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wow, thats a lot of sarcasm in so few words.

you have google, do some research.

Or, if you really are totally useless, and ignorant of these strange 'workstation' video cards, here's a link, read all of its many pages:

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2307&p=1 ... Note the many descriptions of geometry engines and hardware antialiased lines and points, drivers optimized specificly for AutoCad, ArcGIS, and other softwares ... implemented especially for workstation applications. ... Note the many benchmark tests where the workstation cards perform way better than the gamer cards in workstation applications .... but fail horribly in the game tests.

This comparison seems to show things a bit differently. Gee, why is that?
Do you suppose Intel is sucking dirt-star and needs some numbers *bad* ?
Nah, money just can't buy integrity these days.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2249&p=12

Unfortunately, some semblance of performance is also probably required, so I don't think that OS X is the best thing to use. XRaids are great drive arrays, but OS X has more bottlenecks than a beer distributer, so you will only get good performance if you hook them up to a Linux or Windows box.

See http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2520&p =5 for some MySQL benchmarks and explanation.

dom

"you are usually within 15% of the performance of a $500 at around $250"

Nonsense

http://www.pricewatch.com/
7800GTX: $460
6800GT: $280

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2575&p=4
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2466&p=4

F.E.A.R
7800GTX: 53 fps (+65%)
6800GT: 32 fps

Battlefield 2
7800GTX: 79 fps (+108%)
6800GT: 38 fps

"you are usually within 15% of the performance of a $500 at around $250"

Nonsense

http://www.pricewatch.com/
7800GTX: $460
6800GT: $280

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2575&p=4
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2466&p=4

F.E.A.R
7800GTX: 53 fps (+65%)
6800GT: 32 fps

Battlefield 2
7800GTX: 79 fps (+108%)
6800GT: 38 fps

Whatever happened to their new mantra 'Performance/Watt over Clock Speed'?

http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/video/ati_rade on9700p/

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/r300/default.asp

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.html? i=1685

Maybe 4 years is pushing it, but just 3 years ago you could have had a 9700 Pro and 2 ghz Athlon XP processor. That same setup would still run most games just fine today.

As best I can tell, the panels are equivalent. They both have the same resolutions 20" = 1680x1050, 23 or 24" = 1920x1200. I can't tell if one has a better image than the other -- they look the same to me. Others will surely disagree.

They're definitely different. Here's a side-by-side, Apple/Dell.

Windows media encoder is MP aware as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2484&p=9

Windows Media Encoder
A64 2.4GHz: 2.21 fps
A64 2x2.2GHz: 3.93 fps (+78%)

Intel's not really hiding them, but they do have some pretty good, lesser-known 65nm things coming out in about 3-6 months. These won't beat AMD's Opterons, but I think Intel will be less screwed than you think. Intel will be able to lessen the screwing by beating AMD (by a long time) to a mature 65nm manufacturing capability. Some reviewers (like Tom's Hardware) have already benchmarked some 65nm Pentium Ds and the power savings are significant.

According to Intel's roadmap, Dempsey (65nm dual-core Xeon) will launch in Q1 2006 at higher clock/bus speeds and lower TDP than the Xeon reviewed in the article (2.8GHz, 667MHz, 135W TDP). At launch, Dempsey will offer a 3.2GHz (1066MHz bus) at 95W TDP.

Another interesting server CPU due in Q1 2006 is Sossaman, which is a server version of Yonah (dual-core, 2GHz, 31W TDP). Since Yonah is a 32-bit architecture, it's not really comparable to Opteron and Xeon, but it should rule the market for low-power 32-bit servers.

The review is here

I know it's a non-traditional here, but I looked up the benchmarks when the dual core chips came out.

E.g.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2410

"Gaming performance is, currently, highly based on single-threaded performance and thus, we see no benefit from dual core. The thing to keep in mind here is that AMD's dual core solutions are closer to their fastest single core offerings in clock speed, so they end up performing more like their Athlon 64 counterparts in games - which has always been quite strong."

Look at Doom III, the fastest dual core chip runs slower than the fastest single core. In fact you can pretty much predict performance from clock speed, regardless of the number of cores. So you'd be better off getting the fastest single core chip if that's what you care about.

Imagine people going around whining about device driver problems they had with Linux when they tried it 6 years ago and completely ignoring present-day reality.

ANANDTECH: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=1952
"After comparing it to other chipsets on the market, we awarded the SiS 755 our Editor's Choice award for the best Athlon 64 chipset."

I'd pick Sis 755 chipset over others after trying it out too. Not having to install drivers from a different CD to recognize SATA is just one reason not even mentioned in the comparison resulting in Editor's choice.

As for ECS, they've been known in the past as the "cheapest" and I've heard bad things about their quality online, but now, even companies like Abit are outsourcing to ECS. If you look into ECS, you'd be surprised at how many other mobo companies are using them to manufacture their boards.

And if you look at reviews of their SiS 755 board, ECS 755-A2, you'll see that it gets very high marks in performance, layout, and quality. Just google and find out for yourself instead of rehashing stale news of prior decades. For example, the ECS 755-A2 mobo got noticed for using 3-stage voltage regulators while the more expensive mobos only used 2-stage.

When people bring up Linux today, you don't trash it because you had driver compatibility problems with Slackware 0.9 on your i486 during the 1990's do you?

First of all, nobody is "trying to break up" anything. The state only decided to fine Samsung.

Agreed, at best this was just for show- a slap on the wrist, with the resulting encouragement to continue.

Secondly, why? The Reuters article isn't too insightful, but http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=198 3 says that the "Big 4" fixed prices. Great! If the big 4 in any market fixed prices (probably HIGH prices), then guess what I'd do? Buy memory from the competition! If there is no competition, build competition! After all, if the big 4 make a huge profit (because of inflated prices) you should make a decent profit (and cut deeply into the market) with lower prices.

Three problems with that:
1. Chip fab plants are damned expensive, thus making the industry a natural oligopoly.
2. What's to stop the Big 4 from putting you out of business by using their excess profits to undersell your basic cost, then raise prices again once you're out of the picture?
3. What's to stop the Big 4 from buying up YOUR stock, thus continuing to control the market (this is what happens in the diamond market ever since synthetic diamonds came out)?

Thirdly, the economy isn't regulated. It's distorted in many ways, but in the RAM market there's maybe no distortion except for tariffs. Anyway, government only fined Samsung *years* after they fixed prices. Now THAT made a difference in the world!

Completely agreed on that one.

First of all, nobody is "trying to break up" anything. The state only decided to fine Samsung.

Secondly, why? The Reuters article isn't too insightful, but http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=198 3 says that the "Big 4" fixed prices. Great! If the big 4 in any market fixed prices (probably HIGH prices), then guess what I'd do? Buy memory from the competition! If there is no competition, build competition! After all, if the big 4 make a huge profit (because of inflated prices) you should make a decent profit (and cut deeply into the market) with lower prices.

Thirdly, the economy isn't regulated. It's distorted in many ways, but in the RAM market there's maybe no distortion except for tariffs. Anyway, government only fined Samsung *years* after they fixed prices. Now THAT made a difference in the world!

Try Gigabyte's i-RAM:

Anandtech Review

4 slot, PCI, makes a great swap file drive for pshop or premiere.

Thanks Slashdot, this isn't OLD. http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i =2518 http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20050818/inde x.html

This thing uses twice as much power as a 7800gtx/6800ultra.

How bad is that? It can be quantified: A 6800gt, lower clocked & only 12 pipelines, sucks down 38 watts at idle: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page4.htm l
38 watts doing nothing!

Accounting for more pipelines & higher core & memory clocks, the 6800ultra sucks down around 50 watts at idle. The 7800gtx & x850xt burn roughly the same: http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2496&p=1 0

And here: http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article id=734
we see the x1800xt burns 50 watts more than the x850. Ergo, this sucker burns around 100 Watts just sitting there.

Going by the anand results, the 7800gt uses 27 Watts less than an ultra, which would means it uses less than the 6800gt, 50-27=23 watts at idle. We have a winner!

obviously you missed the fact that when gaming at 1600x1200 and are using 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering that the x1800xt beats the shit out of the gf7800.

if you're buying a 500 dollar card, are you seriously worried about benchmarks that are run without aa+af? this card even does HDR (hi dynamic range) plus AA, something that the gf7800 can't.

this card is way more sophisticated and highly refined that the brute force 7800. the 7800 isn't bad but that this card can do with 16 pipelines what the 7800 can't do with 24, says a lot.

and that's just raw performance with todays games. never mind the fact that the 1800xt comes with 512megs of super fast ram... ready for well into the next generation of games, whereas 256meg 7800's are already obsolete for the high end of the next generation. sure 256 will be enough if you pare down the resolution and lower the texture detail. one example is the game F.E.A.R... on the 1800xt it absolutely trounces the 7800 in performance.

my advice... read ALL the reviews you can get your hands on. there are too many discrepencies if you only read one or two. if you want to get a more full picture, get to reading.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2552

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r520reviewxvxv /

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1867116 ,00.asp

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x18 00_xt_xl/

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/262/

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODIy

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3603

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article id=734&cid=2

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews /ati_radeon_x1800_x1600preview

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=407

http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/8864

and check out the wicked new 3d tech demos... both are very impressive but the toystore demo is jawdropping.

http://www.ati.com/designpartners/media/edudemos/R adeonX1k.html

wmv9 hi def format but plays fine in mplayer or VLC.

Whats a pity is that ATI again lagging behind on the performance part in the OpenGL based games/applications. You would think they learned their lesson with the Radeon 9x00 series and the X[3/6/7/8]00 series. How poorly those products perform with 'the next-gen' OpenGL based games, ID's Doom3 engine, and current line of OpenGL games. You would think ATI's Next-gen product would be doing alot better than their previous product line or atleast to be competitive with NV's 'next-gen' harware (i start to hate the word "next-gen", it's marketing lube than actually something meaningfull).
That ATI hardware perform well on DX9 based games is really nice (one of the reason i got myself a Radeon card 2 years ago, when NV's FX serie was just horror on DX9). But fortunately the gaming market doesn't only consist out of DX-based games.

From what i gathered on various resources (http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1 818/ and http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2552 ) on benchmarking the X1000 series. They are still performing inadequately compared to ATI's current line of products and that of Nvidia's 6x00 serie.

The only thing that can save ATI now is offering very competitive pricing for their new product line at the expense of current product line, which is unlikely looking at their recommended pricing.

I'm a gamer myself. What most gamers wants is not the bleeding edge hardware (well they like to day dream having it, but thats something else than what their wallet allows them to have). But good performance with good image quality at a good price in any range; either entry level or midrange or high-end.
Talking about high-end. It's also a pity that the new X1000 serie seem to less efficient running at high level of FSAA and Anisotropic filters. Those techniques can makes a game, tho how bored the gameplay may be, even interresting (such as Doom3 and other arcade type run and shooter games).

For now, i'm happy to stick to my cheap-ass 120 euro 6800LE card for atleast 2 years to come. Which easily can beat ATI's new midrange product, the X1600XT, with ease and it cost me way less.

It's been noted on many sites that these cards are not available for sale yet. ATI has been getting hammered lately over their decision to "paper launch" crossfire, while telling review sites that they would be in stores. Don't expect to see these cards for at least a month.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2550

They must be selling the engine middleware on amazon.

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=2404 1

So Google/Sun offer an online office application, which will be fine for single users, then some companies want to use it. Next Google will sell something like the Google mini (see this piece on AnandTech loaded with the online office application server in a mini version... ...and then we're back full circle at server/client applications, thin clients, the complete shebang. But this time all that in a closed box, with an external support thing too. Oh, we had that before already too? A wet dream for the Sun guys, for sure.

I don't think so. It's the same with Far Cry. The 64 bit version runs a little faster and with more details (mostly lighting, drawing distance and apparently more polys). The 32 bit version was made before the 64, so the 32 made crappier on purpose argument is not valid for it. We may conclude the 64 bits version just runs faster, and allows for more CPU usage (or maybe allows more GPU usage?).

This is not the first time AMD has lured a developer into sheadding some character in order to promote their processors, Far Cry for instance. When AMD first released their 64 bit processor THere were a number of bogus features/limitations based on the processor's precision.

At least the pc- 30 and pc-60 series have 2 80mm intake fans at the front, covered by a loose filter. This is enough to keep my pc relatively dust free for a few years now, despite myself being a fairly heavy smoker.

linky
That's the Lian-Li pc-60 plus and has only a 120mm fan in the front. Older pc-60 models also lack the blower at the top.

Really.

Are you saying this from experience, or are you guessing? This doesn't seem accurate to me, since next generation hardware has additional features to go with the additional performance.

From the 7800 GTX launch at Anandtech:
As there has been no DirectX update since the last part, NVIDIA has opted not to introduce any extra features. Their reasoning is that developers are slow enough to adopt DirectX changes, let alone a feature that would only run using OpenGL extensions. (source)

For the most part, a 6800 SLI is pretty identical to a 7800. A 7800 SLI is likely to be pretty identical to a 8800, unless you use some DirectX10-specific features. Or at least as close as you are likely to get on currently existing hardware.

Kjella

Apple claims: "Beneath the surface of Mac OS X lies an industrial-strength UNIX foundation..."

Fact is: The FreeBSD on Mach hack that is OS X is not suitable for server use.

Monarch has a quality reputation, but I have a few problems with that system. In order to build a true screamer, I think some component changeouts and modifications are in order.

Motherboard:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html This motherboard supports dual opterons, so you can stick in there 2 dual core opterons. Using processor affinity you could balance load across processors (I am not sure if you can use processor affinity per core - if anyone can answer that, I'd appreciate it.

Ramdrive
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=24 80&p=1 These things are mainstream now (for those that lusted for years after the highend $10k+ ramdrives).

Soundcard
Creative Soundblaster based sound cards have had buggy drivers for as long as I can remember. Lets get some turtle beach in there, or better yet, some lower end audiophile hardware http://www.m-audio.com/index.php

Paltry amount of Ram
2 GB is like the lowest amount of ram I'd use for a highend performance system. 4 GB - 8 GB is more like the appropriate number. When I am running WoW, VLC, Thunderbird, Firefox, Gimp, TS, and Eric3 all at once. I want them all to be fast and responsive as if I had only one application running.

Yes, it is a clone of Microsoft Office (even if it is a little better in my opinion), but since we just established that it has the same functionality as MSOffice and it's free, why isn't everybody using it?

Anyway, it seems that someone is actually rethinking the UI design of an office application, and strangely enough it's Microsoft! (I have no idea if it's going to be any better though..)

AnandTech claims that most memory errors are due to bad power. So it it isn't critical, get a decent power supply and you can skip the ECC.

The driving theory behind ECC memory is that it corrects errors that occur in memory. Perhaps a transistor is faulty and flipped for the wrong reason, or a faint electrical signal pulled a transistor into the incorrect position. While researching this review and others, we have noticed the largest factor for incorrect memory blocks is faulty power supplies.

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx? i=1841&p=24

Hi,

As a G5 owner and also thinking about a dual g5 2700 or dual core systems if I am sure about Apple's stance I am checking PowerPC community except Apple which removes pages about how PPC outperforms Intel from their site lately.

Here is the leading PPC Linux for Apple and IBM HPC cluster producers stance on Intel decision:
http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/pipermail/yell owdog-announce/2005-June/000094.html

As we (home users) figured after Mactel decision, Apple is one of smallest PowerPC customers on planet. Here is the PowerPC platform official page (without removed benchmarks :))
http://www.power.org/home

And I hope I don't see another story like that which will make me delete OS X and run PPC Linux...

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436

Its a server centric benchmark and OS X produces very sad results. I just hope Apple workstation does not have similar disadvantages which will make Apple a waster of the architecture they bitch about lately.

Its not AMD versus Intel. Apple certainly lies about the real reason behind the switch to Intel.

What about performance per watt on latest announced FreeScale DUAL CORE CPUs?

these motherboards contain intel's DRM technology.

pass it on.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2449

search for DRM in the above site for confirmation and some extra info.

Cheaper at ZipZoomFly:

http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=WD3200SD

HJ

I have a theory as to why Apple aren't coming out with them until sometime next year - I believe they actually want to come out with new machines at the same time as Vista is released.

Actually, it has everything to do with Intel's Woodcrest/Conroe/Merom architecture, which is due to go mainstream at the same time that Intel-based Macs are. See AnandTech's coverage.

There are also the latest IBM PowerPC chips that Apple will probably use before and during the transition period. They can keep sales up without causing a lot of FUD about incompatability.

Yes, but the same thing can be said for games made on the PlayStation and xbox360. Because of the different processors used there is no simple way to port between the two systems and likewise between revolution. All three systems have made design decisions that really make it difficult to conveniently port games freely between the three systems.

AnandTech: comparing PS3 and 360's hardware

And in my opinion a different controller design does not seem as hard a hurdle to overcome as different design philosophies imposed by the hardware. But that last part is just IMHO.

Another vote for the 2005FPW.

One of the unsung (so far) benefits is that it's one of the biggest monitors you can drive with a reasonably-priced consumer video card.

1680x1050 - the native resolution on the 2005FPW - is around the upper range that a single-link DVI card can do (and trust me, you don't want to run your sweet new wide-screen LCD over VGA) so unless you have a $400+ video card that can do dual-link DVI output... the 2005FPW is your best bet. Also, the actual LCD panel in the 2005FPW is the same exact one that Apple uses in their 20" widescreen monitor. There's a comparison on Anandtech's site that has a lot more information about the two displays.

I've got two - I bought one for home, and I loved it so much that I bought another one to use at work. The first one I bought was $562 shipped; the second one was $359, due to some absolutely insane coupons going on at the time. Definitely worth the money.

I also highly recommend the Ikea Jerker desk and the IBM Model M keyboard. A pretty eclectic collection, but that's my current setup and I am *really* digging it. I have another LCD, a 15" NEC model that does 1024x768, on a swinging arm attached to the desk - it's my Mac mini display.

I need to find a DVI KVM that doesn't cost as much as a new monitor, though... I have a few systems that are DVI-capable now, and swapping cables is a bitch.

I'm largely talking about laptops. That said the G5 tower I was working with heavily until recently was well laid out but certainly nothing special where componentry is concerned - anyone that has actually built their own PC tower from parts can open up a G5 tower and tell you that. They'll also tell you it does look fantastic from the outside. This said IBM's G5 PPC chip is where the real appeal lies.

Apple makes a brand, not hardware, and a very good brand at that. Don't imagine a plant in Cupertino, rather imagine a massive smoking assembly complex in Taiwan churning out 20 models of laptop simultaneously, one of which is an 'Apple'.

Regarding your customer satisfaction surveys, I think it's great that so many are happy with Apple's customer service (as your link covers), though it has little bearing on what people are actually buying. I have no idea how Apple's workstations fare in a similar context. I certainly won't be ordering another one (especially given OSX's poor memory management) and the fact their next spread of workstations will likely be Pentium 4's with intelligent haircuts.

They do. http://www.anandtech.com/ has nifty little graphs of processor cost over time for specific CPUs. They ALL drop after introduction, often to a fraction of their original cost in six months or so. So once the R&D costs are regained, and some profit made or future expansion capital saved, the prices fo drop.

I don't think thats always the case. Notably, Oracle used to (at least upto half a year ago) give aggressive, directed ads against IBM DB2 on the back cover of the Economist.

IMO, this is a good move by Sun to get out of the the thick heads of management the idea that Dell is the only option. As for being insecure, I seriously doubt they are. In this field, if their servers were no good they'd be taken apart in a day; but they have in fact got pretty good reviews.

I don't know about you, but I think marketing a product that has three non-mainstream things in it - Sun (vs. Dell), AMD (vs. Intel) and Solaris (vs. Linux/Windows) needs some aggressive campaigning. And I'm pretty happy that its the first time the Opteron is getting the recognition it deserves on a scale thats not limited to people who understand tech in and out.

Sun Fire servers run on Advanced Micro Devices Opteron processors.

Anandtech has a quick review of the X2100 up. Fairly standard, but well designed server it looks like. The big news is the entry level one for only $745. True it doesn't come with a HD, but that's still a hell of a deal for a true server (not a dell desktop box lets call it a server).

Sexy, yes, but If they read these benchmarks They might want to steer clear of OSX as a server OS

Haven't looked at specifics, but try http://www.anandtech.com/

Take a look at this and tell me why Google wouldn't do something similar for email?

I'm referring of course to the Google Mini (which powers Anandtech's search above) and the Google Search Appliance. For all we know Google might be persuaded to sign a deal to provide GMail services directly from Google's own network for the company's domain.

Select the response that best fits this group:

Creative is to Apple as:

1. Microsoft is to Motorola
2. Steven Ballmer is to Google
3. SCO is to IBM
4. Larry Ellison is to Bill Gates

Answer carefully! Remember, choose the only the best answer.

Anyone else think the Anandtech server room has some lovely, lovely carpets?

I am sure ... check this link from Anandtech and say what the browser they are accessing inside it is. For my eyes it looks like Internet Explorer ... it even says so on the top ...

2. Tore the box apart wondering if we could finally find a flux capacitor [Check]

I must say I'm disappointed that this is what Google passes off as a flux capacitor.