MAINGEAR Forums - Blogs

The GeForce GTX 680 Review - Quantifying the Subjective

ChrisMorley — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:40:32 GMT

One of the challenges we face as a premium technology manufacturer is how to communicate some of our more enticing features and benefits when sending a system for review. We�ve been sending out systems for nearly a decade, and every reviewer has a different style, and is looking for different things. But what nearly all of them share in common is a heavy reliance on benchmarks. Apparently the thin line between Editors� Choice awards and being an also ran can be boiled down to a half a percent difference in 3D Mark 11, regardless of how nice an exclusive chassis might look, how cool and quiet it runs, or how superior the audio experience is. That�s not to paint the entire reviews industry with a broad brush, and certainly we appreciate those who call out things like our impeccable wiring, even behind the motherboard tray, even though it doesn�t contribute any to a boost in 3D Mark. And often times it�s these little touches that can make a large impact to reviewers who recognize them for what they are. Our customers certainly appreciate the experience.

All of this is to say that it�s easy to call a winner based on benchmarks, but it�s more difficult to communicate and quantify an �experience.� Part of the reason is that you�re susceptible to bias or user error, but the other part is that you need to have a perspective on a product that goes beyond the numbers that sit in front of you. I consider myself lucky to be just old enough to remember the API shoot outs of the 90�s, and when companies like 3DFX, Matrox, and S3 were just awakening to this young upstart with a weird name: NVIDIA. I�ve been building and selling PCs since college, and I�ve also had the great opportunity to sit on the other side of the fence and review PCs during a stint at HardOCP. So I like to think I have perspective, and I like to think that I�m able to largely avoid user error.

And while I think that all of us are susceptible to bias, certainly I have personal relationships with employees of both AMD and NVIDIA that go beyond a professional relationship, I also like to think that I am more than capable of focusing on our customers first, and we make this clear to our partners as well. I also like to think that they also respect that.

That being said, there are a couple of sites out there that do try to quantify an experience when it comes to owning a GPU. Two sites that take wildly different approaches would be Tech Report and HardOCP. Tech Report takes an analytical view, measuring the time (in milliseconds) that it takes to render a frame, captured over time, in an attempt to analytically describe how smooth game play is. Higher render times translate into lower frames per second, inducing a �stutter� effect that can be visible to the end user. HardOCP has developed a set of �real world� testing scenarios that eschew canned benchmarks for playing through portions of a game in real-time, logging the frame rates using a third party utility. This requires incredible discipline acquired over many hours of repetitious testing in order to be accurate. On top of this, they test �apples to oranges� � dialing up the eye candy until they reach an unplayable level. This may result in two cards offering the same resolution of playability, but delivering different levels of visual quality. There are many other sites that have caught on to HardOCP�s methodology.

So, besides my desire to pontificate and put my thoughts on paper and out there for you to digest, I have prefaced this review with the above because when it comes to benchmarks, there�s no real clear winner between the GTX 680 and the Radeon HD 7970. But there is oh so much more to the story.

Let�s begin by recapping what we already know. AMD was first to market with their next-generation 28nm design. With an architecture dubbed �Graphics Core Next,� we saw AMD bring many exciting technologies to market besides just raw horsepower. While you can read my overview here, I�ll quickly recap. Zero Core technology allows for a GPU in long idle to effectively shut off, with the fan even coming to a stop. In addition, second and third cards in CrossFire can also power themselves down into a �zero core� state when not in a 3D demanding environment. This is great technology for keeping power consumption, heat, and noise to a minimum. In addition, they were able to bring 3D technology to triple-screen gaming, but in an importantly different manner than NVIDIA, which we�ll get to later. There are also other technologies and innovations worth mentioning, but I won�t rehash them here.

NVIDIA, while a little late to the game, actually pulled in their launch of the GTX 680 by quite a bit, confident that they had a product that they could effectively compete with. But just out-muscling their opponent was not what they had in mind.

THE NVIDIA GTX 680

THE NVIDIA GTX 680 (SHROUD OFF)

THE NVIDIA GTX 680 (HEAT SINK, FAN, AND SHROUD REMOVED)

The GTX 680 brings an architecture shift to NVIDIA�s flagship gaming GPU. The GTX 580 had 512 �CUDA� cores, while the GTX 680 has 1536. Now don�t get excited, these shaders differ significantly from their predecessor, but bring their own advantages. So that doesn�t necessarily translate into 3x the performance just because it has 3x the shader count. It shrinks the memory bus from 384-bits to 256, but ups the bandwidth of the GDDR5 chips to 6GHz, with plenty of overhead. They've also upped the capacity to 2GB from 1.5GB. The card is also shorter than a GTX 570, which I wasn�t expecting. In addition, the fan has been moved more towards the dorsal edge of the card in order to get the intake closer to where some might have side panel fans. Because of this, they had to stack the dual 6-pin PCI-E power connectors on top of each other in order to make room for this layout. Again, another little detail that helps the �experience.�

You might have noticed that I stated this card had dual 6-pin PCI-E connectors. That�s right, NVIDIA had the balls to make their flagship GTX 680 a sub-200 watt, 195 watts to be exact, part when they could have instead matched the power draw of a Radeon HD 7970 @ 250W to try to tease out higher frequencies. But they didn�t need to just match AMD frame for frame, they needed to do something different, something to stand apart. So when I say we�re trying to quantify the subjective, I�m saying that there�s more than trading blows in a benchmark. You�ve got to look at features, power draw, acoustics, and YOU have to make the decision as to what solution serves your needs better. It�s hard for me to tell you what YOU need, I can only show you the facts and information that I think will give you the tools to make that decision.

NVIDIA�s giving you more reasons to consider their GPU. GPU Boost is an adaptive, algorithm-based automatic overclocking technology that delivers performance where and when you need it, without compromising on power or acoustics. Some games suck down more power than others. And if you lock a GPU clock speed at a certain frequency, you might be giving up some performance you can gain if you were able to adapt to what was happening on screen and in your system. So if your GTX 680 is not facing high temperatures or power draw in a game, it will automatically clock itself up to deliver more performance. Conversely, if a game begins to suck down more power than the board can handle, or if it begins to push the fan to noisy levels, it can clock back down. It�s really cool technology and it contributes greatly to the performance, power, and acoustic experience the GTX 680 delivers. Furthermore, Adaptive V-Sync allows gamers who want the smooth gaming experience of enabling V-Sync to be free from one of the challenges we face when we enable it. V-Synch will lock the frames displayed to the refresh rate of your display. This gets rid of some of the tearing you might see when your frame rates greatly exceed what a display is capable of showing you. For most LCD owners, that�s 60Hz, or 60fps. But if you drop below 60fps, V-Sync drops to 30fps, as that is easily divisible into 60. With Adaptive V-Sync, a drop below 60fps does not mean a drop to a locked 30fps. If you get 48fps, you�ll see 48fps. If you get 55fps, you�ll see 55fps, and so on. This will reduce some of the jerky performance you�ll see when you�re running on the edge of 60fps because of resolution or visual effects. *LAST MINUTE EDIT* Ooh, someone sent me a video of our friend Ujesh from NVIDIA explaining GPU boost and a couple more technologies in the GTX 680. Check this video out:

So I tell you what, if you�ve made it this far, let�s get the benchmark graphs out of the way as you�ve been reading long enough, and I�ll pick back up after you�re done.

>>>>CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 WITH BENCHMARKS<<<<<

The GeForce GTX 680 Review - Quantifying the Subjective - Part 2

ChrisMorley — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:40:10 GMT

So what we�re seeing here is that NVIDIA has definitely brought the heat (in a cool way.) Possibly because of the 256-bit bus we�re seeing the Radeon HD 7970 continues to be very competitive at 2560x1600. But it�s definitely a back and forth. I�m doing some 1080P testing that shows that at that resolution the GTX 680 begins to be the clearer winner, and I�ll try to get that up for you later. As to scaling, all looks pretty good with the exception of Batman: Arkham City. But that game�s codebase has been contentious since its release with a fairly broken DX11 codepath. Either way, there will be a ton of benchmarks out there for you to pour over and I urge you to take a look at what games are important to you and at what resolutions you will be running them.

But I can�t stress enough about the experience. NVIDIA brings 3D Vision Surround, a closed-ecosystem of hardware and software support that really does deliver a consistent, enjoyable experience for the numerous titles that support that feature. And with 3D Vision 2, the games are brighter and your field of vision is greater with the new and improved glasses. AMD has come a long way with HD3D, but they are still at the mercy of entities not under their control. I would also say they�ve done a terrible job of marketing and educating the consumer. And while it may not be a big deal to everyone, NVIDIA solutions are the only ones that support PhysX. Sure, we all wish they�d port it over to OpenCL, but it just makes smart business sense when AAA titles like Batman Arkham City look noticeably more immerse when you have the ability to turn it on. Furthermore, I think Adaptive V-Sync is wonderful. As a gamer who plays with V-Sync on, it�s awesome that I am not going to drop down to 30fps just because my game dipped slightly below 60fps. That�s smart technology whose time has come. And the power consumption coupled with whisper quiet operation are just icing on the cake. I keep mentioning this because I truly believe they did something special here in that regard.

There is nothing here that takes away from what AMD has been able to accomplish with time to market on a new process technology and sheer amounts of power and performance they were able to deliver up and down the product stack, starting with the Radeonn HD 7970 on down through the Radeon HD 7750 (which I called a clear winner not because of its benchmarking abilities, but because of its power-sipping, single slot design.) But the fact is that NVIDIA has truly invented a different class of enthusiast GPU, and for once, enthusiast gamers are being given a choice on what type of experience they want to buy, not just how many frames per second they are buying, which the GTX 680 still delivers in spades. And they've delivered on power efficiency and acoustics in a way we haven't seen in a long time. We're proud to offer these products in our award winning systems.

I have a feeling this isn�t the last article I�ll be writing about 28nm technology, and there�s certainly things that I haven�t touched on like overclockability, TXAA, and a couple of finer points, but we�ll save that for another day.

Notable reviews from around the web:

HardOCP
Tech Report
Legit Reviews
PC Perspective
Anandtech

>>>>CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO PART ONE<<<<

DISCUSS THIS IN OUR FORUMS

More Custom than Custom - MAINGEAR EPIC Research Labs launches the EPIC Audio Engine

ChrisMorley — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:12:12 GMT

Customizeability is a word that gets thrown around a lot in this business. So is innovation. But are you really innovating when you�re just pulling components off the shelf and throwing them all in a configurator? How does that customizability differentiate you from the myriad of other companies offering the exact same, albeit long, list of components that anyone can buy?

We ask ourselves that question, and that�s how, in the past two years, we�ve been able to greatly impact the direction of the boutique market, beginning with the SHIFT. Since then, our message of clean aesthetics and design and function without compromise has turned a lot of heads and has put us down a new path of bringing real innovation through truly new and unique products, not just listing new products in our configurator.

The EPIC lineup of closed-loop watercoolers was our next step. We partnered with CoolIT to use their patented micro-fin technology and their ECO II pump to power an out-of-spec 180mm radiator, the first and only on the market. This allowed us to reach the thermal efficiency of more expensive hand built liquid cooling loops without the constant maintenance and without the worry of leakage.

We�ve been able to apply the EPIC 180 to various duties inside the SHIFT. We�ve used it in conjunction with CoolIT�s OMNI plates to offer the world�s only closed-loop dual GTX 590 and dual Radeon HD 6990 solutions. And because of the size of the EPIC 180, we�re actually able to keep temps and noise down. With the industry standard 120mm radiators on the market we would have only been able to keep one 590 at air cooled temperatures and at about the same noise profile. So when we innovate, we really make a difference.

And if you�ve been paying attention to some recent press, you�ll see we�ve updated our lineup to include Intel�s latest Sandy Bridge E processor. Of course, that�s something that everyone�s doing, but if you read our press release, you�ll see that we also launched another MAINGEAR developed product, the MAINGEAR EPIC Audio Engine.

This is a very unique solution, and has never before been seen in the PC market.

As someone who designs high performance computers for enthusiast gamers and professionals, I�ve often mused that going with maxed-out graphics cards leaves you no room for upgraded audio, in most cases. This was just the nature of the beast, I thought.

When I was introduced to APHEX�s Exciter technology, a patented harmonic processor, I was pumped. As an audiophile myself, I take audio very seriously. I have a beautiful 10 year old pair of Definitive Technologies BP-2002 speakers hooked up to an Integra amplifier. I listen to music most of the day when I�m not on the phone. Music is a big part of my life.

So when I had the chance to license the technology inside the Exciter � a studio grade product that has been refined for over three decades, with over a million units product � I started to get excited!

Finally, something we could do about crappy front-panel audio!

Ever listened to music that sounded flat? The vocals and the mids and the lows just kinda blended together into a bunch of audio mud? That�s what EQ�s are for, right? Let�s give it some �Bass Boost.� But then you have to compensate by raising the levels of other frequencies for their perceived loss. Eventually you�ve just made loud audio mud.

The MAINGEAR EPIC Audio Engine featuring APHEX technology brings out desired frequencies without adding gain � the result is audio that�s better articulated. It also features a headphone amplifier, boosting the often weak signal that most PC audio solutions send to the front panel audio connectors. In addition, there�s APHEX processing on the mic return � making it the only solution that actively enhances your voice � wonderful for multiplayer-gaming.

So how does it work? Well, we made it utilizing industry standard connections to make it universally compatible with any combination of hardware. That means that it takes a 4-pin power connector from your PSU, and then instead of connecting your front panel audio into your motherboard or discrete sound card, you plug it into the EPIC Audio Engine. Then you plug the Audio Engine into your sound solution�s front panel header, using the industry standard Intel HD pin out. That�s it. No drivers, no configuration. We include a switch so you can turn it on and off (the amp stays on, either way.) And that�s the gist of it. Audiophiles won�t turn up their nose at plugging their high quality cans into it, and multi-player gamers will love the clarity and distinction it brings to multi-player gaming. It does wonders for team communication!

But we wanted to take it a step further, we wanted to make sure that this product was of the highest audio fidelity � so we brought it to one of our customers, Downtown Music, LLC. Home to artists like Gnarls Barkley, Downtown Music is located in the heart of New York City. So we partnered with them to have the EPIC Audio Engine professionally tuned by their audio engineers. It really validated what we were attempting and it ensured that way we tuned the product would best serve the discerning audio enthusiast.

So that�s it! Just another product we�ve developed and brought to market. This isn�t a mod, this wasn�t done with a Dremel and acrylic � this is a bona fide engineered product that has been designed and manufactured in the United States to address a very real need in the enthusiast desktop market. And that�s the point of MAINGEAR EPIC Research Labs. We have more products in the queue and I�m looking forward to sharing them with you!

Check out pics from Wallace and my trip to Downtown Music and the EPIC Audio Engine on our Facebook page, here.

No Compromise- The Radeon HD 7970 is here! (Triple CrossFire Benchmarks Inside!)

ChrisMorley — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:20:02 GMT

Haven�t the past twelve months been awesome? New CPU�s from Intel and AMD, great graphics from NVIDIA and AMD, and plenty of great games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. It just doesn�t get much better than this! So of course we�re excited to talk to you about our latest flagship offering from one of our valued partners, this time AMD. AMD is first to market with a 28nm graphics processing unit � the chip that�s responsible for all the pretty pixels you see in a game. It�s one of the single most important choices a gamer will make. AMD thinks you�ll choose Radeon with their latest offering, and we think they make a compelling case! I�d also like to introduce to you our official AMD rep � forum user AMD Robert. He�ll be happy to answer direct questions from you about AMD products! Where else can you get that kind of service?

So, let�s get started. What is the Radeon HD 7970? It�s what we�d call a true next-generation product. A true next generation product typically combines a new architecture with a new fabrication process. It�s risky, but the pay offs are huge. Did you know that AMD has been tweaking their same graphics architecture for four years, starting with the R600? Even the super-fast Radeon HD 6990 is a derivative of the original Radeon HD 2900XT. How times have changed.

AMD is introducing an all new architecture, dubbed Graphics Core Next, and it�s fast! I won�t go into the details, there are many technical sites out there that will fill you in, but the basics can be boiled down to these bullet points (vs Radeon HD 6970):

� 2048 Stream Processors vs 1536 (new architecture as well)
� 128 Texture Units vs 96
� 32 ROPs (more efficient design)
� 925MHz Core Clock vs 880MHz (and EXTREMELY overclockable)
� 5.5GHz Effective 3GB Memory vs 4.2GHz Effective 2GB Memory
� 4.31 Billion Transistors vs 2.64 Billion
� 28nm vs 40nm
� Eyefinity 3D
� DirectX 11.1

There are many more awesome features that I urge you to research like partially resident textures and its compute prowess, but this blog post is to let you know that a) the Radeon HD 7970 is here, b) the Radeon HD 7970 is FAST, and c) we have the Radeon HD 7970.

We�re currently offering the Radeon HD 7970 in our SHIFT, F131, and X-Cube desktops. Shortly we�ll be adding them to the Vybe. We are offering them in up to 3-way CrossFire in our flagship SHIFT, and they are wicked fast. We�ll show you that the scaling is there for three way and also how much more power you get when overclocking. So, without further ado, let�s get to some benchmarks!

We've run every benchmark to the max at 2560x1600. We've turned every dial up, and we really wanted to punish these cards. We've compared to a special, 3GB non-reference designed GTX 580 3GB card from EVGA to try to even the playing field a bit, as the prices are almost exactly the same.

As you can see, the 7970 is a force to be reckoned with. And we were excited to see 3-way scale so well! Wanna know the best part though? When you're just surfing the internet and you have a 2x or 3x CrossFire system, all but the primary cards actually TURN OFF. That's right, the fans even stop spinning. So for those of you worried about having a high energy consuming high-powered gaming PC, worry no-longer.

The bottom line is the Radeon HD 7970 is a fantastic addition to our stable of products. It's the first with 28nm and DirectX 11.1, and we're very happy that we've seen tremendous performance and stability with them. We think that our customers should definitely give it their consideration.

EPIC Dominance � the EPIC 180 Stretches Its Legs With Sandy Bridge-E

ChrisMorley — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:28:37 GMT

When we designed the EPIC 180 with CoolIT, we knew we had something special. But a funny thing happened, we launched it during the Sandy Bridge days where it really didn�t take much to get to 5GHz! Often times the EPIC 180 found itself spinning slowly, waiting for a chance to really prove its mettle. The EPIC 120 and 140 were good for very high overclocks on Sandy Bridge CPUs that didn�t require a lot of voltage. Well, with the 130W monster that is Sandy Bridge-E, the EPIC 180 gets what it�s been waiting for.

I took a rather crummy 3960X I had on my test bench, one that delivered 4.6GHz at a rather high 1.45 volts in the BIOS and ran very hot, and decided to test out our three coolers for you. The EPIC 120 is a great reference platform as it should perform identical to the Corsair H60, for instance, or any other 120mm closed loop liquid cooler that is widely available.
Also included is the EPIC 140, which you�ll see does a great job in its own right of keeping this chip below its throttling threshold of 91C.

But the EPIC 180 is the real star � the massive amounts of surface area the radiator has (equivalent to a 360mm radiator) combined with the incredible amount of airflow (150CFM @ 1300rpm) and low noise (17dB @ 500rpm, 36dB @ 1300rpm) make it stand apart.

Testing platform:
Intel Core i7 3960X @ 4.6GHz (1.45V)
Intel DX79SI
4x 4GB GSKILL 1600MHz Ripjaws
10 minutes @ 75% load (equal to running Prime95 or LinX) utilizing an NDA burn-in and monitoring tool

Results:

EPIC 120

The key thing to point out in this is picture is the throttling that�s going on. When you keep Intel�s thermal protection on, the 3960X will throttle automatically at 91C to protect itself. So 91C is an artificially low number for the EPIC 120. Without it throttling a whopping 500MHz down to 4.1GHz, the EPIC 120 would have certainly skyrocketed to the chips breaking point. The end result is that the EPIC 120 is great for stock clocks or light overclocks, but getting into the big boy realm is just out of its reach.

EPIC 140

Here�s a rockstar in the making! The EPIC 140 holds the chip well under 91C and, as a result, is able to maintain the full 4.6GHz. It may reach its threshold at a couple hundred MHz higher or with a bit more voltage, but this is a very respectable overclock. The EPIC 140 has the same thermal efficiency curve as a 240mm closed loop radiator solution like the Corsair H100. The EPIC 140 is available on the F131 as an upgrade option and on the SHIFT when the EPIC 180 is pulling GPU cooling duty.

EPIC 180

The results speak for themselves. The EPIC 180 is in a class of its own!

The EPIC 180 proves that it is the king of closed-loop liquid coolers. The benefits to our customers are several-fold. First, as witness above, the cooling abilities are tremendous. It begins to play in the realm of hand-built liquid cooling loops without any of their downsides. Hand-built loops are heavier, more expensive (by several hundred dollars), require regular maintenance, and are prone to leakage. Heavy, high performance air cooler towers weigh well over a kilogram, way beyond Intel spec and can subject your motherboard to stress that can lead to disappearing memory in Windows, or even destroy your system during shipping. The EPIC 180�s bulk is securely bolted to steel skeleton of the SHIFT, while only a few grams of the pump and block are bolted to the motherboard.

EPIC stands for Enhanced Performance Integrated Components. MAINGEAR EPIC Research Labs is committed to bringing you true innovation in a way that is not found at off-the-shelf builders. Check out our latest EPIC innovations at www.maingear.com/epic. And expect more to come!

The MAINGEAR EPIC Supercoolers - Cooling Done Right.

ChrisMorley — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:51:22 GMT

At MAINGEAR we take heat seriously. Proper thermal management has allowed us to push the envelope in system design. We’re able to push the highest overclocks, with the least amount of noise, and in a stable and reliable manner due to proper research and testing. Over the years we’ve used the latest in cooling technology. From high end air coolers, phase-change, thermo-electric, and the best in hand built water cooling loops, we’ve always stayed at the very edge of design.

The MAINGEAR EPIC (Enhanced Performance InterCooler) line of closed-loop, maintenance-free coolers were designed to take the very best of what we’ve learned over the years and combine them into the most effective solution for the consumer. With a redesigned, patented cold plate from our partner, CoolIT, to our exclusive 180mm radiator design, we are able to cool better, quieter, and longer than the competition. They come in three sizes - 120mm (Vybe), 140mm (Coming soon to the F131), and 180mm (SHIFT).

Of course, the big news is the EPIC 180. Exclusive to MAINGEAR and found only on the SHIFT, this one of a kind, 180mm closed loop system is a sight to behold. The MAINGEAR EPIC 180 is hands down the best closed loop liquid cooler on the market. It even surpasses many hand-built solutions on the market. Not one air cooler can even come close. And if you consider cost, reliability, and noise, we think it’s the best cooling solution, period.

CLICK FOR THERMAL RESISTANCE RESULTS - LOWER IS BETTER

The MAINGEAR EPIC 180 vs:

High Performance Air Coolers

Lower thermal resistance
Quieter performance
Safer to ship – the weight is bolted to the chassis, not hanging off the motherboard

Hand Built Cooling Loops

Comparable thermal resistance
Up to 75% more cost effective
100% more reliable – zero maintenance

Other Closed Loop Solutions

Drastically better thermal and acoustic performance than 120mm solutions
Better thermal and acoustic performance than 240mm Push/Pull quad-fan solutions
MAINGEAR Exclusive

It’s not just the radiator that gets a boost in the MAINGEAR EPIC lineup. The cold plate and pump have been redesigned for silent operation operation and lower thermal resistance while consuming 1.2 watts. The patented cold plate designed by CoolIT utilizes micro-fin technology to increase the transfer of heat from the copper base to the liquid in the system. By increasing the fin density and the development of the split flow liquid path, the flow rate stays up while keeping the pumping power low and the overall size of the pump/coldplate module extremely compact. And more efficient cooling means better overclocks, and we like that.

If you haven’t noticed, we like to do things that require a little more effort than just buying parts off the shelf. The SHIFT is a prime example. Bringing to market a closed loop solution that has never been built before in a 180mm form factor takes a lot of planning, a lot of money, and a lot of innovation to make sure that it’s a reliable, high performance part that, most importantly, doesn’t impact your wallet. Quite frankly, for our customers, this cooler is a steal. You’d have to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get the same performance out of a hand-built loop. And it’d require a heavy and bulky 3x120mm cooler to do it, and would require yearly maintenance and run the risk of leaking. The EPIC 180mm just works. It’s quite, cheap, won’t show up damaged or leaking (knock on wood), and turns the cooling status quo on its head.

MAINGEAR and the Asus Maximus IV Extreme � Prior and Proper Testing vs What�s Popular

ChrisMorley — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 01:03:18 GMT

I thought I’d give you a glimpse into how we do business at MAINGEAR. It’s no secret that buying a boutique PC is more expensive than building your own. Having full time employees, a mortgage, taxes, marketing, insurance, R&D, etc all cost money and all get built into the price we charge. And in return our customers expect a certain value for their money. That includes great pre- and post-sales support, warranty guarantees, and knowing they are getting a product that has our stamp of approval.

It’s that last item that truly sets us apart from the rest. By putting a product in our configurator, MAINGEAR is telling you that we’ve validated it and we approve of it. Many other vendors put up a list of hardware and expect you to do the research of whether or not it’s good or compatible with your configuration. We consider that part of our job. That’s why you don’t find 6 or more motherboard choices in our configurations. We actually build up and test our products before we offer them for sale. What you might not know about us is that we tested dozens of boards leading up to our launch of Sandy Bridge – the most complete and thorough offering in the boutique business.

So some of you who have followed our products for some time may wonder why we chose to abandon Asus’s latest and greatest for our Sandy Bridge launch in favor of Gigabyte’s P67A-UD7.

It’s simple: the Asus Maximus IV Extreme FAILED our testing.

Fully half of the samples we received were killing processors. Neither Asus nor ourselves could figure out what was going on, but they shipped us various motherboards with different BIOSs, even boards they pretested, and they kept killing our retail processors.

Conversely, the Gigabyte P67A-UD7 was a solid performer. It allowed us to push our overclocks to the limit, and did not exhibit one issue during our strenuous testing – the toughest in the business.

I was sent one more test board directly from Asus last week, along with a CPU they had tested on it. I admit that since we found a perfect flagship motherboard from Gigabyte that testing yet another Maximus IV Extreme is not high on my priority list right now. But I just received notice from Asus that I should send it back to them. Apparently there IS an issue and I was told that a new sample from a new production batch in Taiwan would be sent directly to me. They told me they didn’t want me to fry any more processors.

I’m going to retest some more samples. It may be that the Maximus IV Extreme finds its way onto our configurators. But when and if it does, you’ll know it’s because I’ve beat the snot out of it and have deemed it worthy to be prominently featured in the MAINGEAR Shift Super Stock. I don't doubt that many of the boards out there don't exhibit this issue, to be certain half of the ones we were sent didn't. But I can't go by someone's review of a single board, or anecdotal forum posts, not when I've got multiple boards and half of them are flat out killing our processors.

There’s a reason we won 14 Editors’ Choice awards last year and a 2011 CES Innovations award – we know our stuff. We only use the best. And if what’s right isn’t always popular, then so be it. We think we’ve earned the right to offer the best to our customers, even if it goes against the status quo.

*CLARIFICATION* Often times we have to make a decision on what products we're going to carry based on engineering samples, pre-production samples, or early production samples. Sometimes these parts vary wildly from final retail products. It's a precarious thing for manufacturers and a precarious thing for us - sometimes it's like we have to validate the same product twice. It may very well be that these samples I got will be wholly different from the final, mass production sample I will be getting in. I am sure that is the case. I will, however, be validating this product before it makes its way onto our configurators.

MAINGEAR and Sandy Bridge - a love story

ChrisMorley — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:10:05 GMT

Every now and then I have the privilege of just being there. I get to watch new and wonderful technology come to market. But even more, as an active participant, I help plant this technology. I plant it in our products, I seed it with the press. This is what I do, this is my profession, and I love it. And I feel blessed every day to be at a company like MAINGEAR where our partners trust us with their technology and our reputation for quality and performance has allowed us to rise through the ranks and I get to work with others who will cultivate and nurture this technology through to your hands.

In our way, we at MAINGEAR shape the way any given technology is presented to you, our customers. We get it early. We give our feedback. Sometimes we even have a hand in how it takes shape, but ultimately we decide where it goes, how much we charge for it, how we market it, and what we send out for reviews.

And you�ll begin to see trends. You�ll see certain configurations pop up at the usual review venues � maybe we�ve identified certain configurations that strike a chord with a reviewer. But most often you�ll find the also-rans sending in their attempts to copy our award winning systems. But you�ll definitely be able to identify patterns if you look hard enough, and if the technology stagnates for long enough.

I think that�s where we are now in the CPU world. In a binary world of P55 or X58 chipsets. Of affordable or performance. Of a spoiler with AMD � there are certain customers who are well suited to their value proposition, but you don�t find many at MAINGEAR.

And it gets confusing! It�s difficult keeping up with 3 different SKUs for each of our models � Performance, Enthusiast, Extreme for each SHIFT, X-Cube, Vybe, or F131. It can be confusing, at first glance, trying to decide if a P55 or X58 chipset, or an AMD platform is going to give you the best performance for your dollar. When you�re not at the high end or at the low end, but somewhere in between � what do you buy?

And that�s why what we�re doing today is so special. Because we really are in a golden age of desktop performance, price, and power efficiency. Tablets are nifty, and they�re great gadgets � but I work at my desktop. I work hard. And I can play hard. I can play in 3D. I can play across three screens at resolutions way beyond 1080p. And I can make headshots � on purpose � with a keyboard and a mouse. I love my PC. I love my desktop. And what we�re going to do is going to make you fall in love, too.

With the introduction of Intel�s next generation, 32nm CPU architecture, also known as "Sandy Bridge," we�re making the most drastic, company-wide changes to our lineup since the SHIFT launched in 2009.

To us it�s drastic, but perhaps to you it�ll just make sense. Because that�s what our goal is � to have our products make sense, and for them to speak to you, eliminating the confusion as to what will deliver you a truly exceptional experience.

You are either a Stock or Super Stock customer and you will know it the first time you browse through our new desktop product lineup.

Our customers fall in one of two categories: either they want performance at any cost or they want performance at a price. And we have tried to balance catering to both of these types of customers.

Typically the latter will start off a phone call with "I�m not a gamer, but�" And that "but" is followed by a profession of love for our products, an affinity for our stellar reputation, and more often than not a tale of woe involving some multi-national commodity builder. These customers don�t need 3-way GTX 580s. Unless you tell them they don�t know that their motherboard is built with military-class components and has 100% solid capacitors from Japan. And sometimes these customers can get overwhelmed by all the choices, many of which just aren�t for them.

Conversely, the customer that is looking for the benchmark-busting configurations we�re known for is going to raise an eyebrow at seeing integrated graphics, or anything that doesn�t cost as much as a small Hyundai.

And that�s why we�ve taken our successful Super Stock program that we launched on the SHIFT last year for those customers that wanted that last bleeding edge of performance, customization, and prestige, and have expanded it to the rest of our desktop line.

Now, for customers who want water-cooling, overclocking, multiple graphics cards, premium memory, and SSD boot drives, we�ve got the SHIFT Super Stock, the F131 Super Stock, the Vybe Super Stock, and the X-Cube Super Stock.

And by now you already know if you want a Super Stock version of these systems � I was right, wasn�t I?
And you probably already know if you�re more in the market for a Stock system. And we want to make sure that we have the right and critical mix of price and performance for you.

That�s the beautiful thing about the all-new 2011 Intel Core architecture. There�s something for everyone. We�ve put nearly a dozen motherboards though their paces here at MAINGEAR, and the entire product stack from Intel. We�ve poured over the benchmarks, analyzed the numbers, and have come to an amazing conclusion:

Sandy Bridge can satisfy all of our customers.

Want a great machine under $1000 that�s going to manage your HD home movies, pictures, music, and data? A Stock Vybe with a Core i5 2300 (four core, 2.8GHz) is more computer than you could imagine you could get.

Want a fantastic 3-way system optimized for NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround? Try a SHIFT Super Stock with a Core i7 2600K (4-core, 8-thread at 3.4GHz) overclocked and watercooled at 5GHz. Yes. Five freaking gigahertz.

You see, by picking the right components � all the way down to the motherboards � we can craft a performance profile at any price from under $1,000 up to $10,000, and one that is markedly different as you pay more or less � all with Sandy Bridge components at the heart of it.

And that�s the beauty of it. One technology, two types of customers, 100% satisfaction.

Stay tuned over the next couple of days as I post detailed performance results to show you why Sandy Bridge has replaced all of our consumer desktop configuration choices.

Intel Sandy Bridge Takeover - Performance Report

ChrisMorley — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:50:42 GMT

I feel like I�ve talked about Sandy Bridge so much over the past couple of months I�m almost too burned out to do this post. But you know what, I need to share this information with you. It�s exciting, it�s refreshing, and it greatly impacts what we are doing as a company and the products we are offering to you.

In case you haven�t heard, Intel dropped a thermo-nuclear warhead on the CPU industry with their latest �tock� in their �tick tock� strategy. Tock rhymes with "Rock" and that's what a "Tock" is supposed to be. The last "Tock" was Nahelem. Their second generation Core i7 technology brings a lot of �firsts� and �new� to both Intel�s lineup and the industry as a whole.

There are a lot of websites I�d recommend for a technical deep-dive, if you�re interested in the nitty gritty. I�m not going to go over what others have covered so thoroughly. I suggest you check out Anand�s review for starters.

The bottom line is this: Sandy Bridge runs cooler, quieter, and is so loaded with advanced technologies, features, overclocking capabilities, and stratified performance up and down the price/performance stack that we have dropped AMD and Intel�s own X58 platform for our consumer desktops.

Intel has awkwardly tried to position this product as a replacement for their previous �mainstream� platform, the P55 chipset and its subsequent Socket 1156 processors. Indeed, in the hundreds of slides and whitepapers I read, not once did they compare it to the X58 platform.

But when I got my hands on Sandy Bridge and put it up against our hands-down best selling processor, the Core i7 950 � I was blown away.

It runs incredibly cooler and quieter, brings more performance and performance headroom, and is less expensive as a platform and as a processor than the i7 950 (and if you read the reviews, even an i7 975 Extreme Edition). In fact, the one and only one reason to buy an X58 platform is if you are interested in getting a 6-core for some hard core video transcoding/encoding. And in that case, we�ve kept the X58 platform around with the Quantum SHIFT for creative professionals.

The fact is that Sandy Bridge is the smart choice for the consumer, and it doesn�t matter if you�re spending $1000 or $10,000.
Let me get you started with some performance benchmarks I ran. Please excuse my being coy on the actual numbers behind this. Sometimes we feel like we do R&D for the rest of this industry, and so this time I�m not showing the exact results � but the bars in these graphs are all backed by hard numbers. The Core i7 950 was the gold standard for our testing, so you can see how Sandy Bridge falls in line.

CINEBENCH MULTI-THREADED RENDERING

Starting with Cinebench, to show great multi-threaded performance in a content-creation environment, you�ll see explosive numbers out of the 2600K, with the 2500K just being edged out by the i7 950 and X6 1090T.

CINEBENCH SINGLE THREADED RENDERING

Keeping those processors in their place let�s switch to the single threaded performance results in Cinebench R10. Without the brute force of 6 cores behind it, you can see that the X6 1090T takes a dive, and the Athlon II X3 isn�t even getting up off the bench. Furthermore, every single Sandy Bridge processor outclasses the Core i7 950 in single threaded operations.

X264 HD PASS 2 VIDEO ENCODING

Moving on to video encoding, it�s almost a mirrored performance by these professors from our Cinebench R11.5 muli-threaded test, with the 2600K the clear winner.

TOTAL PLATFORM PERFORMANCE WITH PC MARK VANTAGE

See, this is where it starts to get interesting � when you stop focusing 100% on the multithreaded capabilities of a processor, and start to factor in the whole platform solution. As you can see, Sandy Bridge really just is in a class of its own for general usage � from multi-tasking to photo manipulation, to gaming � all taken into account in this test � Sandy Bridge just walks away from it.

But to put all of that in perspective, take a look at how little that performance costs you in terms of power draw. All else being equal the performance of Sandy Bridge is excellent, but to do so well at such low power consumption and consequently lower temps and noise is a tremendous feat.

CONCLUSION

As you can see it�s the 2500K at two thirds the price of the i7 950 that is giving the 950 a hard time. The 2600K enjoys a sizeable lead. The Athlon II X3 can�t seem to even step up to the fight with the lowest end Core i3 2100, and the big daddy Phenom II X6 1090T is simply outclassed by the 2600K and can�t deliver the single threaded or platform performance of either the 2500K or Core i7 950. It also doesn�t have the total performance package when you stop focusing on its multi-core prowess, and its power consumption doesn�t do it any favors, either.

It's one thing to run the numbers, it's another thing to experience each of these configurations in sequence, getting to feel the snap, if you will. And when you really put these configurations under load, and hear the fans rev up, feel the heat from the voltage regulators, and see the power consumption, it really puts things into perspective. Sandy Bridge put these numbers up there inaudibly, with a heat sink that felt almost cool to the touch, and near the idle wattage numbers of some previous generation platforms.

Combine that with the price, the scalable platform from inexpensive and integrated all the way up to 3-way SLI overclocking monstrosities, and you can see why we're excited. And hopefully this gives you a little more of a glimpse as to why we've choses to standardize our consumer lineup on Sandy Bridge. It just makes sense. We'll still offer X58 and six-core, along with dual Xeons on our Quantum SHIFT - but if you're in the market for a new home PC, for any reason, get Sandy Bridge.

The Pinnacle of Recognition for the SHIFT

ChrisMorley — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:46:55 GMT

.............................................................

Today we can announce that we are a CES 2011 CES Design and Engineering Innovations Honoree. Took me a few times to get that in the right order.

A little over a year ago we launched the biggest game-changer in the history of the boutique PC industry. I don't say that lightly. Even though there have been some pretty crazy designs or ideas out there, none have made the impact of not only the SHIFT, but the complete overhaul of MAINGEAR as a company.

Years ago when I came to MAINGEAR, I knew I had finally found my place in this industry. In working for Wallace Santos, I finally found someone who had the vision and the drive to do remarkable things in this business - not just follow the status quo or chase other companies down to the bottom dollar.

And even though we were a small company back then, we had some big plans. We knew we wanted to do some game-changing designs (like Wallace's vision that became the SHIFT,) but we knew that some trailer-queen flash-in-the-pot wasn't going to do it. We knew that we had to dial in the company. The customer service. The after-sale support. The manufacturing, deployment, inventory control, and everything else - it all had to be pristine.

And all the while we had to productize something that was a balance of being a trend-killer with afford ability, mass-market appeal, and still maintain our pole position as the luxury leader. It all had to be ready to fire, like a loaded gun. Any weakness and it could jam or backfire.

So we went about it cool, calm, and collected. We weathered fads, trends, and failed companies. And in November of last year we pulled it off as best we could. And through numerous Editors' Choice awards, countless competitors mimicking our product lineup, configurations, marketing tactics, PR, and even colors, this award today tops it all off and validates our hard work.

And what a team that built this. No single person could have pulled this off - it took a crew that spent years toiling every day for our customers, for less money than they deserved, for more hours than was required - all working together as a tight-knit crew in search of glory and perfection. There's a lot of people at MAINGEAR who don't make it out in public as much as I do, and that's because they are head down, working their butts off for you guys, making sure our operations work like clockwork. So this award is more theirs than anyone's. Thanks guys.

The MAINGEAR crew that launched the SHIFT.

GeForce GTX 580 - Fermi Done Right!

ChrisMorley — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:01:52 GMT

This is simultaneously the best kept and the most talked about secret in the business right now. The GeForce GTX 580 � it�s been rumored to be everything from dual GF104 chips to a new monster concoction of epic proportions. Just about all the rumors got it wrong until concrete evidence began to disseminate through the leaky pipes of the supply chain. Even then, as the specs began to bubble up to the surface, most people came to the wrong conclusions.

It all started back in the March/April time frame, around when NVIDIA launched their first part built on the well-hyped Fermi architecture, the GeForce GTX 480. Reviews were mixed; it was the fastest single GPU on the planet, no questions asked. It was a tessellation monster and its scaling in games, up to 3-way SLI, was incredible, as we showed when it was released.

But it was also hot and loud. And that was compounded by the press using open-air test beds to test the GeForce GTX 480 � which meant the card had to do all the work in moving air over its hot components without the assistance of a well-ventilated chassis.

In fact, we proved that the heat-stack vertical design of the MAINGEAR SHIFT aided the GeForce GTX 480 in such a way that it was dramatically quieter in 3-way SLI than an identically configured Corsair 800D chassis that has terrible airflow. We were the first to integrated 3-way, air-cooled SLI while others said it was too hot. And you�ll find some of those very same people launching or using the exact same design as the SHIFT today to showcase the GTX 580. On a side note: the patent-pending MAINGEAR SHIFT chassis was just awarded today a CES 2011 Design and Engineering Innovations Honoree award.

But getting back to the point of this article � the GeForce GTX 580 is a fully-realized GF100 with all 512 shaders. It has higher memory bandwidth, and a higher core and shader clock. And it does all of this while drawing less power and at half the noise level. It�s the last two features that will blindside everyone. Once the specs made it from the rumor department to accepted, on-line �fact,� everyone began to speculate that it would sound like a hair dryer and draw the power generated by a flux capacitor. And require 1.21 jiggawatts and 88mph to go back in time.

In reality, NVIDIA designed a wicked vapor chamber a la ATI Radeon 2900XT, threw out the exposed gigantic heat pipes, and managed to tweak the design to draw less power, all while delivering around 20% more performance.

I was fortunate enough to get to test out a MAINGEAR SHIFT with both 2-way GTX 480s and 2-way GTX 580s and can show you some numbers here. So let�s get started.

By now you�ve read all the numbers, and within the last couple of days the rumored specs have solidified into the truth. Yes, it has 512 shaders. Yes it is clocked at 772MHz and delivers 192.4GB/s of bandwidth.

Here�s what we shoved into an award-winning SHIFT for this test:

Core i7 970 @ 4.135GHz
6GB of DDR3 2000MHz memory
Rampage III Formula
128GB Crucial RealSSD C300
And all the rest.

Here are the hard numbers:

OK, the numbers aren't earth-shattering, but you see anywhere from 10-20% increase in performance. Put that in context of the chart below and you'll see why there's plenty of reason to get excited about this.

What I didn't put in chart form is power draw. Dual GTX 580's consumed about 40 watts less than dual GTX 480's. And you would not believe how much quieter they are. It is striking. Unfortunately I didn't bring a SPL meter with me, but NVIDIA reports it's about 50% quieter. I do not doubt for a second that is an accurate assessment. I was floored.

Can you see Billy Mays selling this thing? "THE NEW NVIDIA GTX 580 IS FASTER. IT'S QUIETER. IT USES LESS POWER! AND BEST OF ALL, IT'S THE SAME PRICE. THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS, THE ALL NEW GTX 580 IS NOT ONLY THE WORLD'S FASTEST SINGLE GPU ON THE PLANET, IT'S THE SAME PRICE AS THE GTX 480! BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. BUY THE GEFORCE GTX 580 AND GET FREE(!) SUPPORT FOR CUDA. FOR 3D VISION. FOR PHYSX! ALL OF THESE COME BUNDLED IN THE NEW NVIDIA GTX 580 GRAPHICS CARD!"

OK, so maybe it's only me. But either way, this bad boy is replacing the GTX 480 in our configurator, ASAP. And we're also offering EVGA's Superclocked version for those of you who still want "MOAR POWAH!"

Here are some more pics I took while engaged in this project.

But don't take my word for it, here are a few more reviews for you to chew on:

[H]ard|OCP
Legit Reviews
Bright Side of News
Hot Hardware

The Radeon HD 6800 Series: Value and Final Thoughts

ChrisMorley — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 04:20:03 GMT

They did WHAT?

I gotta tell you, I had this whole review figured out as I was putting numbers down...until about noon today when I found out that NVIDIA did what it does best - massive retaliation.

Turns out they dropped the price of the GTX 460 AND the GTX 470 - to $199 for the 1GB model and $259 for the GTX 470.

Yeesh, talk about a wrench! I wish I had a GTX 470 to throw into this mix, as the graphs would look much different - but it would still be higher than the retail price of the Radeon HD 6870 1GB at $239. Also, we know the performance of the GTX 460 1GB, and its price has been dropped to $199, or $209 for partner overclocked boards like ours, which is still higher than the $179 AMD is asking for the phenomenal Radeon HD 6850 1GB.

So taking these numbers, let's run down our benchmarks and figure out performance per dollar.

Note: The above value chart is within the constraints of a 22" 1680x1050 monitor. Some configurations were CPU-limited, but it sure shows how you CAN overbuy if you're not careful.

Now, this will mean different things to different people. But what this tells me as the CTO of MAINGEAR, is that we'll be selling a lot of Radeon HD 6850 1GB in CrossFire and GeForce GTX 460 1GB in SLI. And we'd better be securing those higher clocked parts in order to keep that value high.

So AMD did what it set out to do - do a real number on the market in this price range. And especially with the Radeon HD 6850, which is the fastest single PCI-E power cable accelerator I've ever seen - they have succeeded. I'm glad that I could take the time out to get some of these numbers together and spend time with the product. It's one helluva a time to be a gamer.

But don't take my word for it - go read some real smart guys tell you even more than I did here:

Anandtech

HardOCP

Legit Reviews - CrossFire

PC Perspective

Hot Hardware

<-- PREVIOUS PAGE

The Radeon HD 6800 Series: A Word On Airflow

ChrisMorley — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:45:56 GMT

Thar She Blows!

Remember that video I did back in March talking about the SHIFT and our vertical, heat-stack design? And how its unique cooling properties kept hot video cards cooler and quieter than other chassis? In particular I compared it to the Corsair 800D, one that has similar aesthetic properties (at a distance, but that's another story) to the SHIFT. One of the issues with the 800D that I pointed out was that any heat that wasn't exhausted straight out the back of the chassis was kicked back into the chassis, reheating components. Well, check out the video here:

The pertinent info is at the 5 minute and 15 second mark.

Well, it just so happens that, by design, the Radeon HD 6800 series doesn't move about 33% of its exhaust out the grate on the backplane. Instead, it's kicked out at an angle as shown here:

But that's OK! The SHIFT, the F131, the X-Cube, and the Vybe ALL have the proper ventilation to ensure that extra air is exhausted out of the chassis. Most striking is the SHIFT with its design as shown below.

If we were looking at the same angle on the Corsair 800D, you'd see that the area around the green circle would be solid metal, not an open airflow grate like the SHIFT.

It's not just the Radeon HD 6800 series that is designed like this, the GeForce GTX 480s are as well, it's just the Radeon HD 6800 is the most visually apparent.

Just something to keep in mind, because we sure did. ;)

<-- PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE -->

The Radeon HD 6800 Series: By The Numbers

ChrisMorley — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:43:19 GMT

SHOW ME THE NUMBERS!

TEST BED

2.8GHz Xeon 6-core
6GB Triple Channel DDR3-1333MHz
Tylersburg X58 3-way SLI motherboard
128GB Kingston SSD
500GB SATA data drive

22" LCD 1680x1050 resolution (I know, I'll get a bigger one for the next review - time was short on this one)

Drivers supplied by AMD for the Radeon HD 6800 series and Catalyst 10.9 used for the Radeon 5000 series.

NVIDIA 260.89 WHQL drivers used for NVIDIA graphics solutions.

Note: A retail-available and factory overclocked GeForce GTX 460 1GB was used during testing as just about all the GeForce GTX 460 class cards you can buy ARE overclocked. This part seems underclocked by NVIDIA to allow for partner differentiation. The EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1GB P/N 01G-P3-1371-TR was what I used exactly. It's clocked at 720MHz core and 1440MHz memory vs 675MHz core and 1350MHz memory. It's a tame overclock compared to other models you can buy on the market.

OK, without further adieu...

Well, well, AMD wasn't kidding about improved tessellation - the Radeon HD 6850 delivers 75% better performance than the Radeon HD 5750 1GB at 1680x1050 with extreme tessellation and 16x AF enabled. The Radeon HD 6870 almost catches up with the overclocked EVGA GTX 460 1GB, while delivering almost 79% better performance than the Radeon HD 5770.

Here's where being resolution limited has me bumping into the limits of my CPU power - yes, the cards are waiting around for the CPU to feed them information. You can see the limits being reached by the GTX 460 in SLI, and the 6800 series in CrossFire, as well as 3-way 5750 CrossFire.

And yes, that's not a mistake, the single Radeon HD 5750 is scoring higher than the Radeon HD 5770 in this test. As they are both non-reference designs, AMD speculated that each vendor may have made some different changes in the power gating - perhaps leading to this anomaly.

As it stands both the Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 are healthily ahead of the 5700 series, but can't quite touch the GTX 460 1GB.

I love Metro 2033, so I was interested in seeing how the cards perform. Again, the Radeon HD 6800 series blow away their predecessors and take a win over the GTX 460 1GB. Notice the better scaling on 6800 CrossFire vs 5700 CrossFire.

As I almost finished my 36-hour marathon testing of these cards, I realized that I forgot to run AvP on the 6850s...so I slapped them back in and made a complete n00b mistake and fried the cards. So sorry for the lack of numbers, but it's not because of anything AMD did.

Again, AMD obliterates the previous generation, and handily fends of the GTX 460 1GB with the Radeon HD 6870! And the scaling is phenomenal.

OK, here is a situation where I DID run into an issue with AMD drivers - Catalyst 10.9 does NOT like play nice with this benchmark in CrossFire. To their credit, however, the drivers for the 6800 series did just fine.

You can see here that even the GeForce GTS 450 puts in a fine showing, with the Radeon HD 6870 marginally ahead of the GTX 460 1GB. Double up on the GPUs and it's a different story - NVIDIA is just scaling better in this particular game, which is an NVIDIA "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" title, I might add. (It's not the stellar scaling we're used to seeing from NVIDIA, making me wonder if I'm seeing some more CPU-bound performance)

And yes, it plays Crysis. ;)

<-- PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE -->

The Radeon HD 6800 Series: Pics and Features

ChrisMorley — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:42:33 GMT

Let's dive right into the specs, then we'll talk about some of the feature enhancements. It's the juicy part of the review that gets us all excited about how the benchmark charts are going to turn out, so let's sate that appetite a little bit.

The Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850

Versus the 5800 series

With lower compute power, shader count, and memory bandwidth, it's going to be up to the optimization to the drivers, shader clusters, and the scheduler to give the 6800 series a chance of beating the 5800 series. But AMD knows that and is saying that in some cases the 6800 will deliver vs the 5800 series in certain situations.

Versus the 5700 series

It's easy to see AMD's predicament here. The 6800 series obliterates the 5700 series lineup on paper. So instead of just being an incremental part over the 5700 series, we're seeing massive performance gains. So I can see where AMD decided to leave the 5700 series where it is, position the 6800 series where IT is, and drop the 5800 series. And besides, AMD will be giving us a true replacement for the 5800 and 5900 series soon.

So it's just best to get this over with now, endure a little bit of gnashing of fanboy teeth, and let the rest of the product stack fill out, where I'm confident the whole lineup will then make sense.

All that matters is performance per dollar. It doesn't matter what the name is if you understand that before you make a decision.

New Display Options

A cool new feature about these cards is the ability to have six displays hooked up to a Radeon HD 6800 series card at once. With the addition of DisplayPort 1.2 technology, daisy chaining compatible DisplayPort 1.2 displays is now possible, for up to 4 DisplayPort monitors and a combination of either two DVI or one DVI and one HDMI monitor. It's important to note that HDMI has a limit of 1080p and the Single Link DVI connection has a limit of 1920x1200 resolution. So be sure to plan out your multiple monitor goals ahead of time - you may need to buy two Radeon HD 6800 cards to get the resolutions you need depending on the monitors you have.

AMD EyeSpeed Technology

To the layman, EyeSpeed is pretty much "anything but 3D gaming" that AMD wants you to know about. That includes the integrated Universal Video Decoder that enables you to watch Blu-ray movies without pegging your CPU at 100% usage, DirectCompute and OpenCL GPGPU technologies, the ability to accelerate video transcoding or upsampling, and stereoscopic 3D support, which AMD is calling AMD HD3D. It's important to note that AMD HD3D is an open standards based technology with all the upsides and downsides. It's not as mature and controlled as NVIDIA's 3D Vision, which MAINGEAR has had a lot of experience with, but it's great to see AMD making the moves necessary to embrace 3D. It is important to note that AMD is equipping these cards with HDMI 1.4a ports, which is necessary for 3D. God bless them for keeping up with that awful, cancerous standard. All you A/V custom installers know what I'm talking about.

Eagle-eyed techies will see that AMD is listing Badaboom in the graphic above, and it is also present on another slide in the deck I was given - I must say I've fallen down on my job and didn't ask them just exactly what product they'll be working on, as Badaboom has been historically a VERY NVIDIA-centric product, and I'm excited to see AMD working with Elemental on this. I'll do some more asking around about this.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, SHOW ME THE BENCHMARKS!"

Ok

<-- PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE -->