Sunday, 19 February 2012
MultiBeast Overview Video
Monday, 23 January 2012
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Cards in 3-Way CrossFireX
Since the launch of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 we've looked at the reference model to see how it performs when the card sits on its own. With that done we then took the time to install a second reference design card into the mix and see how performance with the HD 7970 running in CrossFire.
Today we grab a third card and see what happens when we move to a three way CrossFireX setup. Since we've already looked at the Sapphire card in full detail in our CrossFire review mentioned above, we'll be getting into the performance side of things fairly quickly today.
The first thing we need to do is just take a quick look at our testbed, if you've been following our HD 7970 series of content, though, you shouldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Once we've done that we'll move onto the performance of the setup and see how it compares to other HD 7970s we've looked at.
When we've moved away from two cards and onto three and four card setups we've seen that performance can tend to get hit a fair bit. Quite often we don't see the gains we'd like to see and that ultimately makes three and four card setups quite overpriced and sometimes impractical. Still, the HD 7970 has shown us some wonderful performance so far... fingers crossed it translates over to today's 3-Way CrossFireX setup.
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Friday, 20 January 2012
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Cards in CrossFire
We're slowly working our way through our HD 7970s which we have on hand. We started off by checking out the reference card from AMD to find out the kind of performance was on offer from the new AMD model. We then checked out the first card that stepped away from the reference cooler; the XFX HD 7970 3GB Black Edition Double Dissipation.
After that we moved onto the HIS HD 7970 3GB and took the time to overclock it to see just what kind of potential was on offer from the brand new model. Today the Sapphire HD 7970 3GB showed up and it was time to see what happens when we finally put together a pair of these new cards and see what kind of performance we're able to get out of the new models when in CrossFire.
As always, before we get into the performance side of things, we've got to take a closer look at the box and the package before we take a closer look at the card itself. Once we've done that we'll quickly cover the specifications and make sure CrossFire is working before we get into the testbed side of things and of course check out the performance.
Checking out the box there's nothing too out of the ordinary going on. We've got the brand and model on the front along with some of the main features highlighted including the 3GB of GDDR5 running on a 384-bit bus. Turning over expands on some of the features a bit more and gives us a bit of an idea what's going on with the package.
Checking out the package we've got the typical paperwork including a key to become a Sapphire Select Club Gold Member. Also above you can see a CrossFire Bridge, DVI to VGA connector and full length HDMI cable. Thinking the package was a little light I double checked with Sapphire to see what came in the package. Unfortunately the card had done the rounds and the last place that had it didn't put everything back in. Along with what you can see above we've also got a MiniDP to Single Link DVI Active Adapter, HDMI to DVI Adapter and a MiniDP to DP connector.
It's worth noting that Sapphire is the first company to include a MiniDP to DP connector, as we've been saying all along, if you're going to make use of a DisplayPort cable, it will come in extremely handy and prevent the need of having to purchase one separately.
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Thursday, 19 January 2012
Tips When Calling Video Game Tech Support @ OCModShop
As a representative of one of the largest video game makers in the world, I am on the telephone with the good people of the United States to help them get their problems resolved. I would like to say that most of the time these calls are clear and straightforward, but sadly they are not. We have all the tools to help you, but I have found that it is usually the consumer that ends up making things difficult.
This article is intended to help you poor souls who need support with their game console. If you follow these rules, then everything will be fine, and if you don�t then things will probably be difficult for you.
Tips When Calling Video Game Tech Support @ OCModShop - More news at DV Hardware
Thursday, 29 September 2011
ASUS GeForce GTS 450 Direct CU Silent Video Card Review
The GTS 450 from NVIDIA launched a little over a year ago; on September 13th, 2010 to be exact. For that reason, you can't help but imagine my surprise when ASUS wanted to shoot over a new version of the card as it was introduced to the new Direct CU Silent family.
Knowing there's a clear market for low end silent cards, I was happy to look at it, but I knew that running it through our normal benchmark line-up was a bit pointless. Instead we'd use our smaller format here today to look at it and just cover what it does and who will most likely use it.
The GTS 450 Direct CU Silent doesn't hold any surprises when it comes to checking out the package; we've got a fairly standard setup going on and the front gives us a good idea of what's going on with the Silent cooler while the back expands on some of the features.
Being a lower end card, we've got a pretty small bundle going on with just a manual and driver CD included in the box. Honestly, it's not much of a surprise, but the main thing you'll probably grab off the CD is the driver, although you'd be better off heading over to the NVIDIA site to grab the latest.
Looking at the card, you can see we've got a massive heatsink going on that has got two heat pipes coming out of the top. The overall look is really nice, though, with the black heatsink and black PCB which is something that's normally skipped on the lower end cards.
While we lack any need for an extra power connector on the card, you can see closer to the front of the card we've got a single SLI connector. The problem is with the way the heat pipes go, it's not much use. To be honest, though, the chances of anyone actually wanting to SLI one of these cards is extremely slim as it is.
If you wanted more performance, you'd be better off opting for something higher up instead of going down the path of adding a second one into the mix. Before we talk about the performance, though, let's just quickly have a look what's going on with the I/O side of things.
Connectivity comes in the form of a Dual-Link DVI, VGA and HDMI connector. The combination of the silent cooler and HDMI port are probably the two stand-out items that make it an attractive option for anyone interested in a silent HTPC card.
Since the launch of the GTS 450 we've seen two versions introduced; we've got the higher end GDDR5 model and the lower end GDDR3 model. The card we're looking at today is based on the latter, meaning the core comes in at 595MHz and the Shader clock comes in at 1189MHz.
As for the GDDR3 memory, we've got a total of 1GB of that and it comes in at a clock speed of 800MHz or 1600MHz DDR. These clocks are a bit lower than the GDDR5 model, but of course the big advantage is that the card simply isn't going to run as hot. Combined with the fact that the aim of the model isn't really a hard core gamer, it's not a big issue. It's worth knowing, though, that the card is based on the GDDR3 version instead of the GDDR5 one.
Firing up 3DMark 11, we're able to get a good idea of how performance sits when compared to other models. Scoring P1776 puts it in line with an AMD HD 6570. On the gaming side of things, that means we'll be able to pull some playable FPS at 1680 x 1050 under older games like Resident Evil 5.
If we fire up Far Cry 2 at 1680 x 1050, we can see we've got a minimum of 23 FPS and average of 56 FPS making for some "smoothish" game play. Essentially we want to boost that minimum up to 30 and that could be done by dropping our in-game detail down. Considering we're dealing with a completely silent card, the performance isn't too bad. Again, the design does make for a card that's better opted for something in a media centre PC.
Taking a closer look at the cooler, it's of course silent and on the heat front it runs very well. Chugging along at idle, the card is running at 36c. During our game testing the card only got up to as high as 62c which is impressive and not a number we'd be worried about.
As for power draw, the most we saw it peak at was 194 watt on our system and considering our system is actually quite high end, for any kind of media PC you're going to get away with a PSU that a mouse on a wheel is literally running.
We know that the GTS 450 Direct CU Silent isn't going to be breaking any records here or be going into the PC of any serious gamer. Instead, it's going to be an option for people who want something completely silent in a media PC or are maybe wanting something silent that can run those older Source based games at 1680 x 1050 or lower.
Power draw is extremely low and looking at the heat numbers, we can see that the cooler while being silent does a good job of keeping the temperature down.
Sure, the GTS 450 Direct CU Silent isn't for everyone, but there's a clear market for it and ASUS make sure that if you're in that market, they've got a card for you.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
MSI GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition 3GB OC�ed Video Card Review
Introduction
If you didn't think the MSI could make a GTX 580 more exciting than the Lightning version, you're wrong! As Computex begins to get up and running, MSI is kicking the show off with the brand new MSI GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition; because the Lightning wasn't already Xtreme enough?!?!
So, what's so Xtreme about the Xtreme Edition? Well, it's everything you love about the MSI GTX 580 Lightning, but with double the memory. The thing is, to be completely honest, I'm not the biggest fan when it comes to these huge memory cards because they do tend to carry a decent bump in price, but extra performance tends to be limited.
If you're going to get a 3GB GTX 580, though, you may as well do it right with the GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition. Before I even throw this card into my testbed here, I find myself already so excited about it. I'm a massive fan of the Lightning series. By adding one word to the end of a model, we know that it's going to be epic in the best kind of way.
The Lightning series hasn't disappointed us before and while unfortunately our original Lightning max overclock was less flattering than what we've seen on other peoples, we've got high hopes for the Xtreme Edition today, even though we know that double the amount of memory on the card could and should limit our memory overclock.
Before we get into to the overclocking side of things and then the performance we're able to get, we first need to check out the package that MSI is offering. Once that's done we'll take a closer look at the card itself before covering the default clocks, the overclock and then the performance.
Package
The package in typical fashion is pretty big with some extra bits and pieces that we tend to only see with the Lightning and HAWK series from MSI. We've got the standard stuff like Quick User Guide, Manual and driver CD. Across the bottom we've got two extra-long SLI connectors, above that two 6-Pin to 8-Pin PCI connectors, a DVI to VGA connector and another three cables which let us measure the voltage of the card via a multi meter.
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Palit GeForce GTX 560 Sonic Platinum Video Card Review
Introduction
It's easy to be mistaken that we're looking at a card that we've already seen for a while, but the GTX 560 is just that, a GTX 560. Unlike the models either side of it, this one doesn't carry the Ti prefix that we've seen from NVIDIA lately.
I suppose in the older days we would've had the GTX 560 and today we would be looking at the GTX 560 "SE". Instead, the decision for NVIDIA to add the well-known Ti tag that we saw many years ago means they're able to greet a more basic model in a particular series without it.
The biggest problem is when we've seen these deviations from the initial launch model, they've never delivered quite like we had hoped. So the question we ask ourselves today is; will the GTX 560 go against the trend and be a stand out model?
With full freedom given to partners at launch, we're seeing some pretty cool looking models straight away that carry some nice looking cooling solutions and some impressive clocks.
Before we get into the performance side of things, though, and find out just how the new GTX 560 sits in the market, we'll first check out the package that Palit has put together. Once that's done we'll have a closer look at the card and then we'll be checking out the specifications to see exactly what we're dealing with.
Package
Looking at the bundle that Palit has put together, it's pretty bare, with only three items included. We've got a quick installation guide, driver CD and a dual Molex to 6-Pin PCI-E power connector.
Overall, the limited package isn't a surprise; Palit are generally a bit lighter than others when it comes to the bundle and the fact it's a mid-range card means that the bundle is going to be generally lighter than the higher end models we look at.
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