AMD Radeon 280X Round Up

Image from hdwallpapersinn.com

Every once and a while it’s good to get a round up of a set of graphics cards so that you can do an easy comparison.  Toms Hardware has done a round up of the Radeon 280X boards. They did not have a base AMD board, apparently their pretty phantom outside of Labs. They have also committed themselves to updating the article regularly as various third party vendors send in  new boards.

There is a fair amount of variance in board size ranging from 270mm to 300mm. This could have a big effect depending on what kind of case you are using. The depth is fairly similar between all of the reported manufacturers, which is helpful due to problems that can arise with plugging other devices in if you have a card that’s too wide. The heigh of boards vary widely as well, ranging from 112mm to 139 mm. They weight of the graphics card also vary widely from 769g to 1074g. something to consider if you move your computer around a lot.

Asus seems to have built a reasonably quiet GPU given the power, with an idle of about 30dB and a full load acoustic of about 41dB. If you’re looking for a powerful GPU that you can think over, this might be the best choice, as some of the other GPU’s are quite loud, going all the way up to about 56dB.

To get an overview of performance, take a look at the graphs provided in the article on Toms Hardware. Linked here.

 

 

Game Boosters

Image from cdrinfo.com

Toms Guide put out some programs for game boosters. I wouldn’t really call it so much of an article, as I would just call it a slideshow of screenshots with program titles, but it’s worth a look if you want to squeeze some extra FPS on your PC.

Take a look, and game away!

Intel Pro Graphics – Getting Better For Gaming

Picture taken from intel.com

If you had asked me a couple of years ago about gaming on integrated graphics, I would have gone on a rant about how much integrated graphics suck. But with PC gaming becoming a niche market again, many people do not want to have to spend a large chunk of money to upgrade their graphics card just to casually play some WoW .

It seems that the tech goliath Intel saw an opportunity and decided to through some money at it. Intels integrated graphics is the most popular graphics chips on the planet. So, if any company needs to innovate graphics, especially integrated graphics, it’s Intel. With the new Iris Pro graphics, it looks like the team of engineers at Intel has come up with a good solution for gamers on the go.

Not too long ago Intel had two pro StarCraft 2 players play a match on a Cyberpower laptop that had the Iris Pro graphics in it. Apparently the game ran pretty well, and the new chip, along with the new software/drivers that Intel has made, created a winning combination. This is a positive sign. It means that those of us who want to do some gaming on the go, can do so without having to sacrifice a lot of texturing in a game.

We’ll see how it goes when various tech sites can really take the chipset through the paces, but as of right now it is looking good.

Here is the press release from Intel.

Professional Grade GPU’s

There are a large number of companies out there that depend on their computers to be able to edit, create, and manipulate video and graphics quickly. That means that they are dependent on the graphics cards within their computers to work quickly. The requirement for a fast professional grade video card for these professionals does not come out of the GeForce and Radeon series from Nvidia and AMD. Instead they come from the Quadro, and FirePro series from their respective companies.

The Quadro and FirePro line of graphics cards are aimed at being able to drive through editing/creating images and video as quickly as possible. The technological requirements for these tasks is much different then what most consumers would be doing with their PCs.

There is a range of different cards within each line up, depending on a business’s needs. On the low end Nvidia and AMD have cards that are really more aimed towards hobbyists or companies that are doing light video and graphics work. These types of cards will work better then integrated graphics, or most of the cards out there meant for gaming. They will run you $150-$300, expect improved performance over standard graphics card performance, but don’t think you’ll be getting the best quality and speed out there. In this range, it does not matter whether you buy a Nvidia or AMD based GPU. They offer similar performance, and the amount of work you do on chips in this category should not be enough to notice any difference.

In the mid-range of professional grade cards, a business can look to spend in the $400-$800 range. These cards are going to be the best bang for your buck. They offer good performance, a reasonable price, and they will not be outdated by the time they are installed. These cards are going to be perfect for about 90% of companies who need a professional graphics cards. Just so long as you are not looking to be Pixar. Both Nvidia and AMD offer decent offerings in this category, but it is also the category where there becomes a more defined leader. Nvidia starts to pull ahead in this category. They do have a slightly higher average asking price, but the performance increase justifies the cost. Especially since at the amount most users will use these chips, a performance increase becomes noticeable.

The high end cards is really where all the magic is. These cards are going to be putting a company back $850+ per card, but if all you are doing is heavy visual work then this is where you want to look. Again, you cannot really go wrong with either Nvidia or AMD, but given how much the cards are you want the best. Nvidia seems to really pull ahead in this category here as well, putting them in the throne of professional grade GPU’s. Anybody buying a video card in the high end segment will not be disappointed, but it will set you back!

To take a look at benchmarks, here is where we pulled our information from.

New Names on Old GPUS

It seems as though AMD has taken the hint that the naming schemes for graphics cards has gotten a little out of hand. I am not going to go through a rehash of a couple of the articles I have read, because I will just link them out and you can read for yourself.

AMD has essentially decided to rename the 7 series cards that order them so that the numerics actually coincide with where their power lies in the spectrum.  IE, a Radeon 790 is more powerful then a Radeon 770, etc. This will help consumers keep the  ranking of GPUs more organized in their mind… Always good, especially for those of us who are easily confused.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635.html