(05/08) VISIONTEK RADEON HD 3870 X2 OC REVIEW AT OCC - "A magnitude of enthusiasts would love to have a multiple GPU solution for their machines. The problem is that many of them cannot or will not because multiple cards take up too much space, power, and money. But what about these new single cards with dual GPUs on them? The all-new VisionTek Radeon HD 3870X2 Overclocked Edition video card claims to pack unbelievable performance and it probably consumes less power than a multiple video card setup. This 3870X2 from VisionTek is, without a doubt, the best single card from the ATI side of the coin. How will it compare against tough competitors such as the nVidia 9800GTX?"
(05/08) S3 CHROME 430 GT REVIEW AT TWEAK TOWN - "S3 hasn’t stopped releasing graphics cards, but we just don’t seem to hear much about them anymore. Hopefully that’s going to change with the release of the Chrome 430 GT."
(05/08) NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800 GTX REVIEW AT DIGIT LIFE - "After NVIDIA rolled out two graphics cards on G92 (GeForce 8800 GT and GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB), it became clear that the days of GeForce 8800 GTX (and Ultra, replaced with GeForce 9800 GX2) were numbered. The overhauled GeForce 8800 GTS often outperformed the GTX card, being slower in rare cases of insufficient memory bandwidth and/or size. That's when the old GTX is better than the 512 MB GTS."
(05/08) GIGABYTE GEFORCE 9600 GT TURBO FORCE REVIEW AT LEGION HARDWARE - "Today we have another GeForce 9600 GT review for you, this time based on a more unique design featuring a completely silent cooling solution. Despite offering a number of new features, the Gigabyte GeForce 9600 GT Turbo Force Edition graphics card is very reasonably priced, costing only slightly more than the generic cards. As we had all hoped the GeForce 9600 GT is turning out to be a real success, offering serious performance at an affordable price. Nvidia has done well as availability was excellent at launch and more importantly, cards hit the MSRP instantly! Initially cards were priced at just $180 US making the 9600 GT exceptionally good value, so much so that AMD were pressured into reducing the price of their Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 graphics cards in order to remain competitive."
(05/08) MSI GEFORCE 9600 GT 1GB OC REVIEW AT TWEAK TOWN - "The latest 9600GT variant from MSI sports the same cooler along with an extra 512MB of GDDR3, giving us a grand total of 1GB. The card also carries with it the same overclock we saw on the 512MB model which should aid in getting some extra performance over stock clocked offerings."
(05/08) ECS GEFORCE 8800 GT REVIEW AT LEGIT REVIEW - "ECS was kind enough to send along one of their latest and greatest pieces of hardware, the N8800GT-256MX. As you may have noticed from the product name this is an 8800 GT with 256MB of ram. Legit Reviews covered the launch of the 8800 GT with a preview, a follow up performance review, a preview of the 256MB version and then a performance review of that card. Needless to say we are very well aware of how great the 8800 GT is as it earned the Editors Choice Award. The 8800 GT is priced pretty reasonably at around $175 and some carrying a small rebate, but what if you could buy something less expensive and get nearly identical performance? Sounds good eh?"
(05/08) DIAMOND VIPER HD 3650 1GB REVIEW AT HOT HARDWARE - "AMD's Radeon HD 3650 is one of the few cards out there that can satisfy mainstream user needs yet still cost less that a hundred dollars. Based on the RV635, and off-shoot of the RV670, the HD 3650 is architecturely similar to the more powerful HD 3850 and HD 3870 models, but with a narrower memory interface and far fewer stream processors. It too is built on a 55nm process, requiring less power than previous AMD/ATI cards and, as a result, radiating less heat."
(05/08) DIAMOND RADEON HD 3870 X2 1GB REVIEW AT TECHREPORT - "What happens when you take a Radeon HD 3870 graphics card and slap a gig of memory on it? That is the question of the hour, since our subject is Diamond's new card with just such a configuration. The Radeon HD 3870 has established itself as a pretty decent option among mid-range graphics cards, although it's squeezed by formidable competition from Nvidia. Could doubling up on video memory allow the 3870 to distinguish itself from the likes of the GeForce 9600 GT and GeForce 8800 GT? We decided to find out."
(05/08) MSI RADEON HD 3870 X2 OC 512MB REVIEW AT XBIT LABS - "There are a lot of ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2-based graphics cards on the market, but there are just a few of them that come pre-overclocked. Today we are taking a look at MSI's Radeon HD 3870 X2 OC Edition graphics card that can offer higher performance thanks to higher clock-speeds."
(05/08) VISIONTEK RADEON HD 3870 X2 512MB OC REVIEW AT - "While the 9600 GT was hardly a threat to the Radeon X2 at the time, the 9800 GX2 most certainly was. In fact, the GeForce 9800 GX2 swiftly dethroned the 3870 X2, giving back the performance crown to Nvidia. Then the less costly GeForce 9800 GTX was able to match the performance of the 3870 X2 in a select few titles. It did not ended on top, but at roughly $300 it did give the Radeon a fair fight in terms of value."
(04/08) DIAMOND RADEON HD 3650 1GB REVIEW AT TWEAKTOWN - "It has been a while since we’ve seen anything from Diamond, but today we’ve got something new in our hot little hands. It seems that we’re dominated by high-end cards lately, but we thought we would mix it up a bit today with the AMD based HD 3650 graphics card. What’s different about the Diamond HD 3650 from Diamond is that it carries with it a massive 1GB of memory. We’re not really big on huge amounts of memory added to a mid-range card, but we’ll have to see if Diamond is able to do anything with the HD 3650 here that impresses us."
(04/08) ASUS EAH3850 TRINITY REVIEW AT OC3D - "The EAH3850 TRINITY comes with the MXM module design that allows users to obtain the flexibility to upgrade the MXM VGA module in regards to GPU and memory size with lower costs. The EAH3850 TRINITY also utilizes a specially designed water cooling solution that effectively dissipates heat away from the three GPUs through heatpipes that are specially connected to the main board of the graphics card instead of the GPUs. Due to the fact that the water cooling solution works exceptionally well even with upgraded GPU and memory, the hassles of displacing the thermal module when upgrading the MXM VGA module is avoided for minimized upgrading costs. On top of all this, the EAH3850 TRINITY is equipped with two extra DVI outputs for a maximum of four-display video outputs."
(04/08) EVGA GEFORCE 8800 GT 1GB REVIEW AT MOTHERBOARD.ORG - "NVIDIA introduced the 8800GT video card late last year. Released with 112 Stream Processors, the 8800GT was a new version of the 8800GTX with some minor modifications to the core that resulted in performance that was nearly the same as the 8800GTX and higher than the 8800GTS 320MB/640MB cards of the last generation. EVGA released many versions of the 8800GT including the reference clocked version, a SSC Superclocked version and now the AKIMBO version with an embedded improved cooling solution."
(04/08) 3DMARK VANTAGE IS NOW AVAILABLE AT FUTUREMARK - "3DMark® Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware. 3DMark® Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft."
(04/08) INNO3D GEFORCE 9600 GT REVIEW AT OCC - "Inno3D, rapidly becoming known for their out of the box thinking, continues to offer the latest NVidia based cards with a variety of cooling solutions for a spectrum of end user's needs. To this end, Inno3D's iChill line has grown to include coolers from top names such as Zalman, Arctic Cooling, XStriker and Zerotherm. On our review bench today is a NVidia 9600 GT based card coupled a Zerotherm Hurricane Cooler to further expand their iChill line. The 9600 GT has already proven itself a solid upgrade choice with its respectable pixel pushing power and sub $200 street price. Having this extra cooling power on board allows Inno3D to go one step further and push the 9600 GT's envelope and give us a card with a nice factory overclock along with a three year warranty. Let's take a look at the specs and the newest iChill Edition card Inno3D has."
(04/08) SAPPHIRE TOXIC HD 3870 REVIEW AT ALT GAMERS - "In a previous review I got a chance to play with the Sapphire HD3870 X2 video card, now i’m looking at their other 3870 in the series, but this one is a Toxic branded card. The main difference between a 3870, 3870 Toxic and 3870 Atomic isn’t in the core or the memory. All 3 cards have the same specs, but the Toxic takes after the Atomic series by using the Vapor-X (VCT) cooler. The Atomic was made in a limited run and factory overclocked, while the Toxic is mass produced and not overclocked. However I had the chance to put this card to the same speeds as the 3870 Atomic and above."
(04/08) HIS RADEON HD 3850 REVIEW AT 3D GAME MAN - "HIS has provided us with the HIS HD3850 IceQ Turbo 512MB AGP Video Card. It's currently the hottest AGP Video Card on the market. It's Jam Packed with the latest technologies, such as: DirectX® 10.1, Shader Model 4.1, ATI Avivo™ HD, Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray™ and much more. While this is not a PCI Express video card, does it have what it takes to compete? Let’s take a closer look and see what HIS has in store for us."
(04/08) DIAMOND RADEON HD 3870 1GB REVIEW AT LEGIT REVIEWS - "Diamond has sent Legit Reviews an impressive card based on the popular 3870 but with a little twist. Instead of the typical 512MB of GDDR4 memory that keeps the 3870 performing, they have blessed this recently announced video card with 1GB of GDDR3 memory. Some of you may have read our review of the Palit 8800 GTS 1GB where it was found the extra memory and clock speeds help boost performance over that of the standard 8800 GTS 512MB, we’re hoping that Diamonds 3870 1GB is able to pull the same feat over its 512 counterpart as well."
(04/08) AMD PHENOM X3 8750 REVIEW AT AMD ZONE - "Since AMD introduced the Athlon X2 with dual cores hype in the media has been about supposed core wars that Intel and AMD might switch to away from the MHz race that was previously popular. However, if there is a core war it certainly is slow going because so far there have only been dual and quad core processors released from Intel and AMD in the years since the Athlon X2 introduction. Not much of a core war race though that might change in the future in the near term four cores are as far as Intel or AMD will be going. That said, there have been rumors for some time regarding a triple core Phenom processor and those were told to be true from AMD going back some time. Today AMD has officially released in the channel, B3 revision Phenoms of triple core processors to try and find a consumer market somewhere between quad and dual core processors."
(04/08) ASUS EN8800GT TOP 512MB REVIEW AT SHARKY EXTREME - "The GeForce 8 Series has been a very popular one for gamers, but there had always been a noticeable gap between the mainstream GeForce 8600 GTS and the higher-end GeForce 8800 GTS. This got worse when ATI introduced the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 512MB tandem, which filled in nicely, and forced NVIDIA to make a move. The transition to a 65nm process allowed the debut of the GeForce 8800 GT reference cards, and these had an impact."
(04/08) AMD PHENOM X3 PROCESSORS REVIEW AT TECH REPORT - "The advent of these triple-core specimens raises some intriguing questions. Can AMD gain ground on Intel's very potent dual-core CPUs by disabling a core and slashing its prices? Will the Phenom's relatively low per-core performance be offset by the presence of a third core? What's the right tradeoff here? We've taken these questions as an excuse to run way too many benchmarks on the new Phenom X3 chips. Then we made up some answers. Keep reading to see what we found."
(04/08) ZOTAC GEFORCE 9800 GTX AMP EDITION REVIEW AT TBREAK - "Zotac is a new nVidia partner- at least for us. Its a new brand in the region and this is the first product we have received from them which is an overclocked 9800GTX card. Considering how cool the 9800GTX runs, this should work out quite nicely. Lets find out how the AMPed version of Zotac compares to the stock 9800GTX and other cards."
(04/08) NVIDIA GEFORCE 9600 GT SLI REVIEW AT XBIT LABS - "The GPU developers are doing their best to promote multi-GPU technologies in all market sectors. Today we’ll find out what is the purpose of multi-GPU support in mainstream graphics cards. Is it just a marketing feature or an affordable method of boosting performance? We will check it out using Gigabyte GV-NX96T512H-B."
(04/08) NEW S3 CHROME 430 GT 3DMARK 2006 RESULTS AT ULTIMATE HARDWARE - "The performance database has been updated to include performance results for the New S3 Chrome 430 GT video card. The S3 Chrome 430 GT is the new DirectX 10.1 video card from S3 which is designed for the budget video market and includes some exciting features like DirectX 10.1, Blu ray playback, 3D gaming, support for the latest HD video codecs like MPEG-4 and VC-1."
(04/08) DIAMOND VIPER HD 3850 RUBY EDITION REVIEW AT HOT HARDWARE - "Diamond is one of a group of manufacturers that continue to release updated revisions of both Radeons, either by adding additional memory, raising clock speeds, or sometimes both. The model we will be taking a look at today is the Viper Radeon HD 3850 512MB Overclocked Ruby Edition - perhaps one of the longest names for a single product that we've come across. Like the Sapphire Ultimate HD 3850 that we evaluated back in January, the Viper Radeon HD 3850 512MB Overclocked Ruby Edition's frame buffer has been doubled from 256MB to 512MB. Additionally, Diamond has gone an extra step and raised GPU and memory speeds from the default 670/830MHz of reference designs to 725/900MHz."
(04/08) ASSASSIN'S CREED - FIRST DX10.1 TITLE? AT RAGE3D - "Assassin's Creed is a title that needs little introduction. Benefiting from ambitious marketing efforts, an intriguing gameplay idea, the expertise of an experienced developer like Ubisoft Montreal and the charm of Jade Raymond, the game was prone to land with a splash. It has been generally well received, and gamers seem to enjoy being in the shoes of a medieval assassin. Graphically speaking (remember, that's our primary focus here), it employs an advanced engine, with both a DX9 and a DX10 pathway, with the DX10 one being faster according to Ubi. Albeit a little on the undertextured side, it's certainly nice looking and rather well performing with some caveats we'll soon discuss."
(04/08) NEW ATI CATALYST v8.4 DRIVERS AT AMD-ATI - PROBLEMS FIXED WITH THIS DRIVER:-
"Unreal 3 engine based games (Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, Bioshock, Rainbow6 Las Vegas) Forced AA support under CrossFireX configurations: Users can now enable Anti-Aliasing in the Unreal 3.0 engine (DirectX 9 mode) games using the Catalyst Control center in CrossFireX configurations."
"Company of Heroes: Setting the in-game options to maximum levels no longer results in the game exiting to the desktop after the game has completed loading."
"Crysis: Setting the Catalyst Control Center Advanced View 3D Standard Settings to Optimal Quality and having certain in game option settings no longer results in the game failing to render properly."
"Doom 3: Setting the in game options to Ultra Quality and the screen size to 1600x1200 no longer results in the image next to the text failing to be rendered."
"Hellgate: London: Flickering is no longer noticed when quitting and then relaunching the game when the in-game setting are set to their maximum levels."
"Lost Planet: Setting AA to either 4x or 8x no longer results in the game failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28492"
"Tabula Rasa: Setting the graphics option to enable Deferred Lighting and Dynamic Shadows no longer results in corruption being displayed."
"Tomb Raider Anniversary: Performance improvements are now noticed when playing the game with CrossFire™ enabled."
(04/08) OVERCLOCKING INTEL'S XEON X3320 PROCESSOR AT TECH REPORT - "It's no wonder, then, that Intel's Xeon X3320 caught my eye recently. This LGA775 chip features a 45nm Yorkfield core running at 2.5GHz with 6MB of L2 cache, making it the Xeon equivalent of the Core 2 Quad Q9300. What's more, while the Q9300 has been in short supply of late, the X3320 has been more consistently available at roughly the same price. Few things make us happier than forcing normally conservative enterprise-class hardware to jump through flaming enthusiast hoops, so we scored an off-the-shelf Xeon X3320 retail box from the folks at NCIX to see what kind of overclocking headroom we could find."
(04/08) SLI VERSES CROSSFIRE REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "With the recent release of CrossFireX by AMD/ATI and 3-way SLI by nVidia we think it is a good time to make a technical comparison between all incarnations of these two technologies, which have the same goal: to allow video cards to be connected in parallel in order to increase gaming performance."
(04/08) ASUS M3N-HT DELUXE MEMPIPE REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe will be one of the first motherboards to be launched on the market based on the forthcoming nForce 780a chipset – which, by the way, is delaying a lot to be released. But don't think that nForce 780a is simple the AMD version of the nForce 780i – it isn't. One of the main differences between the two is the support for HybridSLI, which features HybridPower, a feature that disables the video cards installed in the system when you are not playing games and generates 2D images – i.e. when you are using Windows, a word processor or a spreadsheet – thru the chipset to save a lot of power, and GeForce Boost, which uses the on-board video to increase 3D performance. The problem is that both features require compatible video cards and so far only two video cards support each feature."
(04/08) LEADTEK WINFAST GEFORCE 9600 GT REVIEW AT TBREAK - "The 9600GT from nVidia is a pretty decent GPU as far as the price/performance ratio is concerned and thus its no surprise to see many vendors jumping on it. Today we take a look at one such card by Leadtek modeled as WinFast PX9600 GT with 512MB RAM. Looking at its specifications, the PX9600 GT runs at stock speed as per nVidia’s specifications with nothing overclocked."
(04/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 3650 REVIEW AT PC PER - "As mentioned above the HD 3650 GPU, otherwise known as the RV635, is a completely new chip spin but is based on the RV670 design that started AMD's entry into the 55nm process technology for GPUs. The below table gives us a good comparison of the new HD 3650 with AMD's previous line up of HD 2600 mid-range cards. The Radeon HD 3650 GPU sports 120 stream processors, 8 texture units and 4 render units all running at a reference clock speed of 725 MHz. For comparison, the Radeon HD 3850 has 320 stream processors with 16 texture and 16 render units; obviously the HD 3650 has a big disadvantage in that area but it all comes down to price at this point."
(04/08) ECS A780GM-A MOTHERBOARD REVIEW AT LEGIT REVIEWS - "The ECS A780GM-A 'Black Series' motherboard is the first motherboard by the designers at ECS that uses the recently released AMD 780G and SB700 chipsets. Unlike the micro-ATX boards that we have looked at in the past, this is a full size ATX board. The A780GM-A has the usual laundry list that any 780G board should have with support for Hybrid Graphics, UVD 2.0, DirectX 10, PCI Express 2.0, HDMI/HDCP, Phenom support, HT 5200 MT/s with Hyper Transport 3.0 technology links and four memory slots that can handle DDR2 1066MHz memory kits. The board is impressive, but since we have already covered the AMD 780G chipset in another article, we will move on and take a look at this new board by ECS."
(04/08) DIAMOND RADEON HD 3650 1GB REVIEW AT TECHPOWERUP - "A while back AMD has quietly launched their HD 3400 and HD 3600 Series. The cards are based on the RV620 and RV635 GPUs which are a refresh of the RV610 and RV630. The major features they introduce are support for PCI-Express 2.0 and a transition from a 65nm to a 55 nm manufacturing process. Both feature AMD's UVD for accelerated video decoding and integrated HDCP+Audio support for media PC systems. The Diamond HD 3650 is one of the first HD3650 cards to feature 1 GB of video memory. Please note that this is DDR2 which is a bit aged already, but probably came at a great price for Diamond so they wouldn't let the opportunity pass."
(04/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 3870 512MB TOXIC REVIEW AT HOT HARDWARE - "The Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Toxic 512MB falls more inline with that kind of thinking. The "Toxic" model is a souped up Radeon HD 3870 that boasts a single slot Vapor-X cooler, which allows the card to be overclocked without the need for a dual-slot cooling solution. In the pages ahead, we'll assess the overall performance of the Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Toxic 512MB edition and see how it compares with a pricier competitor and also see whether the "toxic" version makes the card more or less attractive from a price-to-performance perspective. Finally, we'll test the cooler even further to ascertain whether Sapphire left any more headroom for those looking to overclock the card even further."
(04/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 3850 REVIEW AT TBREAK - "When AMD introduced the 3850 graphics card, it came bundled with 256MB of RAM which is a bit on the lower side for games that come out nowadays. Granted the 3850 is targeted as a mid-range card, it still pumps out pretty decent performance. Today we look at the 3850 solution from AMD’s biggest partner when it comes to graphics cards- the Sapphire HD3850 card with a frame buffer of 512MB."
(04/08) ECS ECS A780GM-A AND ATHLON X2 4850E REVIEW AT GURU3D - "AMD’s latest addition is the 780G/780V chipset, a product that will replace their 690G/690V product family. A chipset with a completely new Northbridge, and a slightly revised SB700 south-bridge chip. In addition to releasing the low-power 55nm RS780 chipset AMD has also brought forward another energy efficient pile 'o transistors under the name of Athlon X2 4850e. We'll take a look at that one as well."
(04/08) HIS RADEON HD 3870 X2 REVIEW AT RAGE3D - "The 3870X2 differentiates itself from the 3870 with a higher core clock (825 MHz vs. 775 MHz), lower clocked DDR3 RAM replacing DDR4 RAM (900 MHz vs. 1126 MHz) and the addition of the PLX 8547 PCI Express Switch directly on the PCB in order to have a transparent and motherboard agnostic Crossfire implementation. This is as good a time as any to clear something up: all of the X2s currently on the market are PCIE 1.1 parts, because the PLX chip itself is a PCIE1.1 part. It provides 48 lanes, of which 16 go to each GPU and the remaining 16 extend from the card to the motherboard."
(04/08) XFX GEFORCE 9600 GT ALPHA DOG REVIEW AT MOTHERBOARD.ORG - "XFX has made a solid place for themselves in the VGA community and the dog has put many other companies in the dog house, especially when it comes to performance based VGA cards for the gamers who like top end products. The mid level market is usually the sweet spot for buyers and the new 9600GT series is pretty much the leader in this race as its price versus performance ratio is excellent. This new overclocked version is set to be the highest end VGA card in the 9600GT series of cards and will offer an exceptional bundle the includes COD4, which is one freaking hot gaming title. This review will be focused on what a pair of these cards can do in an SLI configuration on a high-end system. We have reviewed enough XFX stuff so that anyone who follows the site should be familiar with their products and warranty options."
(04/08) WINDOWS VISTA SERVICE PACK 1 PERFORMANCE AT TECH REPORT - "How does Service Pack 1 affect Windows Vista's day-to-day performance in common desktop applications and games? We've run a host of benchmarks in order to find out. Read on to see what we discovered."
(04/08) ASUS GEFORCE 8800 GS TOP REVIEW AT TWEAKTOWN - "While there were whispers of the 8800GS in the background, it was never really one of those cards that got much attention. Everyone was too busy concentrating on the 8800GT and new 8800GTS 512MB card to really pay much attention to it. By the time talk of the 8800 models had begun to die down, everyone was on to talking about the 9600GT and the newly released 9800 GX2 / 9800 GTX models. It seems that a lot of companies also chose to miss the model completely; it does make sense with the large amount of models out there, but ASUS thought they would take the opportunity to release the model."
(04/08) ATI HD 2400 XT REVIEW AT TECH LOUNGE - "Which is exactly what an entry-level video card is supposed to do. They're not intended to play video games, and their 3D processing capacity is misleading. Good enough doesn't mean gaming; it's about low power consumption and decent features. So, for those of you looking for "good enough," is this vanilla HD 2400 XT it?"
