(11/08) NVIDIA GTX-260 CORE 216 VS ATI 4870 1GB 5 GAME SHOOTOUT AT BJORN3D - "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. Oh wait a minute, flashback, it's FarCry 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Call Of Duty World At War, and Left 4 Dead."
(11/08) AMD OVERCLOCKS 45NM PHENOMS TO 4GHZ AND BEYOND AT TECH REPORT - "45nm Phenom processors are scheduled to arrive next year, and AMD has previewed their overclocking chops early at a press event in Austin. Read on to see how high AMD was able to push clock speeds with air, liquid, phase change, and liquid nitrogen cooling."
(11/08) ASUS EN9800GT MATRIX 512MB REVIEW AT PC PER - "Even as the market for graphics cards heats up this holiday season we see companies like ASUS making an attempt to stand out from the crowded retail and e-tail shelves. Trying to get away from the standard reference design graphics boards, the ASUS 9800 GT Matrix offers quite a bit above the rest including a custom cooler, overclocked specifications and software that will let users push the card even further."
(11/08) GEFORCE GTX 260 WITH 216 CORES REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "nVidia is launching today a new version of GeForce GTX 260 with 216 processors instead of 192 to better compete with Radeon HD 4870. In fact nVidia is pitching to reviewing websites that this new GeForce GTX 260 is faster than Radeon HD 4870 for the top latest games released (FarCry 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Call of Duty World at War and Left 4 Dead). Let's see the performance increase brought by this new model and how it is compared to other nVidia products and competitors – including Radeon HD 4870, of course."
(11/08) ASROCK K10N78 1394 MOTHERBOARD REVIEW AT AMD ZONE - "With high profile launches of AMD's 780G and 790GX chipset some may forget that Nvidia also offers a very formidable integrated graphics solution as well with the GeForce 8200 and 8300. We've looked at a few of these boards so far and today we have another to look at with the ASRock K10N78-1394."
(11/08) NVIDIA FORCEWARE 180.47 ANALYSIS - XP & VISTA AT TWEAK TOWN - "The new 180 series of drivers begins with the 180.47. While we will be following our standard driver analysis layout as far as games go, we will add a new page after this one that goes into a bit more detail on the new features that are on offer."
(11/08) GIGABYTE MA78GM-S2H MOTHERBOARD REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "We took a quick look on MA78GM-S2H a socket AM2+ motherboard from Gigabyte targeted to AMD CPUs targeted to HTPC (Home Theater PC) or "media center" computers. This motherboard is based on AMD 780G chipset with ATI SB700 south bridge chip. Because of the available features this board isn't targeted to the low-end market but to PCs that require a lot of multimedia features, which is an expanding market right now. It uses the micro-ATX form factor, so you can install it on a smaller case targeted to this class of computers."
(11/08) XFX GEFORCE 9800 GTX+ BLACK EDITION REVIEW AT MOTHERBOARDS.ORG - "ATI's release of the HD 4850 forced NVIDIA to launch an overclocked version of the 9800GTX called the 9800GTX+ to compete at the same price point. XFX is a one of the solid NVIDIA partner with their entire lineup consisting of NVIDIA based video cards as their sole claim to fame. They have released the GeForce 9800GTX+ Black Edition to fight the $200 video card market that is currently being dominated by the HD 4850 card. The new Black (Overclocked) Edition should add a little boost in performance over its lower clocked counterpart and improve performance by some small margin."
(11/08) DIAMOND RADEON HD 3650 REVIEW AT PC STATS - "The Diamond HD 3650 PE 512 videocard currently retails for about $70 CDN ($60 USD, $35 GBP), which puts it in the same price range as nVidia's 8500GT. We'll draw our comparisons a little later in this article, let the battle of the entry-level video cards begin!"
(11/08) XFX GEFORCE 9800 GT REVIEW AT OCC - "The card sitting on the test bench today is the 9800GT coming from XFX, one of the main nVidia partner in America. This particular version is their vanilla version, with stock clocks going at 600 MHz for the core and the 512 megabytes of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1800 MHz. Those are the same speeds offered by the now defunct 8800GT so it will be interesting to see if a a new name as well as a possibly more mature manufacturing process will allow this unit to perform and overclock better. Enough speculation, let's see what we are dealing with and let the card show itself off."
(11/08) NEW ATI CATALYST v8.11 DRIVERS AT AMD-ATI - "NEW FEATURES - FarCry 2 – performance gains of 3 to 10% for Single card mode and 8 to 14% in Crossfire mode, with some specific configurations showing even greater improvements. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD4xxx and Radeon HD3xxx products. ATI Catalyst™ introduces HydraVision support for the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center under Windows XP. HydraVision enables users to more efficiently organize multiple applications across single or multiple displays. ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for display scaling to resize the display devices that support TV timings (480i/p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) through either digital (DVI or HDMI) or analog (component) interfaces."
(11/08) GPU PRICE ANALYSIS: AMD UNDERCUTS NVIDIA AT TECH REPORT - "AMD has a general pricing edge over Nvidia in several key segments, according to our latest look at graphics card pricing. Since we've already gauged how AMD's and Nvidia's new GPU lineups perform in our recent round of reviews, we were curious to see how they matched on the price ladder. To that end, we've analyzed pricing data for 10 competing AMD and Nvidia GPUs in five different segments."
(11/08) LEFT FOR DEAD BENCHMARKS AT AMD ZONE - "Left 4 Dead uses the Source engine and thus benchmarking is very familiar. Simply use record command at the console and then timedemo to play back the demo you recorded. We recorded a section where there are swarms and swarms of zombies attacking you in the streets that don't seem to let up."
(11/08) INNO3D GEFORCE 9800 GTX+ REVIEW AT ULTIMATE HARDWARE - "Inno3D GeForce 9800 GTX+ review compared to the Gainward Radeon HD 4850. The Inno3D GeForce 9800 GTX+ has 16% higher clock speed and 10% higher memory speed than the Gainward Radeon HD 4850. The Gainward Radeon HD 4850 however has over six times the pixel shading advantage with 800 Pixel Shaders."
(11/08) ASROCK 780FULLHD MOTHERBOARD REVIEW AT AMD ZONE - "Even though we've looked at a lot of ASRock motherboards there's still one that we have yet to look at, ASRock's A780FullHD which is basically a vanilla 780G motherboard. That said the board seems to be no slouch but doesn't have any sideport memory. Let's see how it performs."
(11/08) HIS RADEON HD 4850 REVIEW AT LEGION HARDWARE - "Today we are checking out another Radeon HD 4850, this particular version comes from HIS. Their Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 Turbo graphics card makes use of an upgraded cooler, along with a little factory overclocking. These improvements help to make the Radeon HD 4850 even better."
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON 4850 X2 REVIEW AT ELITE - "When we covered AMD's launch of their flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics board, our attention on the part in hand was almost wrenched away by what was arguably a more exciting prospect - A second dual-GPU board based around the Radeon HD 4850, designed and priced to go up against NVIDIA's own flagship GeForce GTX 280 part."
(11/08) NVIDIA 270/290 IN DEEP TROUBLE AT THE INQUIRER - "IT LOOKS LIKE Nvidia's run of bad luck is continuing. The latest word is that the GT200b is in for another respin, that would be the third. This means the 270 and 290 are effectively delayed until February, and the GX2 part is quite dead."
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON 4850 X2 2048MB REVIEW AT TECHPOWERUP - "Today Sapphire finally released their HD 4850 X2 card. The original product had been announced since August by AMD. Both the HD 4850 X2 and HD 4870 X2 were announced at the same time but partners were very slow to adapt the product into their lineup. Sapphire as one of the biggest AMD add in board partners is the first to actually deliver a HD 4850 X2. Actually based on the information we got so far, Sapphire is the only board partner who will have a HD 4850 X2. The card is based on the same dual GPU principle as the HD 4870 X2 but comes with GDDR3 instead of GDDR5. Sapphire has chosen to use their own cooler design with two independent fans over the AMD reference cooler."
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON 4850 X2 REVIEW AT OCCLUB - "Sapphire has just let the HD4850x2 loose on the world. As well as its big brother, scales expectations are high with this offering. Featuring two RV770 GPUs at a clock speed of 625MHz and twice the amount of 1024MB of GDDR3 memory running at 993MHz through a 2x256-bit bus the card should deliver some serious numbers. After seeing the performance of the various HD4850s and the non reference solutions from several manufacturers I can't wait to see how well this card performs"
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON 4850 X2 REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "The new Radeon HD 4850 X2 that is being launched today is simply two Radeon HD 4850 video cards in a single board working in CrossFire mode, being a cheaper option to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which is the most expensive video card available today, and priced to compete with GeForce GTX 280. How is the performance of Radeon HD 4850 X2 compared to GeForce GTX 280 and other high-end video cards? Does it provide a good cost/benefit ratio? That is what we will see in our review."
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 4830 REVIEW AT AMD ZONE - "This Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 is very similar to some of their 4850 cards and other 4000 series cards as it features a blue PCB with their custom and large heatsink. This heatsink is visually very appealing but also drops the temperatures on a standard 4830 card dramatically. We've been saying since the launch of the 4800 series of cards the one major problem with all of them is that the heat is just far too high."
(11/08) XFX GEFORCE 260 896MB BLACK EDITION REVIEW AT OVERCLOCK 3D - "The XFX GTX260 has evolved into the 'Black Edition' which comprises of 2nd generation unified architecture, and an increase from 192 stream processors to 216. Known throughout the world as the 'GTX260 216' because of the increase in shaders, this card is the revised edition of the already high performing GTX260. The new card should give a significant increase in performance as the clockspeed has been increased over the XFX GTX260 card (reviewed here) from 640mhz to a devilish 666mhz. The card also sees an increase in shader clockspeed from 1363 to 1440. While this might not seem like a major difference in speed, one has to take into account that this is compared to XFX's previous overclocked edition of the GTX260."
(11/08) COUPLE OF CORE I7 MOTHERBOARDS COMPARED AT TECH REPORT - "If you want one of Intel's swanky new Core i7 processors, you're going to need a motherboard upgrade. But which one? We've faced off X58-based motherboards from Asus and Intel to see which makes the sweetest Nehalem system."
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 4830 REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "In our review we will compare Radeon HD 4830 to a myriad of video cards available on the market, including its direct competitor, GeForce 9800 GT. We will talk more about the differences between the new Radeon HD 4830 and all other video cards included in our review on next page, but before let’s take an in-depth look on the reviewed model from Sapphire."
(11/08) GALAXY GEFORCE GTX 260+ 896MB REVIEW AT PCPER - "Galaxy has been quickly making a name for itself in the consumer graphics card market under its new US-based brand, KFA2. We already reviewed the Galaxy GeForce 9800 GT and Galaxy GeForce 9500 GT but the new Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB card is their highest performance offering in the channel to date."
(11/08) MSI RADEON HD 4670 REVIEW AT BJORN3D - "The mid-range video card segment has been booming lately compared to just a few years ago when the HD 2600 and GeForce 8600 series were launched by ATI and Nvidia respectively. There was a huge gap then between the mid-range cards and the much more expensive high-end cards. This hole is being filled currently with the ATI HD 3670 and HD 3650 along with the 8800 GS, 9600 GT, and 9600 GSO from Nvidia. Now, ATI has engineered more cards to fill this gap with the HD 4650 and the HD 4670. Today we have the HD 4670 by MSI. This card hopes to keep money in your pocket while giving you great gaming performance."
(11/08) WINDOWS 7 OR VISTA SECOND EDITION AT TECH REPORT - "Microsoft has finally started showing off Windows 7 to the public, revealing a new user interface and a plethora of improvements. How do Vista users feel about it, especially in light of rumors about a 2009 release time frame for the new OS? TR blogger (and Vista Ultimate user) Matt Butrovich has sounded off on the subject, saying he sees Windows 7 as a sort of Vista service pack that Microsoft will charge for. In his view, Microsoft is abandoning Vista users to their fate, but with good reason: the company needs to abandon the Vista PR failure and move on. Read on for the full rant."
(11/08) SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 4650 AND 4550 OVERCLOCKED AT AMD ZONE - "The 4850 and 4870 hit the market with a huge bang this past summer forcing Nvidia to drastically cut prices and at last giving ATI a better card in technology and in performance. In aiming for the upper-mid range rather than trying to build the fastest card possible they also have a great architecture to scale down from. We've looked at a few of these cards and today we have two more from Sapphire, their Radeon HD 4650 Overclock and their low-profile Radeon HD 4550."
(11/08) CALL OF DUTY - WORLD AT WAR BENCHMARKS AT AMD ZONE - "Call of Duty has without a doubt gone from a good franchise on the PC to hitting the absolute mainstream with the success of Call of Duty 4, up there with Halo 3 in sales and awareness. Activision seems to be milking the franchise yearly as well as they tend to do with all their franchises and so far at least it hasn't suffered greatly although Treyarch usually isn't up there with Infinity Ward. Call of Duty: World at War, the follow-up to Call of Duty 4, hits two weeks from now but a multiplayer PC beta was released today. We as usual decided to test it on a range of video cards to see how the latest in the series performs."
(11/08) ECS HYDRA GEFORCE 9800 GTX+ AT FIRING SQUAD - "Note that we included the basic specifications of the GeForce 9800 GTX+ above because ECS hasn't changed anything here. In our eyes, we see that as a bit of a let-down. With the availability of more advanced cooling methods, ECS could have really put out a killer product spec with the Hydra. Combining the power of running two of these cards in SLI and having a faster clocked product that's running along significantly cooler and quieter than the rest, would have put ECS and the Hydra more prominently on the map. Of course, we can always set out on our own to overclock these cards, and we do later on in this review. However, we'd like to see ECS as well as other manufacturers put their own engineering skills to the test as well."
(11/08) CAN A SUB $100 CARD GET THE JOB DONE AT TECH REPORT - "We have not, I must admit, been great fans of sub-$100 graphics cards here at TR. Yes, we've reviewed them pretty faithfully over the years, but as I said in our review of the Radeon HD 2400 series: "If you're spending less than [$100] on graphics, you're getting the sort of performance you deserve, regardless of which brand of GPU you pick." In other words, cheaping out will get you lousy frame rates and spotty gameplay. It wasn't just spite to say so; it was definitely true."
(11/08) GAINWARD RADEON HD 4870 REVIEW AT ULTIMATE HARDWARE - "Gainward Radeon HD 4870 review which we are comparing to the Gainward Radeon HD 4850. The Gainward Radeon HD 4870 is a pixel shading monster boasting 800 Shaders for amazing gaming performance. The Gainward Radeon HD 4870 also features advanced GDDR5 memory which is 45% faster than the Gainward Radeon HD 4850!"
(11/08) GAINWARD RADEON HD 4850 REVIEW AT ULTIMATE HARDWARE - "Gainward Radeon HD 4850 review which features the Sapphire Radeon HD 3870. The Gainward Radeon HD 4850 is a pixel shading powerhouse boasting 800 Unified Shaders compared to 320 with the Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 which means that the Gainward Radeon HD 4850 has 60% more shading power."
(11/08) ATI RADEON HD 4550 AND 4350 DETAILS ADDED TO ULTIMATE HARDWARE - "The ATI video card chart has now been updated to include the latest information about the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and 4350. We include information on the chip, core clock speed, memory clock speed, memory interface, memory transfer rate, pixels per clock and directx version."
