July 2006

7/31/06

Multi-GPU Platforms - 7/31/06 @ 10:15 am - By: MikeC - Source:
The 2006 Multi-GPU World Tour has finally concluded and has accomplished its goal. If you are considering a multi-GPU platform for your next PC, you owe it to yourself to examine the information that was presented in the 2006 Multi-GPU World Tour.

NVIDIA's SLI "worked" with more games than ATI's CrossFire, was faster than ATI's CrossFire, was less problematic than ATI's CrossFire, and offered more combinations of "playable" settings than ATI's CrossFire as I demonstrated in our uncommon benchmarks.

In my opinion, knowing the highest playable settings that achieve a minimum frame rate of 30fps is of greater value to the consumer than knowing how fast a game runs at a particular setting. Benchmarking in this manner also allows the graphics cards to be pushed to their full potential.

For example, if the only game you ever played was Brothers in Arms, which happens to be a title sponsored by ATI, which graphics card would you choose?

How about Neverwinter Nights?

And finally Morrowind.


Discussion here.


Monday Roundup - 7/31/06 @ 8:37 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews


Intel Conroe CPU's - 7/30/06 @ 12:48 pm - By: MikeC - Source:
Pre-orders for Intel's new Conroe Core 2 Duo CPU's are being taken at various on-line retailers. Shipping date is August 7th.Motherboard's with Intel chipsets are also showing up.Note that NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GX2 supports the Intel D975XBX motherboard (with SBIOS version 1073), which is also based on the 975X chipset.


World Tour Concludes - 7/30/06 @ 10:32 am - By: MikeC - Source:
Mark "Ratchet" Thorne of Rage3D posts the final set of Uncommon benchmarks this morning.

"Not only is stability on NVIDIA’s side, so is ease of use and practicality. There is no master/slave stuff and there is no giant pain in the ass dongle with thumb screws that break off and are way too small and cables that are way too stiff to bend nicely like the monstrosity you get with hardware Crossfire. NVIDIA’s SLI bridge-board is elegant, easy to use, and doesn’t get in your way. Granted you can’t defend yourself against hordes of evil undead zombies with it like you can ATI’s dongle, but really, who wants zombie goo all over their computer anyway."

Hilbert Hagedoom of Guru3D was assigned the task of interpreting the results and telling us what it all means.

"So we tally up the results from them we see NVIDIA obviously dominate everything, even in certain games if ATI is winning NVIDIA remains really close. Especially in low and mid-range performance systems ATI is under attack. But very interesting to see is are the high-end products from ATI perform with that new Cat 6.7 driver. Be sure to check that out. In short: the overall view thus generic performance among the majority of games without a doubt is looking fantastic for NVIDIA SLI. Nobody will deny that even for a second. But do remember what I already stated in the introduction. The last two or three sites have used the new Catalyst 6.7 drivers in their scores (they received them prior to the official release form ATI) and they clearly make a distinct performance difference. None the less. NVIDIA takes the lead by far."


Saturday Roundup - 7/29/06 @ 8:41 am - By: MikeC - Source: Email
Deals
Reviews, Articles, and Giveaways


World Tour Continues - 7/29/06 @ 8:16 am - By: MikeC - Source: N/A
The Multi-GPU 2006 World Tour is winding down as Legit Reviews has completed the second round of "uncommon benchmarks." Games that were tested include Age of Empires 3, Darkstar One, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Prey, Sims 2, Star Wars: Empire at War, Tiger Woods 2006 and Tomb Raider: Legend.

Now, on to our experiences with the hardware. First and foremost I can't help but be impressed at just how easy to set up and well mannered the SLI systems are. You just pop in the cards, install the driver, click the balloon to enable SLI and you're off and running. Until I bought my own Dell 2405FPW I had no desire to delve into Multi-GPU systems. Now that I have the monitor though it's always the most important thing that I look for in a video card review. Believe me when I say that the tests that I ran on the pages before you were a bit of an eye opener.

The next installment is the final round of uncommon benchmarks at Rage3D, which will be followed by a conclusion at Guru3D.

Discussion here.


MSI NX7600GT Review - 7/27/06 @ 5:47 pm - By: MikeC - Source:
Brian Cochran has posted a review of MSI's NX7600GT HD Graphic Card.

"My last review was on the MSI NX7600GT-VT2D256E. Just when I thought that I couldn't get a cooler budget card than the NX7600GT-VT2D256E, MSI sends me an upgraded version of the card to review. The NX7600GT-VT2D256E HD has all of the power of the original, but it includes two capitalized letters, H and D. High-Definition."


SLI /Intel Core2 Duo - 7/27/06 @ 2:15 pm - By: MikeC - Source:
NVIDIA SLI Technology Selected by Global PC Builders for Intel Core 2 Duo Launch

First Reviews of Intel Core 2 Duo Show NVIDIA nForce(R) Motherboards and NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU Solutions Taking the Performance Crown.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 27, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced that many of the world's leading system builders have elected to launch new enthusiast gaming Intel Core 2 Duo-based systems exclusively with NVIDIA SLI technology. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor combined with an NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 or NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI or 570 SLI- based motherboard and one, two, or even four GeForce(R) graphics processing units (GPUs), has already proven to be an unbeatable combination in terms of system level and gaming performance. This combination is earning early accolades from leading publications, such as Maximum PC magazine, which selected an Intel Core 2 Duo processor-compatible motherboard based on NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI technology and dual GeForce 7900 GTX GPUs for their 2006 Dream Machine cover story.


Thursday Roundup - 7/27/06 @ 10:12 am - By: MikeC - Source:
Deals
Reviews and Articles


World Tour Continues - 7/26/06 @ 10:16 am - By: MikeC - Source: N/A
It's our turn. Multi-GPU World Tour 2006 - Uncommon Benchmarks.

The games we tested were categorized as "uncommon benchmarks" since they are rarely used for benchmarking purposes. While the games do not have an in-game benchmarking feature, we have conducted numerous gameplay walkthroughs with them before.

Discussion here.


EVGA Quad SLI - 7/26/06 @ 9:23 am - By: MUYA - Source: Browsing
GamePC reviewsQuad SLI with two EVGA GeForce 7590 GX2 setup on an AMD FX-62 with the help of Forceware 91.37 drivers. Games are benched at resolution of 1600 by 1200 at high IQ settings (4XAA/8XAF and 8XAA/16XAF) producing some impressive results in some games. They say indulgent...well if you can afford it. Why not?


Wednesday Roundup - 7/26/06 @ 9:16 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


Tuesday Roundup - 7/25/06 @ 8:21 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Storage Reviews
Audio, Multimedia and Digital Player Reviews


Monday Roundup - 7/24/06 @ 8:52 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Audio, Multimedia and Digital Player Reviews


AMD Makes Offer - 7/24/06 @ 6:02 am - By: MikeC - Source: Browsing
AMD has put an offer on the table to purchase ATI for $5.4 billion. If approved, this deal will certainly shake up the PC industry. Time will tell how this acquisition will affect NVIDIA.

The deal also put competitive pressure on Nvidia Corp., the other dominant maker of graphics chips. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia has competed against Intel in selling chipsets and graphics chips while counting on AMD for sales of those products.

Discussion here.


World Tour Continues - 7/22/06 @ 10:44 am - By: MikeC - Source:
Neoseeker picks up The Definitive GPU World Tour with more common benchmark results.

Last week Penstarsys, Bit-Tech, Bjorn3d, and HARDinfo headlined the first 4 installments of the cross site collaborative "Multi-GPU World Tour" article series. Today Neoseeker publishes part 5 of the Multi-GPU World Tour covering Most Played Games as determined by Xfire and Gamespy. In this installment we benchmark the 6 Multi-GPU systems (3 ATI CrossFire, 3 NVIDIA SLI) in the following games:

Oblivion
Sin Episodes
Counter Strike Source
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Call of Duty
Battlefield 2
Guild Wars: Factions
World of Warcraft
Warcraft III

Discussion here.


Zboard Fang Gamepad - 7/21/06 @ 4:30 pm - By: MikeC - Source: N/A
Kyle Kerley, aka Superklye, has completed his review of the Zboard Fang Gamepad. With an effective layout and downloadable profiles for over 100 of today's most popular games, he gave the Fang our Grand Slam Hardware award.

Zboard Fang Gamepad

The downside? It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks :)

Check it out .here!.


Thursday Roundup - 7/20/06 @ 10:22 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews


World Tour Continues - 7/19/06 @ 10:46 pm - By: MikeC - Source:
HARDiNFO has completed a massive amount of benchmarks in part four of the Summer 2006 Multi-GPU World Tour. A must read for those of you thinking about investing in a multi-GPU system.

This Multi-GPU World Tour is essentially 9 different sites working together to produce the largest and most comprehensive GPU review yet, featuring 6 multi-GPU setups and 60 benchmarks! At HARDiNFO we were assigned to cover the "common benchmarks". What is actually meant by "common benchmarks" you may ask? Well, all the benchmark applications included in this suite have the following in common: Thanks to built-in benchmarking routines (timedemos etc.) they are easy to use, they are stable and the results have relatively few fluctuations.

Discussion here.


Quad Driver Released - 7/19/06 @ 11:38 am - By: MikeC - Source: Forums
NVIDIA has released ForceWare 91.37 beta drivers for Quad SLI.

This driver is a Beta driver that enables Quad NVIDIA SLI technology, allowing you to put two GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics cards in a single system with an NVIDIA nForce SLI motherboard. This driver is strictly for end user Beta testing with two GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics cards only and is not intended for production.

Discussion here!


BFG 7950 GX2 - 7/19/06 @ 10:47 am - By: MUYA - Source: Browsing
Digit life today reviews a BFG GeForce 7950 GX2 dual GPU single slot solution card. The review carries a similar theme from their ASUS roundup yesterday recommending the 7950 GX2 card as the fastest single slot solution available. They found the card not only spot on for gaming but noted no issues with the BFG 7950 GX2.

So, the 7950 GX2 card is certainly a king among single stand-alone accelerators. The price will be approximately $650.

I also want to note that the video card was stable, we had no gripes with it. The cooler is not noisy, it did not speed up to maximum, even though the core temperature reached 90°C and higher. Unfortunately, you cannot replace a cooler on this video card, there are no counterparts.


Wednesday Roundup - 7/19/06 @ 10:41 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews


GeForce 7 Series - 7/18/06 @ 10:13 am - By: MUYA - Source: Browsing
Digit-life posted a roundup of 3 ASUS cards, including the ASUS EN7950GX2, ASUS EN7900GTX and ASUS EN7600GT Silent. Except the 7600 GT, the other two cards are identical to NVIDIA's reference design save the stickers on the HSF. They bench the cards on various shooters at a resolution of 2048 by 1536 among a host of others on a mid-end system of an AMD Athon64 4000+. Click on the headline to read the article


Tuesday Roundup - 7/18/06 @ 9:50 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Storage Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


EVGA Scavenger Hunt - 7/17/06 @ 3:16 pm - By: MikeC - Source: Email
EVGA is kicking off their 2006 Scavenger Hunt today. This years contest commemorates EVGA's seventh year of operation, bringing the ultimate in PC hardware, customer service and support to the masses. With the assistance of numerous sponsors, over $25,000 in computer related hardware, software and gaming related prizes is up for grabs. Locate the 10 special gold ribbons hidden throughout the EVGA website and answer the 2 EVGA/product related questions and you will be entered into the contest.

I can personally vouch for EVGA's customer service as I recently had to RMA a GeForce 7900 GTX. They cross-shipped a replacement and included a pre-paid shipping label to use for returning the defective card. They also threw in a voucher for a free copy of Half-Life 2: Episode 1. Nice touch guys!


GeForce 7 Roundup - 7/17/06 @ 9:03 am - By: MUYA - Source: Browsing
Tom's Hardware has a look at NVIDIA's GeForce 7 Series line up with the exception of the GeForce 7300. They cover the GeForce 7950 GX2, 7900 GTX, 7900 GT, 7800 GTX, 7800 GT and 7600 GT.

Tested on an Athlon FX-60, resolutions of 2560x1600 are used in a host of games for all you lucky 30" LCD monitor owners. Click on the headline to read Tom's roundup.


7950 GX2 Reviews - 7/17/06 @ 7:15 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
MVK Tech looks at Quad SLI using two GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics cards while The Inquirer reviews a single Leadtek PCX7950 GX2 TDH. Performance is compared to the Radeon X1900 XTX.

Nvidia caught ATI sleeping and its dual chip single card is the winning combination for this summer. ATI don’t have the horces to fight it properly until end of September while we expect to see the new R580+ based Radeon X1950 XTX card out. But beware G80 should be out at the same time.

Until then Geforce 7950 GX2 cards are the fastest one that money can buy.


Monday Roundup - 7/17/06 @ 7:03 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Storage Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


WTA part 3 - 7/16/06 @ 8:49 pm - By: MikeC - Source: Email
Bjorn Endre at Bjorn3D continues the Multi-GPU World tour with part three on Motherboards.

""When building a complete system the choice of the components of course is very important. Many concentrate on picking a good CPU and video card but forget that the road to a stable and fast system starts with the motherboard. If you plan on building a system for two video cards the choice is pretty simple; a motherboard using NVIDIA's SLI-technology or a motherboard using ATI's Crossfire technology."


nForce Core 2 Boards - 7/15/06 @ 5:56 am - By: MikeC - Source: NVIDIA
With all the buzz surrounding the Intel Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA's Bryan Del Rizzo passed along the following information in regards to nForce4 and nForce 500 support.

We are really excited about the introduction of Intel Core 2 Duo into the marketplace, and we have a whole top-to-bottom family of products from the NVIDIA nForce4 and NVIDIA nForce 500 families, including the industry's only true dual x16 PCIe solution, as well as support for NVIDIA QuadSLI.

Currently, the first product shipping with support for Intel Core 2 Duo will be the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE motherboard. This motherboard is based on the award-winning NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 MCP and should be available around 7/27.

In addition, many system builders are using this motherboard for their first Intel Core 2 Duo systems. We will have a press release later this month outlining all of the global system builders for NVIDIA nForce products.

There are an assortment of NVIDIA nForce 500-based motherboards coming. They include:

  • An ECS 570 SLI motherboard that will have a retail price of only $90 USD!

  • An ASUS 570 SLI motherboard that will have a retail price of only $110 USD.

  • A DFI nForce 590 SLI motherboard. I don't know their retail price yet.

  • An ASUS 590 SLI motherboard. Retail price will be under $200 USD with availability around 8/1.
A list of Intel processors that are fully supported by NVIDIA can be found here.


Conroe Reviews - 7/14/06 @ 8:03 am - By: MikeC - Source:
Early this morning Conroe's NDA expired and a flood of reviews were posted. Here is a list of them:


Thursday Roundup - 7/13/06 @ 7:20 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


World Tour at Bit-tech - 7/12/06 @ 4:39 pm - By: MikeC - Source:
Rolling right along with the World Tour Bit-Tech posts their part. Tim Smalley does Bit-Tech's "Multi-GPU World Tour Part II: GPUs". Here is a quick blurb from his introduction:

"Earlier this year, a group of websites from around the world decided to join forces and work together on a single article covering the state of multi-GPU, and how competing graphics solutions perform in a massive number of games. We think that it is fair to say that there are very few publications out there capable of covering the scope of the series of articles that we - as a group - have undertaken.


Wednesday Roundup - 7/12/06 @ 8:54 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


WTA Kicks off at PenStar - 7/11/06 @ 10:21 am - By: MikeC - Source:
Today PenstarSys kicks of the World Tour Article that nVnews and eight other sites have been working on. Stay tuned for nVnews' part to come soon! Here is a little of what Josh has to say about it.

" Today we are kicking off the opening installation of a 9 part series from 9 different sites worldwide covering the Multi-GPU market from top to bottom. Covering over 60 benchmarks and applications with six complete test systems, this is the definitive coverage of multi-GPU systems to date. My introduction sets the stage for a series of articles covering the technology, performance, and features of complete mult-GPU systems. In the coming weeks we will see coverage that has never been attempted before on this exciting technology offered by ATI and NVIDIA. Strap in, and hold tight, as the ride is about to start!"


Prey Review - 7/10/06 @ 2:00 pm - By: MikeC - Source: Jacob Freeman
Shacknews has posted a review of Prey for your enjoyment.

"Prey is a game that will get you tons of bang for your buck. It's like I said, game fans: FPS titles have felt stale for quite a while now. It's time for something to remind us why this genre is one of the best in gaming, and Prey does that and more.

You'll be reminded of your first time playing the all time greats (Wolf3D, Doom, Duke3D, Quake, Half-Life) due to the fact that Prey doesn't just feel like something that has come before; it's a trend setter, and a worthy addition to any gamer's library."


Monday Roundup - 7/10/06 @ 7:47 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Audio, Multimedia and Digital Player Reviews


Friday Roundup - 7/07/06 @ 7:33 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


XFX GX2 570M - 7/06/06 @ 12:09 pm - By: MUYA - Source: Browsing
Hardwarezone has gotten their grubby paws on a XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 570M 1GB DDR3 XXX for a review. This card differentiates from others by its 570Mhz core clock and 1.55GHz memory clock, 70MHz and 350 MHz on the memory from reference clocks. How does that contribute to gaming? Click on the headline to find out.


Thursday Roundup - 7/06/06 @ 12:03 pm - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


Wednesday Roundup - 7/05/06 @ 8:59 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Audio, Multimedia and Digital Player Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


Tuesday Roundup - 7/04/06 @ 8:02 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


Monday Roundup - 7/03/06 @ 7:51 am - By: MUYA - Source: Various
Deals
News and Articles
Video Card, PPU Card & Display Reviews
CPU, Motherboard, Memory and System Reviews
Case, Power Supply, Cooling, and Mod Reviews
Input Device and Accessory Reviews


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