Review of ASUS MARS II 3GB: the fastest AIB in the history of the world

Posted by Robert Dow on October 27th 2011 | Permalink
Categories:
Tags: gpu aib gaming pmark

Visually striking, the Mars II 3GB dual GTX 580 is an impressive piece of technology in both performance and size. The Mars II checks in at 13”x 6”x 2.5” and at a stunning 5.2 lbs. Consider: two EVGA GTX 590s together weigh in at a mere 5lbs. Aside from its staggering size the first thing one notices are the dual 12 cm fans capable of 220CFM which Asus says gives the Mars II a 600% greater air flow than a standard AIB. The fans come with a Turbo fan button that when enabled keeps the 12cms fans buzzing at top speed…

Building a hot rod

Posted by Robert Dow on September 24th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gaming pc

There are three (probably more) approaches to building a gaming PC: Build the lowest cost unit you can that will run FPS Dx11 games at >30 fps. Build a machine that is pretty good and less than $5,000. Build the biggest baddest money is no object machine. We chose to go for the middle and built the following system. JPR’s Corsair hot rod of the month This can be considered a state of the art machine with a dual GPU AIB that runs S3D and a nice size 23.6-inch monitor. A fast SSD drive and 8 GB of DDR3 give it…

Duking it out in the low-end: AMD HD 6450 vs. Nvidia GT 520 Reviews

Posted by Robert Dow on May 18th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gpu nvidia amd market graphics aib pmark

This week we focused on the entry level market and tested three AIBs, the Nvidia GT 520, and two versions of AMD boards: the HD 6450 and 6450 GDDR5. Some would argue that any board coupled with GDDR5 belongs in the mainstream segment, however we take a look at price as the determining factor. The Nvidia GT 520 is based on the GF119 GPU and has a core clock of 810 MHz compared to the AMD 625 MHz DDR3 and the 750 GDDR5 HD 6450s models. Despite the GT 520’s lack of GDDR5, and fewer shaders, the GT 520 more than…

Review the AMD 6000 Series

Posted by Robert Dow on May 3rd 2011 | Permalink
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Tags: gpu amd market ati graphics 3d pmark

Covers the low end with refresh parts for the mainstream gamer AMD rounded out their 6000 line with the introduction of the "Turks" line of add-in boards. AMD who was first to market with DirectX 11 AIBs points out that developers are no longer making DirectX 10 games. Even "World of WarCraft," the world's most popular PC game (12 million subscribers), is now DirectX 11. So their message to the consumer is: It's time to upgrade to DirectX 11 now! AMD thinks the casual gamers who bought a Radeon 5450 a couple of years ago, a fine DirectX 10 AIB, should…

Review: AMD’s HD 6990 and Nvidia’s GTX 590 - Dueling dual GPUs, and AIBs

Posted by Robert Dow on April 12th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gpu nvidia amd market review pmark

The dual GPU AIBs are marvelous products. They are awe inspiring, and not for everyone because of their price, but they are the Ferraris of the market in every sense. Nvidia officially released the GeForce GTX 590 dual GPU AIB 24 March, 2011, just 16 days after AMD introduced their dual GPU AIB the Radeon HD 6990. That's not a big gap in time relative to what these designs represent, and more of a marketing move between the two companies than a technology gap or indication of any problems. Nvidia is the more clever of the two at marketing and in…

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX550 Ti Review

Posted by Robert Dow on March 25th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gpu nvidia graphics aib 3d report pmark geforce

Fastest Midrange AIB Nvidia has introduced the latest in their new Fermi gen2 products, the GeForce GTX550 Ti, (Titanium. Same nomenclature as the 560 Ti) based on the 193 core Fermi GF116 GPU. Compared to other Nvidia GPUs and the price equivalent AMD part (HD5770), the balance of feature and specifications show Nvidia did some careful selections to hit the price-performance point they wanted. Table 1: Comparison of five AIBs   GTS 450 GTX 460 GTX 550 Ti GTX 560 Ti HD5770 Core Clock (MHz) 738 675 900 822 850 Memory Clock  (MHz)  902  900  1,026  1,002  1,200 Memory data rate…

Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 Review

Posted by Robert Dow on March 24th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gpu nvidia graphics aib 3d gaming pmark games benchmark

Let no pixel go un-accelerated Right on the heels of their most recent midrange product launch, the GTX 550 Ti, Nvidia rolled out their flagship AIB the dual GPU GTX 590. This top of the line, take no prisoners, 3GB GDDR5 AIB with a massive 384-bit memory bus (per GPU) has delivered some impressive scores, but doesn't beat two GTX 480s or 2 GTX 580s in SLI configuration—it doesn't cost as much either The AIB has a 12-layer PCB and to help disperse heat more effectively across the PCB, two ounces of copper are used for each of the board's power…

Lucid’s Virtu unites any and all GPUs

Posted by Robert Dow on March 8th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gpu nvidia amd market intel directx

Lucid (formally LucidLogix) came up with the idea for a PCIe sniffer that could intercept API calls, back in 2006. The company stayed in stealth mode, living on VC money and didn't actually show a product till 2008. The original idea was that Lucid would build a chipset that would allow any two (or more) AIBs to operate together in a complimentary way – what AMD calls Crossfire, S3 calls Multi Chrome, and Nvidia calls SLI. However, Lucid promised to enable any of them, any combination of them, any generation or SKU of them, to run together and boost each other.…

Nvidia GTX 560 Review

Posted by Robert Dow on January 25th 2011 | Permalink
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags:

Nvidia’s GTX 560 Ti enters the Performance Segment Nvidia’s next foray into the Performance segment will take the form of the GTX 560 Ti (Ti = titanium). The performance gamer is in serious need of graphical output but might not have discretionary spending power of his enthusiast counterpart, which is why Nvidia says it puts a premium on price/ performance when it comes to this segment of the market. The GTX 560 Ti, based on a the redesigned GF114 GPU, is a serious boost in power providing 21% better performance per watt and 33% overall performance upgrade from the GTX 460…

Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 Review

Posted by Robert Dow on December 8th 2010 | Permalink
Categories: Software Review
Tags: benchmark futuremark

First look at new benchmark DirectX 11 has been with us since Windows 7 was introduced in late October 2009, almost 14 months ago. And it’s not as if no one didn’t know it was coming, or no major OEM or game developer didn’t know what the specifications were, and even have access to some of the tools. So it’s hard to understand why so few games are available that support DirectX 11 other than they are cheap console ports and were never designed for DirectX 11. OK, that explains the lazy PC hating game developers, but not a company whose…

Futuremark’s 3DMark vantage benchmark

Posted by Robert Dow on May 5th 2008 | Permalink
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We’ve been testing Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage since early March, and you may have noticed it in some of our previous reports. Well, the program is completely vetted now, and it’s gone from the early beta we first got to Gold. Along with it have been some driver tweaks by AMD and Nvidia, and no doubt Intel and S3 will follow suit. Included in the new benchmarks are four tests (two different CPU tests and two different GPU tests) and six feature tests. In addition, Futuremark has introduced four PC presets that augment the variety of PCs that can be tested. Presets…