November 19th, 2009

Radeon HD 5970 - ATI's killer graphics card

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 5:39 am

Categories: AMD/ATI, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware

Tags: Card, Video Card, ATI Technologies Inc., Graphics, Radeon, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Thought that ATI’s Radeon HD 5870 is a killer graphics card? Well you ain’t seen nothing yet - until you’ve seen the Radeon HD 5970.

So, what’s the big deal about the Radeon HD 5970? Well, it’s basically a Radeon HD 5870 part but with two “Cypress” GPUs on a single printed circuit board (PCB). You can think of the HD 5970 as the X2 version of the HD 5870 in much the same way that we saw X2 versions of the HD 3870 and HD 4870.

The spec of the HD 5970 is very impressive indeed:

The HD 5970 forms part of ATI’s “sweet spot” strategy:

What makes the HD 5970 so special - the dual Read the rest of this entry »

November 17th, 2009

GeForce GT 240 - NVIDIA's sub-$100 DirectX 10.1 graphics card

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 2:50 pm

Categories: Gaming, Graphics, Hardware, NVIDIA

Tags: Card, Video Card, Nvidia GeForce, NVidia Corp., Graphics, DirectX, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

You can get a lot of power for under $100 when it comes to GPUs nowadays, but NVIDIA have just launched the GeForce GT 240 - decent performance, low power consumption and a decent price.

OK, so what’s special about the GeForce GT 240? Well, to begin with, it fully supports DirectX 10.1, something which other high-end NVIDIA cards don’t do. Might seem a trivial point when you consider that ATI already have DirectX 11 parts out  been delayed until (NVIDIA’s Fermi has been delayed until 2010), but it’s darn hard to get hold of any Radeon HD 5870 or 5850 cards. Also, it’s early days for DirectX 11 anyway in terms of games.

OK, so it supports DirectX 10.1, what else is special about the GeForce GT 240? Well, it’s NVIDIA’s most powerful graphics card that doesn’t require an auxiliary PCIe power connector. This means no need to Read the rest of this entry »

November 17th, 2009

AMD turbo boosts Flash Player 10.1 with ATI Stream technology

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 4:31 am

Categories: AMD/ATI, Graphics

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Macromedia Flash Player, Video, ATI Technologies Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Flash Player 10.1, Corporate Communications, Processors, Marketing, Semiconductors

Chip giant AMD has announced that the Flash Player 10.1 beta released by Adobe today is to offer support for platforms powered by Vision Technology from AMD to deliver high-quality, high definition (HD) on Flash platform -based video and other rich Web based content and applications.

Flash Player 10.1 will make use of ATI’s Stream technology and offer a balanced approach using both AMD CPUs and GPUs for an amazing experience, including improved video playback, and which will in turn reduced CPU utilization and extended battery life.

Flash Player 10.1 uses the standard DXVA APIs in Windows to take advantage of available hardware acceleration from supported AMD products running the appropriate ATI Catalyst driver on Windows-based PCs1. AMD worked closely with Adobe to leverage the DirectX Read the rest of this entry »

November 3rd, 2009

Hardware 2.0 'Very Best Kit List' for Nov/Dec 09

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 3:48 am

Categories: Components, Cutting Edge, DIY PC, Gadgets, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware

Tags: Card, Board, Western Digital Corp., Overclocking, Motherboard, Price, CPU, Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Corp., Radeon

Welcome to the updated and revamped Hardware 2.0 “Very Best Kit List” for Nov/Dec 09, the last such list for 2009. Here I’ve put together a list of the best high-end and mid-range and budget components currently available. So if you’re thinking of buying, building or even upgrading a PC, this list is a must-read for you!

See also my Holiday Gift Guide 2009 for even more cool kit! 

This time around sees the addition of several new categories, such as netbooks, notebooks, all-in-one PCs, and wireless routers. I’ve also added new products to some of the existing categories too.

These components are on this list because I firmly believe them to be the best either in terms of performance or price - although I’m ready to admit, as always, that there’s room for debate and some choices “go with the gut” more than others.

NOTE: Each time I come out with a list of kit I always end up fielding a few emails and comments from people wondering if companies have “bought” space on the list. Let me tell you now that the only way for a product to get on this list is to be the best - period. Manufacturers, vendors and PR companies have zero influence over this or any other recommendation that I make.

Final note: All prices are approximate … shop around for the best deals!

• CPUs
• Motherboards
• RAM
• Graphics Cards
• Hard Disks
• Sound Cards
• PSUs
• Coolers
• Cases
• Monitors
• Keyboards/Mice
• Netbook
• Notebook
• All-in-One PC
• All-in-One Printer
• In-Car GPS
• Wireless Router 

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October 16th, 2009

Best 'bang for the buck' graphics cards

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:41 am

Categories: AMD/ATI, Components, Cutting Edge, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware, NVIDIA, Performance

Tags: Card, Video Card, Graphics, Radeon, Video Cards, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

It seems that gamers are no longer willing to blow $500 on a graphics card. More and more of you wan to know what’s the best graphics card you can buy on a limited budget.

In this post I will look at the best graphics card you can buy in four different price brackets.

Sub $100

You can pick up some truly excellent graphics cards for under $100. In fact, if you buy the right bit of kit, you can pretty much get all the graphics card you’ll need for under $100.

There are two cards in particular worth looking at:

• SAPPHIRE 100265HDMI Radeon HD 4830 512MB (around $95)
• PowerColor AX4850 512MD3-PH Radeon HD 4850 512MB (around $99)

Given the choice I’d go for the PowerColor card because it offers a little more performance. Other than that, both have dual-monitor support, support for HDMI and offer a great gaming experience.

Sub $200

OK, with an increased budget you are looking at graphics cards that can deliver amazing gaming experience at high resolutions. Graphics cards in this price category are aimed at hardcore enthusiasts and in order to get the  best from them the rest of your hardware has to be of high-spec too. There’s no point adding an expensive graphics card to a low-end PC!

In the sub $200 price category you want to be looking at cards such as the following:

• XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB (around $175)
• EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR GeForce GTX 260 (around $199)

Here I’d go for the Radeon HD 5770 because it’s a newer card , based on newer technology, more powerful and cheaper than the NVIDIA card.

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September 23rd, 2009

AMD debuts Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs with DirectX 11 support

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 7:29 am

Categories: AMD/ATI, Gaming, Graphics

Tags: Card, HDMI, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., DirectX, Radeon, GPU, HDMI Capability, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Today sees AMD lift the lid on the first of it’s next generation Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs featuring DirectX 11 support.

All the big vendors (Sapphire, XFX, ASUS, PowerColor …) will be launching cards 5800-series based cards shortly. For example, Sapphire is launching two new cards: Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5850.

Both cards feature dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, and both cards are compatible with ATI’s Eyefinity technology. Pricing at the moment is a little vague, but Newegg has a Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 listed as pre-order for $379.99.

Both cards feature a 150GB/s memory interface supporting GDDR5 memory. The HD 5870 offers 1600 stream processors, 80 texture units and  2.7 Teraflops (single precision) or 544Gflops (double precision) of computing power (roughly twice the computing power of previous generation cards), while the HD 5850 offers 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units.

In the HD 5800 series the UVD (Unified Video Decoder) has been enhanced to be able simultaneously to decode two 1080p HD video streams and to be able to display HD video in high quality with Windows Aero mode enabled. HDMI capability has also been upgraded to HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

If you’re a hardcore hardware enthusiast, it’s time to spend more moneyI’m afraid!

September 11th, 2009

Next-gen AMD Radeon GPU powers six 30" displays

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 2:18 am

Categories: AMD/ATI, Components, Cutting Edge, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware

Tags: Monitor, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., GPU, Monitors & Displays, Games, Hardware, Components, Personal Technology, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

I’ll warn you in advance that if you are a gamer then you’ll find this awesome.

By combining next-generation GPUs and an array of compact DisplayPort connectors, AMD has come up with a new feature called Eyefinity where a single GPU is capable of driving six monitors. And these aren’t tiny monitors, they’re monster 30″ Dell monitors, each running at a whopping 2560×1600 resolution. That’s a total image resolution of 7,680 x 3,200 pixels, or over 24 megapixels!

Now you might be thinking that this is great and all, but any games that you’ll want to play will need to be modified to take advantage of the multiple monitors, which means that it’ll never take off. Not so! You can right now play existing games such as Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, World of Warcraft and DiRT 2 on the setup … all you need is the wall space for the screens! And if wall space (and cash!) is limited, you could always use three monitors instead!

The folks over at The Tech Report have some stunning images of games running across six screens and I have to say that they look awesome.

And this isn’t all “pie in the sky” thinking either. AMD has been working with Samsung to bring out monitors with narrow bezels. This means that you could have a more modest version of this setup running on your desk! Even with three regular 22″ panels, this could give you an amazing gaming experience for a lot less than the cost of the top-end CPU.

Suddenly, gaming on the PC feels relevant again …

August 31st, 2009

Your next PC .. next year and the year after!

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 4:31 am

Categories: Components, Cutting Edge, Gadgets, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware, Industry, Mobile Technology, New-Tech

Tags: PC, Graphics, Intel Corp., Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

People seem to be very interested as to what the PC they’ll buy in the future will be like. Well, by taking a look at what technologies hardware vendors such as Intel and AMD have already announced, we can make some educated guesses!

2010

The big hitter of 2010 will be Intel as it plans to introduce the the six-core 32nm behemoth to the Core i9 Extreme line, currently codenamed “Gulftown”. his monster piece of silicon will be able to handle 12 threads and will debut at a clock speed of 2.4GHz.

Also from Intel will be the 32nm Clarkdale processors that feature integrated graphics. These chips will Read the rest of this entry »

August 17th, 2009

30% of desktops to have 2 GPUs by 2012 ... Really?

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 3:12 am

Categories: Components, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware

Tags: Desktop, GPU, multi-GPU, Games, Personal Technology, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

According to a recent report by the Jon Peddie Research Group GPU vendors are in for a bumper few years. What’s more, two-thirds of desktops sold will be multi-GPU capable. I just can’t see this happening anytime soon.

Most people don’t know what a GPU is, so trying to sell them two is a major uphill struggleI see two issues working against this prediction. First, I just can’t see a driving force for multi-GPU systems. Sure, a few years back it looked like PC games were going to push the PC hardware envelope hard, resulting in games such as Crysis where you had to wait over a year for the technology to catch up to be able to get the best out of the game. This trend seems to have passed (after all, it doesn’t make good business sense to release a game that doesn’t play well on existing hardware) and PC games don’t seem to tax the hardware (GPU and CPU) as much as they used to. Not only is the silicon Read the rest of this entry »

July 2nd, 2009

Hardware 2.0 'Very Best Kit List' for Jul/Aug 09

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 12:22 am

Categories: Gadgets, Gaming, Graphics, Hardware

Tags: Performance, Antec, Board, Overclocking, Motherboard, Price, CPU, Intel Corp., Core, GTX 295

Welcome to the updated and revamped Hardware 2.0 “Very Best Kit List” for Jul/Aug 09. Here I’ve put together a list of the best high-end and mid-range and budget components currently available. So if you’re thinking of buying, building or even upgrading a PC, this list is a must-read for you!

These components are on this list because I firmly believe them to be the best either in terms of performance or price - although I’m ready to admit, as always, that there’s room for debate and some choices “go with the gut” more than others.

NOTE: Each time I come out with a list of kit I always end up fielding a few emails and comments from people wondering if companies have “bought” space on the list. Let me tell you now that the only way for a product to get on this list is to be the best - period. Manufacturers, vendors and PR companies have zero influence over this or any other recommendation that I make.

Also note: I’m looking to expand this list by adding more categories and components. If you’d like to see anything added, let me know!

Final note: All prices are approximate … shop around for the best deals!

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