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Tech Update: The Land Of Graphics
NVIDIA
The latest news from NVIDIA involves the release of their latest graphics card and the soon-to-be-released new core.
NVIDIA has just released the GeForce GTX 275, which is like a trimmed down GTX 285 and is the equivalent of a single GPU concealed in the Dual-GPU Card, the GTX 295. NVIDIA released this to battle and counter ATI’s card, the Radeon 4890. This card fills the gap between the GTX 260+ and the 285. It has 240 stream processors and a 448-bit memory bus width; its core is clocked at 633MHz; its memory clocked at 2268 MHz DDR and its shaders at 1404MHz. It contains a GT200 core, like all currently released modern-day cards.
The 275 and the 4890 are very similar in performance but the 275 is a bit more expensive than the 4890 currently.
Leaked information says that NVIDIA is releasing a new core: the GT300. I’m not completely confident about the current specifics, but it’s probably similar to what it will be.
The GT300’s structure will be completely different unlike the GT200’s, whose architecture was similar to the GT100 but just updated and a bit better. It also moves from the SIMD to the MIMDstructure.
SIMD stands for Single Instruction Multiple Data and is currently used by both ATI and NVIDIA companies. MMID stands for Multiple Instruction Multiple Data (as you may have probably guessed) and is completely different to the GT200, making it quite revolutionary. The major difference is that it makes your GPU being able to perform tasks which previously had to be performed by your CPU, making it more versatile.
No one really knows the core frequency yet, and probably won’t until NVIDIA actually releases news on the GT300, but tech experts believe that it should nearly double performance (which is pretty spectacular). It’ll probably have up to 512 shader cores in groups of 32 and be built on a 40nm process. It’s also said that it’s going to supporty DirectX 11. I’m really excited about this new core!
ATI/AMD
AMD has just released the RV740, which only comes with their latest card: the Radeon 4770. It is to counter the 9800 GT. It has 60 shader cores running at 850MHz, 512MB of GDDR5 RAM at 3200MHz but has a skinny memory bus of 128-bit, but the 4770 is still a monster. It has a 6-pin power connector and its core is a 40nm process.
Other than its new core size, the 4770 is most easily compared to the Radeon 4830. They both have the same number of stream processors but the 4770 runs it at a higher frequency. However, the 4770’s slim 128-bit memory bus can be countered by its super fast GDDR5 RAM. The 4770 is only a bit more expensive than the 9800 GT, maybe $15 more.
The 4770 still performs very well, and it beats the 4830 in tests for frame rates and is only about slower than the 4850. It also outperforms the 9800 GT just slightly.
Free Steam Games for Nvidia and ATI Users
This post will be short and sweet. Did you know that if you are an Nvidia user or an ATI user, you can snag some free games from Steam?
Take a look at the screenshots below and see what you can get! Hurry, its a limited time supposedly. Just get it added to your steam account and it will be part of your account forever!
ATI users can get Half-Life 2 Lost Coast and Half-Life 2 Deathmatch for free!
If you are an Nvidia user, you got it even sweeter! You get a full copy of Portal First Slice demo, as well as Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Lost Coast, and Peggle Extreme.
Want to get in? Click the links below for your video card. Oh yea, if you are an ATI user, you cannot use the Nvidia link to try to get Portal Slice. Steam is too smart to detect what kind of video card chip you are running.
Props goes to Hail2King for bringing this to my attention.
Nvidia Users: http://www.steampowered.com/nvidia/#
ATI Users: http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/
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Upgrade Your PC – The Right Way.
Is your PC having difficulty keeping up with the latest games and applications? An upgrade may be in order. Many people feel that in order to “properly” upgrade their PC, they need every component to be replaced, and the newest, most expensive parts to get the best performance. Nothing is farther than the truth. An extremely respectable gaming rig can be built for less than $500, and I’m here to show you how.
Motherboard, Processor, Memory and Graphics Card. Four components is all most people need to buy when purchasing an upgrade, but this number can vary depending on how old your system is. If your pc is quite old, say 3 years or so (an eternity when it comes to computers!) additional parts may be required to properly support the newer components, such as a new power supply. If your computer is less than a year old, but you still want to play new games without shelling out over $1000 for a new gaming computer, you may only need a new graphics card!
Before upgrading any PC, make sure to triple-check that all the components are compatible. Proper power from your power supply is key. For the example system I will show you, a 500 watt power supply or above is recommended.
Here are some sample components I picked out from Newegg.com
BIOSTAR TA790GX – Motherboard: $99.99
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ – Processor: $112.99
OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB DDR2 800 – Memory: $49.49
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4850 512MB – Graphics: $169.99
TOTAL: $432.46
THIS IS BEFORE REBATES! At the time of this post, there is a $30 rebate on the memory.
I can personally vouch for this system, as I have the same graphics card and memory, my processor is actually slower, and my motherboard specs are nearly identical. At 1650×1080 I get above 70 frames a second with max settings in Call of Duty 4. Six months ago, that probably would have run you over $1000! So there you have it. Proof that you don’t need a crazy amount of cash to get a crazy amount performance.
Skitzo
3-way NVIDIA SLI® Technology
Bring your competition to its knees with NVIDIA SLI gear – the powerful combination of an SLI-Ready NVIDIA nForce® motherboard and multiple GeForce® graphics cards. Now with support for three GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra GPUs operating in 3-way SLI, you can crank up the image quality settings, maximize your resolution, and tilt the scales in your favor with up to a 2.8X performance hike over a single-card rig.
Users can harness the power of GeForce 8800 Series GPUs working in parallel to deliver 384 stream processors, 110+ Gigatexel per second texture fillrate, and over 2 GB of graphics memory for no-compromise gaming performance. 3-way SLI technology means you no longer have to dial back the image quality settings on the newest PC games enabling 60 frames per second at resolutions as high as 2560×1600 and with 8x antialiasing.
With 3-way SLI technology in your arsenal, you’ll be truly ready to play the latest hyper-realistic DirectX 10 games the way they’re meant to be played.
Components Required for 3-way NVIDIA SLI
3-way NVIDIA SLI-Ready GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 UltraNVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX3-way NVIDIA SLI-Ready MCPs: NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI for INTELNVIDIA nForce 680i SLI for INTEL3-way NVIDIA SLI-Ready Power Supplies: Please visit the SLI Zone Certified SLI-ready Power Supply website and choose a power supply model from the section For “Three GeForce 8800 Ultra or GeForce 8800 GTX.”3-way NVIDIA SLI Cases: Please visit the Please visit the SLI Zone Certified SLI-ready Cases website and choose a cases from the section For “Three GeForce 8800 Ultra or GeForce 8800 GTX.”3-way NVIDIA SLI Connector: 3-way SLI requires a unique SLI connector in order to operate properly. These connectors may not have been included with your previous purchase of SLI-ready components or PCs. PCs specifically sold as 3-way SLI PCs will have this connector included and preinstalled. NVIDIA has set up the following websites to purchase this connector for 3-way SLI upgrades. These 3-way SLI connectors are compatible with the PCI-E slot spacing found on NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI “Designed by NVIDIA” motherboards only. If you are using a motherboard with different PCI-E slot spacing, please contact the original manufacturer to obtain a 3-way SLI connector for your motherboard.
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Source: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_3waysli.html
AMD and its ATI are getting owned by Intel and its nVidia. 🙂
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