Video Cards & GPUs - Page 475

Intel's upcoming graphics drivers which should be out in the not to distant future will add hardware vertex processing to the G965, GM965 and G35 chipset, but not for all games. Apparently, Intel has found after rigorous testing that some games benefit from having software vertex processing, such as you can see from the picture below which shows F.E.A.R. running with software vertex processing on the left and hardware vertex processing on the right.

We've got one more video for you, of Intel integrated GM965 graphics and in all honesty, it seems like Intel graphics isn't as bad as it used to be. There are several demo's running in the video, but the first two are on Intel integrated graphics powered by the GM965 chipset.

Intel was talking a lot about graphics and with its new programmable graphics core it appears that the company can add features as it goes along. It will add hardware accelerated geometry shaders in its next generation of integrated graphics as well as adding more video decoding and possibly even encoding into hardware as fixed functions.

Power saving was also big on the agenda and we'll talk more about this tomorrow as well as some other interesting features about Intel's upcoming graphics architecture. For now, enjoy the somewhat dark video of a range of Intel powered notebooks.

It seems like three-way SLI might be closer than we expected with several websites having information about it today. There are some limitations as to who can actually run it, starting with the fact that you need to have a Nforce 680i or 680i LT based motherboard, at least until the 780i comes out. We're not sure about AMD support, as so far no-one has mentioned it, but it should be possible with the 680a SLI chipset.

The next requirement is a graphics card with two SLI connectors on the top, such as the 8800 GTX or Ultra. This limits the audience of three-way SLI even further. A new SLI connector is also needed and we're not sure where you'll be able to get one of these from, unless you buy a new motherboard, but Nvidia will surely figure out a way.

The three cards are then connected to each other by the primary card having links to the second and third card, while the second and third cards are connected to each other as well. It might sound confusing, but the new SLI connector takes care of all the brain work for you. For those that can afford this kind of a setup it should offer some additional performance, but we suggest you get a fast CPU and a high-res display, as otherwise it'll be wasted money. The suggested launch date is the 15th of November.

On a side not, Expreview has also got some benchmarks of an 8800 GT vs. an 8800 Ultra and you can check that out here

You can also find out a bit more about three-way SLI here

The Inquirer has a few pictures up of a pair of AMD's upcoming RV670 cards running in CrossFire. The pictures of the cards were snapped at the World Cyber Games in Seattle and it looks like AMD is keen to show off its new hardware. Normally you'd expect to see one card when something new like this is being shown off to the general public, but considering the perceived performance of these cards, it might not be a bad move by AMD.

The test system belonged to Sapphire and they'd got their hands on one of the brand new Thermaltake cases we wrote about last week. The motherboard is also brand new, although Theo mentions that it's Sapphire's own creation, we can tell you that it's not, it's been source from a well known performance motherboard manufacturer here in Taiwan. The RD790 board would've been an early sample as well, since the manufacturer is as far as we know not quite ready for mass production of these boards.

Microsoft has announced a new range of Zune players and it looks like things are improving rather quickly. First up is the new 80GB model which is slimmer and has a new touch sensitive controller, henceforth known as the Zune 80GB. The Zune 80GB will only be available in black and has a 3.2-inch display, although no resolution was mentioned. It also has a built in FM radio and Wi-Fi for music sharing with other Zune users.

The 80GB drive is good for up to about 20,000 songs, 25,000 pictures or 250h of video according to Microsoft. A new feature allows you to record and sync TV content from a Windows Vista Media Center PC with the new Zune's. You can also sync your music and files wirelessly over your Wi-Fi network with the new models.

Toshiba has launched two new models in its Satellite X205 series, the SLi1 and SLi3. The names are a bit odd considering both models feature two graphics cards, namely dual GeForce 8600M GT's. Each GPU seems to have 512MB of graphics memory, plus 255MB of TurboCache, but it's not quite clear from the specifications on the site and it could well be 512MB in total.

The two models differ in terms of hardware spec, with the SLi1 featuring a Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU clocked at 2GHz with 4MB of L2 cache. The SLi3 on the other hand features a Core 2 Duo T7500 which is clocked at 2.2GHz, but has the same 4MB of L2 cache. Both CPU's operate on an 800MHz bus speed and both machines come with 2GB of DDR2-5300 memory.

PowerColor is the third manufacturer that we know of that has officially announced a dual Radeoon HD 2600 XT card and PowerColor simply calls theirs the PowerColor HD 2600 X2. Each of the GPU's are clocked at 800MHz, which is nothing out of the ordinary. The card also has 256MB of GDDR3 memory per GPU and this is clocked at 700MHz, the same as for PowerColor's normal Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR3 card.

There has been numerous reports floating around the web that Intel's upcoming X38 enthusiast chipset motherboard will officially support not only AMD Crossfire dual graphics but also Nvidia SLI technology.

We heard plenty of those rumors ourselves from one source to the next and at one point, we were even so sure it was going to happen we even started saying you could probably look forward to X38 supporting SLI. Sadly though, all these rumors are untrue!

During Computex back in June of this year, a couple motherboard companies slipped up and claimed that their X38 boards would support SLI. Technically and as far as the hardware goes, X38 does support SLI but it is not officially sanctioned at all by Nvidia. During a drunken Taipei rampage last year in a place which will be left unnamed, we asked the question to an Nvidia senior rep who is high up on the food chain and the answer was something along the lines of that Intel would never get a SLI license unless Intel gave them a free CPU bus license in return (loosely quoted). Of course, neither are likely to ever happen.

We have to appologise to our friend over at the FiringSquad for missing this one, but they posted a review of the Diamond Viper 2900 XT 1GB Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card last week. It features 1GB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2GHz DDR, that's some 350MHz faster than the reference cards. The core is also clocked 5MHz faster than the reference cards, altough this is unlikely to add a lot of performance.

This cards boosts the highest memory bandwith of any graphics card to date with 128GB/s. It's also quite expensive at US$549, but 512MB if high-end GDDR4 memory doesn't come for free. As you'll notice from the picture below, this is a 9-inch card, just as the 512MB models. It seems like the 12-inch model was cancelled in the end.

If we're to believe information posted on HKEPC, AMD is working on CrossFire for three cards and the RD790 chipset will be the first to support three cards. Although not a lot of information is known at this time, the addition of HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 makes this chipset a clear candidate for new features.

Add to this 41 PCI Express lanes and its clear that AMD is working on something, although Physics is of course one of the most touted applications for a third card. However, HKEPC claims that the performance improvement of adding a third card raises CrossFire performance from 1.8x to 2.6x by going from two to three cards over a single card.

If AMD indeed can pull this off, then AMD should have a solid lead over Nvidia's SLI technology, as long as they can convince their customers to spend the extra money on a third card.

It's also worth mentioning the power characteristics of the RD790 chipset, as HKEPC is reporting that it will draw a mere 3W at idle and 10W at full load. Compare this to Intel's upcoming X38 chipse which draws 14.4W at idle and up to 35W at full load.

We'll have to wait until September before AMD has these chips in mass production. Hopefully we'll see some early boards before then and it will be interesting to see what AMD's partners can do with this chipset. Sadly, it will continue to use the SB600 southbridge, as the SB700 won't be ready until later this year.