Tech News and Gossip thread...

[Astrotoy7]

Here's another wee update:

Asus to make PDA/Smartphone

 

Asus have been in the WinMobile game since WM 2003 at least. I know this for a fact because 2 years ago I had a ASUS p505 which was running WM2003. I actually sold it to my stepdau..who promptly busted it within 6 months.. kids

 

 

I've never been a fan of the chopped-down smartphone variants, but would be totally lost without my WM6 pda. I use it to keep track of personal and work appts, contacts. The fact that it syncs with outlook for all this is invaluable for me. Winmobile 6 is ok, though not a huge step up from WM5, though it looks like MS is doing some major overhaulin for WM7.

 

WMDC(window mobile device center) on vista is great, a superior improvement over MS activesync(xp and earlier)

 

Might even be worth waiting for the WM7 generation phones negsun??

 

I have HTC touch, which I love the look and feel of. Whilst I manage ok for what I use it for, I recommend people get the dual core version, coz its quicker, and more effectively used as a mobile media device than the first gen version Ive got.

 

Easily the best site to keep track of all things WM and smartphone is 4winmobile. As it's a UK site, all of the stuff about contracts and carriers they may mention will be relevant to you negsun(much less so to me!) I used to be a reg at their forums but only have time to lurk here nowdays

 

mtfbwya

[Rogue Nine]

Aaaaand the GeForce 9800 X2 is out.

 

Now where are the benchies?!

[Q]

Meh, those dual-GPU cards are just like SLI/X-fire setups in that they're hit-or-miss.

 

They'll excel in some games, suck in others, and be mediocre in the rest.

 

Not nearly worth $600.00 if you ask me.

 

Hell, you can get 2 8800GTS 512s and an 780i SLI motherboard for less than that.*

 

 

*Okay, well, almost.

[Astrotoy7]

GX2s are too damn powerhungry IMO Being a former GX2 owner I should know!

 

Even though a 9800GX2 made 47FPS on 2500x1600 on med in crysis, Im not going near em with a barge pole.. Two 8800GTX in SLI performed slightly less better and the 3870GX2 was thoroughly trounced in HD/UHD ...tsk tsk ATI..

 

Conclusion: expensive to buy, expensive to run, but is currently the fastest hunk o junk in the galaxy.

 

the benchies are always at G3D of course

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/512/

 

mtfbwya

[Negative Sun]

I've never been a fan of the chopped-down smartphone variants, but would be totally lost without my WM6 pda. I use it to keep track of personal and work appts, contacts. The fact that it syncs with outlook for all this is invaluable for me. Winmobile 6 is ok, though not a huge step up from WM5, though it looks like MS is doing some major overhaulin for WM7.

 

WMDC(window mobile device center) on vista is great, a superior improvement over MS activesync(xp and earlier)

 

Might even be worth waiting for the WM7 generation phones negsun??

 

I have HTC touch, which I love the look and feel of. Whilst I manage ok for what I use it for, I recommend people get the dual core version, coz its quicker, and more effectively used as a mobile media device than the first gen version Ive got.

 

Easily the best site to keep track of all things WM and smartphone is 4winmobile. As it's a UK site, all of the stuff about contracts and carriers they may mention will be relevant to you negsun(much less so to me!) I used to be a reg at their forums but only have time to lurk here nowdays

Cheers for that site Astro! Some good reviews on there, especially the HTC Touch one which I'm interested in.

 

It's a really hard choice for me, and the end of my current contract comes near and I still haven't found my favorite choice of Phone/smartphone/PDA yet...There's some nice offers from Samsung (F700), Nokia (N91 8GB) and Sony Ericsson (W960 8GB), as well as the HTC Touch you've mentioned which looks awesome too...I'm leaning more towards the 8GB ones, as a music lover, but since flash memory prices are crumbling fast, I expect to see more phones or even Smartphones/PDAs to show up with loads more storage like that.

 

 

 

There's some interesting bits going on in news-land as well:

 

IBM develops optical switch for multi-core CPUs

^ I just read an article in a magazine about this technology (which Intel will probably steal and make better ), and it seems like a logical, but also very effective evolution in CPU architecture, can't wait to see it implemented

 

Intel reveals (a bit) more about Larrabee

^ Seems interesting enough, but will it translate into good graphics performance under both DX10 and OpenGL? Time will tell...

 

Another 9800GX2 review

^ Except for Crysis pwnage or ultra high resolutions I wouldn't touch this monster with a ten foot pole, and like the 3870X2, it doesn't add any significant innovations to the GPU market, except reduce the need for a special mobo if you want to use Sli/CrossFire.

 

Nehalem = Phenom ???

^ Very interesting read, maybe the next generation CPUs might battle on a bit more even ground this way? Doesn't surprise me one bit coming from Intel though

 

Roll out some more Phenom, 9750 B3 stepping is good to go apparently

^ Finally, lets see if they can stop blaming the TLB error and squeeze some clock speeds outta this sucker!

[urluckyday]

Yeah...Vista SP1 Out today...download it. It makes great even better!

 

(and I am being serious...don't hate me...)

[Astrotoy7]

All I can say urluckyday is....backup! A few of my hometheatre pc peeps were getting the dreaded endless reboot after SP1(RC of course). I doubt they have 100% of the bugs worked out

 

No need to get a snazzy backup proggie either(before Ray and negsun poke at me about it)...but if you have vista ulti..it's backup and restore center has a full system backup option. Works ok, but compression of backups is far less effective than other proggies(by 80%) !! lolz

 

@negsun >> ive already said it > but if you are going for the HTC Touch, dont get single core version... get the Duo!

................remember..........remember........remember

 

btw negsun, heard of the budget priced shuttle....the kpc?? Looks interesting indeed. Basic specs, but can chuck yer own junk in it. But, I think its an intel only dealie The specs are almost identical to my home theatre pc, which is great because more people can use a shuttle for this without paying an arm and a leg.

 

mtfbwya

[urluckyday]

Well, I just bought this comp., and so I don't have much to back-up...and SP1 worked perfectly anyway..

[Negative Sun]

@negsun >> ive already said it > but if you are going for the HTC Touch, dont get single core version... get the Duo!

................remember..........remember........remember

Will do, though I can't get it with my favorite mobile provider, which kinda sucks :/

 

 

btw negsun, heard of the budget priced shuttle....the kpc?? Looks interesting indeed. Basic specs, but can chuck yer own junk in it. But, I think its an intel only dealie The specs are almost identical to my home theatre pc, which is great because more people can use a shuttle for this without paying an arm and a leg.

Yeah, the case looks utterly awesome, but that's where the fun ends....No PCI-E and cr*ppy Intel graphics and processor, no Wi-Fi (come on, they can throw it in cheap laptops nowadays, it's not too much to ask IMO), no optical drive (rendering it pretty useless as a home theatre PC if you ask me), etc...

 

For the price though, it's not too bad I suppose, if there was an AMD alternative with maybe just a single PCI-E expansion slot, an optical drive and some Wi-Fi support, I might consider veering towards it

[Astrotoy7]

Yeah, the case looks utterly awesome, but that's where the fun ends....No PCI-E and cr*ppy Intel graphics and processor, no Wi-Fi (come on, they can throw it in cheap laptops nowadays, it's not too much to ask IMO), no optical drive (rendering it pretty useless as a home theatre PC if you ask me), etc...

 

lolz... the pci-e is the main sticking point for many.(because dual HDTV tuners work best in pci-e) But unless you are a bluray fan, having an optical drive in a htpc is far from a necessity. I dont have one! who the heck watches actual DVDs these days!! For fresh installs etc I have an external drive, the rest is done over remote desktop connection. I use the 5.25 bay to fit another 1TB drive in >> far more useful!!

 

Im going to wait til they float towards Oz..and see if I can do a basic(non 1080i/p) rig for a htpc before I start recommending them to clients/friends en masse.

 

* * *

 

On the news front:

 

Here's some sad news for those following the fortunes of AMD..

AMD to Lay off 5% of workforce > which amounts to about 800 workers This is one area where theyre glad not to beat intel, with their 10,000 worker cull

 

Vista SP1 Early Adopters > Please school up before you install

The Vista Team Blog on SP1

 

HD-DVD will cost Toshiba and Partners(like MS) 1 billion

Summary article from engadget, and for the money minded Toshiba Financial Statement

 

Whilst there is a part of me that is glad to see the back of HD-DVD, that sum of money being squandered is tragic IMO. I hope manufacturers learn from it

 

also, a tee-hee from me to anyone who is thinking of buying a 9800GX2

Heat from GeForce 9800 GX2 causing system crashes? Really, are we that surprised....??

 

mtfbwya

[Negative Sun]

Here's some sad news for those following the fortunes of AMD..

AMD to Lay off 5% of workforce > which amounts to about 800 workers This is one area where theyre glad not to beat intel, with their 10,000 worker cull

I must point out that AMD firmly denies this.

 

It's not all bad though

^ Business is business after all, and with a company that's in as much trouble as AMD/Ati is atm, I'm suprised it's only an alleged 5% layoffs...Hopefully they can put the money to good use. Maybe on more things like this:

AMD gets first ever DisplayPort certification

^ That's good stuff.

 

S3 launches new GPU

^ well they're certainly not aiming for the 9800 GX2 lolz

 

*sigh* I really miss the days when 3dfx Voodoos were pummeling everyone else...

[Astrotoy7]

only 5%? Tell that to the <alleged> 800 people who are unemployed negsun !!

 

Hopefully it is just a rumour spread by unscrupulous intel peeps... I wonder if the inquirer has an intel bias...I'm not on it long enough to notice ...

 

All this new GPU stuff coming to fore... I must admit, I love the idea of hybrid GPU technology(from a power efficiency POV). Imagine combining a hybrid mainboard with a CnGPU setup >> this means that you could potentially get TRI or QUAD SLI/XF without a discrete card(or just a singe card for quad) >> now that is a freakin great idea!

 

Thats the only way to smash games like crysis at HD without buying a discrete card(or 3) that costs as much as a small car, but more expensive to run!!

 

mtfbwya

[Negative Sun]

Hopefully it is just a rumour spread by unscrupulous intel peeps... I wonder if the inquirer has an intel bias...I'm not on it long enough to notice ...

You wonder correctly...It's so far up Intel's behind you can't see their metaphorical feet anymore most of the time

 

All this new GPU stuff coming to fore... I must admit, I love the idea of hybrid GPU technology(from a power efficiency POV). Imagine combining a hybrid mainboard with a CnGPU setup >> this means that you could potentially get TRI or QUAD SLI/XF without a discrete card(or just a singe card for quad) >> now that is a freakin great idea!

 

Thats the only way to smash games like crysis at HD without buying a discrete card(or 3) that costs as much as a small car, but more expensive to run!!

The 780G chipset with integrated HD3400 GPU and Hybrid Crossfire is truly a work of art, not only does it totally pwn in Hybrid Crossfire and say an HD3870 at most resolutions (1680x1050 or below, bar Crysis), the IGP is also extremely overclockable (from 500Mhz to 800Mhz with no extra cooling, and even more with some added voltage and fans)

Here's a nice little graph of it, mind it's only with the HD3450 at the top, but it 's only at 1024x768 as well, imagine it with an HD3870 and a higher rez and I'm sure the results would still pwn!

 

[Astrotoy7]

nice... but as we've seen, the 8800/9800 performs better than the 3870/GX2 at UHD. When they pop one of those on a mainboard...then things will start cooking Heck, they already do a mobile 8800 for laptops, so it's by all means feasible - moreso an inevitable really

 

mtfbwya

[Negative Sun]

nice... but as we've seen, the 8800/9800 performs better than the 3870/GX2 at UHD.

Yes, but not everyone operates at 1920x1200 or above

[Astrotoy7]

Yes, but not everyone operates at 1920x1200 or above

 

cmon, two years ago, if you asked the average enthusiastic gamer what they play at, itd be 1280 x 1024 >> now its closer to 1600x1200 >> within another 12 months and beyond, 1080 capable LCDs will further drop in price, making HD gaming commonplace, and not just the purview of display junkies like me!

 

The GPU market has already shifted towards this end... with DVI/HDMI out ports on specialist mainboards and graphics cards... heck, theres no standard vga out on most of the new cards these days. Compared to DVI/HDMI, above 1600x1200 VGA(an analogue standard)cant cut it, so the reason for it is quite practical.

 

Many of us are already there negsun, for the rest it is simply a matter of time.

 

Its a digital world now negsun...not an analogue one

 

mtfbwya

[Negative Sun]

I'm old school

 

But I get your point, just from a cash-strapped point of view, we enjoy what we can

[Q]

Astro has a point.

 

The present gaming "standard" is 1680x1050, which is the widescreen equivalent to 1280x1024.

 

Prices on 1920x1200 monitors are dropping fast, however, and it's expected to become the new standard resolution for gaming very soon, making affordable high-performance GPUs more necessary than ever.

 

As far as R700 goes, if AMD can just make the core and shader clocks run separately like Nvidia did, then there is no doubt in my mind that R700 will be competitive. Look at how close they came without doing that. Their GPUs can clock very high, and they've solved the power consumption problem by going to 55nm. Separate core and shader clocks are the only obstacle that they need to overcome to beat Nvidia.

[stingerhs]

nice... but as we've seen, the 8800/9800 performs better than the 3870/GX2 at UHD. When they pop one of those on a mainboard...then things will start cooking Heck, they already do a mobile 8800 for laptops, so it's by all means feasible - moreso an inevitable really

 

mtfbwya

well, i say you're missing the point. correct me if i'm wrong, but NegSun was talking about Hybrid XFire with a 780G IGP and a discreet 3450 card. a mid-range Hybrid XFire system doesn't even stack up to a single 3870 much less an 8800/9800. oh yeah, and don't forget that there's also about a $150-300 price difference between the two. now, in my mind, that's like comparing a Porche to a VW.

 

if you want to make it even, then you really need to compare it to something similar from Nvidia, and at this point, there are no Hybrid SLi systems available much less benchies to compare it.

 

yeah, i can see your point that only high res benchies should be considered, but your still talking about cutting edge, not mainstream. just because something is affordable doesn't mean that there's automatically large consumer base waiting to pick it up and use it right away. something like moving from low-res gaming to high-res gaming is probably going to take a while especially considering what gamers are actually using.

 

according to Valve's Hardware Survey, over 70% of gamers (link) are still using 4:3 aspect monitors, and that means the best you're going to get there is 1600x1200, but most 4:3 monitors usually max at 1280x1024, and that means that low-end benchmarks are still quite relevant in every GPU market.

 

sorry mate, but it just seems that you're real quick to point that stuff out when it hardly seems like a fair comparison, especially for us folks that still have a budget to consider.

[Astrotoy7]

sorry mate, but it just seems that you're real quick to point that stuff out when it hardly seems like a fair comparison, especially for us folks that still have a budget to consider...

 

We all have a budget to consider! If I was so well monied for finances not to be a consideration, I'd be in my beach house in the bahamas, strolling around trying not to bump into the LCD walls

 

You are making the haughty assumption that the results of a DRM content delivery client(aka Steam) are representative of 70% of the gaming market!

 

Ive definitely never used it, and I know many that can say the same.

 

Rather than looking at steams results, we should consider the market forces that propel the manufacturers to churn out the amount of product they do. If the mid>higher end was only attracting 30% of the market share **of the gaming market** what would that say about their profit margin??

 

2 years ago I was playing KOTOR/2 maxed at 1280... I wonder if I wouldve gotten sour-pussed for saying

 

awe cmon! In 2 years we'll be gaming at HD! Mark my words!!

 

When ATI and nvidia churn out lower price products that make a decent run at good performance on lower end machines, the gains made also transfer over to playable output rez, otherwise thered be no point upgrading a graphics card, if all you want is 60fps at 1024.

 

Hybrid and fusion tech is the way of the future, because it combines a way of delivering improved performance, at a lower overhead cost to manufacturers, not to mention the power efficiency advantages for consumers.

 

To quote Guru3Ds 2008 Cebit report:

 

....Hybrid powah ... you guys are going to hear so much about it this year, you have no idea. Good stuff for sure....

 

...You already heard about it here at Guru3D, early staged but obviously NVIDIA is working hard on Hybrid solutions as well. Very simply put, after nForce 790 all their mainboards will get an integrated graphics core.

 

Their CeBit 2008 coverage is awesome, if you are a gear head and you havent checked it out yet, its a must read!

 

Of course, hybrid tech, esp in higher end gaming terms wont be getting you 1337 SLI figures in crysis just yet, but something like this (and project fusion) is the kick up the backside the industry needed(from an R&D point of view)

 

here's a peek at the future

 

From a curiosity POV, I'll start a poll for what is the max native rez of our monitors. Im curious to see if we get that 70-30% split

 

mtfbwya

[Negative Sun]

You are making the haughty assumption that the results of a DRM content delivery client(aka Steam) are representative of 70% of the gaming market!

 

Ive definitely never used it, and I know many that can say the same.

Astro, have you looked at the number of unique samples in that survey?

 

1,461,426

 

I've seen government bodies publish reports with less samples than that and claim it to be "representative".

Fact is as well, Steam is a gamer-orientated community, so I would consider those numbers as very accurate in the gaming community, for example it also states the 2GB of RAM is pretty much standard and the 8800 is the top GPU, all sounds reasonable to me

 

I'm not disputing the fact that gaming isn't moving to a widescreen, Hi-Rez level, just that Hybrid Crossfire with cheap Ati single GPU solutions (even the HD3850 or 3870 can be considered cheap nowadays, or at least very good value for money) can lease a new life to the lower resolutions for todays' most modern games, as they've proven themselves to be more than capable at resolutions of 1680x1050 or below...

 

Fair enough, 24" 1920x1200 are dropping in price like mad, but to most people they're still a bit too much to stretch a budget to, 17", 19" and 22" even are the sweet spots these days for value for money, and at those resolutions, Hybrid Crossfire can do some serious damage, even with a low end discrete GPU...

[Astrotoy7]

Astro, have you looked at the number of unique samples in that survey?

 

1,461,426

 

I've seen government bodies publish reports with less samples than that and claim it to be "representative".

 

Negsun!! dig out your stats manual and check what figure for population value ("n") mathematically proven to be constituent of a normal distribution. The Bell curve *never* lies! (answer n=50)

 

Think about how many gamers there are in the whole world, 1.5m into that number is nowhere near 70%, and hence cannot be said to represent 70% of all gamers... but only "70% of all gamers who use steam" >> The reason is because unlike government assays and scientific experiments, the population has not been randomly allocated/selected, so its power to be truly representative is not as strong.

 

The native rez poll has confirmed my suspicions that the uptake of 1600+ rez displays is on the increase > the numbers are slightly skewed towards the 12xx range simply due to the fact that so many people have laptops. Interesting to know, nonetheless

 

It would be good to see what the same poll run at G3D would dredge up

 

Another factor that I'd like to throw in as far as representation is concerned are multimedia pc owners. Due to the advent of HD in TV/Cable/BRay, the adoption of HD displays has increased staggeringly, and for those with multimedia pcs, the GPUs have stepped up a few notches accordingly.

 

Prediction you can bet you house on: The format wars having been decided, when BR drives hit pcs as a norm, these being accompanied by HD ready displays is simply inevitable. Considering you can now get oem BR/DVDRW for $200US(almost 200% less than 12 months ago), this time isnt too far off!

 

mtfbwya

[Astrotoy7]

Dbl post, as it is simply intriguing enough to be a post on its own, and doesn't need to be garbled amongst the above musings

 

G3D has finally been allowed to publish their 2x 9800GX2 Quad-SLI testbed results.

 

Definitely some gains in HD>UHD(50fps in crysis at 2560 x 1600, and a fully maxed COD4 which apparently knocked the reviewers socks off at 1600p), but is it worth the phenomenal cost? no freakin' way!

 

Also, in the higher end games the quad doesn't do much better than the single 9800GX2. Sure, stable Q-SLI optimised drivers and games dont exist, let alone games that are tweaked for it(or x64 for that matter)

 

2x 9800GX2Quad SLI reviewed... Many Bothans trees died bringing you this review

 

Multi-GPU gaming is the future, but not in this expensive getup. The quicker we can do away with mega expensive discrete cards, the better. Fusion+Hybrid is the answer, IMO

 

mtfbwya

[Q]

^^^

Two 9800GX2s. And... surprise! It still can't play Crysis worth a damn.

 

That game is cursed. Cursed, I tell you!

 

Uh, hey Nvidia: I think it's high time that you released a better GPU, because SLI is a friggin' joke. So stop milking tech that you've had out for a year and a half already just because AMD is offering no competition ATM. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend their high-end dollars on that crap. We already know that GT200 has taped out, so release it already.

 

ZOMG!!1! 1000 posts!1!! WOOOHOOO!!!11 I want my custom title. How do I get one?

[Astrotoy7]

^^^

Two 9800GX2s. And... surprise! It still can't play Crysis worth a damn.

tremendous cost aside, 50fps at 2560 isnt bad at all. Do we really need to go into all that stuff about how our eye doesnt catch much over 60Hz, which equals the base average of 60fps as far as game performance goes.... add to that the fact that there are no UHD monitors that output 1600p above 60Hz anyway, so 50/60 aint too bad.

 

Still, I agree that the efficiency of the G92 coudl be better... Though AMDs comparative GX2 effort is an also-ran as far as high end gaming performance is concerned. I can see AMD carving themselves a niche(as they always have) but they are not likely to topple nvidia in the high end GPU game.

 

And of course, with regards to CPUs, we all wait with baited breath as to what the 3.0GHz+ Phenoms will do...!!

 

SLI/XF isnt the issue, its how its implemented. Just like having multi CPU sockets isnt efficient as them on one die, multi GPU onto one mainb/PCB is the necessary next step...coupled with optimised games/apps/drivers... and dare I say x64?!

 

mtfbwya

 

ps >> congratski on the 1000! add your custom title in user cp>profile. If the option doesn't appear straight away, give it a couple of days before you contact your local neighbourhood spiderman admin to fix it for you