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Lucid's Multi-GPU Wonder: More Information on the Hydra 100by Derek Wilson on 8/22/2008 4:00 PM EST
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Spivonious - Monday, August 25, 2008 - linkI don't think nVidia or AMD will try to force Lucid out of the market. If I can actually get a 100% increase in performance from purchasing a second video card, I will.
This chip only means more sales for nVidia and AMD. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - linkBut that doesn't help their bottom line in the end. Right now CF and SLI are not very popular due to their scaling and custom profile issues. Because of that, many people spring for the highest priced single card they can afford. This keeps the market segment basically tiered the way any business would like. You have low end parts, mid-grade, and uber parts.
Now throw in the possibility that this Hydra chip works as specified. That 3 tier system just fell apart. When you look at most of the non-mainstream parts from both sides (for example Nvidia's 280, 200, and say 9800/8800GTS), you'll notice that while the price of those chips are drastically different, the performance is not near as different. This makes sense from an R&D standpoint to recoup costs, but from a logical standpoint shelling out $650 for the 280 when it debuted WOULD NOT make sense if 2 200's or 2 9800's was significantly faster for the same or less total $$$.
That's why both ATI/AMD and Nvidia don't want them in the market. It destroys the pricing structure, and would place much more influence on the bang for the buck part (currently this would hurt Nvidia with their 280 and favor slightly ATI/AMD with their cheaper 4870 and 4850).
Why would I spend twice as much for a 30% increase in performance with a top of the line single card solution, when I could just get two of the cheaper version for a near 60% increase over the single top card (using general performance of the latest cards)? Sure I'd need a board to support it, but it would make the SLI/CF mobo's MUCH MUCH more attractive then they currently are (I have no plans to purchase a dual-slot mobo with my upcoming build....unless we can get some actual data before Jan09...not likely).
jnanster - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - linkThis is terrible!
I was all set to buy a new system in a few months.
Now I have to wait again, again. Reply
shin0bi272 - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - linklol sorry dude... but hey this way you can wait for 8 core nehalem cpus too. Reply
TheDoc9 - Monday, August 25, 2008 - linkThis article reads like the same sort of hype-machine dribble that many of the dot-com wonder companies used before the 2001 collapse so they could get investors interested.
The writer of this piece is fortunately skeptical and he should be, more so even. I hope I'm wrong and we see this technology in a year or so, but it reminds me of Constellation 3D. Reply
shin0bi272 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkThe way they outlined it in one of their diagrams is, an instruction which usually goes from the cpu to the northbridge to the gpus and then the gpu's sort out which card should render the command. The Hydra changes that to, cpu to northbridge to hydra to which ever gpu is ready for a new instruction. Which means its essentially taking the place of the little bridge between the gpus and the chip that makes the decision on which card is rendering the scene.
Nvidia and AMD could have put a chip like this on their motherboards yeah but then you wouldn't need to buy 2 of the same card (and it would possibly work for the competitors card too like the hydra does). Nvidia never tried a motherboard chip to my knowledge and ati did at one time do a y cable and software controlled card selection. But I dont believe that they had a chip on the motherboard either. That reminds me of the difference between a software raid5 card and a hardware raid5 card. The hardware raid card has much better performance but it costs 3x as much. Cost could still be a factor with this chip too. I mean if it ads an extra 20 or 50 dollars to a motherboard gamers will have no problem with that. But if its an extra 200 dollars would they? Gotta make back all that R&D money somehow even if Intel backed them.
Another question is will this solution require a multi y-cable type device like ati used to do? If the different cards are rendering the scene at different times it would stand to reason. Or will one card be designated as the output card and all finished scenes be sent to that card? That would probably be a bad idea latency wise but who wants to buy a 4way y-split cable? Then again if im going to get linear performance out of sli I can spring for a cable. Could even make a 4 way hub sort of device so that all of the cards would feed into it and then one into the monitor. Could also do a multi-in and multi-out hub to do multiple monitors (though you might not need to do that it could be easier to add and subtract monitors with one). Reply
computerfarmer - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkIt is nice to here about new products. I hope to see this work.
I am still waiting for the AMD 790GX/SB750 review. Reply
MamiyaOtaru - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkWhat are the odds this will be cross platform? If it relies on drivers for doing a lot of stuff odds are it will not be, which would make it a nonstarter for me. And yes I know close to no one cares ;) I do though and I'd be interested to know. Reply
metro15 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkhey. they do not need any motherboard manufacturer. Imagine a Intel Labaree graphic card with many cores synchronized with Lucid chip. The performance would be unbeatable. Reply
pool1892 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linklarrabee does not need hydra. it will reconfigure itself to suit the load. and with something like larrabee gen2 it will have qpi, which results in much lower latencies and much higher bandwidth.
larrabee could even achieve more than linear skaling. (theoretically more cores could result in less context changes, which means more cache hits and less waiting cycles - this will of course not happen in reality) Reply
haplo602 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkThe more I am reading about this Hydra thing, the more I believe it will turn out to be a hoax. Look at the thing in a logical way.
1. we want to achieve multi-gpu scaling as best as possible
2. we cannot manipulate the scene data, since we don't know what the scene rendered actualy is (we can't identify object in a reasonable way)
3. the existing cards are already fast enough in actualy renderingthe scene
This boils down to an engine that offloads the actual scene set-up. If you look at the current SLI/CF mechanics, they either work in AFR mode or in split render mode. ATI/NVIDIA know enough about graphics to get to the same ideas Lucid did. However they abandoned the approach for some reason. That reason is consistency.
You cannot pick objects from a scene in any reliable way. Of course there are ways to separate objects. After all the programmer will usualy send one stream of rendering commands for one object etc. But that is not the rule.
You cannot do scene set-up on separate objects (things like removing not visible objects or parts of them) unless you are using some kind of z-buffer manipulation at the end.
I know very little about shader programs to tell how they work, but they also seem like a major issue in splitting a scene.
ATI/NVIDIA approach is the only reasonable one, and the only reason why they don't scale linarly is the scene set-up step. Each card has to do the same scene set-up every frame, thus this is the one thing that cannot be paralelised in a reasonable way and is lowering the gain in performance.
If Lucid found a way to do a scene set-up only once and split it to relevant parts for each card, they will have grave issues with optimised rendering paths for different DX/OGL/card versions. At one time, they will exhibit the same issues current CF/SLI does.
ATI/NVIDIA can simply implement this in software by making a GPU hypervisor engine. Reply
Clauzii - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkGood post! Thumbs up :) Reply
pool1892 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkya, to me it is sort of the other way round - and still i agree. i am not sure what to expect, this is a technique i could imagine working.
but it seems to be a job for a much stronger hardware - there is pattern recognition, on the fly optimization and balancing (different games will cleary be limited by different stages of the hardware rendering pipeline), qos (no latencies and sync) and many other things.
i have a hard time believing that this little programmable chip can do that amount of work without utilizing the cpu and without a local memory besides 16+16k L1, while it has to handle massive throughput.
so either they have found a REALLY clever trick or amd and nvidia could do the same, from a much better position, being in control of the complete environment. and well: why haven't they? Reply
LOPOPO - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkIf this thing works at it claims...... I would not be surprised. We know the problem with SLI/CS. Management pure and simple. The fact that we are all so astounded by this box speaks volumes to how much we are used to being screwed by Nvidia and ATI/AMD. It is obvious that Hydra allocates system resources far better that current solutions. The fact that it can do this and draw 5w (supposedly) just goes to show you how flawed SLI/CS really are.
This seemingly, impending paradigm shift is occurring because card makers have a one track mind -bigger is better-. Add more memory...add more speed...more stream processors throw in ridiculous names then that equals success, bu not really. For them(AMD/Nvidia) yes, for you...somewhat... depending on how you shop. Nowadays performance demands are higher than ever and AMD/Nvidia solutions always = more power draw which creates more heat which must be dissipated which of course necessitates a larger profile card and cooler. Extremely inefficient.
It appears as if these newcomers are not trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Can or could established card makers do this or something like this solution? Of course. But why when the consumer is perfectly happy spending ridiculous amounts of money for an extra 10 fps...AMD/Nvidia keep costs down and maximize profit it's all good for them. Consumers on the other hand rarely see the big picture. Such is the way this sector of the economy works, faster, more memory, die shrinks... never smarter, leaner, more efficient and the ever elusive: dynamic software/hardware architecture that adjust to given tasks. Those are my two cents and all of the above is contingent on the validity of Lucid's claims. I hope they are more valid than Nvidia's claims of 60% scaling in Crysis. Reply
jeff4321 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkC'mon, how can they perform better than AMD's Crossfire or NVIDIA's SLI? Teams at AMD and NVIDIA know the intimate details of their boards. They know what they're doing.
Besides, someone could implement this kind of solution w/o hardware (the hardware is probably there to prevent folks from running the software w/o the Company getting revenue). Most likely what this hardware and software is doing is that their API interception code is directing all of the underlying cards to render parts of the frame to a surface on the framebuffer. The framebuffer is transferred to system memory. And then, depending on how you want to do things, you composite in system memory, or you direct the video card that is driving the video buffer to treat the system memory surface as an overlay surface.
All of this doesn't require magic hardware (unless you want to go really fast). This is how SLI and Crossfire work. Since AMD and NVIDIA designed their hardware and software, they can add hardware acceleration magic (things like synchronizing the two boards' scanout, directly transferring scanout data through the sli or crossfire cable, or making groups of boards look like one). Unfortunately for Lucid, I doubt that AMD or NVIDIA gave them any secret sauce so Lucid cannot leverage the hardware acceleration.
Their ASIC is just a PCIe switch with an endpoint device for software security. Reply
whatthehey - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI'm glad you're so incredibly knowledgeable that you can say what something does and how it works without ever seeing it or working on the project. Obviously nVidia and ATI don't want to give away their secrets, just like Lucid isn't going to give away theirs. Will this work? We don't know for sure yet. Is it better than SLI and Crossfire? We don't know that either. What I do know for certain is that there are plenty of games that are GPU limited that still don't get better than 30 to 50% scaling with current SLI/Crossfire. More than that, I know that most games don't come anywhere near even 50% scaling when going from dual GPUs to quad GPUs.
I think the whole point of this chip is to do the compositing and splitting up of rendering tasks "really fast". I also think that the current ATI and nVidia solutions are less than ideal, given we need custom profiles for every game in order to see any benefit. What I'm most worried about is that the Lucid chip will just transfer the need for custom profiles from nVidia and ATI over to Lucid - a completely unproven company at this point.
For now, I'm interested in seeing concrete numbers and independent testing. The world is full of successful inventions that were deemed impossible or "smoke and mirrors" by dullards that just couldn't think outside the box. This Hydra chip may turn out to be exactly what you state, but I'm more inclined to wait and see rather than trusting on people like you to tell us what can and can't be done. Reply
shin0bi272 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkIm with Whatthehey. You are lucky to get 40 or 50% performance boost with current multi-gpu solutions and IIRC the game has to support either crossfire or sli. So if you are running say UT3 and have crossfire you are SOL for getting ANY boost if you are using AMD's crossfire. BUUUUT if the hydra tech works as advertised (or even close to it) it will be night and day to current solutions.
If this chip is even exclusive to intel's mobos it will outperform either solution from amd/nvidia since it isnt alternating screens or portions of the screen via hardware over a tiny bridge (which adds latency). This chip is sort of like the hardware Xor chip on a raid5 card in that it just makes a decision on what card to send data to. The hydra's ONLY job is to intercept a data command being sent to the graphics card(s) and send it to the one that's not working as hard or is ready for a new operation. That doesnt take a lot of power or time as long as the software is efficient in telling the chip what graphics card(s) you have.
I read another comment that said: "the hydra is a tensilica diamond based programmable risc controller with custom logic around it running at 225mhz. it uses about 5watt."
For an explanation of RISC vs CISC visit: http://cse.stanford.edu/class/sophomore-college/pr...">http://cse.stanford.edu/class/sophomore-college/pr...
This chip does essentially 1 thing and does it very very very fast. Reply
pool1892 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linki made the tensilica 5watt risc chip comment - and the thing that is most interesting to me is that it is programmable to an extend. it is maybe best to imagine a dsp with a multitude of presets, each of which accelerates a different load. if i understand it correctly, hydra will autooptimize itself to suit different applications. this way you get near dsp throughput for many different usage models (that is different games) and you do not need the spezial units big fpga chips have.
i just wonder where this optimization takes place, since hydra only has 16+16k of memory - and liquid talks about very low cpu utilization. (we are talking about a basic KI engine or really large table lookups)
risc v cisc is no business here, there are no real cisc chips left in the market (macro/micro ops and so on - this is gone since pentiumpro and the "weird shift from alpha to athlon"TM^^) Reply
jeff4321 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkIf it is strictly software solution (where they call into DX for the multiple boards and eventually the rendered data makes it into system memory and the master board outputs the frame from system memory), of course it will work. Will it be fast and responsive? I don't know. If it is, you will see the same improvement in SLI or Crossfire because NVIDIA or ATI will figure out how the Lucid software is configuring their device. If you look at the block diagrams in the article, Lucid uses application profiles to determine how to configure the devices.
A good comparison to Lucid's system is ATI's Software Crossfire (the Crossfire solution after the master-slave boards, but before Crossfire X cable like NVIDIA's SLI). Since ATI no longer runs this way, the Crossfire X solution is probably better. I doubt that ATI would stop using the software approach to multi-GPU solutions unless there were a benefit; the Crossfire X port makes the silicon bigger and it makes the board cost more because of the board traces and physical port.
I doubt that their hardware does any compositing for the video stream. That would involve reverse engineering how each device driver talks to the board. Not impossible, just unlikely because of the effort. (Also, interacting with the ATI and NVIDIA device drivr would be quite dangerous because each device driver assumes that it is in control of the hardware. The Lucid hardware or software, if it talks to the hardware directly, would make the driver and the board incoherent and lead to system crash)
The smoke and mirrors to this is the requirement for their ASIC. The actual approach is the tried and true solution for graphics hardware: the computation for the color values for each pixel is (mostly) independent of an adjacent pixel; therefore, you just add more hardware to make it faster. Reply
JarredWalton - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkYou know, doing it in software makes SLI and CF more CPU limited than single GPUs, so unless you're really GPU limited scaling isn't as good as it could be. The whole point of this ASIC seems to be to handle the compositing and assignment of tasks in hardware, thus making it faster and alleviating the CPU of handling such tasks. That's not smoke and mirrors to me... at least, not if it works.
It seems like we're still six months or so away from seeing actual hardware in our hands. My impression is also that their goal is to get the hardware to split up generic DX/OGL streams even if it doesn't have a profile, though with a profile it could do a better job. Also, judging by the http://www.dailytech.com/Chipmaker+Hydras+Stunning...">images we've been shown (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=607">more details here, the breaking up of tasks and compositing is FAR more involved than what SLI and CF are doing, and probably makes more sense. (I wasn't at IDF, so I didn't see this in person.)
"Tried and true" has a few synonyms you might want to put in there instead. "Conservative" is one, and so is "stagnation". Just like AMD stagnated with Athlon 64, NVIDIA and ATI seem to be dragging their heels when it comes to true innovation in the GPU industry. GPGPU is the most interesting thing to come out in the past few years, and what do we get? Two proprietary approaches to GPGPU, so that developers need to code for either NVIDIA *or* ATI -- or do twice as much work to support both.
That's a lot like SLI, where NVIDIA wants us to use their GPUs with *their* chipset, and they have been aggressive in preventing other companies from supporting SLI without help from NVIDIA. (ATI is only marginally better - unless something has changed and CF now runs on SLI chipsets without a custom BIOS? But at least ATI will license the tech to Intel.) It would hardly be surprising if a third party were to come out and say "*BEEP* you guys! I'm going to do this in an agnostic fashion and let the users decide."
Whether or not the Lucid Hydra chip works, I can't imagine anyone outside of NVIDIA and ATI employees actually wanting it to fail. You might as well bury your head in the sand and scream loudly that you want all competition and progress to stop. (It won't, of course, but at least if your head is buried you won't be able to tell the difference.) Reply
jeff4321 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkIf you think that NVIDIA and AMD have been stagnant, you haven't seen the graphics industry change. The basic graphics pipeline hasn't changed. It simply got smaller. A current NVIDIA or ATI GPU probably has as much computation power as an SGI workstation from the 90's. GPGPU is a natural extension of graphics hardware. Once the graphics hardware becomes powerful enough, it starts to resemble a general purpose machine, so you build it that way. It's possible because the design space for the GPU can do more (Moore's Law).
Since it's early in the deployment of using a GPU as an application-defined co-processor, I would expect there to be competing APIs. Believe it or not, in the late eighties, x87 wasn't the only floating point processor available for x86's. Intel's 387 was slower than Weitek's floating point unit. Weitek lost because the next generation CPUs at the time started integrating floating point. Who will win? The team that has better development tools or the team that exclusively runs the next killer app.
Dynamically changing between AFR and splitting the scene is hard to do. I'm sure that ATI and NVIDIA have experimented w/ this in-house and they are either doing it now, or they have decided that it kills performance because of the overhead to change it on the fly. How Lucid can do better than the designers of the device drivers and ASICs, I don't know.
Lucid Hydra is not competition for either NVIDIA or ATI. The Lucid Hydra chip is a mechanism for the principals of the company to get rich when Intel buys them to get access to Multi-GPU software for Larrabee. It'll be a good deal for the principals, but probably a bad deal for Intel.
Licensing Crossfire and SLI is a business decision. Both technologies cost a bundle to develop. Both companies want to maximize return. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI'm afraid this solution will cause unacceptable lag. If the lag isn't inherent, maybe the solution will require a minimum "max frames to render ahead / Prerender limit". I don't buy their "negligible" BS answer.
Does SLI require a minimum? I got the impression it does, from what I've read in the past. I don't have SLI, and use RivaTuner to set mine to "1". Reply
Aethelwolf - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkLets pretend, if only for a moment, that I was a GPU company interested giving a certain other GPU company a black eye. And lets say I have this strategy where I design for the middle range and then scale up and down. I would be seriously haggling lucid right now to become a partner in supplying me, and pretty much only me, besides intel, with their hydra engine. Reply
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkthat'd be cool, but lucid will sell more parts if they work with everyone.
they're interested in making lots of money ... maybe amd and intel could do that for them, but i think the long term solution is to support as much as possible. Reply
Sublym3 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkCorrect me if i am wrong but isn't this technology still depending on making the hardware specifically for each DirectX version?
So when a new DirectX or OpenGL version comes out not only will we have to update our videos cards but also our motherboard at the same time?
Not to mention this will probably jack up the price on already expensive motherboards.
Seems like a step backwards to me...
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkyou are both right and wrong --
yes the need to update the technology for each new directx and opengl release.
they don't need to update the hardware at all. the hardware is just a smart switch with a compositor.
to support a new directx or opengl version, you would only need to update the driver / software for the hydra 100 ...
just like a regular video card. Reply
magao - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkThere seems to be a strong correlation between Intel's claims about Larrabee, and Lucid's claims about Hydra.
This is pure speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if Hydra is the behind-the-scenes technology that makes Larrabee work. Reply
Aethelwolf - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI think this is the case. Hydra and Larrabee appear to be made for each other. I won't be surprised if they end up mating.
From a programmers view, Larrabee is very, very exciting tech. If it fails in the PC space, it might be resurrected when next-gen consoles come along, since it is fully programmable and claims linear performance (thanks to hydra?). Reply
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linki'm sure intel will love hydra for allowing their platforms to support linear scaling with multigpu solutions.
but larrabee won't have anything near the same scaling issues that nvidia and amd have in scaling to multi-gpu -- larrabee may not even need this to get near linear scaling in multigpu situation.
essentially they just need to build an smp system and it will work -- shared mem and all ...
their driver would need to optimize differently, but that would be about it. Reply
GmTrix - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkIf larrabee doesn't need hydra to get near linear scaling isn't hydra just providing a way for amd and nvidia to compete with it? Reply
pool1892 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linki think it is possible to build a solution like this, but this thing has a lot to do, on-the-fly qos and scheduling and optimizing and so on. with data in the gigabits/s. sounds like a heavy duty cisco switch.
i can imagine this working, but the chip will be a heavyweight - and it will be power consuming and expensive.
and it only has potential in the marketplace if the price premium for a mainboard with hydra beats the faster graphics you can buy for this premium. that will be tough.
larrabee is as usual a totally different animal, hydra could very well be a software feature for it (esp. with qpi in gen 2) Reply
pool1892 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkgotta correct myself - after a little diggin: the hydra is a tensilica diamond based programmable risc controller with custom logic around it running at 225mhz. it uses about 5watt. this is a tiny chip, it might be affordable. (but how is liquid going to earn money? and: they have to optimize their driver and the the programmable parts of the chip for different rendering techniques in different games - who is paying for that?) Reply
Goty - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI don't see this as a bad thing for GPU makers, personally. Since ATI no longer has anything like the "master card" for crossfire, as long as they're selling two GPUs to people running multi-card systems, they're not losing out. Sure, they may lose a bit of money on the mainboard side of things since consumers will be able to use any chipset they want with this technology, but the margin on the GPU silicon is probably higher than that on the chipset side, anyhow. Reply
yyrkoon - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link"Lucid also makes what seems like a ridiculous claim. They say that in some cases they could see higher than linear scaling. The reason they claim this should be possible is that the CPU will be offloaded by their hardware and doesn't need to worry about as much so that overall system performance will go up. We sort of doubt this, and hearing such claims makes us nervous. They did state that this was not the norm, but rather the exception. If it happens at all it would have to be the exception, but it still seems way too out there for me to buy it."
Come now guys . . . if a CPU dependent game such as World in Conflict could offload the CPU 10%, would it not make sense that the CPU could do an additional 10%, thus offering more performance ? I am not saying I believe this is possible myself, but taking Lucid at their word, this just makes sense to me.
"The demo we saw behind closed doors with Lucid did show a video playing on one 9800 GT while the combination of it and one other 9800 GT worked together to run Crysis DX9 with the highest possible settings at 40-60 fps (in game) with a resolution of 1920x1200. Since I've not tested Crysis DX9 mode on 9800 GT I have no idea how good this is, but it at least sounds nice."
Just going from this review, and assuming you meant a 9800GTX/GTX+: 47-41 FPS average with 16x AF/ 0x AA.
"An explanation for this is the fact that the Hydra software can keep requesting and queuing up tasks beyond what graphics cards could do, so that the CPU is able to keep going and send more graphics API calls than it would normally. This seems like it would introduce more lag to us, but they assured us that the opposite is true. If the Hydra engine speeds things up over all, that's great. But it certainly takes some time to do its processing and we'd love to know what it is."
Wait a minute . . . did you not just mention on a previous page somewhere that the number of cards implemented were limited due to latency implications ? . . .
"Of course, while it seems like an all or nothing situation that would serve no purpose but to destroy the experience of end users, NVIDIA and ATI have lots of resources to work on this sort of "problem" and I'm sure they'll try their best to come up with something. Maybe one day they'll wake up and realize (especially if one starts to dominate over the other other) that Microsoft and Intel got slammed with antitrust suits for very similar practices."
OR, they could just purchase the company outright, which seems to me what Lucid may have been aiming for to begin with. After that the buying company could do whatever they please, such as kill the project. or completely decimate the opposite camp *if* the hardware truely does what it claims. At least where gaming is concerned . . . and we all know that IGP's make up for a very large portion of home systems.
Now what I have to say is that this totally smells like the gaming Physics "fiasco". Buy the hardware now, and the hardware is dead in a year or two. Sure a few games implemented features that leveraged these cards, but do you think developers are going to write code for hardware that has gone way of the dodo ? Probably not.
The idea is interesting yes, but I will believe it when I see the hardware on sale at the egg . . . Reply
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkit was not 9800 gtx cards -- they were GT cards ... lower performance, single slot.
also game devs wont have to optimize for it, so there is no problem with them ignoring the situation -- if it works it works Reply
yyrkoon - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link9800GTX/GTX+ benchmarks ---> http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-9800-gtx-512...">http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-9800-gtx-512... Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...">9800 GT FTW!
Basically, performance is closer (identical) to that of 8800 GT. You know, this goes along with the whole "let's rename 8800 GT and 8800 GTS 512MB to 9800 parts, because after all G92 is GeForce 9 hardware." Why the 8800 GT was ever launched with that name remains something of a mystery... well, except that performance was about the same as 8800 GTX. Reply
yyrkoon - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkSo basically just a 8800GTS with fewer ROPs ? nVidias naming convention definitely leaves a lot to be desired : / Reply
Lakku - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkWho are nVidia and AMD/ATi supposed to strong arm in this situation? I don't think they would be in any kind of position to strong arm ANYONE, if this works as advertised. Why? Because they'd have to strong arm Intel (apparently a very big investor into this tech and company) to do so, and that's just not going to happen. Intel only need put this on their own Intel branded gaming or consumer boards, and/or Intel can strong arm Asus and the others into putting this chip onto their motherboards if they want Intel chipsets, still by far the best selling PC chipsets. If this works as advertised, it's probably Intel who will be the biggest winner... and maybe us end users in some way, provided Intel and this company don't charge outrageous prices for this tech. Reply
djc208 - Monday, August 25, 2008 - linkEasy, like the author stated nVidia just writes in some code that looks for the Hydra software or hardware and shuts down parts of the driver. Therefore you can't use their hardware on a system running or equiped with Hydra. If it was a unified front then Intel will have only Larabee to use with this for gaming.
Problem I see is that it could upset the market if the boycot isn't universal. If ATI let their hardware work with this and nVidia didn't then it could seriously hurt nVidia, as there would be even less reason to go with their chipsets or graphics cards at the high end, where nVidia likes to play.
More likely is that ATI/nVidia will quickly push out something along the same lines and now we'll have three competing solutions, and then ATI and nVidia will lock out Hydra since they offer an alternative, just like now.
All this assumes that Hydra works the way it's said to, if not then all bets are off. Reply
GTVic - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkThis company is not making graphics cards, and to use their product you have to buy more graphics cards. Seems like a win-win situation. AMD and nVidia can dump development on crossfire/sli and sales go up. Reply
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkif nvidia dumps sli then there is zero reason for them to be in the chipset business right now.
they are no longer needed for AMD because AMD isn't making horrid chipsets anymore. they aren't needed for Intel because Intel builds awesome motherboards.
the only value add nvidia has on the platform side is sli. period.
they do not want to see it become irrelevant. Reply
shin0bi272 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkThis is a gamers dream (assuming it works as advertised) and a video card makers nightmare.
If they really wanted to demo it they probably should have been running 2 systems side by side, one with 1 card and one with the hydra running 2 cards to show the actual difference. Maybe also not run crysis since crysis has issues with framerate on any system... maybe run 3dmark vantage (I know its not an actual game but its a standardized program) especially if its transparent to the game and hardware.
Personally if AMD and Nvidia have a problem with this technology and they disable it (or force me to so I can play any game) there's still Intel's Larabee on the horizon and I'm sure Intel wouldnt disable the hydra so Id just dump AMD and Nvidia all together to get linear performance increases (again assuming it works).
On top of that AMD and Nvidia have their own performance issues and competition to worry about especially now that the physx war has begun (AMD hooking up with havoc and Nvidia buying Ageia).
I think both AMD and Nvidia should embrace this technology and abandon their approaches so that they can concentrate more on individual card performance. Since the performance gains with both SLi and crossfire arent linear and this promises to be. Even if its not 100% linear but its a 90% speed gain thats still better than either of the other solutions.
The game designers would also love this technology because they wouldnt have to worry about enabling SLi or crossfire in their games they could concentrate on the actual game play and making the game fun and cool looking. Reply
shin0bi272 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkOh also I forgot to mention that the article did say that you would have to have 2 of the same brand of card so youd still be locked into one manufacturer. So its not like youd be mixing an nvidia 280 with an amd 4870x2. So amd and nvidia really shouldnt have a huge problem with it. Reply
Diesel Donkey - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkThat is false. The article states that any combination of two, three, or four cards from either AMD or Nvidia can be used. That's one reason this technology would be so amazing if it actually works and is implemented successfully. Reply
The Preacher - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI don't think you would like some portions of the same screen rendered by nvidia and others by ATI since they will look different and could create some discontinuities in the final image. Reply
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkthey try really hard to render nearly the same image ... but if you played half-life 2 then this would be an issue.
also, to enable this they would have to wait for vista to allow it (i think) ... thing is they are building a wddm driver ... so ... nvidia's display driver wouldn't be "running" either? I don't really know how that works. Reply
jordanclock - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkNo, he is right. You can't have an nVidia card with an AMD card. As it stands, Windows won't allow two graphics drivers to run in 3D mode. This was addressed in the first article featuring this technology. Reply
prophet001 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkhow amazing would this be. nice article with what you were given. Reply
MrHanson - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkI thing having a separete box with it's own power supply(s) is ideal for something like this. That way if you want to add 2 or more gpu's to your hydra system, you don't have to rip apart your computer and put in a different motherboard and power supply. I imagine this system will probably come with it's own mainboard and power supply with several separate pcie x16 slots for scalablity. Also if you were to upgrade your motherboard and cpu, you don't have to worry about getting a motherboard with enough pcie x16 slots or if the motherboard supports the hydra engine. Any ol' motherboard with one pci express slot will do.
TonyB - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkbut can it play crysis? Reply
Googer - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkPlease let that 3 year old former inside engadget joke die. It's starting to get old, send it to the joke graveyard; it's past it's prime. Reply
TonyB - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkF YOU, two of my friends died trying to run Crysis. Reply
UnlimitedInternets36 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI got one better Crysis:Warhead all setting Maxed @ 120fps @ 2560x1600 FTW! Reply
InuYasha - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkbut does it blend? Reply
PrinceGaz - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkYes, it blends. Reply
Lightnix - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkAt 40-60FPS at 1920x1080. Reply


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AMD's Radeon HD 5450: The Next Step In HTPC Video Cardsby Ryan Smith on 2/4/2010 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- GPUs
76 Comments
Back to Article
Purri - Monday, March 08, 2010 - linkOk, so i read a lot of comments that the cheap passive DP-Adapters wont work for a EyeFinity 3 Monitor setup.
But, can i use this card for a 3 monitor windows-desktop setup without eyefinity - or do i need an expensive adapter for this too?
I'm looking for a cheapish, passivly(silent) cooled card that supports 3 monitors for windows applications, that has enough performance to play a few old games now and then (like quake3) on 1 monitor.
Will this card work? Reply
waqarshigri - Wednesday, December 04, 2013 - linkyes of course it has amd eyefinity technology .... i played new games on it like nfs run,call of duty MW3, battlefield 3, Reply
plopke - Friday, February 05, 2010 - link:o what about the 5830 , wasn't it delayed until the 5th. It is suddenly very quiet about it on all techsite. And not launched today. Reply
yyrkoon - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkYour charts are all buggered up. Just looking over the charts, in Crysis: Warhead, you test the nvidia 9600GT for performance. Ok fine. Then we move a long to the Power consumption charts, and you omit the 9600GT for the 9500GT ? Better still, we move to both heat tests, and both of these card are omitted.
WTH ?! Come on guys, is there something wrong with a bit of consistency ? Reply
Ryan Smith - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkSome of those cards are out of Anand's personal collection, and I don't have a matching card. We have near-identical hardware that produces the same performance numbers; however we can't replicate the power/noise/temperature data due to differences in cases and environment.
So I can put his cards in our performance tests, but I can't use his cards for power/temp/noise testing. It's not perfect, but it allows us to bring you the most data we can. Reply
yyrkoon - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkWell, the only real gripe that I have here is that I actually own a 9600GT. Since we moved last year, and are completely off grid ( solar / wind ), I would have liked to compare power consumption between the two. Without having to actually buy something to find out.
Oh well, nothing can be done about it now I suppose.
I can say however that a 9600GT in a P35 system with a Core 2 E6550, 4GB of ram, and 4 Seagate barracudas uses ~167-168W idle. While gaming, the most CPU/GPU intensive games for me were world in conflict, and Hellgate: London. The two games "sucked down" 220-227W at the wall. This system was also moderately over clocked to get the memory and "FSB" at 1:1. Also these numbers are pretty close, but not super accurate, But as close as I can come eyeballing a kill-a-watt while trying to create a few numbers. The power supply was an 80Plus 500W variant. Manufactured by Seasonic if anyone must know( Antec EarthWATTS 500 ). Reply
yyrkoon - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkAh I forgot. The numbers I gave for the "complete" system at the wall included powering a 19" WS LCD that consistently uses 23W. Reply
dagamer34 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkWhere's the low-profile 5650?? I don't want to downgrade my 4650 to a 5450 just for HD bitstreaming. =/ Reply
Roy2001 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkVideo game is on XBOX360 and Wii, so i3-530 for $117 is a better solution for me. It supports bitstream through HDMI too. My 2 cents. Reply
Taft12 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI apologize if this has been confirmed already, but does this mean we won't see a chip from ATI that falls between 5450 and 5670?
There were four GPUs in this range last gen (4350, 4550, 4650, 4670) Reply
Taft12 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkReplying to my own post to say I reread the 5670 article and indeed the 5500 series is mentioned there and I am VERY sure this is what Ryan was referring to earlier when he said "wait a week" Reply
juampavalverde - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI dont see the improvement over the past generation 4550. DX11 is useless in such slow cards (is almost useless for a 5670!). I expect this level of performance from a next gen IGP, not a discrete chip. AMD should have raised high the performance bar for this generation, releasing something like 5450 (120 sp), 5670 (640 sp, like 4770), 5770 (960 sp), and 80 sp for the IGP. Reply
Taft12 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThe improvement is purely in power consumption. They can't improve performance of these lowest-end discrete cards or IGPs too much or they will eat into the value of the next step up (4670, 5670). You may "expect this level of performance" but you aren't gonna get it. Reply
Rick83 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI'd be rather interested in seeing a differentail analysis of power consumption of the two ATI cards (5450/5670) at rendering a h264 encoded 1080p movie with dts out via the card, as well as blu-ray with "HD".
And a video benchmark, to show how much bitrate/fps the respective cards manage, before desync/framedrop/freeze.
Power during furmark (or gaming) is of course higher on the 5670, because it has five times as many shaders to feed - depending on how smart ATI's power management is, the two cards might not differ a lot, if used in an HTPC.
And frankly, the 50 dollars extra would be probably worth the extra rendering/decoding horsepower, especially in an HTPC, where you want buttery smooth performance, and not worry about bitrate.
Oh - any news on passive 5670's? If they can do 5750's, I'm sure there'll be a few 5670's someday? Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThis isn't something we tested since it really isn't an issue. The Cheese Slices test peaks at 35MBps MPEG-2, and I have an H.264 version that peaks at a similar bitrate.
The 5450 has enough power for anything up to 1080p Blu-Ray. Reply
Rick83 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkWell, considering the extra shader load added by filters, apparently it may not be - or the proper algorithm for deinterlacing would have been available.
And that also leaves the question of the power draw of a 5670 at 5450 levels of performance - I'm pretty sure that in an HTPC, unless you use it as a console replacement for gaming, there will ever be a situation where the gpu is fully loaded, hence power input should be lower than the full-tilt number you published. Reply
dagamer34 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkMost HTPCs are meant to be small, and there's no way you're going to be able to fit a 5700 series card into a low-profile space. I know they had 4650s last generation, but there aren't any 5650s yet. =/ Reply
Redstorm - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI just cant see how reviewers are claiming this card is the perfect HTPC video card. Not everyone uses Microsofts Media Centre. Lack of VDPAU support for Linux is a glaring hole in all ATI cards, If I were building a gameing PC today I would probably buy an ATI 5870, But if your building a low power HTPC you cant go past nVidia and VDPAU support. Take their ION platform will do 1080p in hardware on Linux for less than 30Watts this beats this ATI offering hands down when you add in Motherboard and CPU.
Best HTPC card I think not... Reply
CiNcH - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkXvBA is also said to be working, which also acts as a backend to VA-API, just like VDPAU. They are even examinig the legal situation and whether the UVD specs can be opened to be support within the OSS (xf86-video-ati) driver. Of course nothing that will be done by tomorrow.
What I think would be worth mentioning, when it comes to HTPC comparing nVIDIA and ATi, is that UVD won't play H.264 higher than level 4.1. nVIDIA's PureVideo is capable of decoding up to level 5.1. Reply
milli - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThe Evergreen series does apply angle independent anisotropic filtering. Also the fixed function interpolators have been removed and moved to the shaders.
Considering the limited power of the HD 5450, this causes a bigger performance drop compared to the other Evergreen products.
uibo - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkWhy don't the Radeon "Cheese Slices" video screenshots have horizontal lines? The Nvidia ones have them... Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkIt's an artifact of stepping through the video one frame at a time with MPC-HC with the MS MPEG-2 decoder. Doing so captures the angled lines correctly, but it doesn't quite capture some of the other artifacts exactly the same because it ends up a field (basically half a frame) ahead.
In motion the Radeon cards are getting it right. Reply
blaubart - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkCongrats Ryan, your Cheese Slices testing outside of a HTPC forum was really a big surprise for me! Keep on pushing AMD/Nvidia to realize that there's more than gamers in this world!
> Horizontal 1p lines missing:
I'm also wondering normally the 1p lines are no problem in screenshots (MPC-HC and more). Maybe you shot them during the "odd movement" (1h+3v see description in Cheese Slices thread). I have now edited Post #1: screenshots only during "even movement".
This link shows it (sorry German):
1080i-1 ---> odd movement
1080i-2 ---> even movement
What's more, GT220.png and G210.png show MA in 1p and "respone - noise" but VA in the ticker, How did you manage this? Ah I see, you left a mailaddress, I will send you a mail. Reply
uibo - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkOh and the Nvidia G210 has some artifacts for the vertical lines with some pixels shifted right. Reply
silverblue - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - link...then this might call for an article to look at it in that very light. However, is there a higher performing part for both series that can be directly compared? I'm guessing not, as they all differ in some way, be it shader numbers, ROPs or texture units. The only way I can think to do it would be comparing two 512MB 4850s to a downclocked 5870, but even if that were possible, you'll still get a performance drop due to Crossfire. Hmm. Reply
MrSpadge - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - link5770 is as close as it gets. THere's the difference in the memory subsystem, though. Could be that the best bench to run would be ShaderMark. Reply
GeorgeH - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkYou mention the Sapphire's heatsink quite a bit, but I didn't see any pictures of it (at least the reverse side) in the article; was that an oversight or am I blind? Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkOversight. I thought I had a stock photo of the rear. I'll get one in the morning.
If you're really curious, it's the same heatsink that's on their 4350, which there are plenty of pictures of. Reply
GeorgeH - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI see it now, thanks - it's actually not nearly as "bad" as I thought it'd be. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkOversight. I thought I had a stock photo of the rear. I'll get one in the morning. Reply
Lifted - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThe first graph on each of the benchmark pages lists a 5670, the second graph lists a 4670. Typo or are you actually using different cards? Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkIt's not a typo. We never ran the 5670 at 1024x768, there was no reason to. It's more than fast enough for at least 1280.
The 4670 data is from the GT 240 review, which we used 1024 on (because GT 240 couldn't cut the mustard above 1024 at times). Reply
8steve8 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkshould have had the clarkdale igp in there for good measure, if you aren't gaming I'd guess that igp would be the way to go Reply
MrSpadge - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkWould have been interesting to compare idle power consumption: Clarkie + IGP vs. Clarkie + 5450. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkTesting a Clarkie requires switching out our test rig, so the results wouldn't be directly comparable since it means switching out everything including the processor. Plus Anand we only have a couple of Clarkies, which are currently in use for other projects.
At this point Clarkie (and any other IGP) is still less than half as fast as 5450. Reply
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThat brings up the point though that with a card this low on the totem pole it might be nice to include a benchmark or two of it paired with similarly low-priced hardware. I understand the reason for generally using the same testbed, but when it is already borderline playable it would be nice to know that it won't get any slower when actually paired with a cheap processor and motherboard. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkTesting a Clarkie requires switching out our test rig, so the results wouldn't be directly comparable since it means switching out everything including the processor.
At this point Clarkie (and any other IGP) is still less than half as fast as 5450. Reply
kevinqian - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkHey Ryan, I'm glad you are the first reviewer to utilize Blaubart's very helpful deinterlacing benchmark. I would just like to note that with ATI, it seems memory bandwidth plays a big part in deinterlacing method as well. For example, the HD 4650 DDR2 can only perform MA deinterlacing, even tho it has the same shaders as the (VA capable) 4670. The only bottleneck there seems to be the DDR2 memory bandwidth. On the other hand, with the HD 4550, though it has DDR3, it is limited to 64bit memory interface, so that seems to be a limiting factor.
I have an old HD 2600Pro DDR2 AGP. When I OC the memory from 800mhz stock to 1000mhz, VA gets activated by CCC and confirmed in Cheese slices.
Nvidia's deinterlacing algorithm seem to be less memory intensive as even the GT220 with DDR2 is able to perform VA-like deinterlacing. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkYeah, I've seen the bandwidth idea thrown around. Unfortunately I don't have any additional suitable low-end cards for testing it. Reply
ET - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI think I remember reading that the interpolation of input values in the pixel shader was moved from fixed function units to being done by the shaders. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThat is one of the things that changed. However it's not very resource intensive for the shaders (which is one of the reasons why it was moved in the first place) and I don't seriously suspect that's the cause. Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkSo far all the 5000 series cards have an issue with PowerPlay. It messes audio especially on Dolby digital and DTS tracks, when DXVA is disabled. When DXVA is enabled the clocks are stabilized (at 400 MHz GPU and 900 MHz memory for the 5770), so Powerplay doesn't screw with the audio. Without using DXVA, the clocks are all over the place (PowerPlay enabled, normally a good thing), and this gives audio dropouts with DD and DTS tracks.
Could you test this, with HD videos and DD/DTS tracks? Maybe you'll have a better chance of getting this fixed than a bunch of us just dealing with their horrible support.
Powerplay also triggers funky sound when HDMI is used and 5.1 or 7.1 24-bit 96 kHz or 192 kHz output is set on Windows. Just set it like that and go about your business and you'll hear either crackling or crazy channel switching.
See here for reference, and the following posts of other users who confirm it, and even come up with their own ways to disable Powerplay. This thread at Doom9 was where it was discovered, and later confirmed by nearly everyone who tried (except one strange case or two). Reply
Ryan Smith - Saturday, February 06, 2010 - linkAndy, shoot me an email. I was going to email you, but I'm not sure the address for you in our system actually goes to an account that gets read. Reply
andy o - Monday, February 08, 2010 - linkjust sent you the email, thanks. Reply
PR3ACH3R - Friday, February 05, 2010 - link[Quote]
So far all the 5000 series cards have an issue with PowerPlay. It messes audio especially on Dolby digital and DTS tracks, when DXVA is disabled. When DXVA is enabled the clocks are stabilized (at 400 MHz GPU and 900 MHz memory for the 5770), so Powerplay doesn't screw with the audio. Without using DXVA, the clocks are all over the place (PowerPlay enabled, normally a good thing), and this gives audio dropouts with DD and DTS tracks.
1. ATI & the Review Sites, including Anandtech,
have been ignoring this horrible problem in these cards,
which makes them , for all practical purposes - useless.
But - It does not stop there.
2. The problem you have mentioned with The 57xx series,
creates SERIOUS DPC latencies , especially in XP,
that brakes even the fastest systems, & All audio is full of glitches & clicks chaos.
3. To add insult to injury 2D performance is the worst EVER seen on the PC, beaten even By IGPs.
Bottom Line:
Anadtech yet again fails to detect & report to these issues,
So I would not expect any replies to your questions here.
These cards spell Recall / Class Action all over them.
andyo - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkAlso, I'm not sure what you mean with number 3 (2D performance issues). Could you give some examples so I can test it? Reply
PR3ACH3R - Saturday, February 06, 2010 - linkIf You do any sort of regular graphics (ignore the IF..)
its all 2D ..
After looking hopelessly for ANY solution or even recognition to this problem from professionals, so I can share it, I found there is only one Site with staff professional & unbiased enough to Note the problem.
Not only did they notice it, they published 2 giant articles about it, & it is painfully, obviously, certainly NOT Anandtech.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c...">http://translate.googleusercontent.com/...usg=ALkJ... Reply
andyo - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkIt is a big issue, but I'm not sure if it's a hardware problem. It's probably a driver thing.
In any case, you can disable Powerplay for the time being, I've done what I linked above and it's working acceptably for me, when I play a game, I'll switch profiles to enable the higher clocks. I'm not sure how it would work on XP though or if the procedure is the same, but you can also use GPU clock tool to stabilize the clocks. Reply
Taft12 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI have a hard time seeing AMD giving this much attention, the number of users concerned with this issue is infintesimal.
Why overclock your GPU when you are focused on the audiophile features? I'll be shocked if the official response is anything other than "Graphics card audio output not supported when Powerplay enabled". Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkOh and BTW, also as the poster above said, it's not an "audiophile" issue. I actually try to distance myself form that term as much as possible. It's happening whenever DXVA is not enabled, and with DD and DTS audio. As in when playing DVDs with (say) PowerDVD with its post-processing features. Pretty normal scenarios. And it's not a subtle thing. It's dropouts (pops or cut outs in the audio). Also, choppy flash video (shouldn't happen with DXVA accelerated video with flash 10.1 though).
Powerplay also triggers horrible crackling and channel switching when output is set to multichannel (5.1 or 7.1) 96 kHz or 192 kHz audio for the Windows mixer. Hardly audiophile issues at all, any of these. Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - link[I got an error, so sorry if this is posted twice.]
It's not overclocking at all. Powerplay is, as the poster above said, for power efficiency only. It actually doesn't overclock at all, but underclocks when the GPU is not being stressed.
If you're referring to one of the posts that requires you to enable overdrive, notice that it's only being enabled so you can stabilize the clock (and thus effectively disabling powerplay), but the GPU/mem are actually being underclocked by messing with an xml file and lowering the clocks manually via overdrive. Reply
ATWindsor - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkFirst of all, its not really a "audiophile feature" to get audio without droputs and other problems over HDMI, its devastating for the audio, no matter if you are a audiophile or not, secondly, powerplay is also used for power efficiency. The result is that HDMI audio doesn't work with default-setting for many people, this is a pretty major issue.
AtW Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkOK so hyperlinks aren' working.
This is the first thread I linked.
this is the doom9 thread.
ATI is giving some users the runaround. Reply
ereavis - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linktry this ATI hotfix
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICata...">http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICata... Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkalready did, and it's the same with 9.11, 9.12, 9.12 hotfix, 10.1, and version 8.70RC2 (presumably 10.2 RC2). Reply
toyota - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkam I missing something? why are you saying Far Cry 2 benchmark cant go lower than high settings? all you have to do is select DX9 and you can choose low or medium from there. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkWe stick to DX10 mode for benchmarking DX10-enabled games. In fact I never even tried DX9, otherwise I would have noticed that it goes lower.
Humm... Reply
toyota - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkwell anybody trying to game on this thing will have to use whatever realistic playable settings are available. that means DX9 for Crysis/Warhead and Far Cry 2 would need to be used. Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThat option has been there for a while, but there's no info on what exactly it does. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkFrankly, AMD has never documented it well. It has something to do with working with Windows MMCSS and DXVA to do exactly what the name describes, and that's all I know off-hand.
It's aptly named though; I've seen a number of examples where enabling it does what's on the label. Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkSo far the most reasonable explanation I've seen by googling is someone if a forum suggesting that its function is just disabling certain features so as to prioritize smooth playback over those features. I don't see any difference with the 5770, otherwise (with that card it doesn't disable anything). Reply
UNCjigga - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI sort of assumed it was similar to what 120hz/240hz LCD TVs do: use a frame doubler to more closely match your monitor's refresh rate and give the impression of "smooth" motion. Reply
andy o - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI don't think so, most PC displays are 60 Hz, and I think even most 120 Hz TVs only take up to 60p input. There's only a couple of 120Hz-input monitors. Reply
therealnickdanger - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkActually, most CRTs using analog connections are capable of 120Hz. DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort do not support digital transmission speeds over 60Hz. It's a sad state of affairs if you ask me. Reply
sc3252 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI know this isn't exactly supposed to be a fast card, but its clocked ~10% faster yet its slower than the last generation card... I can't say I am surprised though, after seeing the 5770 clocked faster than the 4870 yet being around the same speed. Reply
StevoLincolnite - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkI think people are missing allot of the big picture here and that's Crossfire with the Radeon 54xx series.
Specifically with the new 8 series of chipsets, hence the amount of shaders present, I expect a return of Hybrid Crossfire.
Pairing an IGP with a low-end card is a very cost effective solution to getting more performance out of a system and also gives AMD an edge in getting more people to buy an AMD Processor+Chipset+Graphics card. Reply
ereavis - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - link"me too" I'd dig a 758G Hybrid Crossfire review with this and the other sub $100 Radeons (if they support x-fire) 785 was a great motherboard to match with the Athlon II and Phenom II X2-X3, some of us were waiting on video card purchases and would like to see Crossfire 54XX/56XX compared to a 5750 discrete for example. Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkFun fact: HD 5450 is about 40% faster than my pathetic old 7600 GT in my work PC. Remember when 6600 GT was da bomb? LOL Reply
QuietOC - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkThe 80 shader discrete Radeons are just too limited by 64-bit DDR3. The 785G has more bandwidth and the same number of ROPS (mine even runs fine at 1GHz.) If they had cut the power usage of the 5450 down a lot more it may have made some sense. Reply
Totally - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - link5770 128-bit bus, 4870 256-bit bus
again 5450 64-bit bus, 4550 128-bit bus Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - link4550 (RV710) was a 64bit bus. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkImages are a WIP. Reply
SLEEPER5555 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkis proof editing also a work in progress? in a hurry to get the article posted or what! Reply
sc3252 - Thursday, February 04, 2010 - linkIs this a test to see if people will read articles without pictures, because I think I failed... Maybe next time just pull the article until pictures/charts are ready. Reply
bonsai57 - Saturday, August 07, 2010 - linkThe article states: The Next Step In HTPC Video Cards.
(Home Theatre Personal Computer Video Cards??)
Am I right in this assumption?
If so, then why are the benchmarks more orientated towards gaming??
Obviously this is no gaming card.
Please give a true outlook as to how this card performs connected to a TV.
Is it OK? Is it Junk?
My intent for this card would be a connection with a plasma display or perhaps LCD.
Streaming video through the intenet such as Netflix or Hulu would be one concern.
Playback through a Blu Ray Player on PC another.
Perhaps my perception of this card and the subsequent review are irrelevant.
Please don't game a card that's meant for something entirely different.
Perhaps I have miscontrued the intent of this article, if so I appologize. Reply
Sahana Munasinghe - Saturday, March 09, 2013 - linkAccording to PC Wizard 2012 ATI HD 5450 Has 1 GPU & 2 Cores. does it mean HD 5450 has 2 Graphic Processors? Reply


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Apple's iPad mini Event Live Blogby Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/23/2012 11:20 AM EST
89 Comments
Back to Article
blackmagnum - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkGo Apple, go! Reply
Creig - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkGo away, you mean. Reply
dugbug - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkRather nasty comment there Creig. Did apple kill your dog. Reply
UltraTech79 - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - linkYes, please do go away Creig. And take your weak personality with you. This isnt reddit/youtube. We enjoy technology here. Reply
Fleeb - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI hope the iPad mini comes with a sandpaper, so we can sand and reduce our fingers smaller. Reply
inplainview - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThanks for making the dumbest statement ever... Reply
lmcd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhat was he even trying to say? Reply
mrgodai02 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkhe is making fun of Steve Jobs. Reply
mrgodai02 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkyup, it is a super dumb statement, and here is the original
"unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size." -Steve Jobs. Reply
B3an - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkIrrelevant product. WinRT/8 tablets make these oversized phone devices pointless. Reply
michal1980 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI know anandtech is different. But I can't figure out why actual news programs have applegasmisms every time they release a product.
I bet every company in the world would love that much free ad time.
isn't the ipod touch already a mini ipad?
so this isn't a mini ipad coming out, its a inbetween size ipad. Reply
scavio - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThey cover these Apple events because it draws eyeballs (this includes Anandtech).
And you have it backwards. The iPad is a huge iPod Touch. So a mini iPad is just a slightly less huge iPad touch. Reply
scavio - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkOf course, I mean iPod Touch in the end. Confused myself there it seems. Reply
BSMonitor - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWell, when the biggest company Market Cap wise in the history of the planet speaks.. Probably should pay attention.. Reply
Dex1701 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkYes, because that's what big businesses in this country need...bigger voices and more influence. Selling people more crap is that important. Hell, it's the only thing that's important. Reply
tipoo - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkBest case scenario, 13" retina macbook pro with a quad core Ivy Bridge processor at last (there is one in the same TDP as their current dual core), and use the space savings for dedicated graphics, although I think that is unlikely looking at the 15" which had to use the extra space for battery to drive that panel.
The iPad Mini, meh, I'll wait and see but it sounds like it will have iPad 2 internals for a bit lower price, nothing new. Reply
tipoo - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAt the price of the current upgraded 13" I should have added, like I think the Retina Macbook Pro 15" wasn't too much more from the upgraded 15" regular so it was worth the jump. Reply
jeremyshaw - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI see a lot of dailytech readers have infested this site, already. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI thought Apple was livestreaming this event. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkLivestream is via Safari on a Mac or iOS device, or apple tv. Sorry anandtech, don't need the play by play now heh. Reply
jiffylube1024 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkSo stupid that Apple has limited live streaming to Apple devices. Is this a bandwidth issue, or just a BS exclusive thing? Reply
lmcd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAnd Apple has how much money? No, Apple never emphasizes exclusivity. Reply
ecuador - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkHow come the 27" display on the iMac is lower resolution than the 13" display on the MBP? Are they telling us that either the MBP has a ridiculously/uselessly high resolution for its size or the iMac has a laughingly low resolution for it size? Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkIf that's the best your logic can deduce, I'm afraid you fail at discerning between 2 very different products. Reply
ghogan42 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link27" IPS panels are very widely available at 2560x1440 and used in a ton of products.
They're not going to spend a bunch more money on 2560x1600 panels for no real reason. Reply
lmcd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkOr the iMac is expected to be viewed from farther, and Apple's too lazy to upgrade multiple products simultaneously. Reply
WeenerSnitzel - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAll right Anand, we know you have come to love Apple. You and the rest of the people attending need to change your shorts and wash your face! Reply
karasaj - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThis is interesting. Lower resolution, probably higher cost than competing tablets in that price range/niche. I find it weird that Apple pushes Retina on things with smaller screens (iphone 5) and larger screens, but not here. A retina display would arguably be more important on a screen like this than the iphone. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkIt's meant to be low cost. So no retina makes sense. IMO the continued 4x3 aspect ration makes sense on a ~7" device, when they showed the nexus in landscape mode said it all. Still, #1 reason to go with a iPad mini, the dedicated tablet apps. Wish Android had anywhere near this amount of dedicated tablet apps, that weren't buggy. I know it's hard having to cater to so many hardware specs, but it's still a loss to the user in the end. Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link#1 it is not low cost. $329 for the 16gb WiFi. The Nexus 7 32gb WiFi costs $80 less
#2 Apple's Reality Distortion Field was in full force to show a Mini with a 1024 x 768 diaplay showing more information that the Nexus 7's 1280 x 800 disply (which has 30% more pixels than the mini).
#3 Google has more than 600,000 apps which is very close to the 650,000 apps Apple has. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link#1 Yes it is, however you fail to see relative comparison. If all you care about is a lower price, sure. However, the obvious argument, which you again fail to see is that the $80 is worth it for a superior build quality. Something ligher and thinner too.
#2 Yes, it has fewer pixels. IMO it's not that huge of a gap for it be discounted as a contender however.
#3 You're obviously not looking at tablet-specific apps. Android can't touch iOS in this regard. I am sick of stretched out apps on my Android tablet.
If anyone is anywhere near entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, that is yet another reason to pick the iPad mini over your Nexus. Reply
IHateMyJob2004 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAnandtech better give this kind of attention to BB10 Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhen BB is in the same realm of hype and marketshare, sure. Reply
zlandar - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThey could have wrap this up in one sentence that includes the price of the iPad mini. Reply
jiffylube1024 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkDamn you Apple! I've purged my household of Apple products, but the iPad mini is exactly what I want! Bigger than my Nexus 7, yet thinner *and lighter? Jeez! Unless the 1024x768 screen is a real stinker, the iPad mini looks like a real winner. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkMaybe we're spoiled by Retina now hah. Nevertheless I think 1024x768 should do fine, considering it's on a 7.9" screen rather than a 10", it's a high enough ppi I think. Which this was at the $299 mental barrier though, at least =P. Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe Nexus 7 has a 1280 x 800 display and the mini has only a 1024 x768.
Don't believe the Apple Reality Distortion shown here as for Apple to claim the mini shows more information than the Nexus 7 means that Apple made the N7 to show pages not in the native resolution (probably by tweaking the magnification or font size).
Last time I checked the Nexus 7 has 1,024,000 pixels which is 30% more than the mini's 786,432.
So why would you fork out $130 extra dollars for a product that displays less?
Seems like you still have the it-starts-with-an-i-so-i-must-buy-it-disease Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkDo you really think pixel count has something to do with what was shown on the screen? That was a show of aspect ratio if anything. Reply
thedarknight87 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - linkYeah, considering the fact that 800>768, the N7 is definitely going to be more legible when displaying the same info as iPad Mini. Plus N7 gives smaller ugly black borders when you watch 16:9 videos Reply
zlandar - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkNot sure why you would buy this if you can get a refurb iPad 2 for the same price. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkFor the portability? Why does anyone get smaller devices?
There's also the better cameras. Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkTypical of the Apple Reality Distortion Field where they show the Nexus 7 showing less information that the mini.
The Nexus 7 has a 1280 x 800 native resolution it will display more pixels that the mini.
For it no to what did Apple do? Probably turned up the font magnification on the Nexus 7.
So typical of Apple, can't compete so bring out the "Apple Reality Distortion Field" and distort the truth. Reply
jiffylube1024 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link2 things though:
1: pinch to zoom means that the iPad mini will indeed display more information over the N7 if you want it to - it's got an almost 50% larger display area.
2: Some iOS apps have better tablet versions than Android, and obviously Apple picked & chose some of those to hilight the differences.
I currently own a Nexus 7, and enjoy it, but the two main things I do on it - web browsing, and ereading via the Kindle app, will be significantly better with a screen that's 50% larger.
16:9 or 16:10 is indeed much better for video, but 4:3 is better for web browsing and reading, and I find I don't watch much video on my N7 after all - I primarily use my laptop for that. Reply
BSMonitor - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkCan someone do the math for me?? Reply
Moizy - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link162 PPI (http://thirdculture.com/joel/shumi/computer/hardwa...
Nexus 7 is 216 PPI Reply
mevensen - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkReally? 7.9 inch is mini? Starting at $329?
Interesting play for Apple. They present as competition with Nexus 7, but they are not competing in quite the same size category or price category. Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkExactly Reply
augiem - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkIf I wanted an iPad, which I don't, I'd definitely get the mini. 10" tablets are too bulky for extended use. But tablets are useless to me and I'll never buy an iAnything. Reply
andrewaggb - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkneed to see one in person to decide if the screen etc is really good enough. Not that interested in a smaller tablet, only reason I never grabbed a nexus 7, but I know a few people who like the smaller tablets. Reply
TheRealArdrid - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI think Apple really missed an opportunity to dominate the lower-end tablet market. They spent a good chunk of their time taking swipes at the competition (namely, Nexus 7), something Apple rarely does it, and yet didn't hit them where the most damage could be done: price. Granted, Apple has always been able to charge a premium for devices, but I have to wonder how successful a $329+ iPad Mini is going to be comared to a $199+ Nexus 7. Reply
uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkJudging from my weeks with the Nexus 7: People who can't afford to spend $130 on top of what the Nexus 7 costs won't buy an iPad. If money is not that much of a concern the fact that you don't have to expose yourself to almost nothing but smartphone apps and hit the menu and back buttons all the time for everything might make the iPad mini still a success. And it certainly will make Apple more money than the Nexus does for Google (although I don't care much for that, really).
Honestly, the real drawback for Android on tablets are the apps or better the lack of tablet apps. Reply
kaalus - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAnd 30% less pixels... Of course didn't mention that. Hypocrites. Fail. Reply
MadMan007 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe potrait comparisons are one thing, but the landscape comparison of the 'Guggenheim' page is really RDF'd, to the point that I think Apple didn't just distort reality but made a truly non-equivalent comparison. There's no way the Nexus display is half the iPad Mini in landscape. Reply
uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkNot the display itself, but with all the bars on top and bottom there's really not that much left in landscape for actual content in Chrome/Jelly Bean. If you had ever used a Nexus 7 you wouldn't have asked about that. I hardly ever use my Nexus 7 in landscape precisely because of this. Reply
MadMan007 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe menu bar taks up *some* pixels but come on, look at that landscape Guggenheim picture...there's no way bars and stuff take up almost half the screen. Reply
holotech - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkbasically, the iphone 5 has faster internals than the ipad mini. A6 > A5. and the resolution is disappointing. Reply
holotech - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAND the price is to high. 250 or less it should have been IMO . but my O doesnt matter. Reply
Kjella - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkDidn't expect one, but would have been a nice surprise.... hopefully we'll see a 4K monitor next year. Reply
Moizy - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkCan we get rid of all Reality Distortion Fields, both Pro-Apple and Anti? I love Anandtech because Anand and Brian lack either and can appreciate the merits and industry gravitas of Apple's products and critique them at the same time.
Pro-Apple Reality Distortion Field: Finally! Someone made a smaller tablet! Wonderful idea! Apple is so cool for thinking of these things. And the price? So low!
Anti-Apple Reality Distortion Field: Apple's products suck, only stupid people would buy them (ignoring best tablet apps - best hardware design - best tablet and smartphone graphics - SoCs that compete with the best out there on performance and battery life).
Before you post, ask yourself if you suffer from either of these ailments, and spare us your symptoms! Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkTake your daily i-pill and chill. Reply
Taft12 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe new Godwin's law of the internet. It really does make reading any forums that cover Apple products tiresome, doesn't it? Reply
Moizy - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhat none of these comments are addressing is the claim Apple made that the 4th Gen Ipad doubles graphics performance over the 3rd Gen, which used 543MP4 and had an enormous (for ARM chips) die size.
How did they do this? Any thoughts? Like the A6 vs A5 improvements, I don't think they could have just added more of the same cores, or increase clock speeds to get there. Even with the headroom 32nm would give them (remember, 3rd Gen Ipad was on 45nm), they couldn't have used this approach. Must be new graphics cores, I'm guessing. Reply
Heisenburger - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI must say, I don't really have Apple envy now. That is kind of odd for my tech lust drive.
I do however envy my rich friends who can buy this without regard to price. However, if price is an issue then Apple may not be the answer for you.
I am glad that Apple is pushing others, yes, even Google, to try to keep up. In doing so, I can buy a slightly less item (not always) for a significant discount.
Why do I see things this way? Apple targets those who can best afford or most want their toys. In fact, every business wants to sell to the most affluent segment. This does however require giving buyers something to get excited about even if it's not that necessary to the product's performance-- friction stir welding? How did previous iPads survive without this?
Personal info: (skip this part if u don't care)
I'm 63 years old and been having trouble reading more and more lately with my old glasses. I've even been experiencing buyers remorse for my Nexus 7 UNTIL... I got something called "cheater glasses" which are simply non-prescription magnification glasses. These 1.75x glasses now allow me to enjoy my Nexus 7 more than when I first bought it. Thanks COSTCO!
Note to other aging folks, the Nexus 7 isn't too small if your eyesight is properly addressed. Reply
dishayu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkAnyone else finds it ridiculous that their 13 inch notebook has the same resolution as the 27 inch computer and the 15 inch laptop exceeds it by more than 25%
Someone please explain to me WHY can't we have 4K PC monitors for a reasonable amount of money today? Reply
kyuu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkBecause making panels of the same resolution as are already made but just for smaller devices is not the same as making panels of a significantly higher resolution? Reply
dishayu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkTake the same tech (i.e. maintain the ppi) and make bigger panels, how hard can it be? Reply
Sm0kes - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - linkThe difficulty isn't making the panels, the challenge is doing it with a useable yield that will be profitable. Reply
Taft12 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkDesktop-sized panels aren't a smart place for the LCD builders of the world to ramp new capacity. The volume in the desktop market is ever-decreasing and won't ever go back upwards. Luckily 4K resolution will give us desktop users some new options in the near future.
Apple and the LCD manufacturers are pushing the envelope on tablets and laptops because that's the present and near-future (who knows what lies beyond?) Reply
dishayu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWell, that's the only plausible reason i could think of, as well. But, i as an avid desktop user like to wish otherwise. :( Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linklol wow the ignorance. It's not the same thing. Considering the tech, it is obvious that it's something you grow out your yields. You start small, then ramp it up to larget screens. Furthermore, you view your desktop at a farther distance than your phone or tablet or laptop, all that is taken into account. Grow up. Reply
dishayu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkthe ignorance? pot, kettle, black.
It IS the same thing. You make big sheets of of high ppi LCD matrix, harvest as many zero pixel defect large screens as possible and use the rest to harvest screens for tablets/phones/smaller devices. Don't come up with bs theories with no logical backing. LCD manufacturing does not work the way you think you do. They DON'T make individual small/large screens. Reply
uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkBecause producing 27" displays with this pixel density in economic yields is incredibly hard. And because you won't be selling hundreds of millions of them to justify what you have to invest for that anyway.
And hardly anyone is buying PC displays for any serious amount of money anyway. Reply
dishayu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkfirst up, the ppi will not be the same...
27 inch screen is approx 4 times the surface area of 13.3 inch screen
4K resolution has approx 2x the pixels of 2560x1600
So, it works out to be about half the pixel density which should be a lot less challenging. And 4K makes atleast as much sense on a 27 inch desktop monitor as 25x16 does on a 13 inch laptop screen (i.e. almost none). Reply
lmcd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe mini should have been predicted: after all, the A5 just got a successful die shrink around the time of the 3rd iPad, with a huge battery life jump. Since Apple usually doesn't like lower end products having advantages over higher end, this shrink obviously wasn't for the 10-inch form factor. Similarly, the iPad is considered higher-end than the iPhone, and the A5X was already 45nm (or 40, I forget), so instead of making a die-shrink they just upgraded it.
The 13-inch Retina was exactly where expected. Form factor changes with the iMac weren't totally predictable except when you note that the TDPs changed on Ivy Bridge and Apple wouldn't waste an opportunity like that. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link$329 for something that has no usb port and cant even take an sd card or anything. They are beyond stupid. 16GB is nothing in 2012. The thing will be nothing more than a paperweight in 6 months for anyone actually dumb enough to buy it. Apple stock price will reflect this stupid move. Reply
dugbug - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkIm sure they won't sell any Reply
web2dot0 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkYou're are spot on.
With their track record of making gazillion dollars, how could they ever make any right decisions. They are beyond stupid. Apple stock price will plummet and go out of business in 6months time.
I agree with you, iPad mini will be a complete disaster. Just like the folks who bought Apple when they were at $38/share. Dumb asses ....
Oops ... that would be me.
Ok, I admit you have a point, I mean who's the one with the cash in their bank account right?
I mean who are these idiots who bought iPad/iPad2/iPad3 and soon to be iPad4 and iPad mini with no USB port?!!?!?!? No one will ever buy that piece of crap. Reply
DukeN - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe Nexus 7 has 30% more pixels than the iPad mini. And of course, Apple glosses over this by yelling they have 35% more display area because their 7.9" screen is larger than the 7" for the Nexus. Reply
web2dot0 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI agree. It's a launch party, so I fully expect them to promote other competing products.
Just like how Samsung does when they launch their products during the time when they didn't have Retina display phones. Fully praise to their competitors. Reply
Scannall - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThe Nexus 7 also happens to be a plasticy, clunky bit of junk. Sold at cost. Poor build quality, running a slow OS. Yes, I said it. Dalvic sucks. Having to run apps through a wannabe Java layer makes things run like, well Java. Slow no matter how much CPU power you throw at it. Reply
EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkDo the new ones lose this functionality? I believe this was through a display port connection? Reply
name99 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link"Built into Mountain Lion, sounds like SSD caching done Apple-style"
I don't think so. The effect is approximately the same, but Apple control everything which means they can do this at the file system level, not the block level. So they can do a vastly better job.
There are a bunch of obvious things that can be done if you're at the file system level:
You can place all the file system data structures (B-Trees etc) always in SSD, likewise for hotfiles, likewise for /tmp and /vm.
You can also steer large files (larger than say 10MB) automatically to the HD.
You can also do things like always steer writes to the SSD and then later, when you have some free time, move them to the HD is appropriate.
All in all I can see this working substantially better than a Momentus XT, and not just because the cache SSD is quite a bit larger. Reply
tomatus270389 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhy would I ever need a desktop computer that thin??? Reply
uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkYou won't, but you also won't need china plates, leather shoes, furniture made from real wood and a pretty girlfriend. The really cheap versions of all this work just as well! And they're cheaper! Stupid people!
Sorry, but I couldn't resist.
Seriously, even desktop computers aren't just office machinery anymore. They're furniture as well. They have to look good. It's not only about geeks anymore. And people pay lots of money for things they like. What's so hard to understand about this and do you really, really think there's anything wrong with that? Do you drink from plastic cups every day? I mean, they're cheaper and they don't shatter, so they're much better? Come on. Reply
tomatus270389 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - linkI agree that people like good looking things, but the older one wasn't ugly. It seems that these days thiner=nicer. I can imagine stupid people saying uuuu look thinner!! I have to buy this one, the older one is crap. But well, it's just my opinion. I will always prefer a computer were I can easily change any component either to upgrade it or to replace it if it fails. Reply
tzhu07 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI agree that thinness in something that is already a desktop product isn't mission critical, but I gotta respect Apple for pushing their design paradigm in everything they do. And one of those design paradigms is THINNER THINNER THINNER!!!!!!
FWIW, I also agree with Apple's decision to drop the opitical drive from the iMac. The way of the (green) future is digital distribution. Reply
sandineyes - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkI'm not one for Apple products, as I have little experience with Mac Os and I can't stand the prices (as I am a poor college student), but I'll always have a soft spot for the iMac. As a child, I couldn't understand why my father was upgrading to a PC (with a new 600MHz Pentium III). It took hours to buy all the parts, had all sorts of boxes to it, and wires all over the place. I couldn't believe that it was somehow better than the Mac we had, which was all one big unit. Reply
iamQasim - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - linkjust work seamless Reply
perspicacity - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - linkIt looks like Apple is trying to catch up to the competition... but not quite making it.
Apple makes nice looking products. They're like fashion accessories for girls... irrationally coveted.
I would consider one of these if I could use it with a more open operating system like Android or W8. iOS's primary purpose is to be incompatible with other devices, thus locking the user into Apple hardware. Apple is primarily a hardware vender, after all. Reply


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To Live and Die on Murder Island
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This intense exploration of a young woman's personal anguish is a triumph of interactive storytelling.
The long list of options available in Injustice 2 means that players of all skill levels should be able to find something exciting to do.
Nintendo's newest title delivers on tone and fleeting fun, but struggles to sink its hooks in.
Character »
A one per level collectible common to the DKC franchise. While most of the time it hides in plain sight, on occasion it is entrusted to a Kremling named Koin.
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text:
Rebels' Henderson writes apology
Published: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 6:57 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 6:57 p.m.
OXFORD, Miss.— Mississippi guard Marshall Henderson posted a letter on the school's athletic website on Wednesday apologizing for some of his actions during a successful but turbulent season.
The 6-foot-2 junior averaged more than 20 points per game this season, leading the Rebels to their first NCAA tournament since 2002. But Henderson became more known for his exuberant celebrations and trash talking than his scoring ability. Multiple media outlets also reported that Henderson made an obscene gesture toward the crowd following the team's season-ending loss to LaSalle.
Henderson wrote that he plays the game with "a lot of passion, and sometimes that passion boils over." He also apologized to "anyone I offended" and that he "can take things too far."
Ole Miss spokesman Daniel Snowden said Henderson is not facing any discipline.
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text: These folding metal hay feeders are easy to set up and take down; they stack conveniently. Ten folded feeders take up less room than one metal hay feeder. You'll love them for shows where you don't mind some hay waste. Made entirely of welded steel rod. Attach to fences with bit snaps or other handy fasteners (not included). Painted black to resist rusting. Size: 20" wide by 20" long by 10" deep.