- Thursday, 12 November 2009
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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes - E.W. Dijkstra
9600GT SLI trumps HD3870X2
EXPREVIEW HAS AN interesting test set aside for us. With the performance figures of the 9600GT, the ubergeeks weren’t satisfied until they could get SLI numbers up. Not only that, but they also flung an HD 3870X2 into the fray. According to the site, as a 9600GT SLI combo will run you 50 bucks cheaper than an X2, facing off SLI vs. Crossfire seemed a no-brainer. Well, much to the surprise of many, you can see here how 9600GT SLI delivers better performance than an 3870X2 in non-synthetic benchmarks. X2 still has a marginal lead in 3DMark, though.
If you’re a HD buff, you might be interested in what Hardspell has to offer you. They’ve taken Intel’s new E8200 CPU and benched it against its gran, uncles, father, mother, brothers, cousins and even members of the other clan. The 2.66GHz Wolfdale-based CPU beats the heck out of its relatives, except the E6850 and E6750. In the AMD camp, everything above the 5600+ beats the E8200 hands-down. Interesting how real life benchmarks tend to show different results, eh? Read it here.
Chappies at Benchark Reviews have been enjoying quick boots and great performance on a sample Mtron MOBI MSD-SATA3025, a “value” 16GB SSD. Although SSD is still quite expensive, and will remain so for some time, This Mtron kit is seen as the choice SSD for mobile users, even though it’s only 16GB in capacity. Performance is nothing to be ashamed of, especially when they were facing off the MOBI with a WD 10K Raptor. You might want to skip the first couple of pages as they are pastes of Mtron documents.
Fudzilla’s Kucharik has been busy in the lab. Drawn to an E8400 like moths to a fire, Fudzilla has benched the heck out of (a retail) one and achieved a mas sive overclock (not with the stock cooler, of course). Pumping a little bit more voltage to the VCore, 1.6V to be more precise, it got to 4.4GHz. Fudo’s chaps test it on 4 different mobos, each one with its particular pros and cons, but the overall results earned it their top value award. Read the Overclocking odyssey here.
Coolink is a manufacturer of ... uhm... cooling systems. However, they differ from the usual formula by going after the smaller component cooling, like hard drives, chipsets and now graphics cards. It isn’t expensive either. Hardware Canucks had a go with their GFXchilla, a heat-pipe/fans combo for your graphics card. Even though HC found some minor glitches, the cooling performance is above-average and acoustically the low-profile dual 80mm fans are nowhere to be heard. The price is right, it seems. Just make sure you check the card compatibility list before you buy one. Read all about it.
Apple’s MacBook Pro is on collision course with an Asus Lamborghini VX2S down at XBit (this is a review we’d like to see done by Jeremy Clarkson...) Actually, according to the author, Ilya, the MacBook seems to be way ahead of the game in oh-so many aspects, battery life included. 3D performance is surprisingly decent for a laptop – for both of them, actually. Draw your own conclusions here.
Niko down at Red and Blackness received a nice little piece of kit in the mail. Remember that GSkill DDR2 on an 8-layer PCB? Well, they’ve tested it and they’ve come to appreciate the new design. It’s fast and it overclocks better than the competition. Read it here. µ
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This is the reason I quit buying Nvidia for my self and the people that I build Machines for.
Over the years I have seen Nvidia do some things that they got caught doing, and here again it is a weighted test. 
When I set up two machines ,one Nvidia and one ATI and let the users see what I mean about the picture,even if the Nvidia's speed is a few frames faster they will take the ATI! You can have the Nvidia cards , I will never buy another one after getting bit by one of there tricks, I just can not trust them to there word.
Testing 2 games, and specifically leaving out the shader heavy ones?

Seems a little pre-determined what the article is trying to showing. Interstingly, the GTS-512 also get blown away often by a wider margin, but no mention of the GF8800GTX/Ultra results despite using it in the pricing scale.

It's hard to say anyone ownz as long as you need to limit the test to show that. 

Also any review/reviewer that is still surprised that 3Dmark doesn't match up with game test results leave me wondering where they've been for the past 3-4 years?

Also explain to me how that review doesn't also make the GF9600GT look the equal to the HD3850 in it's group of tests, surprisingly with the AMD card taking the OpenGL Quake Wars.

Guess the you must be playing old maid or granny-style Euchre where there isn't a 'no-trump' call and you need to pick one even if there isn't an obvious call.

Main thing as always, look at the game(s) you play and then buy the best performer there.
I usually can count on you guys to link to quality reviews, but the ATI v Nvidia article you linked to is quite poor.
I’d like to start by saying that the SLI results were very good and Nvidia have obviously sort the SLI scaling problems out and that bodes well for the remaining 9000 series.

The ATI vs Nvidia comparisons were very biased against ATI.
It has been consistently shown that the latest ATI cards are better at higher resolutions and do not like AA. Its almost like these test were deliberately done to trip up the ATI cards. The only time they dont use AA is at lower resolutions where the ATI cards dont perform well anyway.
At higher resolutions where the ATI cards would be expected to shine the testers scupper their performance by invariably using AA.
No trumps here...pretty close match...
Sli barely beats the radeon with full 4AA and 16 AF, the testers do not do a thorough testing...
everyone knows that is the radeon arch weakness...besides the fact that most users dont use over 4AA and 4AF so lets see alot more benches.
Radeons have the most raw power...
turn up the effects for nvidia to catches up
atm Nvidia is powning anything, 2 mid range cards, are beating ATI's flagship model LOL. I think Nvidia are doing well to stay 1 step ahead of ATI

Nvidia and intel are enjoying the same sucsess, but not because of better engineering, product placment. the competing companies cant even take a dump in the right way without screwing it up, once Dammit get phenom out, with 100% quality and reliability, and the spider platform, and a decent card, then I would like to see how intel/nvidia are doing, but at the moment times are good, for chippzilla and graphzilla
Mr HSU is sitting in his mansion, by the pool with a pinacolata, otelini is taking dating lessons or something who knows what these billionaires get up to in the good times.
Id like to see MTV cribbs do a piece on the owners of the big silicon co's, and M/soft ect, they must have some bueaties
Regardless of what card beats NVidia, the whole comparison is moot.
NVidia has been squeezing every cent they can out of the current lineup for what, 2 years? It's called Sandbagging, I'm pretty sure.
In fact, even after that time, they're still making money from the same cards and ATI has finally "caught up".
I'm sure all the time they had to party and develop, has something left in store. But, what would ATI have for a response? If NVidia actually released something they've been fine-tuning for 2 years, ATI would shit eggrolls. 
I wouldn't doubt that right now they're letting them enjoy some much-needed competition before dropping a deuce in their wheaties.
For all of you complaining about highlighting ATI's weakness, it is ATI's problem and of course if Nvidia does not have that weakness, it is better. And I'm sure everyone will use AA whenever they can as it gives you a much smoother picture.

So too bad for ATI, they should just fix their problem or be bashed by reviewers. Nobody defended Nvidia when it was having problems with HDR + AA...
I don't think AA is totally ATI's problem. The ATI cards handle AA differently than the nvidia cards do, and games have to be designed to use it correctly for ATI. Thats why so many games favor Nvidia in benchmarks... because Nvidia makes their "deals" with these game companies to favor nvidia cards (all the stupid annoying logos you see when you start a game).

As you notice, Nvidia has yet to add directx 10.1 support which standardizes how AA is handled. They are also milking their cutomers for every last dime in upgrade they can.

When I spend over $200 on a new video card, it dang well better have the latest official directx support in it. Which Nvidia doesn't, and probably won't for a long time.
Re Qoute "AA is ATI's problem
For all of you complaining about highlighting ATI's weakness, it is ATI's problem and of course if Nvidia does not have that weakness, it is better. And I'm sure everyone will use AA whenever they can as it gives you a much smoother picture."

At high resolutions which the ATI cards are best at you do not need AA as the image quality is so fine. Its only at the lower resolutions where Nvidia are better that you need AA to disguise the blockyness.

Most sensible gamers run there games at the highest resolution they can.
Anyway the next couple of years is going to see Nvidia between a rock and a hard place.
Seems there plan to keep SLI to themselves only for use on their chipset motherboards has rebounded BIG TIME. 
Intel may well deny them the rights to make chipsets for forthcoming Nehalem processor and consequently SLI and Nvidia chipsets would be confined to AMD processors which at the moment are second rate.
So they will take a big market share hit which should soften them up considerably by the time that Intel releases its own discrete graphics card based on larabee...BY BY Nvdia.