Phenom The '50-Series'

My first post for the start of May is about AMD Phenom Series. As we all know that the first generation of Phenom which are Phenom 9500 and Phenom 9600 does not make a big impact into the high end computing. With a problem in the processor make it a little bit hard to be chosen compare with Intel processor, Intel Quad Core Q6600 that have more high rating benchmark than both Phenom.

Then after having a tough start for Phenom, AMD has released the 50-series which are 9550, 9750 and 9850. The '50' behind means the processor is free from the TLB erratum problem and Phenom 9850 is a black edition processor for ease to overclock. What I can say here, the Phenom 9750 can compete with Q6600 but for me, AMD is a way behind Intel because Q6600 is quite an old processor. The thing that AMD have my respect is they released the first native quad core that deserve to get high attention from the world. Its mean that AMD have high capability to create something new, to jump into the new technology even though R&D for AMD is not really big comparing to Intel. Native quad core means the all core for the processor is working together natively. For example, Q6600 is a quad core processor but its basically just two Dual Core that being combine in a single 'Die'. Okay, enough for the native quad core. Here comes the review:

*Phenom 9X50 detail:

• Core Clock:
  • 9850: 2.5GHz
    
  • 9750: 2.4GHz
    
  • 9550: 2.2GHz
• L1 Cache: 64KB L1 data, 64KB L1 instruction per core, exclusive
  
• L2 cache: 512KB per core, exclusive
  
• L3 cache: 2MB accessible by all cores
  
• Hyper Transport and Northbridge Frequency:
  • 9850: 2GHz (4MT/s)
    
  • 9750 and 9550: 1.8GHz (3.6MT/s)
• TDP:
  • 9850 and 9750: 125W
    
  • 9550: 95W

*from www.bit-tech.net

What I want to comment is the TDP. The TDP for all of the processor is not quite 'green' for AMD. The thing is AMD is catching up with Intel and hopefully AMD will give a good fight with Intel for a better technology. Who knows what will happen, maybe next year we will get a 8-core processor. :P

GPU : Xbox 360 vs PS3

Both of the console which is Xbox 360 and Playstation3 already a well known console in the gaming industry. But not many knows about the graphical processing unit in both machine. So right now I will give a little comparison between Xbox 360 that use ATI Xenos and Playstation3 that use nVidia RSX. From what I've read, Xenos is more likely to ATI Radeon HD 2000 series and nVidia RSX is more likely to GeForce 7000 (G70).

Xbox 360 : Xenos

• 500 MHz
• 16 vertex fetch units with built-in tesselation
• 48 unified shaders (can do vertices or pixel)
• All 48 have to be doing either verticesor pixels in one clock cycle
• Can change from cycle to cycle
• Rumored to have more than 48 perchip; gets higher yields
• 16 texture interpolating (filtering) units
• 16 texture fetch (addressing) units
• 8 render output units 10 MB video buffer eRAM die includes some custom logic for color, alpha compositing, Z/stencil buffering, and anti-aliasing
• Does not include textures
• 256 GB/sec bandwith to GPU
• Currently on separate die on same package
• Guess will later probably put on same die
• Buffer in eRAM is copied to main memory for output
• GPU renders for a 720p,16:9 display

PS3 : RSX “Reality Synthesizer”

• 550 MHz
• 24 pixel shaders
• 8 vertex shaders
• 24 texture filtering units
• 8 texture addressing units
• 8 render output units
• Video buffer part of 256 MB video RAM
• Cell FlexIO bus interface
• 20 GB/s read to the Cell and XDR memory
• 15 GB/s write to the Cell and XDR memory
• Display up to full 1080p

* The one in bold is most likely the advantage of the GPU.

Conclusion here, both GPUs have their own advantages and disadvantages. For overall performance and supporting future technologies, I think Playstation3 will beat Xbox 360 since blu-ray win against HD-DVD.

ATI Catalyst 8.3 release

Its been a while since i updated my blog. Now I want to give a review about the new ATI driver which is Catalyst version 8.3. For this driver release, ATI have unlock the multi-GPU performance for Windows Vista which is the -quad and the triple-GPU. As I reviewed before, ATI graphic card have the highest resolution to view 2560x1600 dpi compare to NVIDIA. Higher resolution means gamers can have a very smooth and nice display thus the game will be more realistic in term of display. In term of gameplay, its up to the game itself. :P.

In advancing the Multi-GPU Gaming with CrossFireX through three- and four-GPU configurations in CrossFireX, gamers can see multi-GPU performance scaling across a range of today’s most popular DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 games on Windows Vista - up to 3.2 times the performance over a single GPU2 in some scenarios. The flexible architecture of CrossFireX allows for the mixing and matching of high-performing ATI Radeon GPUs. Any ATI Radeon HD 3850, ATI Radeon HD 3870 or ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards can be combined to harness the power of up to four GPUs.

The new features in this ATI Catalyst 8.3 :

• DirectX 10.1 and Tessellation Support: ATI Catalyst 8.3 marks the first time DirectX 10.1 support for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 series, and tessellation support for the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series have been made available to developers.
• Anti-Aliasing enhancements: ATI Catalyst introduces anti-aliasing support for all Unreal Engine 3.0-based games running in DirectX 9 mode. ATI Catalyst also allows users to enable the Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing filters
• (box and wide tent) while running in CrossFire Super Anti-Aliasing modes, providing superior image quality.
• HydraVision support for Windows Vista: HydraVision support is now included in ATI Catalyst Control Center for Windows Vista. HydraVision enables users to efficiently organize multiple applications across single or multiple displays. You may configure up to nine virtual desktops, and divide the Windows Vista desktop into definable areas helping to easily move and organize multiple applications.
• Digital Panel GPU image scaling: For those using widescreen displays, ATI Catalyst now allows users to enable GPU-accelerated scaling to maintain the aspect ratio of the display while providing superior image quality.
• Advanced Video Quality controls: With ATI Catalyst 8.3, multimedia enthusiasts get further control over video quality. Using the new edge enhancement feature, the level of sharpness of video content can be adjusted. Through the new noise reduction feature, ghosting artifacts can be removed while preserving the details of the original video. The new slider controls can be found in the All Settings page of the Avivo Video tab found in ATI Catalyst Control Center.

So for ATI Radeon's user, you can have this driver at
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

Before I end this post, I give a benchmark made by AMD comparing ATI Radeon GPUs with Nvidia GeForce GPUs:
Platform
Cost per 3DMark determined based on AMD internal benchmark results in 3DMark06 v1.1.1.0 at 1920x1200 4xAA 8xAF on an ASUS P5E (X38) or EVGA 780i platform running an Intel X9650, 2GB DDR2-800 (5-5-5-12 timings), Windows Vista RTM 64bit, and 8.471-Beta2_080214a-059709E-ATI or ForceWare 169.28beta.
Price
Based on the average price at Newegg.com as of March 3, 2008, two ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards at $900, and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX cards at $900
Score
Two ATI Radeon 3870 X2 cards combine to score 16412 3DMarks while two GeForce 8800 GTX cards combine to score 12748 3DMarks resulting in the two ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 cards delivering 28% more performance for the same price as the Nvidia solution.

To sum up, ATI Radeon wins. But let us wait for the GeForce 9800, and I'm pretty sure Nvidia will come out for something that is more outstanding.
For the conclusion, competition in technology will never ends. :P

GeForce 8800 Ultra | 8800 GTX

After doing a review about ATI Graphic Card : HD 3870, now the time for nVidia graphic card which is the GeForce 8800 Ultra and GeForce 8800 GTX. This card is faster than HD 3870 in term of memory clock which is 2.16 GHz memory clock and for the core speed this cards can go up to 612 MHz core clock. The cooler also is quieter than previous card, GeForce 8800 GTX. From what I've read, this card is overclocked a bit from GeForce 8800 GTX so this mean this card is a bit faster than 8800 GTX and the perfomance increase about 10% to 15 %. So here is the difference between 8800 Ultra and 8800 GTX:

GeForce 8800 Ultra



* Core Speed : 612MHz
* Shader Speed :1500MHz
* Memory Speed : 1080MHz actual|(2.16GHz effective)
* Memory Capacity : 768 MB
* Memory Interface : 384 bit

** Price : $631 - $781

GeForce 8800 GTX



* Core Speed : 512MHz
* Shader Speed :1350MHz
* Memory Speed : 900MHz actual|(1.8GHz effective)
* Memory Capacity : 768 MB
* Memory Interface : 384 bit

** Price : $450 - $680

Hurm, 8800 Ultra surely a bit faster than 8800 GTX but the price range between these 2 cards quite big. For the best case scenario, you can get 8800 GTX for $450 meanwhile $631 for 8800 Ultra and the difference between the price is $181. So, for gamers out there who don't like the sound made by GTX can go get this GeForce 8800 Ultra for extra fast, quieter and less power consumption. :)

Graphic Card : nVidia GeForce 8-series Review

Ok. After a few post about ATI, right now I will right about latest graphic card series from nVidia which is the 8-series. The graphic card that fall into this series is listed below:

• GeForce 8800 Ultra - 768MB/384bit
  
• GeForce 8800 GTX - 768MB/384bit
• GeForce 8800 GTS - 640MB@320MB/320bit
• GeForce 8800 GT - 512MB/256bit
• GeForce 8600 GTS - 256MB/128bit
• GeForce 8600 GT - 256MB/128bit
• GeForce 8500 GT - 256MB/128bit
• GeForce 8400 GS - 256MB/64bit

The 8-series graphic card from nVidia have a full support for Microsoft DirectX 10 and DirectX 9 which can give the gamers the best performance without disregard the graphic realism. To add more on it, this GeForce 8-series graphic card have improve the display output from 8-bit per channel for previous nVidia card to 10-bit per channel. To make it reach the expectation of gamers or even better go beyond it, this series also support SLi (Scalable Link Interface) except for 8400 GPUs.

NVIDIA has also introduced new anti-aliasing methods in this 8-series that includes the ability of the GPU's Reader Output Units to perform both Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) and HDR lighting at the same time, thus various limitations of previous generations. Apart from that, nVidia also includes NVIDIA PureVideo HD² technology that provides a very outstanding Blu-ray and HD DVD movie picture quality.

ATI RADEON HD 3400 and 3600 series unleashed

AMD unleashes the ATI Radeon HD 3400 and ATI Radeon HD 3600 series to market with the price of $49-$65 suggested e-tail pricing (SEP) for HD 3400 and USD $79-$99 SEP for the ATI Radeon HD 3600 series. Both of the graphic cards ahve full support for DirectX 10.1, PCI Express 2.0 and DisplayPort and both of this series built on 55 nm process technology. This technology provide exceptional performance-per-watt for a quiet and power-efficient experience at unbelievable price points.

Unified video decoder (UVD) technology also available in these series and make the Blu-ray or HD DVD disc playback can be enjoyed in full HD glory (1080p). This will ensure the movies play back run smoothly with incredible detail. Apart from that, a very outstanding home theater environment can be created using the built-in support for six channel (5.1) Dolby Digital surround audio transmission through HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface). In addition, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3450 will support fully silent (passive) cooling, delivering the ideal solution for home theater PCs. You can imagine yourself playing games at home theater.

For gamers, the good news is both series will boast up the performance of ATI CrossFireX, which delivers the option of multi-GPU upgradability. So, apart from HD 3870 and HD 3850 series, these new series also support CrossFireX. ATI Hybrid Graphics will allow the combination of an ATI Radeon HD 3400 GPU with a compatible AMD 7-Series chipset to provide exceptional 3D performance as part of the upcoming AMD mainstream high-definition "Cartwheel" codenamed desktop platform. With support for Microsoft DirectX 10.1 support, gamers can play the top HD games with life-like 3D graphics, stunning realism, and great shading effects. Full support for PCI Express® 2.0 technology allows for twice the throughput of current PCI Express cards , which means gamers will be ready for demanding graphic applications.

Crysis : Short Review

This game have been developed by Crytek (the same developer who create Far Cry) using a very impressive engine which is CryEngine. Crysis have been developed using the second version of the engine and the game is set in the year 2020 with a very outstanding graphic that brings the gaming world of first-person-shooter into a new level. This game need a very high requirement to give full excitement to the player.

Starting of the game,you will be sent to an island at North Korea. Here, you will be introduced to the nanosuit and the sandbox combat. After familiarize with those thing, you will start encountering the first enemy, which is the North Korean's Soldier. The vehicle explosions is very convincing, so do the way of ammunition cooks off and smoke emerge from weapon. Currently, I think Crysis provide the most realistic graphic rendering in the gaming world.

The game graphic can be increase when using latest graphic card and windows vista with DirectX 10 (currently only windows vista support directX 10). When playing Crysis with DirectX 10, I dare to say that the graphic is unbeatable.

CrossfireX | Quad SLi - Comparison

In this competitive world of gaming, graphic card manufacturer always comes up with newer technology to enhance the best experience in game. This post will cover about the technology provided by ATI Radeon and nVidia GeForce which is the CrossfireX by ATI and SLi by nVidia.

CrossfireX Technology
This technology enable user to have 4 graphic card on a motherboard. This graphic card need to be in the same family and for now only HD 3870 and HD 3850 support this technology. It means that you can have 2 HD 3870 and 2 HD 3850 on a motherboard.

CrossfireX is a Native Crossfire. The maximum resolution for Native crossfire is 2560x2048!! These are technique/modes used when rendering image:

• Scissor : Due to you can put different card on a motherboard (with limitation of the same family), there will be a faster video card and this will make rendering time is unbalance between graphic cards. To deal with this problem, Crossfire enable dynamic load balancing so the faster graphic card will render a bigger portion of image than the slower graphic card.
• SuperTiling: In this technique, the screen will be divided into several small portion (tiles) and each graphic card will handle the available tiles. Load balancing also being used in this technique.
• Alternate Frame Rendering : The first card render a frame. The second card render the next frame.
• Super AA : Increase image quality rather than performance.

Quad SLi Technology
For this technology, it doesn't use 4 graphic card but it use two GeForce 7950GX2 with 2 GPU on each card. In the Quad SLi technology, each card must have the same GPU but currently only GeForce 7950GX2 support the Quad SLi technology.

The maximum resolution for Quad SLi is 2560x1600.
The technique used:

• SFR (Split Frame Rendering), where each frame is divided in two and each half is sent to a different GPU to be processed. This is the mode used by SLI configurations using two video cards.
  
• Alternate Frame Rendering - Same as CrossfireX. The first card render a frame. The second card render the next frame.
• AFR of SFR. Here two GPUs process the first frame under SFR mode while the other two GPUs are processing the next frame also under SFR mode.
• SLI AA (Anti-Aliasing). This mode isn’t intended to improve gaming performance but increasing image quality. So far this mode does not work under Windows Vista.

Ok. Thats all from me, for now. Actually there are more information about those technologies but here I just give a summary of the technologies.

reference: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/391

Custom Built Computer

As I said in previous post, I will give the specification for a custom built computer that I made it myself. It will cost around $920 or RM 3000.
Here is the specification:

Mobo : MSI MS7376 (Quad CF,1394,ESata) | AMD790X | PCIEx4
Processor : AM2 Phenom 9500 Quad Core 2200Mhz
Graphic Card : Powercolor ATI HD3870|512MB/256bit
HDD : WesternD SATA 400GB
RAM : 2 x Kingston DDR2 1GB
Power Supply : ATRIX-500T Transparent Blue - Real Power BTX
Chasis : PowerLogic Atrix A5000G

This custom built computer only cost approximately RM3000. This cost only for the hardware and does not include software.

So chill up with this custom built computer (CPU only - LCD,mouse,keyboard excluded). Want me to built this for you? =P

ATI Graphic Card : HD 3870

In previous post, we talk about Codename:Spider and the graphic card used is HD 3800 series. So in this post I'll explain more about HD 3870.

The graphic card : ATI Radeon HD 3870
This graphic card have a memory of 512 MB with 256 bit color and the memory clock of 1126 MHz. This card is not as fast as Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GT but the price for this card I can say that it is affordable for a graphic card that can support the next-generation features that will be included inside Windows Vista SP1 which is DirectX 10.1. Apart from that, this graphic card does not consume high power so it is a power saving graphic card due to implementation of RV670 technology inside the card.
Basically this graphic card have the high features and technology with an affordable price.

Coming up after this post - RM 3000 CPU, custom made by me. (just the specification because I don't have money to buy it right now). In this future post I will show you what you can get for RM 3000.
* Tips : For people who want to know the price in dollar, you can type this in google search bar -> 3000 ringgit in dollar. It will show you the equivalent price in dollar.

Codename: Spider - Review

Codename:Spider is a platform that run all AMD component from the processor to graphic card to chipset. Here I will summarize each of the component.

Processor: Phenom Quad Core
AMD have released their Quad Core processor which is under Phenom series called Agena. The 'Spidey' used Phenom 9000 series for its processing unit. There are 2 types of 9000 series which is:

• Phenom 9500 : 2.2GHz | 4 x 512KB L2 Cache | 2MB L3 Cache
• Phenom 9600 : 2.3GHz | 4 x 512KB L2 Cache | 2MB L3 Cache

Basically the difference is the clock speed. 2.2 GHz and 2.3GHz.

Graphic Card: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Ok, for this 'Spidey' AMD used ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series and I'll give a brief description about HD 3870 and HD 3850.

• HD 3870 - 2.25 GHz clock speed | 512 MB memory | 256 Bit | Crossfire
  
• HD 3850 - 1.66 GHz clock speed | 256 MB memory | 256 bit | Crossfire

Thats pretty much of difference.

Chipset : 7 series chipset
We have 2 chipset type here. AMD 790FX Chipset designed for high-performance gamers and professional overclockers and AMD 790X Chipset designed for gamers and HD enthusiasts. The difference? :

• 790FX : Quad Graphics on a single motherboard (ATI CrossFireX™ Support)
  
• 790 X : Dual Graphics (ATI CrossFireX™ Support)

This 'Spidey' is worth it to buy. Have a better review (self revision - :P) by searching it on the internet.
Try search this -> CODENAME:SPIDER review
or you want something specific, try this -> HD 3870 review performance

Thats all from me now. If I got something new about 'Spidey', I'll update it here.

Peace ~