Consoles Can No Longer Match PC’s

Nvidia knows graphics better then any other company on the face of the planet. They create the fastest graphics cards around, their GPUs are regularly in consoles, and they come up with some wicked promo videos. Toms Hardware recently caught up with the VP of Nvidia where they fanned the flames of the console vs PC war. Despite having an interest in developing graphics chips for both platforms, the company seemed to lean towards PCs being faster.

The way he looks at it, is that there are just too many power restrictions with a console. With a smaller power supply to power the unit, it is no longer possible to stuff in the biggest GPU and other high end parts and have a cool and quiet console. This is an understandable view point, but too bad for all of the console fan boys out there.

Tuning the Radeon R9 290x

picture courtesy of legitreviews.com

Gaming enthusiasts love to tweak their hardware. Whether it’s through overclocking, more efficient hardware, or better cooling. Not too often to people work with the actual graphics card and adjusting cooling outside of software based fan adjustment. But some new thermal paste can help the R9 290x from AMD to run a lot more efficiently.

Toms Hardware took a Gigabyte R9 290x, disassembled it, put some new thermal paste on and re-assembled the cards again. The new benchmarks show that there was a big difference in the running of the card, power consumption, etc with some new thermal compound. Anyone who has used good thermal compound on processors  knows how big of a difference that it makes.

Take a look at the article and see what a change in thermal paste on these cards can do!

Eight Low Profile Coolers

The SFF market is increasingly growing. Many people do not have the space or desire for a large, traditional computer. This means that hardware vendors are finding ways to create powerful equipment in smaller packages. Stock CPU coolers are perfectly fine for regular people, but there for enthusiasts there is a need for something more. Toms Hardware provided an  8 CPU Cooler round up for small form factors.

Enjoy!

Radeon 290 and 290z Disparity Fix

Image from hdwallpapersinn.com

It’s been noted that AMD’s 290 and 290x have had some performance disparity issues. Sometimes up to about 20% different. This can be a bit discouraging, and disheartening when trying to figure out which videocard to buy. Apparently this has alot to do with the fact that AMD’s cards automatically shipped in quiet mode. Meaning the fan was running lower, a lower running fan meant lower clock frequencies and lower frame rates. Makes sense, and when the fans are adjust performance is noticeably better.

Given how much is controlled through drivers and software, it’s no surprise that the performance differences can happen. But Toms Hardware made a good point in saying that QC should have picked up on this before letting out the video cards. It looks a bit odd to me that AMD would let this happen, but we’ll see how everything works out. For the charts and a little more detail on this, checkout this article.

AMD R9 290

Image from hdwallpapersinn.com

AMD has released a batch of R9 290 to reviewers. Toms Hardware received one and released a review this morning. The R9 is essentially a underclocked 290x with a few less shaders. However, it still performs relatively well and for $400 if the reference board is any indication, the 290 will be a steal. However, with the release of the reference 290x, Toms Hardware noticed a lot of variance within the 290x family. They state their a bit hesitant to make a recommendation about the 290 right now until more boards are released for review. It’s an understandable hesitation, and time will tell if AMD has what it takes to truly retake the performance crown. Also, apparently the 290 is loud and hot, and not in a good way.

 

Bummer.

For a detailed review here’s a link.

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.

 

 

The PS4

Picture from whatculture.com

I just posted an article yesterday about my thoughts on the Xbox One, so it would seem fitting to post something on the PS4 as well.

I firmly believe that although people are tempted to buy the PS4 with it’s lower price, that the Xbox one could easily prove to be a equal or better value. Toms Hardware posted the can and cannot’s of the PS4 that really just confirms my suspicion that maybe Sony is not approaching the PS4 the right way.

Here are a list of things that the PS4 cannot do:

• Stream music from another device, including your PC or media server
• Play CD’s, or MP3s whether coming from another device or stored on your PS4
• Does not support 4K HD
• You can’t play DVDS or Bluray until you’ve activated online (problem if you can’t hook it up to the internet)
• Limited free online play
• Limited video recording fro gameplay

I can give Sony a free pass on the gameplay recording, a limitation here may not prove to be a fatal mistake. But the limitations on media playback, as well as lack of 4k HD could prove to be a real drawback for the tech giant. There are massive amounts of people who want to be able to stream their music from other devices, especially PCs. Since most people have their music stored in MP3 format, why wouldn’t you support it? You’re not doing anyone any favors by not allowing that playback.

What really gets me, especially with a next generation console, is the lack of 4K HD support. Although it is an expensive technology now, within the next 2-3 years 4k HD will pretty well be ubiquitous. Meaning, lack of support for it is just downright stupid in a console that could go for another 6-8 years before being replaced.

A large launch game library might help for the first couple of months, but I worry about the future of Sony in the console wars if they cannot produce a console with less limitations.

AMD R9 290x Review

picture courtesy of legitreviews.com

Nvidia has now been the uncontested high end market champion in GPUs for almost a full year. AMD hasn’t offered anything near the same high end price point, nor anything that could really compete performance wise.

That is until now… AMD has just launched the R7 and R9 graphics cards, based off a new architecture, it provides some great new cards. The R9 290x was reviewed on Toms Hardware, and it looks like AMD has their cross-hairs aimed right at the throne of ultra-high end graphics cards.

One of the biggest new innovations in the R9 290x is the increased memory and redesigned controller. This allows for a massive increase in the GPUs capacity to create the geometries on the screen, and as a result increase the performance of the card.

Another big innovation is the loss of the connector required for crossfire functionality. Now that we are in the age of Ultra HD and people running extremely high resolutions on their computer, the crossfire bridge was becoming a hindrance at the higher resolutions. Instead the GPUs will now be communicating across the PCI Express bus. PCI Express offers a high bandwidth rate, and therefore does not limit at the higher resolutions. This means big benefits for anyone playing at the highest ratings.

AMD has also included a new audio processor on to their R9 290x. The idea behind doing this is too utilize the power of the GPU to process information extremely quickly, and to let the CPU work on more important processes.  This means better audio, and better performance. Seems like a win-win situation to me.

When Toms Hardware ran through the benchmarks, it shows the R9 29x to beat out it’s primary competition, Nvidias 780x boards. Although the R9 isn’t the best of the best, it’s price tag reflects that. It’s a good board at a price that is at least a bit affordable.

To see benchmarks and read the Toms Hardware review follow the link!