Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Domains

Domain: sharkyextreme.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to sharkyextreme.com.

Comments · 196

  1. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  2. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  3. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  4. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  5. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  6. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  7. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  8. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  9. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  10. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  11. Easier to use links by shepd · · Score: 3 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    If you're like me, the fact that Sharky Extreme doesn't use hyperlinks to their best extent is driving you insane. Although their info is always sound.

    Make you life easier and get straight to the goods you want:

    Enjoy!

  12. ah for christsake... by luxor · · Score: 1 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared

    the conclusion

  13. skip the page-by-page bullshit by luxor · · Score: 1 · on Cheaper Video Cards Compared
    and go straight to .

    28 freakin' pages... SharkyExtreme is a joke!

  14. Another Good Review by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4 · on AMD's DDR-Capable 760 Chipset Reviewed X3

    There's another review here as well.

  15. Re:Sharky is flaky by Trinition · · Score: 1 · on Comprehensive Video Benchmarks
    If you read the orignal submission to slashdot, it links to two articles. There were actually two submissions combined into one. The second submission pointed to the Sharky Extreme Article.

    Anyways, back to your comments... The Radeon has been quite surprising to the industry. It came in just behind all of the GeForce-2 cards in Sharky's benchmarks and well above the Voodoo5. My point of contention with them is that their tests seem to be limited to 16-bit color-depth.

    As for the stability of their drivers, I don't know where you're coming from. I've personally had no problems with their drivers. Hanging out in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video, I've seen an pretty-much uniform distribution of complaints for all card manufacturers.

    Finally, as I'm not a Linux user, so I can't comment on the drivers available for Linux. I've found limited BeOS drivers available, though, and they're stable. Perhaps by your logic BeOS developers are better than Linux developers? Perhaps ATI doesn't forecast enough profit in the Linux sector to justify making in-house drivers? This is spawns a whole 'nother can of worms.

  16. Sharky is flaky by Trinition · · Score: 2 · on Comprehensive Video Benchmarks
    Now, I know this isn't the best forum for anything pro-ATI, but I'll continue nonetheless.

    For as long as I can remember, ATI's chips have performed far better in 32-bit color depth tests than 16-bit color-depth tests. Yet, Sharky doesn't seem to show any charts comparing the cards in 32-bit except for the Re-Volt benchmark which they admit is outdated. However, they do state on page 6 of their review that the GeForce-2 cards rule both 16-bit and 32-bit.

    Did I miss something?

    Anyways, it seems that the Radeon is only a few FPS behind the GeForce-2 cards, and I imagine that difference is humanly imperceivable except for super-humans. Meanwhile, you gain better DVD playback and other huge multimedia offerings, especially if you look into the always-a-pleasuer All-in-Wonder line from ATI.

    So, why did Sharky need to use so many pages to get these points across?

  17. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  18. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  19. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  20. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  21. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  22. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  23. Intel Plans by Michael+Jennings · · Score: 1 · on Intel's Roadmap For the Future


    The Sharkey's Extreme article is spread out over several pages to force you to see ads which you are probably not seeing, since you have trained yourself not to look.

    The following links are pages that show Intel CPU plans, and are useful for someone planning a computer purchase who wants to avoid early obsolescence. (The spaces in Page X are put in by a bug in the Slashdot code.):

    Pag e 7, Pag e 8, Pag e 9, Pa ge 10, Pa ge 11, Pa ge 12, Pa ge 13

    Those who use the Opera browser can load all the pages simply by holding down the control and shift keys while left-clicking on the links above.

    The initial name for one of Intel's chips is Tualatin, not Tulatin. Sharkey's Extreme has it wrong in the first part of the article.

    This is funny:

    Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue misspelled its own name! Proof of this is that Tualatin is spelled correctly in the medallion.

  24. Re:external power supply? by AbbyNormal · · Score: 4 · on 3dfx' Voodoo5 6000 Still Alive

    Does anybody see this as being a bit silly/messy? I mean I already have about 20 things plugged into a wall socket, why do I need to add another thing?

    The size of the card would also be my issue. That sucker is HUGE!!! That sucker goes from one side of the case to the other! No mo room! I wouldn't be suprised if it came with drip trays and was endorsed by George Foreman. Just a LITTLE to big IMHO, but I'm sure some hardcore games will readily saw their cases in have and install an Airconditioner for it.

  25. Interesting Stat by avandesande · · Score: 1 · on AMD on Celeron/Matrox Intros the G450

    on the sharky Duron benchmarks, there was an interesting stat- Content Creation It seems as though Windows 2000 is significantly faster than Windows 98SE. This is contrary to some of the testimonials that I have seen, where people say win 2000 is slower. FUD goes both ways you know.

  26. AMD's 1.1GHz Benchmarked by Luminous · · Score: 2 · on Intel Recalls 1.13-GHz P-IIIs Due To Glitch
    Amid Intel's 1.13GHz difficulties, the AMD 1.1GHz chip which shipped oday and has been benchmarked at Sharky Extreme.

    Now we can see if AMD has the mettle to become the processor leader or not.

  27. AMD's 1.1GHz Benchmarked by Luminous · · Score: 2 · on Intel Recalls 1.13-GHz P-IIIs Due To Glitch
    Amid Intel's 1.13GHz difficulties, the AMD 1.1GHz chip which shipped oday and has been benchmarked at Sharky Extreme.

    Now we can see if AMD has the mettle to become the processor leader or not.

  28. The REAL URL by apirkle · · Score: 3 · on Gen Con 2000 Report
    The site is really at sharkyEXTREME.com (not sharkygames)

    You want to be http://www.sharkyextr eme.com/games/columns/beatdown_gencon2k/ - there.

  29. P4 & RAMBUS (The Clown) by Meenky · · Score: 1 · on Intel Pentium 4 NetBurst Architecture Explained
    From the Sharky Review(?)

    At the very core of the Pentium 4 lie the Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs), the main integer units of the processor. Intel marketing spiced up the naming of the faster ALUs by calling them the "Rapid Execution Engine," also a fitting name for Texas
    Hehehehehehehehe......Shrub the Little Bush :) This sounds just like a math co-processor for the 386, only integrated. Oooooh, Aaaaaahhh!

    400MHz System Bus

    The fastest Pentium III available is designed to work with a 133MHz front side bus (FSB). With approximately 1GBps of bandwidth, this FSB acts as a bottleneck between the CPU and the rest of the system. Intel will remove this bottleneck with the Pentium 4 by using a 100MHz FSB quad-pumped to the equivalent of 400MHz. 400MHz on a 64-bit bus yields 3.2GBps of data bandwidth, three times what the Pentium III's 133MHz FSB can handle. This bandwidth will keep the CPU well connected to the i850 chipset, codenamed Tehama, which will support dual RDRAM channels.
    All this hub-bub about the 400Mhz bus and now I find out that they are still using RAMBUS :( that crosses this processor off my wish list, maybe you can still stomach RAMBUS. Why pair this processor with RAMBUS when you could pair it with Quad Data Rate Dram, I know its out there I just don't have the URL on hand, someone help me out here.

    RAMBUS would make a good name for a clown.

  30. Re:HAHAHAHAHA by ZanshinWedge · · Score: 2 · on Intel Pentium 4 NetBurst Architecture Explained

    P.S. You can also get the scoop over at sharky extreme.

  31. AMD is still on top... by MSisNOT4Sale · · Score: 2 · on Coming Soon From Intel

    ..when it comes to the price/performance ratio. I got a Slot A 700Mhz Tbird and I'm running it at 977Mhz. An equivelant P3 would cost at least 200 to 250 dollars more (comparing a p3-933 and a k7-950 TBird). Not only that, AMD is really aggressive with prices now. $470 for a gig chip? Compared to a $1,199 premium for an Intel P3 @ 1 gig. Which makes more sense?

    Here's the link for slashed AMD prices
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12489.html

    And Sharky's Weekly CPU prices
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12489.html

  32. Proof that Tom Pabst is a Ranting Paranoiac by deaddeng · · Score: 1 · on Pentium III 1.13Ghz: The Real Story
    What do you get when you combine an egomaniac with a paranoid schitzophrenic? I dunno, but it smokes french cigs and wants you to touch his monkey.

    Tommy claims that the Pentium-3 1.13GHz is unstable, and he can't get benchmarks to run. Why?
    Because the Pentium-3 demolishes Athlon, and costs less. So he made up this little story. Ach!

    As you can see, some other Hardware sites had NO problem running the 1.13GHz Pentium-3.

    http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html? i=1290

    http://www.shar kyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/cpu/pentium3_1x13gh z/

    http://firingsquad.gamer s.com/hardware/p3-1133/default.asp

    They even ran it on 440BX and VIA boards! Firing Squad OVERCLOCKED it. But Tommy's was broken, really, and it must be a SCANDAL for Intel.

    Here's a scandal for you--AMD's stock price is going to cross Intel's this week, heading the wrong direction! No wonder Dr. Tommy is having problems!

  33. Opposing view by Umbro2 · · Score: 1 · on Pentium III 1.13Ghz: The Real Story

    Sharky Extreme seems to like the new chip. Check it out here. I'm all for more than one opinion. I think Tom bashed it hard and it probablly deserved the bashing, however now I've got to decide whom to believe.

  34. Opposing view by Umbro2 · · Score: 1 · on Pentium III 1.13Ghz: The Real Story

    Sharky Extreme seems to like the new chip. Check it out here. I'm all for more than one opinion. I think Tom bashed it hard and it probablly deserved the bashing, however now I've got to decide whom to believe.

  35. Far cry from Sharky's review... by novakane007 · · Score: 1 · on Pentium III 1.13Ghz: The Real Story

    I'm not sure who to go with on this one anymore! I first agreed with Tom, but then found this article at Sharky Extreme

  36. Far cry from Sharky's review... by novakane007 · · Score: 1 · on Pentium III 1.13Ghz: The Real Story

    I'm not sure who to go with on this one anymore! I first agreed with Tom, but then found this article at Sharky Extreme

  37. Re:Give me a break by jafuser · · Score: 1 · on Apple Punishes ATI For Leaking The Cube?
    The Cube has NO FANS. The Radeon DOES. The Cube was built to dissapate heat using convection and this requires using COOL components

    If you read the last paragraph on Sharky Extreme's review of the Radeon card, it mentions that "the Radeon's PCB gets no hotter than 116.6F (47C)", due to the .18 micron process the chip is made on.

  38. Re:Give me a break by jafuser · · Score: 1 · on Apple Punishes ATI For Leaking The Cube?
    The Cube has NO FANS. The Radeon DOES. The Cube was built to dissapate heat using convection and this requires using COOL components

    If you read the last paragraph on Sharky Extreme's review of the Radeon card, it mentions that "the Radeon's PCB gets no hotter than 116.6F (47C)", due to the .18 micron process the chip is made on.

  39. Re:Who would buy one of these with the junk video? by xy · · Score: 1 · on Apple Punishes ATI For Leaking The Cube?

    Well, not all ATI stuff blows... Specifically, the new Raedon card kicks a lot of ass. ATI has had some problems in the past, but they seem to be getting their shit together pretty well now.

  40. There is also a review on Sharky Extreme by thue · · Score: 4 · on AMD's Duron Birthed

    http://www.sharkyextre me.com/hardware/reviews/cpu/duron_700/

  41. Inefficiency of Banner Ads by The-Bus · · Score: 5 · on The Future of Making Online Revenue?
    I think the problem is how the 'effectiveness' of a banner ad is measured. I find it ridiculous that companies still follow this mantra of 'low-click throughs = bad'. It's like they are missing some basic information.

    First of all, advertising effectiveness is one of THE hardest things to measure in the field of business. There's no clear way (currently) to measure how 'good' your ad is. Sales, especially in consumer products, are influenced by many other forces (media, store promotions, seasonality, etc.). Ad executives already know that if sales for their soft-drink jump 15% while they are running an ad campaign, that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the campaign. Now, with the interactivity of banner ads, some people think that advertising can be "figured out". Guess what. It can't. Click-through rates do not mean I was interested in the ad. A click-through rate means I was interested in the ad, but it doesn't mean I was interested in purchasing the product. Maybe I was just clicking ads to support the website (I do that with smaller websites). Or maybe I clicked on something that looked like content by mistake (take a look at the side columns on the front page of Sharky Extreme). People need to realize that click-through rates aren't a good approximation of wether or not the advertising was succesful. Yes, it may be "the best estimate," but trust me, it's not a very good one.

    I also think that this 'click-through' mentality has created a lot of bad advertising ('Click on he Monkey to Win $20'). In order to have users click on ads, they throw in every possible gimmick that's in the book: animated GIFs, Java applets, sounds, etc.). As a firm, I would rather have a banner ad that informs, rather than entertains. If it can entertain while it informs, that's not a problem. But I'm still amazed at the number of banner ads that promise something ('Speed Up Defragmentation and 10 Other utilities!'), yet the ad itself never shows a brand, or a webpage. I'm not going to click on an ad to find out what it's about, that's something the ad should do. And if it can do that, it's done SOME service to the company or product it is promoting by increasing brand awareness.

    Oh boy, now I'm way off-topic.

    I think the Internet is going to stay, for the most part, free. As long as the service you are looking for can be found free on one site, you can go there. As long as /. keeps the site the way it is (free speech, free beer), I'm not going to any other site that wants me to pay for it's information. And when all the sites suddenly start charging, there's very little that will keep someone from making a free site of their own to steal customers.

    More importantly though, I don't think a lot of sites will be able to migrate to pay-per-view or a monthly charge, at least not for a lot of their main content. Once someone is getting something free, they're not too likely to enjoy paying for it (some exceptions to this case exist, obviously).

    If you've come this far and understood what I said, I applaud you. I lost myself after the second paragraph.

  42. Why DDR SDRAM is better than RDRAM by drinkypoo · · Score: 4 · on Rambus Gets Toshiba To Sign Patent Concession

    I've been hoping that someone would bring this up so that I could rehash the discussion we had on RDRAM back when this whole latency story broke. Below you will find a number of links to other places. Suspiciously, out of the holy trinity of hardware review sites (Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, and Sharky Extreme), the ONLY one that speaks up in favor of RDRAM and doesn't talk about its latency problems is Anandtech. Hmm...

    From Sharky Extreme on this page:

    The memory bus we are all used to operates at 100MHz and is 64-bits wide. Rambus' offering runs at 400MHz (transferring on the rising and falling edges of the clock) and is 16-bits wide. What this essentially translates into is a faster Rambus interface (in terms of frequency) with added latency because of the smaller "width" of the bus.

    From Tom's Hardware: This page tells what the theoretical bus bandwidth is for SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and RDRAM. I quote from the following page:

    Continuously managing multiple latencies would be a nightmare for the memory controller. In order to work around this, when a system is booted the RDRAM subsystem performs an involved initialization process to determine what the greatest latency is for the entire RDRAM system and adjusts all RDRAM devices to have the same latency as the slowest RDRAM device on the system. And remember that in a real world system each RIMM will have many RDRAM devices so this latency balancing is quite complex.

    (Emphasis is mine.) The next paragraph reads:

    An RDRAM chip typically has a normal 20 ns page read access latency. To balance latencies, these chips have a TPARM control register that can be programmed with a 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 or 10.0 ns of artificial compensating latency. This means that the normal chip latency can be as much as 50% higher than the minimal 20 ns often quoted as RDRAM's page read latency. Compare this with the fastest PC100 SDRAM with a latency of only 20 ns, but again remember that RDRAM has even other issues that bring its total latency much higher still.

    Finally, An article from Real World Tech explains just what the timings are like, why they occur, and why they mean that DDR SDRAM is going to be faster for the forseeable future. A very instructive paragraph on the general problems with RDRAM follows:

    RIMMs also generally require a metallic heat spreader enclosure to avoid an excessive localized heating of any single memory device. Finally, the computer system motherboard into which RIMMs plug must have tightly controlled electrical characteristics that match RIMM circuit cards to avoid unwanted impedance mismatches and signal reflections. This can require extra signal layers and power planes, which along with the tighter manufacturing tolerances, results in a more expensive computer motherboard.

    So let's see, RAMBUS memory has higher latency, less bandwidth, consumes more power and therefore dissipates more heat, and it's more expensive. It basically sucks compared to DDR SDRAM in every way... Where's the plus side?

  43. Why DDR SDRAM is better than RDRAM by drinkypoo · · Score: 4 · on Rambus Gets Toshiba To Sign Patent Concession

    I've been hoping that someone would bring this up so that I could rehash the discussion we had on RDRAM back when this whole latency story broke. Below you will find a number of links to other places. Suspiciously, out of the holy trinity of hardware review sites (Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, and Sharky Extreme), the ONLY one that speaks up in favor of RDRAM and doesn't talk about its latency problems is Anandtech. Hmm...

    From Sharky Extreme on this page:

    The memory bus we are all used to operates at 100MHz and is 64-bits wide. Rambus' offering runs at 400MHz (transferring on the rising and falling edges of the clock) and is 16-bits wide. What this essentially translates into is a faster Rambus interface (in terms of frequency) with added latency because of the smaller "width" of the bus.

    From Tom's Hardware: This page tells what the theoretical bus bandwidth is for SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and RDRAM. I quote from the following page:

    Continuously managing multiple latencies would be a nightmare for the memory controller. In order to work around this, when a system is booted the RDRAM subsystem performs an involved initialization process to determine what the greatest latency is for the entire RDRAM system and adjusts all RDRAM devices to have the same latency as the slowest RDRAM device on the system. And remember that in a real world system each RIMM will have many RDRAM devices so this latency balancing is quite complex.

    (Emphasis is mine.) The next paragraph reads:

    An RDRAM chip typically has a normal 20 ns page read access latency. To balance latencies, these chips have a TPARM control register that can be programmed with a 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 or 10.0 ns of artificial compensating latency. This means that the normal chip latency can be as much as 50% higher than the minimal 20 ns often quoted as RDRAM's page read latency. Compare this with the fastest PC100 SDRAM with a latency of only 20 ns, but again remember that RDRAM has even other issues that bring its total latency much higher still.

    Finally, An article from Real World Tech explains just what the timings are like, why they occur, and why they mean that DDR SDRAM is going to be faster for the forseeable future. A very instructive paragraph on the general problems with RDRAM follows:

    RIMMs also generally require a metallic heat spreader enclosure to avoid an excessive localized heating of any single memory device. Finally, the computer system motherboard into which RIMMs plug must have tightly controlled electrical characteristics that match RIMM circuit cards to avoid unwanted impedance mismatches and signal reflections. This can require extra signal layers and power planes, which along with the tighter manufacturing tolerances, results in a more expensive computer motherboard.

    So let's see, RAMBUS memory has higher latency, less bandwidth, consumes more power and therefore dissipates more heat, and it's more expensive. It basically sucks compared to DDR SDRAM in every way... Where's the plus side?

  44. Why DDR SDRAM is better than RDRAM by drinkypoo · · Score: 4 · on Rambus Gets Toshiba To Sign Patent Concession

    I've been hoping that someone would bring this up so that I could rehash the discussion we had on RDRAM back when this whole latency story broke. Below you will find a number of links to other places. Suspiciously, out of the holy trinity of hardware review sites (Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, and Sharky Extreme), the ONLY one that speaks up in favor of RDRAM and doesn't talk about its latency problems is Anandtech. Hmm...

    From Sharky Extreme on this page:

    The memory bus we are all used to operates at 100MHz and is 64-bits wide. Rambus' offering runs at 400MHz (transferring on the rising and falling edges of the clock) and is 16-bits wide. What this essentially translates into is a faster Rambus interface (in terms of frequency) with added latency because of the smaller "width" of the bus.

    From Tom's Hardware: This page tells what the theoretical bus bandwidth is for SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and RDRAM. I quote from the following page:

    Continuously managing multiple latencies would be a nightmare for the memory controller. In order to work around this, when a system is booted the RDRAM subsystem performs an involved initialization process to determine what the greatest latency is for the entire RDRAM system and adjusts all RDRAM devices to have the same latency as the slowest RDRAM device on the system. And remember that in a real world system each RIMM will have many RDRAM devices so this latency balancing is quite complex.

    (Emphasis is mine.) The next paragraph reads:

    An RDRAM chip typically has a normal 20 ns page read access latency. To balance latencies, these chips have a TPARM control register that can be programmed with a 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 or 10.0 ns of artificial compensating latency. This means that the normal chip latency can be as much as 50% higher than the minimal 20 ns often quoted as RDRAM's page read latency. Compare this with the fastest PC100 SDRAM with a latency of only 20 ns, but again remember that RDRAM has even other issues that bring its total latency much higher still.

    Finally, An article from Real World Tech explains just what the timings are like, why they occur, and why they mean that DDR SDRAM is going to be faster for the forseeable future. A very instructive paragraph on the general problems with RDRAM follows:

    RIMMs also generally require a metallic heat spreader enclosure to avoid an excessive localized heating of any single memory device. Finally, the computer system motherboard into which RIMMs plug must have tightly controlled electrical characteristics that match RIMM circuit cards to avoid unwanted impedance mismatches and signal reflections. This can require extra signal layers and power planes, which along with the tighter manufacturing tolerances, results in a more expensive computer motherboard.

    So let's see, RAMBUS memory has higher latency, less bandwidth, consumes more power and therefore dissipates more heat, and it's more expensive. It basically sucks compared to DDR SDRAM in every way... Where's the plus side?

  45. Everybody loves Daikatana! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5 · on Daikatana Sucks: It's Official

    Everybody loves Daikatana! Look at all these great reviews:

    • Sharky sez it rawks! yeah right
    • FiringSquad: "It is absolutely inferior in almost every conceivable way."
    • Damage Gaming say: "I gave it a 3 out of 5, and that's generous"
    • CTNews: "in the end all I got was frustration"
    • GameSpot gives it a 4.6 out of 10
    • DailyRadar: "Ultimate Gas Hands. Need we say more?"
    • GameProWorld damns with faint praise: "It's not that bad."
    • Computer Games Online gives it 1.5 stars - "amateurish epic lands with a spectacular thud"
    • PC.IGN: "It's finally here. And we reviewed it. What? What else do you want us to say?"
    • Honest3D - "You all know that I didn't enjoy Soldier of Fortune - well I liked it a lot more than Daikatana."
    • GameCenter gives it a 3 out of 10: "Daikatana is a waste of your time and money. Go play Half-Life again instead."
    • Happy Puppy: "It'll make you wish it never came out at all"
    • GameZone actually seemed to kind of like it
    • GameSeek really did like it! "f I had to describe this game in a word or two I would say that it is most entertaining!"
    • Ingava didn't hate it all that much
    • Game Revolution: "[A]lthough the game is nowhere near as good as it was promoted to be, ... it is not the worst game released this year. It is, however, stunningly outdated and mediocre."
    • Maximum PC: "Four years for this?... It sucks. It sucks big-time. In fact, it sucks so bad, we have to wonder what kind of curious monstrosity the developers could have created with an eight-year product cycle.
    • GameFan: "It's not as bad as you think."
    • PCGamers.Net: "Final Score: 70 out of 100, and I'm disappointed. Sigh."
    • GamePig: "Daikatana isn't a bad game, and was often fun to play. However, it's got several flaws that kept me from really enjoying it."

    If you're at all curious about how the hell this happened, GameSpot has a great article called "Knee Deep in a Dream: The Story of Daikatana" that gives all the gorey details. They also have a complete walk-through, though the concept kinda makes me shudder...

    --
    Anonymous cowards are looking forward to the DVD letterboxed release of Ishtar

  46. Re:Tom.. by puppet10 · · Score: 4 · on AMD's New Thunderbird Articles & Benchmarks
    I agree Tom does have an AMD bias (maybe with some legitamacy recently) but this is not a symptom of it however. The reason he separates out the BX133 as being different is that this is NOT an accepted configuration by Intel, in other words it is overclocked. The closest thing to this is the Solano board which comes out behind the Thunderbird. Additionally Intel and motherboard manufacturers tell you that running a BX chipset at 133MHz is not recommended (although Tom actually has gone into detail in previous reviews on which boards can do this well).

    A different point can be argued, which benchmarks should be run to measure performance. Here we can see some difference, at Sharky Extreme different benchmarks are used and slightly different conclusions are reached (Sharky's sometimes seems to bias toward Intel). However, the overall point of both is that the two chips are now basically the same in terms of performance for almost all purposes, and the Athlon is generally cheaper (and available at the moment).

  47. Simmer down now by Oscarfish · · Score: 1 · on AMD's New Thunderbird Articles & Benchmarks
    I wouldn't trust Tom's review. He's a whore for bad benchmarking (remember his GeForce flub which completely alienated him from other sites?). Here's Sharky's, and I'm waiting for the FiringSquad to do theirs.

    Don't rush out to buy your T-Birds just yet. To take advantage of the chip (or in many cases for it to work at all) you need to get a motherboard based on the KT133 chipset. That's KT, not KZ folks, because it was renamed at the last minute. KZ was an abbreviation for German concentration camps - now that's a naming flub, forget about Intel's "E" and "B" debacle!

    To be honest, I'm disappointed. Previously the cache divider had held Athlons back behind CuMine chips at higher speed, and now that it's integrated I would have figured the T-Bird would have been kicking ass all around the block. I'm sticking with my P III 700E overclocked to 1008 MHz for now...

    I'm watching Jerry Sanders, AMD's CEO, on CNBC TV right now talk about the T-Birds and I'm nonplussed.

  48. GENUINE Links for you... by Linkmastah · · Score: 5 · on AMD's New Thunderbird Articles & Benchmarks
    On a thread full of evil links, you can trust the Linkmastah to give you good links...

    The Register is running a story that AMD have unveiled the Thunderbird.

    CPU Review has a review of the Thunderbird here, and Sharky Extreme review it here.

  49. Speaking of 'big 3Dfx fans'... by taniwha · · Score: 1 · on 3dfx Delays Voodoo5 Schedule

    Have you seen this thing - it has 4 (yup count 'em 4) fans and an external power supply - I bet when you turn it on your tower takes off and hovers a few inches off the floor - and all the lights on the block dim. To be fair this seems to the the 6000 which I guess is the next-big-thing-TM after the just-recalled 5500 :-)

  50. why RDRAM? ACTUAL performace increase is minimal by slamouritz · · Score: 2 · on Create Your Own Psuedo-RDRAM

    Check out this test sharky did, were talking VERY minor speed increases. in the actuall apps(err, games :o)
    Check out the mem. specific stuff here, not to worry. This link works :o)

    Why does my links act(i would have said something else, but i hurts my karma!!) up? the html is correct, THANK YOU.. and the complete mb review, here

    Its interesting stuff, i know it saved me from running out getting a i820 based motherboard.