May 25, 2004

6800's Very Soon - Josh

It appears that we will finally start to see the GeForce 6800's hit the market very shortly.  Indications around the web suggest that the Ultra's will be shipping sometime this week, while the other version may be making their debut shortly after June 1.  This is quite exciting for enthusiasts, as the ATI Radeon X800-Pro has been shipping for some weeks now.  The rumor that the clockspeed on the Ultra will be increased to 450 MHz core has been bandied about some more, and while it is a possibility, I am unsure if it will happen.  Of course with NVIDIA stepping back from their 480 watt power supply minimum stance, who knows what will happen.  IBM continues to work on their process, as they want to fab as many chips as possible from their East Fishkill location (which has 300 mm wafers, and cost IBM many billions of dollars to build).  It would truly be nice to see IBM be able to get their process running like it should, as well as include other performance features such as SOI on their 130 nm process.  TSMC has Low-K up and running quite nicely, as evidenced from the parts ATI has produced so far on that process.

Radeon X800-Pro Problems - Josh

So far there have appeared to be very few problems with ATI's latest video card release, but I have run into one disturbing problem so far.  The X800-Pro doesn't want to run correctly on Gigabyte based Athlon 64 motherboards.  I have an instance at the lab where the X800-Pro refuses to run on the GA-K8VNXP (VIA K8T800).  Not only that, but I have reports of the card not running on the GA-K8N Pro (nForce 3 150).  Something is very fishy here.  I do have a few other Gigabyte boards running here at the lab, and I will try to find out if it affects the Athlon XP based boards also (GA-7N400 Pro 2).

I certainly hope Gigabyte looks into this problem, as it would be nice if a simple BIOS update would fix the problem.  Hopefully it isn't hardware related.  I have put up a thread here to keep you posted on what I find.

May 24, 2004

Wireless on a Budget - Josh

Some (many) months ago, D-Link sent me a wireless suite of products based on their (then) new AirPlus lineup.  After all this time, I have finally had the chance to adequately review these products, and put them into a different light.  While we are surrounded by new 802.11g products, they carry a significantly higher price tag than some of these older, yet still adept products.  The AirPlus series of products feature speeds double that of older 802.11b products, which peg out at 11 Mbps.  For the price of a brand new 802.11g base unit, a user can purchase a whole wireless network using the AirPlus products.  Here is a quote:

            Some years ago wireless first appeared on the scene with a lot of promise.  Unfortunately that promise was short lived as problems with interference, range, and overall speed hampered the introduction of affordable home wireless networking.  The situation today is quite improved though, and what was a high end wireless selection just a year ago is now the budget level product.  DLink has always been on the scene with solid wireless products, and at their release the AirPlus products promised performance at the 22 Mega-bit per second level, with further planned advances to implement the 4X technology (better I/O transactions).

You can read the entire article here.

Articles of Interest Around the Web - Josh

On my daily web search, I stumbled across a few things of interest:

The Tech Report interviews ATI's Dave Nalasco:

Tech Report hosts a very long and informative interview with Dave, and there are quite a few well thought out questions, as well as some illuminating answers!  They do their best to stay away from Marketing-speech, but of course Dave is in marketing... so only so much could be done.  However, Dave is an EE with ASIC design experience, so some of his answers have very technical aspects to them.

HardOCP Editorial on Video Card Benchmarking:

Kyle and his gang have implemented one of the most thorough benchmarking programs with their video card reviews, and so far the community has been very impressed with it.  Kyle goes a little bit further into why they are doing what they are doing, and what they hope to achieve with their new format.  I can really appreciate what Kyle and Brent do here, as it is very time consuming on their part!

Lost Circuits Scales the Prescott Against the Northwood:

As always, Mike Schuette provides an in depth view of the performance differences of these processors.  If you had any questions about these processors, then this is definitely an article you need to read.

As for this site, I should have a wireless networking article up very shortly for your viewing pleasure.  This really takes a pretty good look into a holistic approach to home wireless networking, and later this week we should have an article dealing with connecting your gaming console wirelessly to this network also.  There are a ton of things going on here, so keep posted!

May 20, 2004

NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 Ultra Unveiling - Josh

I finally had a chance to sit down and write up what I saw on April 13, 2004.  The event was a great time, and the technology that NVIDIA released is truly second to none.  My article deals with the actual event itself, how NVIDIA is handling its fan base, as well as a general overview of the GeForce 6800 series of cards and the technology it features.  Here is a direct quote:

            NVIDIA also changed the anti-aliasing algorithm for the 6800, even though the underlying multi-sampling unit is nearly the same.  Ever since the GeForce 3 the anti-aliasing patterns for NVIDIA have hardly changed.  NVIDIA made a slight change to this by implementing a rotated grid arrangement for its 4X AA.  This new pattern does increase anti-aliasing quality by a good amount at this setting.  Remember, NVIDIA’s 2X AA already featured the rotated grid arrangement.  There are a couple of shortcomings to NVIDIA’s anti-aliasing unit as compared to ATI’s.  The first is that ATI’s is much more flexible, and it in fact has a programmable sample pattern instead of a fixed pattern.  Also, it can handle up to 6 samples, while NVIDIA’s can do a maximum of four samples.  ATI also implements a gamma correcting algorithm (though not true gamma corrected, is very close and performs at a very high speed).  NVIDIA can implement a gamma correction routine, but this again costs some performance.  While this is a step in the right direction for NVIDIA, compromises again had to be made and the anti-aliasing unit did not get the makeover it deserved.

You can read the entire article here.

ATI Filtering Game - Josh

The past week has been a tough one for ATI as it has been dodging insinuations that it was cheating on its filtering mechanisms.  While I am somewhat middle-of-the-road about such happenings, I think Scott Wasson at Tech Report hit this one on the head with his article.  ATI has been at the forefront of condemning NVIDIA about many aspects of their cards, so the irony that ATI has been caught doing the same tricks and using marketing and PR to try to put on the silver lining is hysterical.  No company is perfect, and everything any company claims should be given a grain of salt.  There are definite limitations of any architecture, but to go out and evangelize that your technology is better when in fact it does many of the same "optimizations" is ludicrous.  ATI got caught with their pants down on this one.

May 11, 2004

ATI's R420 and NVIDIA - Josh

ATI has finally released its long awaited R420 based products, the X800 Pro and the X800 XT Platinum Edition.  These new cards do offer quite a few advancements over the older Radeon 9800 (R360) based designs, but mainly they are significantly more powerful (more shader units, pipelines, MHz, and bandwidth).  What makes this so fascinating is that ATI decided not to take the feature lead this time, as compared to the original Radeon 9700 Pro (R300).  NVIDIA has taken the high road with the arguably more advanced GeForce 6800 (NV40), while ATI has focused on overall performance with a smattering of new features.  ATI still holds the high ground in a few areas, mainly in terms of the Anti-Aliasing unit, which is much more advanced than the unit NVIDIA has, but overall they have taken a step back from the technology lead.  Is this a bad thing?  At the moment it appears as if their decision is well justified.  Very few developers will embrace SM 3.0 for some time, and PS 2.0 will be the main target for at least the next 1.5 years.

SM 3.0 is causing a great amount of debate throughout the community, and rightly so.  It combines many of the advanced features of SM 2.0a and SM 2.0b, all the while setting a concrete target for developers who want to do their best to support as few rendering paths as possible (PS 1.1, PS 1.4, PS 2.0, PS 2.0a, PS 2.0b, PS 3.0, etc.).  Supporting each path takes a lot of time, and can be a giant pain for any developer who wants to make a visually stunning game.  Here NVIDIA has done a great disservice to the industry in keeping the DX7 based GeForce 4 MX alive for so long.  While it was a solid card upon introduction, it lacks the PS 1.1 ability that many developers are aiming at for the low end.  Intel has also done a great disservice by not pushing its Extreme Graphics into PS 1.1 territory.  While the next gen of integrated Intel graphics will feature PS 2.0 functionality, it certainly doesn't help the market today.  Eventually ATI will produce a SM 3.0 compliant part, but we may again see a fracturing of that standard as we have seen with the PS 2.0 model.  DirectX Next is supposed to be introduced with Longhorn, which is scheduled for a 2006 release.  This basically gives SM 3.0 about two years to gain a foothold with developers.  While the NV40 is a powerful part, it may not be powerful enough for some of the more advanced rendering techniques promised by SM 3.0.  For example, complex branches will probably bog it down (even though the Nalu demo had a simple branching shader, it may not be representative of what developers may want to do with the technology).  However, there are some aspects of SM 3.0 that promise easier coding for complex shader effects, and some performance advantages over SM 2.0 in some situations.  If ATI had offered a SM 3.0 part this Spring, then SM 3.0 development would be a moot point (as most developers would probably use it), but since ATI decided to wait, I think that developers will shy away from developing SM 3.0 code until ATI had a part on the market that supports it.  We will see some SM 3.0 code in the coming year, but from all indications most developers are very happy with using PS 1.1 and PS 2.0 pathways.

So, who is the real winner here?  Obviously the consumer is.  NVIDIA has put out a very solid part that will compete well with what ATI has, as well as offer SM 3.0 functionality.  ATI has produced a slightly faster card than NVIDIA, and given the R420 a bit more headroom with PS 2.0b support.  I don't believe that we have seen such parity in overall features and performance since the Voodoo 3/TnT-2 era, and it is definitely an exciting time to be a graphics card enthusiast.

I am still trying to get my NV40 release/preview article out, but it refuses to write itself!  I don't understand!

April 16, 2004

San Francisco Impressions - Josh

The NVIDIA event at San Francisco on the 13th was a really good time for me.  The 6800 Ultra delivers on so many levels, that I was honestly impressed by what NVIDIA has brought to the market.  After 1.5 years of  products that have not always lived up to the competition, NVIDIA has brought something to the table that will be very competitive, as well as bring features to the market that the competition won't have for some time.  The one thing that I am not terribly impressed by is that ATI scheduled their Editor's Day the same time as NVIDIA's NV40 release.  While business should be competitive, this is really underhanded, as not many media outlets attended the NV40 release.  I was not invited to the ATI Editor's Day, but that is fine by me.  I actually wanted to go to San Fran a bit more (better weather, friends that live there, re-acquaint myself with NVIDIA).

The GeForce 6800 Ultra is a monster chip, and its performance is very, very impressive.  I will do a full write-up on it, as well as what I saw at the event.  I didn't snap too many pictures though, which is somewhat unfortunate.  I guess I was too busy talking and watching what was going on.  Still, I think NVIDIA's event was a great success, and the addition of the GeForce LAN party downstairs really helped NVIDIA get back in touch with its customers and enthusiast base.  I am trying to get a actual number of how many GeForce 6800 Ultra's were given away, because it seems that quite a few were at that LAN!  Very exciting stuff for the people that attended.

BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra Giveaway - Josh

BFG is at it again with a giveaway, but this time there is a twist.  Instead of entering just your name and email address, you have to do something original to get the BFG name out to as many people as possible.  You can view the rules and details here: http://www.bfgtech.com/WIN_6800_ULTRA.html

Not a bad prize for a day or two of work, and a little originality.

April 12, 2004

BFG Tech GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Review - Josh

Better late than never!  This little video card has been working overtime in my lab for the past several months and I have finally had the time to give it the attention it deserves.  The FX 5700 Ultra is a significant upgrade from the FX 5600 Ultra that it replaces.  It has a much beefier floating point engine and vertex shader, as well as fast DDR-2 memory.  BFG created a great little card for its time, but with the release of the FX 5900 XT, it seems its days are numbered.  However, this may not be the case!  Here is a direct quote:

            Though the NV35 held its own against ATI in the high end, the midrange was quickly slipping out of NVIDIA’s grasp.  An area that had once been dominated by the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 was now the land of the Radeon 9600 and its variants.  While the FX 5600 and 5600 Ultra made a go of it, they could never overcome the performance hurdles that the original NV30 architecture suffered from.  In the Fall of 2003, NVIDIA finally brought a product to market that could match the 9600 Pro (and the 9600 XT) in nearly every category.  The NV36 was released, and none too soon for NVIDIA and its partners.  This product was based off of the NV35 architecture, and as such featured much improved floating point performance in applications that utilized PS 2.0 code.

You can read the entire review here.

Heading off for San Fran - Josh

Yes, as you are reading this, I am off to San Francisco to check out the NV40 release!  I am really excited about this, as I think the NV40 will be a very exciting product.  Not only that, but I think I need a vacation!  I will post about what I see and find out at the unveiling, so expect to see something on Wednesday (if I can get a solid internet connection while I am out there).

March 29, 2004

BFG Tech OC Cards - Josh

If you can remember oh-so-many years ago when VisionTek went under and the name was bought up by Hartford Computers, a group of ex-VT employees decided to get together and create a new company to produce video cards "how they like them."  BFG Technologies was born and their goal was to provide video cards that not only provide a great deal of quality, but had features aimed at gamers and enthusiasts.  For the first few years of its existence, BFG has been saddled with only having NVIDIA chips during a time where these products were not terribly competitive with ATI parts.  Also, their designs and cooling solutions were strictly reference.  Still, BFG made a go of it and produced some very solid, but unexciting cards.  It wasn't until the FX 5900 series of chips came out did BFG have a product that was competitive with what ATI had to offer.  Now that overall performance is no longer an issue, and having a few years under their belt in dealing with distributors/IHV's/manufacturers, BFG is now able to realize their dream of providing products aimed at the enthusiast.

Today BFG has announced two new products that are aimed squarely at gamers and enthusiasts who desire that little bit extra from their boards.  The GeForce FX 5900 XT Overclocked and the GeForce FX 5500 Overclocked are cards that, you guessed it, are overclocked from standard speeds out of the factory.  Not only are these boards overclocked, but BFG still applies their lifetime warranty to the cards!  The cooling solutions on these cards are non-standard, and in testing with previous products actually cool the card very well.

The FX 5900 XT OC is clocked at 430 MHz (up from 390 MHz) core, and the memory now runs at 735 MHz DDR (vs. 700 MHz DDR standard).  The cooling solution looks identical to the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, which in my experience, performs very well (not to mention looks sharp).  You can find the product page here.

The FX 5500 OC is the latest product offering using the NV36 core.  This particular model features a core clock of 290 MHz (from the 270 MHz standard) and a full 128 bit memory path that leads to 256 MB of DDR SDRAM.  The speed of the memory is unknown at this time.  The NV36 chip is a solid upgrade from the NV31 and NV34 chips, and will offer significant improvements in speed for 3D apps over these older products.  The extra speed boost and loads of memory will lend itself nicely to a user wishing for a solid card that can play most games with few problems.  You can view the product page here.

It is great to see BFG start to embrace its philosophy of catering to the gamers and enthusiasts of the computer world.  While the FX 5500 OC may not be a great card for most users, it will most likely find a lot of success on store shelves for the average buyer.  Those wanting a solid performing NVIDIA based card should give the FX 5900 XT OC a very good look.  The performance of the FX 5900 XT series is helping to redefine the midrange market, and this overclocked version will only push the performance envelope further.  The blue PCB and sharp looking non-standard cooling solution are good selling points as well.

Source: BFG Technologies

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