Archive for: graphics cards
- September 16, 2010 7:48 am
Good news for Steam users powered by ATI/AMD graphics cards: You can now get your Catalyst driver updates through Steam itself. That’s right. No more having to navigate to AMD’s website to download stuff. Of course, doing so in the first place isn’t exactly rocket science nor is it difficult. Still, having drivers downloads consolidated to a portal that you already visit several times per week is pretty handy you have to admit. Anyone given it a shot yet — likes/dislikes?
Geeks and PC builders usually fall into two classes: (1) performance or (2) quiet computing. I personally love speed, not giving too much care to noise as I often am wearing headphones, so it’s a moot point. But others would like to be able to hold a normal conversation or play a song without having to crank the volume up just to be heard of the sound of spinning fans.
For the ATI 58xx series, there hasn’t really been a legitimate 3rd party solution for cooling. The stock heatsink/fan/shroud combo isn’t particularly bad. Though if you overclock at all plan on setting the fans to spin faster, earlier. Of course, all that extra spinning means more noise. That’s where the ZALMAN VF3000A comes in.
Featuring twin 92mm fans that spin between 1,300 – 2,500 RPM’s, the VF3000A will easily cool even the hottest running OC’d 58xx cards. I guess it’s good that ATI cards, the 58xx series especially, don’t really run all that hot.
There is one thing to keep in mind before getting to excited though. This cooler is big! Weighing in at 430 grams and thick enough to consume two PCI slots on it’s own means you’re going to need a massive amount of PCI slots/motherboard space if you’re considering running two of these on a CrossFireX setup. From the looks of it, it appears the best installs will be single card setups only.
Pricing coming soon.
Gallery
[Product Page: ZALMAN]
Overclock.net Forums > Hexus
(Left) 5750 (Right) 5770
Have a thirst for eye candy. Sweet, crisp, stutter free eye candy? Many gamers alike wish of owning the top of the line graphics cards. However, with that “king-of-the-hill” card comes an equally king price. Not so with ATI’s latest 5700 series cards. The new cards, the 5750 and 5770 come look to usher in the next generation of high performance at a more affordable cost. Both cards will support DirectX 11 from the get go as well as:
1,0008 TFLOP’s of performance coming from 720 stream processors, 700MHz/1.15GHz core clock/memory clock respectively, and 512MB or 1GB of GDDR5 RAM on tap all backed by a 128-bit interface. Keeping in line with ATI’s more power conscious approach, the HD 5750 will only cost you 86w at full bore. Look for the 512MB version to set you back $109 while the more capacious 1GB version will cost $129.
Stepping up from the 5750, the 5770 bumps up the processing power with 800 stream processors capable of pumping out 1.36 TFLOP’s of eye bleeding candy with the core clock also seeing a bump in power to 850MHz. Further adding to the value, the 1GB of GDDR5 memory on tap gets shot of power to the tune of 1.2GHz. Naturally, adding more power under the hood means a bigger appetite. Still, even at 108w under full load, the HD 5770 is rather thrifty for a top of the line graphics card. Taking home the 5770 will mean donating $159 to ATI. Again, a rather meager amount of money for the power to be had.
For now, the ball is in Nvidia’s court. What will they wow us with next?
SlashGear > MadBox PC (Google Translated)
When bragging about a gaming PC’s specs or internal parts, the most casual joke is “…but can it run Crysis”, as Crysis is an extremely demanding game that only the more capable and higher end machines can run *well*. If you thought your current rig, now matter how super awesome it is, was the creme of the crop, I’m here to tell you it’s crap, plain and simple. Feast your eyes on the ASUS Mars GTX 295 (above). With 240 pipelines and enough space for 4GB of 512-bit DDR3 RAM, whoever purchases this Goliath will instantly become a living god in the gaming world…hands down. If 4GB isn’t enough for you, run this beast in SLI mode with its twin and prepare to have more RAM in your graphics cards than most people have between 2 comptuers! How much does it cost? Who cares. 2160p here we come! **Check out drool worthy video here.
Video (Tweak Town):**Check out drool worthy video here
Source:Gizmodo
Processors and graphics cards have long been two completely different monsters that have each had their own respective duties, never switching sides. As with all electronics, stand alone parts are often integrated into one as technology progresses and becomes smaller. For years, many computer nerds have dreamed of the day when the CPU and GPU can become one, sharing roles, and making your scream machine all the faster, while also being smaller and more efficient. Nvidia’s GT3xx series cards could be just that and is even been called a cGPU. A cGPU because it will start to march into Intels territory in the whole processor arena. Being hailed as the “first truly new architecture since SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data)”, the architecture changes coming with the 3xx series could be the prelude (as in one to two generations away from the full blown thing) to the CPU/GPU combo we have been waiting for. While another several years seems like an eternity, and to many techno people really is, it is but a drop in the bucket to the last thirty years or so of computer evolution. Computers, computer components, and computer performance are on the brink of exploding exponentially in terms of speed, efficiency, and power.
Source: Engadget, BSN
Video card and gaming buffs have a new toy to lust after. Sapphire has gone ahead and upped the standard 1GB giving the reborn card a lofty 2 GB limit. A limit that in reality won’t be touched in current games. Why? Well, games are currently developed with 512/768MB cards in mind because they make up the bulk of gaming rigs. Even after clicking every option you can in the games display settings, you will still see a good chunk of that extra gig just sitting there. However, if you must be the only kid in your class with the 2GB Radeon HD 4780, then by all means brag away.
Source: Crunchgear, Ubergizmo,
If you’re a mobile gamer where speed is everything Nvidia has something they’d like to show you. Announced today at CeBiT, Nvidias laptop graphics cards just got big upgrades in the form of the FeForce GTX 150/160/260/280 cards. The 280 being claimed as a full 50% faster than previous generation cards. I remember as if it were just yesterday people were all up in arms about the imminent release of the 8800m series cards, and here were are starting the counter over again in the 200′s. All of the new N’ cards will feature CUDA support as well as playing nice with PhysX gaming effects. While these latest chips offer the new pinnacle of fast and efficiency, I still wouldn’t recommend venturing very far from an outlet with one or two of these in your laptop. Step inside for a screenshot of the new showing a quick breakdown of the new cards’ specs, or check out Hot Hardware for the full load.
