one X800 and one X850 cards together and faster card will downscale to the slower and will work simultaiously with it.
ATI is showing of its motherboard supporting ATI Multiple VPU powered with two Radeon X850 XT PE cards or should we use R480 codenames.
NVIDIA Shows 512 MB 6800 Ultra @ CeBit
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 10, 2005 - 08:09 PM | Ryan Shrout
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NVIDIA is announcing two new items for the GeForce 6000 series of products today at CeBit. The first of them is low-cost AGP version of the GeForce 6200 card. The other is a 512 MB version of the 6800 Ultra. Talk about a different in GPU power! In related stories, our buddies at Hexus.net have a short look at TWO of these beasts running in SLI mode, for a total of 1 GB of video memory, holy crap!
CEBIT &mda
S3 Graphics Announces Availability of GammaChromeS18 PCI Express Graphics
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 9, 2005 - 06:36 PM | Ryan Shrout
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S3 Graphics Announces Availability of GammaChromeS18 PCI Express Graphics
GammaChrome GPUs boast native support of PCI Express and Hi-Def(TM) HDTV, bringing the latest graphics and video technologies to the mainstream
Fremont, 9 March 2005 Keeping pace with the latest developments in the graphics arena, S3 Graphics today announced the availability of GammaChromeS18, the first in the GammaChrome line of GPUs targeted at the mainstream graphics market, featuring full DirectX 9.0 hardware, a native PCI Express interface and S3G's signature Hi-Def(TM)
ATI X800 XT All-In-Wonder Review
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 9, 2005 - 03:31 PM | Ryan Shrout
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The 'blokes' at Hexus.net are serving up a review of the ATI X800 XT-based All-In-Wonder card today.
Otherwise, and I'll ignore my issues with MMC's interface, since I'm assured it's being worked on, it's a standout multimedia product. It's the definitive, best-of-breed combination 3D and video product for AGP systems, by quite some margin.
Ageia PhysX Chip - Interview
Subject: Graphics Cards | March 8, 2005 - 01:06 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Duane from Gamers Depot let me know that he has posted an interview with the CEO and COO of Ageia, the compnay responsible for all the hype around physics processing units.
The PPU is different from but complementary to the CPU/GPU as follows: It is dependent on the nature of application for which the processor has been optimized.
ATI Announces X800 XL and X850 XT in AGP Form
Subject: Graphics Cards | February 28, 2005 - 04:28 PM | Ryan Shrout
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This is quite a surprise announcement from ATI this morning -- they are now announcing that they have AGP parts based on the X800 XL and X800 XT GPUs. These cards use an ATI bridge chip that converts the PCIe bus to the AGP bus. Here's some more information in the official PR:
ATI Extends its Line of High-End Graphics Cards
RADEON® X800 XL and RADEON® X850 XT now available for AGP customers
MARKHAM, ON
— February 28, 2005 —
The Ultimate Graphics Card Kit?
Subject: Graphics Cards | February 28, 2005 - 02:24 PM | Sean Pelletier
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If this new kit from Gainward isn't the ultimate graphics card upgrade kit, it has to be pretty damn close. The thought of two watercooled GeForce 6800 Ultras with 512MB of memory (each) in SLI should be enough to put a smile on any gamer's face. Can you image the benchmark scores from this SLI kit with 1GB of total VGA memory?
512MB NVIDIA Layout Changes?
Subject: Graphics Cards | February 28, 2005 - 02:17 PM | Sean Pelletier
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A few images on an engineering sample 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra have been floating around online today. Although the additional 256MB is an obvious benefit, there are some rather drastic layout changes to the board which should certainly raise an eyebrow. Taking a glimpse at the image below, you'll see that the memory is not cooled in any way here and that the traditional passive heatsink assembly seen on 6800 Ultras will not fit.
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