The PC gaming industry has seen many graphics chips come and go. Companies like 3dfx, S3, Trident, Intel, nVidia, ATI and others have tapped into the gaming industry and have produced 3d accellerators for the PC, and most of them have gone. There are only two major players in the PC graphics industry: nVidia and ATI.

These two graphics juggernauts unveil new products every year, which effectively doubles the effective processing power over the previous generation. This ruthless competition is both good and bad news for consumers: Good in that faster technology becomes cheaper, and we have many options. Bad in that the expensive video card you just purchased will remain bleeding edge for only a few months.

The latest battle comes just in time for the 2008 holiday season. ATI's 4800 series goes up against nVidia's GTX line of cards. Sapphire is one of the more well-known manufacturers of ATI-based video cards, and they have a secret weapon in the world of single-GPU video cards. Their 4870 Toxic video card not only comes pre-overclocked, but is stacked with 512MB of the fastest GDDR5 memory, which is certainly enough for today's gamer.

Read the full review at OCModShop.com

Cooler Master Introduces the new Sileo 500, a new design focused on quiet computing and ease of use. We'll look forward to reviewing this new chassis for you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek:

Armed with its long tradition of technological innovation and impeccable craftsmanship in stylistic design, Cooler Master is proudly introducing its latest quiet mid-tower chassis. Sileo 500 is the supreme embodiment of silence and elegance.

The Promise of Quiet Computing

Sileo 500 is constructed with silent features in mind which includes: acoustic foam sound insulation material around the chassis, anti-vibration pads inside the detachable HDD trays, and noise reduction pads for the power supply, to insulate any possible system noise from escaping the chassis.

Elegant Design

The modern philosophy of life is simple, practical yet full of style. The exterior design of Sileo 500 focuses on minimalism and practicality. Aluminum bezel of the case and the sharp vertical LED front light create a characteristic and chic look for Sileo 500. There are subtle ventilation holes between side and front panels to achieve superior thermal solution. The design of spacious interior is to accommodate various computer components.

Ease-of-Use Design

Establishing a user-friendly environment has always been the key for the Cooler Master engineering team. Sileo 500 provides users tool-free 5.25” and 3.5” drive bays for easy installation and maintenance. There is also easy access front I/O panel with support for e-SATA.





About Cooler Master

Cooler Master was founded to provide the best thermal solutions to our customers worldwide. Since its establishment a decade ago, we continue to invest in product development in order to provide the leading-edge innovations to people and businesses. Cooler Master’s enclosure technology line-up includes heat sinks and fans, chassis, power supplies, function panels and accessories. Cooler Master has its headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, with global branch offices located in Europe, America and APAC, so that we can offer to our customers the best service in time. For more information on Cooler Master, please visit www.coolermaster.com.

Source: Cooler Master Press Release

Fantastic article.

Source: AnandTech

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our General ATI Radeon Discussion forum!

Our friends at Palit, who usually aren't happy with the reference design of video cards anyway, have come up with a new version of the HD 4870 X2, with two fans blowing on a pair of heatpipe coolers to cool off those cookin' GPUs. Taking up three expansion slots, this may be the largest gaming video card ever built. Billed by Palit as "the first custom designed HD 4870 X2", the card not only sports custom cooling, but also a Palit-designed PCB, and four different output interfaces. In addition, they have overclocked the 2 gigs of GDDR5 memory. Read on as we check out the Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe!

Read the full review at ThinkComputers.com

Following on from the release of their first "GeForce Power Pack" back in August, NVIDIA are at it again, launching another bundle of the latest demos and applications that show off the CUDA and PhysX capabilities of their range of graphics boards. Having already examined the CUDA side of this equation in recent weeks, Elite Bastards have instead chosen to use the release of the GeForce Power Pack 2 as an opportunity to take a second look a GPU-based PhysX processing, in light of both advances introduced via the latest GeForce 180 series drivers as well as the opportunity for some additional testing thanks to some elements included within this pack.

That leaves us with some more PhysX related investigation and discussion, and to be honest it couldn't be a better time to re-evaluate this particular functionality. For starters, we now have a brand-spanking new Core i7 setup, which gives us a more powerful CPU to put up against any GPU-based physics acceleration. Then there's the recent WHQL release of NVIDIA's GeForce 180 series drivers, which includes the ability to move all PhysX processing to a second discrete GPU (which doesn't need to be configured via SLI, meaning it can be used on any motherboard with two PCI Express 16x slots), leaving your primary graphics board free to perform normal 3D rendering.

With this in mind, we'll be making use of the contents of both GeForce Power Packs to check out the state of PhysX acceleration with NVIDIA's GeForce 180 series drivers, using both a GeForce GTX 260 graphics board in isolation, as well as paired with a slower (but more than capable for PhysX processing alone) GeForce 9600 GSO to run PhysX processing while the GeForce GTX 260 handles 3D rendering. Read on to see how these combinations fare when coupled with our Intel Core i7 940 system.

Read the full article at Elite Bastards.

Windows market share dives below 90% for first time
Posts biggest one-month drop in the past two years; Mac OS X gains ground

December 1, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp.'s Windows OS last month took its biggest market share dive in the past two years, erasing gains made in two of the past three months and sending the operating system's share under 90% for the first time, an Internet measurement company reported today.

In November, 89.6% of users who connected to the Web sites that Net Applications Inc. monitors did so from systems powered by Windows, a drop of 0.84 of a percentage point from October. The decrease was the largest slip by Windows in the past two years and easily bested other recent down months, including May 2008 and December 2007, when Windows lost 0.51 and 0.63 percentage points, respectively.

Source & Full Article: Computerworld

Discussion Thread: Operating Systems

We previously had looked at the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and Radeon HD 4670, but if you are looking for a graphics card that's positioned between the two and costs less, there is the Radeon HD 4650. The Radeon HD 4650 is clocked the same as the Radeon HD 4550, but is based upon the RV730PRO GPU and is able to provide a bit more processing power than the lesser RV710 solution. Sapphire though manufactures a Radeon HD 4650 graphics card that operates well beyond the reference core and memory frequencies for the RV730PRO and sells it at a very affordable price. In this article we are seeing how well the Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 512MB OC graphics card can perform under Linux.

Full Review: Phoronix.com

Phoronix gives us a status update Steam games in Linux.

Earlier this year we shared that Valve's Source Engine is coming to Linux after receiving some information that pointed in this direction. In addition, a year ago Valve Software was publicly looking for a senior software engineer to port Windows-based games to Linux platform. There have long been rumors and hopes among Linux users that Steam games would become natively available for Linux, but we have additional confirmation that Valve Software has ported their Steam game client to Linux. In Valve's most recent title, Left 4 Dead, there are shared Linux libraries shipping alongside this Windows game client.

Full Article @ Phoronix

Discussion Thread: Linux Forum

After taking a look at my last Sapphire video card and being totally impressed, I was more than willing to take a look at their latest offering in the 4800 series family. The HD 4830 is basically a cut down version of Sapphire's HD 4850, and by doing so, Sapphire is able to offer it at a much lower price point while offering pretty close to the same overall performance, or so that's what Sapphire is saying anyways. We'll find out just how well (or bad) the card does soon enough.

So, enough of the formalities. Let's get on to looking at the card and see just how well it’ll stand up to the Nvidia competition. It’ll also be interesting to see just how well this little card overclocks, considering I was able to max out ATi’s Catalyst Control Center Overdrive utility with Sapphires HD 4870 Toxic.

Full Review @ Bjorn3D

In the Radeon HD 4870 family there have been numerous overclocked models released in the last few months but few go to the extreme shown by todays review product, the PowerColor Liquid Cooling Solution HD4870.

Source: DriverHeaven

After a rather disappointing HD 3000 series, ATI took the world by surprise with the HD 4000 generation of graphics cards. Since the launch of the HD 4000 series back in June, ATI has reclaimed its presence in the market and has been steadily eating away at Nvida's marketshare. Benchmark Reviews has had the opportunity to review several cards from the HD 4800 series lineup and today we look at one of the newest additions to the family: the Radeon HD 4830. This particular model, the EAH4830, comes to us from Asus and sports a custom cooler design and factory overclocked memory. We'll put it through its paces and find out how it compares to its two closest siblings; the HD 4670 and the HD 4850.

Source: Benchmark Reviews

press release>

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/081126/20081125005712.html?.v=1

This is not a bad deal for those whom are still resistant to change.

For years after motherboards first started donning PCI Express slots, graphics card vendors continued to cater to technophobes (and broke college students) by offering AGP cards. Now, one of those companies is encouraging late adopters finally to make the switch.

BFG has dropped us a line saying it's offering free upgrades to users of its AGP graphics cards. The offer is only available in the U.S. and for a "limited time," and participants will need to send back a "BFG AGP card in good, working condition." The upgrade choices seem tantalizing, though: someone with an old GeForce 6800 GS or 7800 GS could get a free upgrade to a GeForce 9600 GT OC 512MB. For a nominal fee of $50, BFG will send that same user a GeForce 9800 GT OC 512MB.

Source: The Tech Report

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our General Graphics forum!

Unless someone wants to spend considerable money there are really only two options for gaming enthusiasts, two cards which provide performance high enough to play the latest games at high detail without requiring a bank loan, the GeForce GTX 260 and Radeon HD 4870 1Gb. The question is, which is the fastest now that many driver revisions have passed since release?

Source: DriverHeaven

We’ve been spending some quality time with the folks at AMD today in sunny Austin, TX. The team here has been giving us a run-down on their upcoming Phenom II processor along with the enthusiast platform they’re calling “Dragon”. In short, the Dragon platform is a combination of an AMD Phenom II X4 processor, Radeon 4800 Graphics cards and an AMD 7 series chipset based motherboard.

Source: hothardware.com

Today we've got a HotHardware Video Spotlight look at AMD's "Maui" Home Theater PC platform. Built on a combination of AMD energy efficient Phenom or Athlon processors, an AMD chipset based motherboard, ATI Radeon graphics, ATI TV Tuners, and AMD Live! software, this new platform packs a lot of HD functionality, for the do-it-yourselfer and system builder. Bundles are arriving at etailers now...

Source: Hothardware.com

We've been hearing a lot about GPGPU for the past couple of years, and in particular there has been plenty of talk about NVIDIA's CUDA programming language to leverage this sort of functionality on the company's GPUs. Until recently however we haven't seen a great deal of movement as far as applications which make use of CUDA is concerned, but this appears to be changing as we draw towards the tail-end of 2008. One of the first applications sporting CUDA support and aimed at the average user is PowerDirector 7, thanks to a new update to the software which Cyberlink made available to the press a few days ago - Elite Bastards take a look at what CUDA support brings to the table for this video editing software in terms of both features and performance.

Whenever we talk about GPGPU processing in terms of video, you'll probably think of one of two things - Playback or transcoding. While most GPUs now have everything they need to take almost the entire video playback load away from the CPU, even in the case of a 1080p High Definition video feed, we're still yet to see a really great, rock solid video transcoding application that uses the GPU to convert video from one format to another.

However, although unsurprisingly given the focus on creating rather than simply converting video content that PowerDirector 7 holds, the focus of CUDA functionality within this particular application doesn't sit directly with video transcoding. Instead, GPU acceleration is being used within the latest build of this software to accelerate the rendering of certain video effects that ship with the application.

It should probably be noted when I say "certain" effects that CUDA support is indeed limited to just a handful of video effects available to PowerDirector 7 at present, although to be fair these appear to be all of the most intensive effects to process, thus offering the largest potential time savings when it comes to actually producing your finished video and outputting it to a file.

Read the article in full at Elite Bastards.

This will make things interesting in the next two months hopefully.

According to AMD's latest roadmaps, 45nm Phenom II processors are just a few weeks away from launch—they'll materialize at the Consumer Electronic Show in early January. Not a bad time to start gauging the overclocking potential of these chips, right?

AMD took care of that itself at an event in Austin this morning, where it showcased four overclocked Phenom II systems. TR editor-in-chief Scott Wasson was on the scene, and while AMD didn't allow attendees to take pictures, he jotted down a few details.

The slowest system—cooled with a heatsink and fan—managed to reach just under 4GHz with a 1.55V core voltage. With liquid cooling, AMD successfully pushed a 45nm Phenom II in another machine just over the 4GHz mark. That required kicking up the CPU voltage to 1.6V, however. For the other two systems, AMD took out the big guns. One was strapped to a phase-change cooler and reached the mid-4GHz range at 1.7V, while the fastest system managed to well over 5GHz using liquid nitrogen (which kept the core temperature down to a chilly -185°C).

Source: The Tech Report

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our Processors & Overclocking forum!

News is a few weeks old, but still a milestone worth noting:

The Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card driver for Linux from Creative Labs was awful. That's simply the nicest way to put it. The driver was home to many bugs, initially only supported 64-bit Linux, and it was arriving extremely late. The open-source drivers supporting the Creative X-Fi drivers have also been at a stand still. However, Creative Labs today has finally turned this situation around and they have open-sourced the code to this notorious driver. The source-code for the Creative X-Fi driver is now licensed under the GNU GPLv2.

Read the full article at Phoronix.com

Discussion Thread: Rage3D Linux Forum

A couple of competitions worth a gander! Visit the sites for details on how to win free hardware!

• Win a Corsair 620HX Power Supply from Bjorn3D
• Driverheaven Competition: Win a Full AMD PC and bonus prizes of two video cards!

It's that time of year again and Christmas is around the corner. The year's hottest games are about to be released and it's time to look at new Tech Toys to make your year's gaming experience the best it can be. This year we decided to go with a price point comparison of two of the best GPU's out there, the Nvidia GTX-260 Core 216 vs the ATI 4870 1 GB edition in a head-to-head 5 game Hottest Title Shootout. Both of the selected GPU's are at the same price point roughly $300 (USD). The ATI card has 1GB of memory and the Nvidia card has 896MB of memory, and it's going to matter. We're testing at uber resolutions for this shootout. The lowest resolution is 1920x1200 and the highest resolution is 2560x1600 with AA set at 4x and AF set by the game.

So what games are we running in the Shootout, lets see there's PacMan, QBert, Space Invaders, Pong, and Asteroids. Oh wait a minute, flashback, it's FarCry 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Call Of Duty World At War, and Left 4 Dead. Must have been that road trip during the 60's. I knew that Koolaid tasted funny.

Full review at Bjorn3D.com

One of my biggest issues with high performance is the high levels of heat generated and that often means loud cooling. I'm completely surprised by how well the HD 4850 X2 cools itself, I was skeptical that the two tiny heatsinks would be able to do the trick, especially when there's probably more metal on the shroud than with the heatsink. However, with the latest BIOS flashed onto the card, Sapphire has managed to balance performance, heat and cooling noise. I was still able to achieve a modest overclock while staying at reasonable temperatures and quiet cooling.

Full review at Overclockersonline.net

It was the HD 4870 that wowed gamers by being able to keep up with much more expensive GTX 280, and blew away even many more gamers with its impressive anti-aliasing ability. But released at the virtually the same time, the HD 4870's little brother -- the HD 4850 -- was the product that offered high-end performance at a price point that was affordable by most. It wasn't all that long ago at all that the second fastest card you could get in a new generation of GPU's would bust the bank -- but this wasn't the case with the HD 4850. For many, the deadly cost effectiveness made the HD 4850 the more memorable of the brother wonder-cards coming from ATI... but where does it stand today, four months later?

Full review at Neoseeker.com

Dropping a lot of money on decent coolers for your CPU, graphics board and so on is all well and good, but it won't work to the best of its abilities unless you have a decent amount of air flow through your system in the first place. Enter the HAF 932, one of Cooler Master's latest system chassis that aims to maximise airflow without leaving you deafened after half an hour. Elite Bastards take a look to see if it can live up to its potential in today's review.

Given the HAF 932's name, it's no surprise to find that the chassis ships with a plethora of fans, with three huge 230mm fans with a rotation speed of 700 RPM at the front, side and top of the case, coupled with a smaller 140mm fan to exhaust from the rear of the chassis. Even with all of this in place there's still room for expansion, with the ability to add in a 120mm fan alongside the side and top fans, which can indeed be replaced entirely in lieu of four and three 120mm fans respectively.

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

Metku.net offers up a comparo of non-reference HD 4850 graphics cards:

Today we are going to get a bit more familiar with some of the more interesting HD4850-offerings. All of these cards feature an improved cooler, higher frequencies and better performance than the reference cards.

Full Article @ metku.net