A card as rare as uranium, and just about as heavy

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 15, 2005 - 06:08 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Hardware Asylum managed to get their hands on the extremely rare Gigabyte 3D1-68GT, a dual GPU card whose performance is great, but comes at the cost of severe heat, and a massive size.  Still no word on whether there will be an SLI version released in the future.

"The 3D1-68GT is as good a dual-GPU card as we've ever seen, but that does not exempt it from its

associated faults.

The need for passively cooled speed

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 13, 2005 - 04:23 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Cool and quiet wins out over high powered video cards once again. [H]ard|OCP examines the ASUS' Extreme N6600GT Silencer, a dead silent, GeForce 6600 GT, cooled by a large heatsink, with no fan.  While it may not give you much overhead to overclock, it will certainly give good video performance, and as I may have mentioned, quiet down your system.

"Silence is golden. There are just certain situations where silence is a wonderful thing.

Valve Delivers new Filmic Effects

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 12, 2005 - 02:50 PM | Jonathan Hung
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Ryan has posted tantalizing coverage on Valve's new Filmic Effects. This new technology attempts to tackle some of graphics most complex problems, notably motion blurring and depth of field. Valve has some interesting approaches to implementing these effects which ultimately means more dramatic games in the near future.

Sadly though, there's no such thing as a free lunch...

"...

ATI's Catalysts and how they've changed

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 12, 2005 - 12:10 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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It's been a year of monthly updates for ATI's catalysts, with current rumours of a 13th release close to christmas.  AnandTech examines just what has changed over 2005, and ventures into the performance irregularities we saw earlier in the year.

"We have seen on more than one occasion that our benchmarks have been turned upside down and

inside out, with cases such as ATI's Catalyst 5.11 drivers suddenly giving ATI a decisive win in

OpenGL games, when they were being soundly defeated just a driver version b

XFX puts together a sweet bundle

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 9, 2005 - 12:10 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The XFX bundle that the Guru of 3D reviews is just great.  Not only do you get a reasonably videocard, it will perform better than most cards in it's class.  Plus good games!  You won't be stuck with aged titles to try out on your new card, and replaying FarCry with all the options turned up to 11 will be much fun.

"XFX did something really extraordinary with this "XXX Edition" product in two fold. First of all

the higher core and memory clocks are just brilliant.

Sure it's fast, but how does it look

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 7, 2005 - 05:13 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The Firing Squad decided to compare ATI, nVidia and XGI, with an eye for quality.  If you are more concerned with the quality of your frames, as opposed to the quantity, this review is for you.

'Today FiringSquad looks at the deinterlacing performance of the NVIDIA GeForce 6600, the ATI

Radeon X800, and the XGI Volari 8300.

A card to base an HTPC around

Subject: Graphics Cards | December 6, 2005 - 06:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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T-break reviews one of those rare non-AIW TV tuner cards, the PowerColor Theatre 550 Pro.  It's a 1x PCIx card, and is worth a look for anyone considering setting up a HTPC for themselves or as a gift.

"The included Cyberlink remote clearly lacks the luster that ATI remotes have and looks ungraceful

and clunky. The remote also lacks a thumbpad for mouse control and includes no programmable

buttons.