Slashdot Mirror

The slashdot crowd is absolutely bloody right to expect that 10 years later something with the visuals of Quake and the level of game AI complexity of Nethack should have been written released and shipped.

And that has not happened. The monsters in the newer quakes, dooms and the likes are as daft as in the original. There is no random or even pseudorandom level generation.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=245
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=244

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=245
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=244

The one time I go to actually read the artical and it's been Slashdotted.

Here is an alternative artical for anyone interested:

AGEIA PhysX tested with GRAW and Cell Factor

While that may be true, let's not forget that the CoreDuo is still intended as a mobile processor. The fact that it is even competitive with the X2s is impressive. The real test will come when the Conroe comes out. Early reviews (granted, on intel supplied hardware) show Conroes kicking the crap out of even the fastest AMD processors (overclocked even) in everything from gaming to media encoding and synthetic benchmarks. They are cooler and more efficient to boot. Unless AMD pulls some magic out of its hat, my next rig will be Intel based. See here: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=219&type=expe rt&pid=1 here: http://techreport.com/etc/2006q1/conroe/index.x?pg =1 here: http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i =2713 and here: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name =Sections&file=index&req=listarticles&secid=13

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2717

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/326/

http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=213

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/9529

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/09/ati_and_nvi dias_same_day_mega_launch_mayhem/

And still working at that.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=202&type=expe rt
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTUz
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/radeon-x1 900/index.x?pg=1
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?articl eid=777&cid=2
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r580/

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=197&type=expe rt
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2668
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?articl eid=767&cid=1
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlo n64-fx60.html
http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/amd_fx60/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/01/10/amd_at hlon_64_fx-60/1.html

I am afraid their server did not melt and drip all over the carpet.

In fact, Here's a picture of it!

I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but if you look at this picture http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/195/specs_2.jp g the video card is longer than the motherboard, man that gave me a laugh

I don't think this is aimed at gamers, exactly. I would think this would be aimed at professionals. I could be wrong.

Note to idiots: Copy the URL destination, go to http://www.pcper.com, then paste it into the address bar.

I'm inclined to crack jokes, but I've been out of the game for a long time so I have questions. Better do both.

- I couldn't really tell, but in the images it only looks like the mobo has one cpu. Just one? I imagine the kind of frea^H^H^H^H consumer who would go for 4way SLI would demand nothing less than 2 dual-core CPU's.

- If it does only have 1 cpu, or even 1 dual core cpu, wont the games be CPU limited before you even scratch the surface of this qual-sli madness?

- They've drawn flames on this thing. I imagine this is redundant given the heat it will produce, and ultimately confusing to the jerk^H^H^H^H consumer when it actually does burst into flames. :-)

The case is actually made of a clear material.

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/195/shipcase_2 .jpg

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/195/shipcase_2 .jpg

That isn't the paint job. It's a translucent case!

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/195/caseopen_2 .jpg

I've tried out the SLI configuration with two NVidia cards and saw a substantially smaller than 100% speed improvement. It was pretty difficult to set up in the first place, as these people found out.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=182&type=expe rt
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODg1
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/geforce-7 800gtx-512/index.x?pg=1
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2607
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?articl eid=751&cid=2
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/285/

Performance per watt? Intel?
Not likely...

The pentium D is putting out as much as 233 watts.. (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=145&type=exp ert&pid=17)
Compared to 89 watts on the athlon X2. (http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/200508011/athlon_ 64_x2_3800-03.html)

Maybe they should label them according to number of bogomips or mflops instead?

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.

Listed alphabetically so no preference to which site is good or not.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r520reviewxvxv /
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.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews /ati_radeon_x1800_x1600preview
http://www.noticias3d.com/articulo.asp?idarticulo= 527
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=407
http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/8864

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

http://www.techreport.com/

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

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

About 6 months ago, one of my cheap free-with-case PSU's died. I went on a mission to find a good bang for the buck PSU to replace all 3 of my systems with high quality PSUs. I read several tests and reviews, including the one on Toms and another http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=3598 67 and another http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/psus/index.x? pg=1 and not to mention http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=-270.

The conclusion? I went with FSP power supplies labeled as Fortron or Sparkle Power. Yes, you can get nicer more expensive ones, but for a very low price, these beasts couldn't be beat for price/performance. I opened up 300w Sparkle, a cheapie 400watt free with case, and my friends ThermalTake which was fairly pricey rated at 350watt. In terms of size of capacitors, mosfets, heat sinks, etc, the Sparkle definately had the edge in size (size does matter with this stuff!). I replaced all 3 of my systems with these and they are humming along great.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/crossfire/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/09/26/ati_cr ossfire_detail/1.html
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/crossfireatire viewxxx/
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE1
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article id=730&cid=2
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=168
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=404
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/ati-crossfire /index.x?pg=1
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050926/ index.html

Meanwhile, Intel's desktop dual core chips seem to offer much more aggressive pricing at this time. AMD's lowest price dual core chip, the X2 4200 is almost twice as expensive as Intel's lowest cost dual core processor. However, an interview with three AMD execs on PCPerspective.com claims that "AMD would eventually have lower priced Athlon X2 processors via the waterfall effect in the future".

Dual-core will most likely render PPUs obsolete anyhow.

The information I have gotten from AGEIA seems to point out that while a single core CPU might be able to hand 200-300 rigid bodies, a dual core CPU could handle 400-600. Compared to the PhysX PPU, which can do over 15,000.

Well actually Semprons, Athlons, Opterons,

Sempron vs Celeron = http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=61&type=exper t&pid=5

Sempron out performs the Celeron on the Game front, but they are pretty neck and neck on the desktop front.

Athlon vs Pentium 4 =
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20001206/p4-11.htm l
ergo, " If you have dedicated areas in which you want your computer to perform particularly well, if those areas should be 3D gaming, video encoding or other bandwidth intensive software and if you should not shy away from high system costs and the missing upgrade path, you should indeed consider Pentium 4. However, if you want a balanced system with excellent performance at a good price I heavily suggest Athlon...."

Itanium vs Opteron =
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030422/opteron-2 8.html#conclusion_linux_servers_smile_and_workstat ions_worry
Ergo....A fairly even heated match.

The Point being to say that 1 processor is why AMD has the right or not the right is kind of a rather narrow view. All three of AMDs Procs either match or beat Intel based product.

Antitrust away AMD. Im behind you all the way. Cheaper product that "just works" is far better than monopolistic product that costs too much.

Yes.

Meanwhile, Intel's desktop dual core chips seem to offer much more aggressive pricing at this time. AMD's lowest price dual core chip, the X2 4200 is almost twice as expensive as Intel's lowest cost dual core processor. However, an interview with three AMD execs on PCPerspective.com claims that "AMD would eventually have lower priced Athlon X2 processors via the waterfall effect in the future".

May I direct your attention to the new Intel(r) Pentium Super 1337 Edition?

>> AMD chips are very stable

Have you tried using > 4GB on your AMD64 ? If you are like me, you get daily crashes. Why ?

Go read the April 7 slashdot posting here.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=127

AMD64 systems have proplems with fully populated DIMMS. Crap like this is unacceptable to corporations purchasing 1000's of boxes. It is also unacceptable to DELL. Every customer problem cost DELL money.

Here are some more sites covering it... all about the same content, really:
viperlair.com
hardocp.com
techreport.com
thetechzone.com
tweaktown.com
thetechzone.com
hothardware.com
hexus.net
pcper.com
legionhardware.com
thetechlounge.com
bigbruin.com

Looks like PC Perspective has some good benchmarks up as well, that correspond to what AT and HardOCP are showing. But the catch is, they use the same levels that ATI used, just not seeing the same performance differences. Check theirs out too.

The other thing I just noticed is that on this page, you can clearly see a picture which shows that Half-Life 2 is only 78% "downloaded", after "buying" the game.

I put "buying" in quotes here, because I don't consider 78% of something to be the complete product. As far as I'm concerned, Valve and Co. should be responsible for the remaining bandwidth I need to waste completing the download.

Interestingly, Alienware is planning a dual-Xeon gaming system, with two PCI-Express video cards: one rendering the top half of the screen, the other rendering the bottom half.

Check it out here or here. Or from the horses mouth here.

Since they chose a dual-Xeon setup, I would assume such a setup is either a good choice for gaming or just sounds pretty to the marketing department. That said, Intel will soon begin to put out dual-core CPUS, so some of the game programmers out there are probably contemplating games designed around a dual-CPU core setup, rather than mere hyperthreading.

Actually, Nvidia and Alienware are both working on solutions that accomplish this goal. Nvidia's solution is their own (called SLI, probably because they gobbled up 3d Labs -- remember the Voodoo2 boards you could link up?), while Alienware's is (video card) manufacturer independent and based on technology from Metabyte a/k/a Wicked3D. The performance is promising (with gains from 70-90% on various benchmarks).

You can read about Nvidia's solution here, and Alienware's here. The problem is that two x16 PCIe slots are required (PCI-Express, not to be confused with PCI-X which is a different beast altogether). Right now, the only manufacturer shipping PCIe enabled boards is Intel, and even they didn't last too long (see The Grantsdale Recall), but none as of yet have two x16 PCIe slots, other than the "x2" motherboards which are custom OEM to Alienware. I'm sure that in the near future the major tier one motherboard manufacturers like Asus and Gigabyte will provide these solutions as well, but it remains to be seen what kind of price premium can be expected (other than the cost of a second video card!).

Alienware took a very different tack with their solution because it requires a 3rd PCI slot AND it's analog (3rd & 4th pics). I guess its a series of tradeoffs: Space vs flexibility, with Nvidia winning the battle for space but losing on flexibility.

That aside, its rediculous that nvidia is expecting their OEM cooling solutions to do any kind of justice to the heat from those cards. Alienware already expects water cooling to be part of the solution and has cases designed accordingly... couldn't NVIDIA have done it any other way? Do they absolutely have to have a hardware link between their cards?

"A power draw of 250 Watts for the 6800 Ultra SLI solution is very realistic."
Then explain how this will work.

Here are some more review links for those who are interested:
Tom's Hardware
Bit-Tech
Driver Heaven
AMD Zone
Hard Tecs 4U
PC Perspective
Ace's Hardware
Sudhian