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NVIDIA's Project Kal-El: Quad-Core A9s Coming to Smartphones/Tablets This Yearby Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/15/2011 9:05 PM EST
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wolfman3k5 - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkDoes this thing help hair growth? Reply
michael2k - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkTestosterone is known to cause hair loss. Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkActually it's believed to be DHT buildup, but there a lot of breakthroughs that are able to regrow hair straight from the skin/stem cells w/o needing the hair follicle. They did it on rats, but it grew back colorless, human testing is either underway or soon.
As for Nvidia, could they up the release date for phones? My contract's up in August ;) Reply
descendency - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkColorless isn't a problem. Hair dye... duh. Reply
Saidas - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkYes....but only on your back. Reply
Camikazi - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkHow is there not a picture of Superman there? Reply
quiksilvr - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkBecause chesty military girl is cheaper. Reply
MeanBruce - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkChesty? Nah she's barely a C-cup. ;) Reply
Ronakbhai - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkShe's not superman. She's not even Jor-El's wife! Reply
GeorgeH - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkSome guy in tights reversing time by rotating the planet backwards is as believable as perfect scaling from 2 to 4 cores, so I suppose "Kal-El" is an appropriate name. Reply
jjj - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkdoes this " The architecture will first ship in a quad-core, 40nm version" mean Kal-El will get a 28 nm version too? Reply
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkI think the assumption is that a future iteration of the architecture introduced with Kal-El will be a die shrink. (probably the 2x one that will be implemented in 2012)
At least that is what I am assuming until Nvidia proves me wrong. Reply
michael2k - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkEven if they can't sustain it, I love that they're trying. Is this the powerhouse behind the NGP? Reply
nafhan - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkNo, the NGP sounds like it'll be using an SGX GPU. So, that means it'll probably use Samsung or TI. Reply
Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThe only other company that has announced a quad core chip for this year is Freescale. I believe they have a 1 Ghz quad core Cortex A9 chip. Reply
dleonseng - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkfirst paragraph:
"...NVIDIA may not have the entire market but it has enough of it to be take{N} seriously." Reply
NCM - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkRe "...are simply due to learnings it had in the design of Tegra 2s..." (second page)
"Learning" means the process of acquiring knowledge, not the things one has learned; it doesn't have a plural form.
Instead try: "...are simply due to things it learned in the design of Tegra 2..." Reply
DarkUltra - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkWho cares about four cores? I want Android UI running on the GPU. Most people who see an Android phone will immediately do two things: swipe through home screens and scroll through the app list. If they see lag and choppiness they inevitably compare to the iPhone and assume that the phone as a whole is not as fast and responsive; end-of-story for them.
The restrictions of the iphone and Apples iTunes lock-in barely makes it worth it. Reply
A5 - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkHoneycomb supposedly helps with that and presumably Tegra 3 will be running that or Ice Cream. Reply
dcollins - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkIsn't Android 2.3 GPU accelerated?
Also, part of the problem is the carriers software doesn't have great performance. My Droid 2 is running Liberty 1.5 and the home screens, app drawer, and contacts all scroll smoothly. Not so with the stock ROM, which stuttered a lot and got slower over time. I suggest anyone with a Droid 2 or Droid X check out Liberty. Reply
B3an - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkAndroid 2.3 finally, FINALLY has GPU acceleration. So the Samsung Galaxy S2 will have it for instance.
I totally agree with you though, Google should have had GPU acceleration a long time ago, most people i know who have iPhones complain about the choppiness of Android when scrolling/animating.
Windows Phone 7 actually has the smoothest OS of them all though, it's so well polished. MS done it literally perfectly on the first release. Android takes many versions to fix this, and it's still not as good, but atleast GPU acceleration is there now. Reply
Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkOnly Honeycomb has full hardware acceleration. Android 2.3 has better garbage collection that has improved the speed of the UI a bit. Reply
AbRASiON - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkSomeone listen to this guy!
I love my Android phone but god damnit even a half decent one is a little laggy and sluggish at points.
The iphone sucks in a lot of silly ways but it's always a smooth and consistent feel, even if it fakes it - they are clever about it. Reply
BlueScreenJunky - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkWell according to the sales figures that doesn't prevent Android phones from selling well so I don't see a problem from Google and the manufacturers' point of view.
And from my point of view that's absolutely no problem at all : Since I like my phone to be responsive and I dont need 50 widgets I only have one home screen (So I can't swipe through anything) and I disabled every single animation using spareparts...
So there's nothing left to accelerate really and now when I use a phone with the animations enabled I'm like "Why do I have to look at the page sliding or zooming in before I can actually begin to read ? It's just a waste of time !" Reply
Aloonatic - Monday, February 21, 2011 - linkI guess you just eat protein and vitamin pills etc? What's the point in making tasty food and chewing it? It's just a waste of time.
I guess it's good that you are happy to live in a bland little world, but most people aren't and whether you realise that it's an issue or not, but one of the reasons why many people love LOVE (LOVE!!!!!) their Apple devices, and why they still have a strong presence in the market in spite of their price premium is because they have realised that the swoop, expanding, sliding animations make using their devices a far more fun experience, rather than just being a dull utilitarian device.
You might be happy with what you have, but I think you're in a teeny, tiny minority when the entire market (ie not just techies) is taken into account and that's where the money is to be made. Expect Android and WinMo to try to emulate Apple as much as possible, because if they don't, they will always struggle to lure people, their wallets and their personal data that they might want to mine, away from Apple. Reply
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkIf extra cores make browsing buttery-smooth, I'm all for it.
They shouldn't be drawing extra power from your phone unless they are getting some tangible use anyway. (that is assuming some level of power-gating)
I like GPU acceleration too, but there is no reason to ditch a wider architecture because it's effects are not immediately discernible by people browsing phones in the verizon store. Reply
tviceman - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkThe similarities with Nvidia's first products are strikingly similar to it's venture into the mobile space. Insofar as being a success,
Tegra1 = NV1 (not successful at all)
Tegra2 looks like it has become the RIVA 128 - huge turn around and very competitive.
Tegra3 (Kal-El) could end up being the RIVA TNT/ TNT2 and the transition to 28nm (probably Wayne) could propel Nvidia to being the #1 mobile CPU manufacturer ---- much like what GeForce did for Nvidia. Reply
djgandy - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkWell they haven't sold anything yet. It's business as usual at Nvidia, delivering lots of hype and marketing.
Considering they struggle to keep their desktop parts running cool and with low power, maybe people should focus on the key aspect of a mobile chip, battery life, rather than salivating over cherry picked CPU benchmarks and potential GPU performance which is already out there in pocket melting form. Reply
bplewis24 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThey already have an article discussing Tegra2's battery life performance.
Brandon Reply
tim851 - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkWhat does Nicolas Cage's son have to do with all of this? Reply
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linklol Reply
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkNicholas Cage's son is actually named "Kal-El." Seriously. Reply
samirsshah - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkhow to compete. Reply
j.harper12 - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - linkNvidia... I literally just committed myself to buying a new smartphone a year, despite only have a full upgrade every two years. Am I really going to have to buy a new smartphone every six months now?!? Really?!?! Not cool Nvidia... actually, pretty cool, but vicious as far as budgets go.
Here I was pining over the Optimus 3D... Reply
MrSpadge - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkYou know, "new stuff exists" does not equal "have to buy it" ;p
MrS Reply
medi01 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkHow many gigaherzopuxelshmixels does your current phone have?
How often do you have to charge it? Reply
mesiah - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkSounds like best buys buyback plan is in your future :D Reply
AuDioFreaK39 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkCan't wait to have a 24-CPU core Nvidia Tegra mobile processor based on Iron Man architecture in 2014!! \m/ Reply
bplewis24 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkPffft, while you're buying that I'll be waiting to purchase the 32-core SoC believed to be released in Q1 2015. Reply
Gonemad - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkAs long you don't need an ark reactor to power it, I'm game too.
If Nvidia can do SoC chips, can it do full-blown non-mobile CPUs too? Just asking... I guess it's just like nuclear arsenal: can do it in 2 years or less, have all the tools, but won't tell you if it did. Reply
Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThey're working on customized ARM chip for servers, called Project Denver, and will be released in 2013. It's mostly focused on performance so they will make it as powerful as an ARM chip can get around that time. It will also be targeted at PC's. Reply
Enzo Matrix - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkSuperman < Batman < Wolverine < Iron Man?
Kinda doing things in reverse order aren't you, Nvidia? Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkIt's interesting that nVidia's Coremark slide uses a recent GCC 4.4.1 build on their Tegras but uses a much older GCC 3.4.4 build on the Core 2 Duo. I can't help but think nVidia is trying to find a bad Core 2 Duo score in order to make their own CPU look more impressive. Reply
Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkI think you missed their point. They're trying to say that ARM chips are quickly catching up in performance with desktop/laptop chips. Reply
jordanp - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkOn Tegra Roadmap chart.. looks like that curve is leveling at 100 on STARK... reaching the limit boundary of 11nm node?!! Reply
Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkI think they'll reach 14 nm in 2014. IBM made a partnership with ARM to make 14 nm chips. Reply
beginner99 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - link... in a mobile phone? Most people only have 2 in their many PC. Agreed, does 2 are much more powerful but still, it will end up the same as on pc side. tons of cores and only niche software using it.
I still have a very old "phone only" mobile. Yesterday I had some time to kill and looked at a few smart phones. And saw exactly what someone described here. They all seemed laggy and choppy, except the iPhone. I'm anything but an apple Fan boy (more like the opposite) but if I where a consumer with 0 knowledge just by playing with the phone I would chose to buy an iPhone. Reply
jasperjones - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkDid anyone look at the fine print in the chart with the Coremark benchmark?
Not only do they use more aggressive compiler flags for their products than for the T7200, they also use a much more recent version of gcc. At the very least, they are comparing apples and oranges. Actually, I'm more inclined to call it cheating... Reply
Visual - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThis looks like Moore's Law on steroids.
I guess (hope?) it is technically possible, simply because for a while now we've had the reverse thing - way slower progress than Moore's Law predicts. So for a brief period we may be able to do some catch-up sprints like this.
I don't believe it will last long though.
Another question is if it is economically feasible though. What impact will this have on the prices of the previous generation? If the competition can not catch up, wouldn't nVidia decide to simply hold on to the new one instead of releasing it, trying to milk the old one as much as they can, just like all other greedy corporations in similar industries?
And finally, will consumers find an application for that performance? It not being x86 compatible, apps will have to be made specifically for it and that will take time.
I for one can not imagine using a non-x86 machine yet. I need it to be able to run all my favorite games, i.e. WoW, EVE Online, Civ 5 or whatever. I'd love a lightweight 10-12 inch tablet that can run those on max graphics, with a wireless keyboard and touch pad for the ones that aren't well suited for tablet input. But having the same raw power without x86 compatibility will be relatively useless, for now. I guess developers may start launching cool new games for that platform too, or even release the old ones on the new platform where it makes sense (Civ 5 would make a very nice match to tablets, for example), but I doubt it will happen quickly enough. Reply
Harry Lloyd - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkI'm sick of smartphones. All I see here are news about smartphones, just like last year all I saw were news about SSDs.
Doesn't anything else happen in this industry? Reply
theagentsmith - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThere is the Mobile World Congress happening right now in the nice city of Barcelona.... almost every company involved in mobile electronics sector is showing off new products, that's why you see only news about smartphones! Reply
R3MF - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linknvidia, you have not lost the magic! Reply
Dribble - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - link@40nm the power draw would be too high for a phone so I don't suppose there's much point having this processor in one until 28nm arrives.
However for the new tablet market you have larger batteries so you can target them with a higher power draw soc (it's still going to be much much smaller then any x86 chip and I expect the big screen will still be sucking most of the power).
Impressive they got it working first time, puts a lot of pressure on competitors who are still struggling to catch up with tegra 2 let alone compete with this. Reply
SOC_speculation - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkVery cool chip, lots of great technology. But it will not be successful in the market.
a 1080p high profile decode onto a tablet's SXGA display can easily jump into the 1.2GB/s range. if you drive it over HDMI to a TV and then run a small game or even a nice 3D game on the tablet's main screen, you can easily get into the 1.7 to 2GB/s range.
why is this important? a 533Mhz lpddr2 channel has a max theoretical bandwidth of 4.3GB/s. Sounds like enough right? well, as you increase frequency of ddr, your _actual_ bandwidth lowers due to latency issues. in addition, across workloads, the actual bandwidth you can get from any DDR interface is between 40 to 60% of the theoretical max.
So that means the single channel will get between 2.5GBs (60%) down to 1.72 (40%). Trust me, ask anyone who designs SOCs, they will confirm the 40 to 60% bandwidth #.
So the part will be restricted to use cases that current single core/single channel chips can do.
So this huge chip with 4 cores, 1440p capable, probably 150MT/s 3D, has an Achilles heel the size of Manhattan. Don't believe what Nvidia is saying (that dual channel isn't required). They know its required but for some reason couldn't get it into this chip.
overzealot - Monday, February 21, 2011 - linkActually, as memory frequency increases bandwidth and latency improve. Reply
araczynski - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkso if i know that what i'm about to buy is outdated by a factor of two or five not even a year later, i'm not very likely to bother buying at all. Reply
kenyee - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkCrazy how fast stuff is progressing. I want one...at least this might justify the crazy price of a Moto Xoom tablet.... :-) Reply
OBLAMA2009 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkit makes a lot of sense to differentiate phones from tablets by giving them much faster cpus, higher resolutions and longer battery life. otherwise why get a tablet if you have a cell phone Reply
yvizel - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - link" NVIDIA also expects Kal-El to be somewhere in the realm of the performance of a Core 2 Duo processor (more on this later)."
I don't think that you referred to this statement anywhere in the article.
Can you elaborate? Reply
Quindor - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkSeems to me NVidia might be pulling a Qualcomm, meaning they are going with what they have and are trying to stretch it out longer and wider before giving us the complete redesign/refresh. You can see this quite clearly at the MWC right now.
Not a bad strategy as far as I can tell right now. Only threat that I see is that Qualcomm is actually scheduled to release their new core design around the time Nvidia will releasing the Kal-El.
So who's going to win that bet? ;) More IPC VS Raw Ghz/cores. Quite a reversed world too if you ask me, because Qualcomm was never big on IPC and went for the 1Ghz hype.
Hopefully NVidia doesn't make the same mistakes as with the GPU market, building such a revolutionary designs that they actually design "sideways" from the market. Making their GPU's fantastic in certain area's, which might not take off at all.
Mind you, I'm an NVidia fan... but it won't be the first time NVidia releases a revolutionary architecture, which isn't as efficient as they thought it would be. ;) Reply
Khato - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThe only portion of the design that could be considered 'new' is the 1.5x GPU, but given NVIDIA's expertise in that area it's not too surprising that they'd have no issues executing that. The actual core changes consist of using another pre-made component, the MPE, per core and then doubling the number of cores... In other words, I'd be shocked if they got back first silicon and it -didn't- work flawlessly. That's kinda the point of licensing a design that's already fully tested and simply needs to be 'plugged in'.
As for the performance metrics demonstrated... The 'gaming' is most likely due to the improved graphics, which is unquestionable NVIDIA's strength. The "Coremark 1.0" results meanwhile are yet more amusing. If that Kal-el score is indicative of final frequency performance, then I'd expect it to still be running at 1GHz because Coremark is an unrealistic benchmark that scales linearly with number of cores. It's also basically just an integer benchmark (more information is available on their site.) aka, that benchmark implies zero per-core performance increase for Kal-el over Tegra 2. Reply
supergoodness - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkBeing a HUGE Superman fan I have newfound love for NVIDIA since all these processors are codenamed superheroes.
Kal-El – Superman
Wayne – Batman
Logan – Wolverine
Stark – Ironman
I guess I am easily entertained :) Reply
ssiu - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkThat is going to cause serious "Osborne effect" to all the Tegra2 tablets that are almost available now; if one can get something "5x better" in 6 months. Reply
sarge78 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkLooking forward to your analysis! Reply
rs2 - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkSo nVidia is claiming better performance than a Core 2 Duo, with power consumption that is suitable for a smartphone? I find that a little hard to believe. Both Intel and AMD are still at least a couple of iterations away from that mark with their current low-power offerings, so nVidia's claims seem a bit suspect, if you ask me. Reply
dagamer34 - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - linkThe Core 2 Duo nVidia is comparing it's chip to is about 5 years old and was originally built on the 65nm process. Tegra 3 will be a 40nm process. Going from 65nm->40nm gives you about 2.56x number of transistors to work with. Also, the T7200 wasn't exactly the fastest that Intel had to offer at the time, but the Tegra 3 is bleeding edge. Reply
Bonesdad - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkcan they put Tony Stark above Bruce Wayne??? And Logan....really... Reply
T2k - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - linkSeriously: other than shills like Anand etc does anyone else do this kinda of slave pieces like this?
I mean full of BS PR, nothing concrete, only marketing shit for NV? Reply
fr500 - Thursday, February 17, 2011 - linkWe need a Zotac motherboard/nettop with this and a custom Android interface, use office live or whatever and you have a more than enough system for daily usage, multimedia and even casual gaming (and not so casual with gameloft ripoffs) Reply
tkafafi - Thursday, February 17, 2011 - linkI was planning on getting a tablet this year; but waiting to see the ipad 2 specs.
Seeing how fast the soc chips are evolving is making me wonder whether I'd be better off waiting for next year. I guess that is always the case in gadget world :)
from the looks of it 2012 tablet features could include :
* quad core arm processors
* High resolution screens (ipad3 is rummored to be 4x this years model).
* LTE ? Xoom is already commited to LTE upgrade.
Hmmmm .... decisions decisions .... Reply
heinzr - Thursday, February 17, 2011 - linkHow can Nvidia claim that Kal-El offers 5x Tegra performance without getting challenged? The Coremark result is better by less than 2x. Reply
tecknurd - Thursday, February 17, 2011 - linkWhere is the power consumption numbers? All reviewers that I read still did not post those numbers and I was hoping to see power consumption numbers here, but did not find any. Saying that the Kal-El will have a same power consumption as Tegra 2 does not mean anything to me because I do not know how much power a Tegra 2 realistically consumes. I know how much the BeagleBoard consumes which is around 3 to 5 watts. I expect the PandaBoard to consume about double. If they are going to state the power consumption, I will just predict the power consumption of the Kal-El be around 15 watts. Is this wrong or am I right? Reply
Wilco1 - Friday, February 18, 2011 - linkAt 40nm, a dual core 2GHz Cortex-A9 uses 2W. So 4 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 cores will use ~2.5-3W. So with the GPU, a total of ~4-5W seems reasonable.
While that seems a lot, consider that the lowest power Atom needs 2W per core at 1.5GHz, and that you'll need 4 of those plus a fast GPU to get similar performance. Reply
ioannis - Friday, February 18, 2011 - linksurely Parker should have a place in that chart, don't you think? Or is he more of an AMD/ATI colour-themed hero? Reply
IamEzio - Friday, February 18, 2011 - linkthe NGP has quad core Cortex A9 .. Reply
dagamer34 - Saturday, February 19, 2011 - linkEngadget's video around 3:45 has the rep clearly stating that Kal-El will support high-profile H.264. It'll also handle a Blu-ray rip (and I don't really know of any commonly used video that higher quality than that right now).
Link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/nvidia-announce... Reply


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Race Driver: GRID (PC)by Eddie Turner on 8/7/2008 2:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- GPUs
42 Comments
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mesherman - Sunday, September 21, 2008 - linklooks good, but the game makers are just into what it looks like and not what is in the game. These racing games now days suck ass.. All they do is hurry up and put the game out so thay can make money. There is so much more they could have done with this game to make it real. What would you think about a car game you can buy and sell car's, and parts to other players online. And have a caution, that you can still drive under caution and have a black flag for the people that just dont know how to drive. Car setup on the game and a temp gage for your heat on you tires in the caution. plus a pit... Make the game real.. if they did this we would finally have a good racing game. Reply
djfourmoney - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkI downloaded the demo after I installed my Visiontek HD3870 512mb card and Wow this game looks great (when its not crashing my system). Too bad I only get to drive for about 1 lap maybe 1 1/2 laps before the darn thing crash to BSOD with that stupid IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL (if anybody knows what is causing that, let me know, all the drivers, including motherboard drivers are NEW, RECENT, Up To Date).
I ran it at 1920x1200 default detail (AAx4)(which I hear in the demo is set to high, not ultra) and FRAPS didn't give me an average but mid 20's is the lowest and down the longest part of track in the Muscle Car Race about 40-42fps. Like I said it looks great, fun and I wish I could get to stop crashing so I can enjoy it more.
Best looking PC racer out there, bar none and Codemaster's have outdone themselves.
System Specs -
HTPC Windows Vista Home
AMD 64x2 5000+ Black Edition (2.91Ghz)
Dual Channel Memory (3GB@800Hz)
Visiontek HD3850 512MB
MS Sidewinder Wheel (Non-FF)
I know Codemasters uses motion blur in this game because at 30-40fps it looks faster than GT-L looks@60fps *Vsync. Hardcore SIMs should look this good, they would sell more games...
I hope this is only an issue with the Demo. I'll know when I get the full version. Should I download via Steam or get the DVD? I'm going to replace this HD3870 with a HD3850 because its under $100 at New Egg and includes a free copy of GRID and I can't find a HD3870 single slot cooler for the same price I paid for the current one ($119).
marc1000 - Monday, August 18, 2008 - linkJust to let you guys know: I am playing GRID-demo (wich I guess defaults to maximum quality) with a 20-30 fps average at 1280x1024 without AA, but on a old Pentium-D 3.4ghz on single-channel 2GB DDR2-667 and a cheap Radeon HD3850 512mb.
This system also runs Crysis at Medium quality with no problems. We do not need the absolut top hardware to have a great fun. BTW I joust bought a good XBOX360 controller too. very good to someone who just wants to have fun and is used to play NFS-series on the keyboard.
No complaints about the physics. I want to have fun, and not learn how to be a real racing driver.
marc1000 - Monday, August 18, 2008 - linki'm back to fix my own words: i bought the complete GRID game, installed, and entered the "advanced" graphics settings. i'm with almost everything on MEDIUM, with mirrors disabled, and 2xMsaa. the rest is the same as above. I know that my CPU is the bottleneck, because Rivatuner shows about 60~70% of GPU usage. even this way, it still looks beautiful to me. bye. Reply
marc1000 - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linknow I maxed out everything, except mirrors, and got the same FPS... if someone mind to know about a aging system! haha! Reply
M Farkus - Monday, August 11, 2008 - linkIn nearly every race, especially the drift races, I can't hear my engine AT ALL. The sound options are extremely limited and by the time I crank up my volume to hear my engine, the other sounds are deafening. Maybe it's my older SoundBlaster card, but every other game I have sounds fine. Anyone else have this problem? A fix? BTW the replays are gorgeous, esp with enough horsepower to run the game. 4870 x-fire E8400 @4.0 1900x1200 full AA all around = 90 fps. Amazing. The lack of (adjustable) engine sounds is a real deal breaker with one, unfortunately. Reply
shortylickens - Saturday, August 09, 2008 - linkIts pretty, but wasnt much fun to play. Other racing games have been much more enjoyable for me.
Wait, when I said "pretty" what I really should have said was: "scared the crap out of me". This game is so photorealistic I had to stop playing every 5 minutes to remind myself it was just a game.
Of course, thats with a 4870.
;) Reply
flobo - Saturday, August 09, 2008 - linkI commented on this game Grid. But later on I thought it is not being very realistic that is the point, but it is a shame such a good site is not more interested in Iracing, which is a whole new concept in onlineplaying with laserscanned tracks the best physics until now, and a >learn to drive clean and fair< that no other sim has. It is very sophisticated and would match this site much better, then a game that is in many ways a setback.Maybe something about Iracing in the future? Reply
TantrumusMaximus - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkI haven't had a chance to read the review here but I will add this game ROCKS. There is great value in the wide range of cars and I love the adaption of the formula cars... the sound is dead on.
Before this I really loved the Flatout racing games and GRID really sucked me in because not only does it have great damage modelling... the damage actually impacts your driving performance unlike Flatout.
Flatout was not a serious racing game so I realize it's apples to oranges.... it's more that this game sucked me away from Flatout. My more casual gaming friends however hate this game because guess what... you have to learn how to drive, you can't just come into a turn full throttle and come out ok like the other.
This game caused me to run out and get a better gamepad... got the xbox 360 windows controller.
The one track that just makes me furiously upset is the Le Mans course.... in the beginning of the track there is a dipsy doo right then left slant that almost always has me spinning out due to the physics. ARGH!!! But I love it. Reply
Googer - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkI have played the PS3 version online and the one problem that seems to persist is people who don't want to race, but instead wish to cause accidents. It gets annoying after a while when the person at the starting gate holds down the reverse key to cause a large 12 car pileup or goes the wrong way or goes round the track trying to make others wreck and no one votes to ban that individual. If the PC version offers a dedicated, moderated, privately owned server then the PC version may have an edge over the console where the PS3 acts as the both the client and session server. The console version lacks moderation, does the PC version offer a dedicated server option? Reply
EddieTurner - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkSadly, there are no options for dedicated servers. That doesn't mean there will never be. Looks like the folks in the official forum are shouting for them, so we'll see. Reply
Nfarce - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkSadly, that's one of the downfalls in console online gaming. You have a lot more little immature pottymouthed snot nosed teen punks to deal with (IMO anyway). My online PC gaming experience has always been more adult like - maybe that's to be expected when one can spend upwards of $2,000 on a gaming rig vs. paying $500 for a console from bagging groceries all summer and then using daddy's big screen TV in the basement (or even better getting one free from Santa - the amount of immature punks skyrocketed after last year's holiday season on Motorstorm online alone for obvious reasons). Reply
Nfarce - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkHey thanks for reviewing the PC version of this. I have a PS3 but have not downloaded the demo for it. As someone else here said, it's the debate between getting the PC version for less or the PS3 version for more. I guess I'll have to download the demo now and make the decision based upon what you wrote. :p
I use an older but still good Microsoft Sidewinder FF wheel & pedal setup for my PC racing games (one that's not compatible w/PS3 games unfortunately), and generally prefer my PC racers to be more hard core like GTR2.
With the exception of GT5 Prologue, my PS3 racing games are more arcadish, but fun with the controller (Motorstorm, RR7, & NFS Carbon - NASCAR 08 was a disaster and has gathered dust for the past 10 months). This game will be a tossup for me on PC/realism playability vs. PS3/arcadish playing (I'm sorry, but I just can't get into realistic driving with a hand held controller - rumble or not).
In any event, I'm glad that AT is mixing things up a little and offering a gaming review these days every now and then. It's a nice change up, but I'm sure you guys get flack for doing it from some. Reply
azides - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkHey, I have a MS Sidewinder FFW too! I am upgrading my 4 year old PC from Athlon 64 3000+ with XP, Visiontek X800-128, couple of raptors (WD360) hence I play Colin McRae Rally 2005 (!!) ... I don't game too much, so I don't upgrade often.
So I have a question ... as I like motor games ... will the wheel work with Vista? (I am a sucker for the task switcher eye candy, though I appreciate that it can be achieved in XP). I understand MS stopped supporting the wheel when XP was released, is this still so? Are there any 3rd party utilities? It is a good wheel.
Nfarce - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkYeah those MS sidewinder gaming devices were actually very good and built well (I have two joysticks too that still work) - and for the price I paid for all of them, I had expected them to last. I've used that wheel under both XP Pro and Media Center for years. Just because MS says they stop supporting something doesn't mean it won't work.
When I plug it in, the XP drivers pick it up and even bring up the driver utility setup window just like the CD it came with has. As for whether the Sidewinder wheel will work on Vista, I don't know - I don't see why it shouldn't. But I know of no 3rd party utilities. I guess I'll find out this fall when I build a new rig on Vista 64 and make my current XP gaming rig a backup gamer.
In any event, I'm looking to upgrade to the Logitech G25 so I can use it on the PS3 as well as the PC. (I downloaded the PS3 demo on this game last night and it looks pretty sweet - especially the replays and damage graphics). There's just something about racing on a 1080p 46" LCD instead of a "little" 22" LCD that is fun too! Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkYeah, there's been some flack. We're not worried though. There's no shortage of great hardware articles. It's just nice to explore other areas within the same realm. After all, if it weren't for games, this site may not even be here! Anyway, I love MotorStorm. Can't wait for Pacific Drift. Hopefully there'll be more tracks right out of the box. Reply
Nfarce - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkYeah that game looks really cool. I can't wait! Newsflash: the Logitech G25 steering wheel is on back order until September at all major retail outlets from Amazon to Best Buy! Reply
im2good4u - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkI do not have any racing wheel and only using Logitech Rumble pad 2, and my problem is that the controller is not working good. The sensitivity is just too high! Tried to lower it through in-game settings and Logitech Profiler settings and the sensitivity is still too much, its like tapping the analog stick a little bit and the car would turn full. Anybody else having this problem? BTW, using retail Reply
honolululu - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkMy logitech dual stick works great. Sensitive? Yes.
It took a while to get it through my head that you can't just floor it out of a corner. You've got to ease on that gas. Makes me want to drive a Viper V10 in real life. The power must be insane. Reply
im2good4u - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkI'm referring about the turning sensitivity, for example, in NFS, if you move the stick halfway, the wheels wuld nly turn halfway, whereas in GRID, even the slightest movement wuold make the wheels turn in full. Reply
honolululu - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkGotcha. I don't have any problems with the steering range of action, but damned if I don't have to hold myself back with that throttle.
I have noticed that it seems floored when the throttle is only about 70% applied, and if you increase deadzone that just decreases the range of action.
Next patch maybe. The saturation levels for steering and gas should not default to 100% me thinks. It says "Decrese saturation if you feel the steering is not sensitive enough."
Well where do we go if it's too sensitive!
I can't get enough though. Love that Demolition Derby. Reply
flobo - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkGood game, they only forgot the driving part. Not the car is steering, but the landscape is turning before your eyes, suggesting speed.Physics? Still pivot after all this years.I wonder if the critic ever played a serious driving game. Next time better give space to Iracing, not this childish stuff. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkLots of people enjoy games for gaming's sake, not because they are a perfect reconstruction of real life. I will readily agree that the physics and driving model of GRID are not realistic in terms of the hardcore sim crowd, and we said as much. Of course, they're also not as unrealistic as most arcade racers. But the bottom line is: do we think the game is fun? Yes, we do.
I don't think I personally would enjoy the "serious" racing games as much as this "childish stuff". Then again, I've spent a lot more time - and got a lot more enjoyment - out of Mass Effect than from GRID, which is why I confined most of my comments to the benchmarking and performance section. (Yeah, Eddie didn't write that page, though he did run the tests for the two graphs.) Reply
dare2savefreedom - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkrecommended racing wheel:
logitech g25
FTW Reply
HDBanger - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkI race alot of sims on pc, and Ive raced most arcade racers also, GRID is 100% arcade, and it has so many bugs, I had to wear misquito repellent when I raced! I finished the single player game in 3 days, and the multiplayer is atrocious! Huge lag, all kinds of cheats, just pure BS online. Hot lapping was the only thing to do after single player, I had about 52 world record laps at one point, then I went back to real racing (gtr2, rfactor). Codemasters should be renamed CodeDisasters, they have alienated their whole sim base. Reply
schwinn8 - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - link... but it's "brake" not "break". I don't know why so many people make that mistake? Reply
MrBlastman - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkIt is a shame the demo doesn't support Track IR.
I hear the full game does now via a patch. Has anyone tried it? Racing games (or any type of sim for that matter) are impossible to play properly without Track IR. Reply
n00bxqb - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkI got this free w/ my Radeon HD 4870 and I must say I'm thoroughly impressed with the game itself; it's fun, immersive, and the graphics are quite impressive (though I wish it supported 24x CFAA). Physics are more realistic than DiRT, but it still feels geared more towards arcade-style handling than realism. More car choices would've been nice as well, but now I'm just starting to nitpick :P
My only real complaint is the DRM. Half the time the game doesn't even launch (original disc), it gives some random SecuROM error code (with a link that only takes you to SecuROM's homepage; not a page that explains what the error code means). I always try to rip a disc image to my hard drive with any game I own so I can play w/o having to fish out the disc, but that's a no-go, even w/ YASU and other anti-SecuROM utilities. It's not a huge deal as the game doesn't seem to load anything off the disc during the actual game, but it's a pain to have to track it down and find it when I want to play it. On the plus side, it's offered through Steam, meaning no DVD. Reply
HDBanger - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkThe Reloaded EXE works with any version of Grid, and it works better than Codemasters EXE with less crashes and graphical glitches. Also, it works online just fine, Codemasters didnt do anything to thwart pirates whatsoever. One of the reasons the online is so atrocious. Reply
Omega215D - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkI was debating whether to get this game for the PS3($60) or PC ($40) but I heard there were many bugs for the PC version so I wasn't sure if I should pick this one up. The cool thing about this game is that it is more action packed than Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.
Now I have something to keep me occupied till GTA IV for PC in November (hopefully). Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkYeah, I was not nearly as impressed with GTP. Too bland in my opinion. Anyway, it ran as smooth as a baby's butt without a single hiccup. Very nice at 1680x1250. Reply
V3ctorPT - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkI bought this game on Steam, and it's great... I love this game, it's perfect... And as far as I saw, it doesn't have any bugs... i think that the only bug it ever had was something about locking (sometimes) in multiplayer, but since update 1.1 it's rock on!! I already finished it this weekend, its a fun and long game I strongly recomend it to anyone who loves racing games and wants something that lasts more than the NFS series... at least I was never bored playing GRID... good game Codemasters... do another one please... I'm addicted ;) Reply
AnnihilatorX - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkThere seems to be a lot of problems with X-Fi soundcards and Nvidia drivers locking up in official forum.
I have the Auzentech Prelude and the old 8800 GTS and I am getting black screen lockups (sound not looping though so I am thinking it's more about Nvidia drivers) between every 5-10 mins of play though. It is not a BSOD and it does not register on windows error reports so I can't judge what's wrong.
V3ctorPT - Sunday, August 17, 2008 - linkI played the game with a HD2900XT, 7800GTX and a HD4870 and no problems whatsoever... all in Vista, and in XP too. About the sound, i use the mobo's sound... no Creative for a long time (drivers problems sucks) Reply
sinisterDei - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkJust a note, I have an 8800GT and a Creative X-Fi running Windows XP and I have no problems to report. I've played about 2/3 of the way through the singleplayer career and haven't run into any problems. Reply
Souka - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkAs a FYI.. Creative released updated drivers for X-Fi on July 30th...both Vista and XP.
My $.02 Reply
Egglick - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkExcellent review Eddie. I was already interested in this game, but I think I'll go ahead and pick it up now.
One quick question: Were you playing the Steam version, or a retail copy?? I think it's worth mentioning if retail copies use irritating protections such as Starforce. It would make the Steam variant more appealing in my eyes. Reply
BZDTemp - Friday, August 08, 2008 - linkDo make sure and try a demo first.
I had GRID way up on my most wanted list but there is something off with regards to the driving sensation!
drebo - Saturday, August 09, 2008 - linkYeah, it pretty much sucks. For a game that advocates realism, the driving is pretty terrible.
For example, I know that my (real) car begins turning far sooner than 2 seconds after I tell it to start turning, and even my 2006 Chevy Malibu is capable of taking a turn at 70mph without my back tires slipping out from under me.
Sure, the crashes are fun the first time, but when barely clipping a wall at 40mph send you flying...you can only handle that so many times.
Least fun racing game I've ever played. Reply
FlukeRogi - Sunday, August 10, 2008 - linkAdvocates realism? Codemasters have never said it's realistic, or a sim (unlike the F1 game they're working on which they have said will be a sim).
It's an arcade racer, and as far as arcade racers go, it's spot in in every department - fast, fun, and just generally in your face! Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, August 07, 2008 - linkThanks! I used the retail version for the review. Picked it up at Best Buy. No Starforce! Reply
Lapdog51 - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - linkSteering wheel and pedals works awesome in Dirt 2 but the brake will not work in GRID. I was recommended to this site for assistance. Our gaming group has assistence with all their knowlege in settings, but we are stumped. Pedals and Wheel sets up as they should and verifies all settings, yet will not work in the GRID game. Any suggestions? Reply


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Weber kettles and gas grills and WSM vertical smokers have been a mainstay of this board for years and a lot of our members here own one. (I've owned 4 and Steven himself currently owns several. )
Due to popular demand, once again the moderators have added this thread for you Weber grill owners. Besides - we figured that since we have a CharGriller thread, a UDS / homemade barrel cooker thread, and now a BGE / Kamado thread, we couldn't leave out Weber.
Feel free to post pics of your new grill, modifications, accessories, comments, or anything else Weber or WSM--related here. Think of this as a "CharGriller Family" thread for Weber grills and smokers.


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A Montana man was very determined to get $500 after his dog ate it.
Wayne Klinkel, his wife and their golden retriever, Sundance, were taking a road trip to see the Klinkels' daughter and son-in-law in Colorado around Christmas. They left Sundance locked in their vehicle while making a stop for dinner, and also left five $100 bills in a cubbyhole. When they got back, only half of one $100 bill remained, according to the Helena Independent Record.
"Sundance is notorious for eating anything and everything, so right away I knew what happened," Klinkel told the Independent Record.
But Klinkel wasn't willing to take the loss. Instead, he followed his dog around for the remainder of the trip and sorted through his poo to pick out pieces of $100 bills so he could clean them and put them back together. His daughter even brought him a piece of cash he had missed when she later went to visit her parents, according to the Independent Record.
Don't worry about the contaminated cash getting back into circulation, though. Klinkel is trying to get the Department of the Treasury to replace the bills, a process the Independent Record says could take up to two years.


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nForce3-250 - Part 1: Taking Athlon 64 to the Next Levelby Wesley Fink on 3/23/2004 11:55 AM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
71 Comments
Back to Article
arswihart - Monday, April 05, 2004 - linkIn response to #19 sprockkets, sorry this is such a late response, I just checked for responses to my original post. The reason I want Firewire is for Audio Interface purposes, everything from the new Hercules Firewire audio device to Yamaha's MLAN 01X use fireware. Not everything of course, but Firewire is getting very pervasive in pro audio. Reply
draven31 - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - linknote that the S/PDIF spec says that a 'fiber'interface is available... that is a optical S/PDIF. TOSLINK is a type od S/PDIF optical connector. Reply
Reflex - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - linkIt really depends on if gaming is your primary use of sound. An Audigy is good for gaming, PEROID. Music affecianado's need not apply. Furthermore, Creative has never really fixed their PCI bus bandwidth issues(possibly will become irrelevant with PCI Express), and can be problematic with other devices due to a crappy ACPI implementation.
Your diss on the Envy also pretty much ignores its roots in the high end. It is not software audio. It does not do everything that the Audigy does for *gaming* in hardware, but for other functions its all in hardware. It is the ONLY card on the market that not only meets its specs, it exceeds them. The Audigy falls significantly short in several areas(signal to noise, and remember the original Audigy only had 19bit sound despite their 24bit claims, no idea if they fixed that on the Audigy 2 or not).
For someone serious about sound, an Audigy is not a choice. For a pure gamer, it is an option(although honestly the difference between it and a Envy based solution is negligible). In gaming the Audigy has slightly less CPU utilization and a few more effects, but the sound quality is mediocre at best.
Personally I do not find that the few effects it adds are worth the downsides of Creative cards. Also, I am more likely to listen to music on my PC than play games, although I do game occasionally. Soooooo....Creative is a poor choice in *my* situation. Your mileage may vary. Reply
Odeen - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - linkIn the great words of Woody Paige, "How many times do I have to straighten you guys out?"
Great DSP (which only matters for 3d sound rendering), and has absolutely NO impact on the audio quality, that's the job of the codec chip. Since ALL motherboard manufacturers insist on using the piss-poor Realtek ALC650 chip to do the sound output, the sound quality suffers.
To see what Soundstorm can REALLY do, check out the Asus A7N266-C, which put 5.1 out on an ACR card that featured a Sigmatel codec, not the ALC650. By moving the analog part of the implementation away from the motherboard, and using quality analog parts, the sound quality (i.e. noise / frequency response / dynamic range)was greatly improved.
Dolby Digital encoding:
Don't forget that DD is COMPRESSED. You can't fit six channels of even 16bit/44.1khz audio into a single SPDIF stream. By utilizing DD, you're taking this nice audio generated for you and mp3'ing it on the fly.
3DSoundSurge.com reviewed the Soundstorm APU and found that the Dolby Digital generated was just six independent streams compressed and "wrapped into" a DD stream. Things like joint stereo weren't utilized at all to share audio information between channels in order to raise the effective bitrate (i.e. if I use 1/2 the bandwidth to describe what's common between two channels, and 1/4 the bandwidth to describe the differences for each channel, then each channel uses an effective 75% bandwidth, instead of just 50%. Ceteris paribus, bitrate = kwalitee. So, DD encoding is a neat idea, but it's a flawed one.
That said, why not just integrate six or eight digital outputs on a soundcard using VersaJacks? That way, we harness just the 3D audio rendering power of Soundstorm but leave the analog part to external DACs and amplifiers that are chosen by the user.
It would eliminate the single-cable convinience, but you'd be getting bit-perfect digital output, and it'd be up to the user to pick the DACs and amps he likes. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any receivers with multichannel digital inputs, but a man can dream of optimal solutions, can't he? :)
That said, a gamer should still have an Audigy. Since every game out there now uses some form of EAX, you get the best results from using hardware that was designed to support that API, not third-party hardware using someone else's drivers (e.g. Sensaura)
Speaking of 3D audio rendering, the Via Envy SUCKS. You guys need to realize that Via Envy is just a C-Media 8738 with 7.1 and nice DACs. It's SOFTWARE AUDIO, people, it's AC'97 that sounds a little better than most. It's an eight channel, 24/192- and 24/96-supporting Sound Blaster freakin' Pro! Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, again, all things being equal, playing an EAX-supporting game will have an Audigy2-equipped machine in front, followed by the Soundstorm-equipped machine, followed by a Via Envy-equipped machine.
Finally, firewire.
Firewire = good. Chipset-level firewire = gooder. Keep in mind that Firewire has bus-mastering capability, whereas with USB and USB2, the CPU has to handhold every bit going across the bus. Do you really want your shiny new Athlon64 playing crossing guard with USB2 streams, or would you rather have the bits maneuver themselves across independently? Thought so :)
Chipset-level firewire is good for a simple reason that you only have 133MB/sec maximum theoretical bandwidth. A 400Mb/sec (or 50MB/sec) can eat up to half of your practical PCI bandwidth. Whereas, if it IS integrated, you're only taxing the intra-chipset bandwidth, which is plentiful on A64 boards, and has been plentiful ever since we've gone away from using the PCI bus as the NB/SB interconnect (i.e. the AMD 760 chipset on the AMD side and the Intel BX, which were the last two chipsets to do that).
WHEW. Reply
Reflex - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - linkWhoops, you are correct, I was getting SPDIF mixed up with Toslink cables. My mistake. Heh, I do make those occasionally it seems.
My point was about the optical Toslink cables, not the digital output itself. However, all that aside, the Soundstorm is still a very low quality integrated sound solution... Reply
Foxbat121 - Friday, March 26, 2004 - linkPlease check this link for S/PDIF information:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~dsmitche/rim420/materials/Int... Reply
Foxbat121 - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link#64,
I don't know what you're talking about. SPDIF is not an optical output. And you don't use optical cable at all. There is also no converter. You ran a coax cable directly from sound card to your receiver's coax input. And it's all digital. There will be no signal loss even if you convert them. However, if you're talking about the different sample rate that causes sound quality issue due to the re-sampling, that is true for most SPDIF ports on board or on sound cards. But that has much to do with the design of the sound card rather than anything else. Reply
Reflex - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link#62: If you are going from an optical output to a coax input, you *are* converting the signal. In a straight optical to optical link, it is being converted first inside the source device and again on the reciever. So yes you are converting the signal. Reply
Foxbat121 - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link#56,
While it is true that most people do not base their mobo purchase decision on APU capability, however when it comes to use the PC as HTPC or simply want to play games on your big screen HDTV, the DD real-time encoding plays a big role on chose which mobo to be in your HTPC. Instead of have to connect 3 analog sound wires and pay big $$ to have a receiver to support multi-channel analog input, you can use a SPDIF/Coax digital connection to get all your sound (desktop, game and DVDs) from PC to the HT. Reply
Foxbat121 - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link#58,
SPDIF is compatible with coax and all you need is a mono mini-jack to RCA adapter so that you can connect it directly to your coax input on the receiver. There is no double conversion needed. I believe that how most people connect their PC to the receiver. Reply
Visual - Friday, March 26, 2004 - linkThis chipset looks promising, I like it. And a great article about it :)
I'm a bit curious about the raid - do you guys think it may be possible to implement a hot-swappable raid array with integrated raid controllers anytime soon?
Maybe you can make an article testing the performance boost from using a 4-drive raid 0 array with this baby?
Another thing that interests me - are there any mobos with IGP for Athlon64? I know it won't be a performer, I'm just curious if it even exists. Also is anything being heared about some new DX9 IGP anytime soon(hopefully with this chipset)? It'd also be cool if having an AGP card doesn't disable the IGP, like the ati-intel chipsets... Well I guess I'm dreaming now, but I'd like to see your comments or any info you have on nVidia's IGP plans. I guess you AT folks could ask nVidia about this :)
Visual Reply
Reflex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link#59: Try measuring your bandwidth with a 4 drive RAID 0 array using fast drives on that setup and then put the same array in an Intel or AMD chipset system. nVidia's PCI implementation is not very good at all. Reply
MichaelD - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link[q] Actually, to date nVidia has had a *very* troublesome PCI implementation, anyone with a PCI RAID controller and a 4 disk RAID 0 array can tell you that. It is so bad, in fact, that prototype NF3-150 boards for Opteron used AMD PCI chips just to avoid using the nForce3 integrated PCI bus. I am not certain if these boards ever reached production status however.[/q]
Uh, no. Not in my experience. On my 8RDA+, I've used:
Highpoint ATA133 Contoller Card
3Ware7000-2 Two-channel IDE RAID card
LSI Megaraid 1600 SCSI RAID card
I've had zero problems. Wha'chu talkin' bout, Willis? Reply
Reflex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link#55: I did not say DDR2 was needed right now, its not and AMD is making the right decision. I was just pointing out that the latency penalty should not be a real issue since it moves more data. But time will tell.
#54: I have not checked out the Catalina yet, however if it does not have a coax output, it will not find a home in my setup. SPDIF is a consumer level technology, championed by Sony, but it is not as high quality as coax simply due to the fact that the signal must be converted twice(to and from optical) which is never a good thing. Furthermore, the cables are frail and expensive. Professional level equipment never has SPDIF, it uses coax exclusively.
Wesley: Glad they are dropping SoundStorm. Waste of time and effort in my opinion. Reply
BikeDude - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - linkThanks Wesley; a single chip implementation makes sense. Now show us the benchmarks! :) Reply
Wesley Fink - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link#54 and others regarding Sound Storm -
1 - nVidia is committed to the one-chip chipset for Athlon 64. They are firmly convinced that the one-chip eliminates the potential bottlenecks of a north-south bridge communications bus. Even with the the memory controller on the chip there is only so much real estate practically available on a single-chip chipset.
2 - Customer surveys by nVidia found that most buyers did not use Sound Storm, and that Sound Storm did not enter heavily into the decision to buy nForce. So the decision was made to choose the on-chip LAN, firewall, and much-expanded RAID capabilities which benefit greatly from being moved off the bus.
3 - There are new sound solutions in the works for nVidia. You may see them in a future chipset or on a sound card. Final decisions have not been made. Reply
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link#53, I'll believe it when I see the tests. It sounds like RAMBUS- that was supposed to be better at latency but turned out the opposite at over twice the cost at the time. Read the last paragraph of Wesley's post(#50)- he's closer to the industry and there are others expressing similar concerns. All these are things that Intel with its resources should iron out and AMD come in when its sorted, If AMD get to a third of the market and in the black then it can show leadership in these areas. Meanwhile stick to what they are best at cpus.
BikeDude - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link#48: Turtle Beach Catalina which I suspect is a newer card (it's more expensive :) ) than SC, seem to tout optical SPDIF output as a feature (doesn't mention coax at all) and it's merely pass-through SPDIF at that (no hardware Dolby encoding -- thus I'll end up with the additional three audio cables again). Are you sure you have all your facts straight?
If you're a professional musician -- I agree, the SS isn't for you, but I thought nForce was primarily a chipset targetted at gamers? Reply
Reflex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link#52: Latency ends up about the same due to the fact that twice the operations per clock are happening in the same span as regular DDR. It does not, however, give you any real benefit, just higher scalability. The lack of DDR2 support also really has nothing to do with the chipset, its a CPU feature on Athlon64/FX architecture's, not a chipset one, so people bemoaning the lack of DDR2 need to look at AMD, not nVidia.
Like I said before, the only feature needed from my point of view is PCI Express. I refuse to buy anymore PCI or AGP devices at this point knowing that in a year or two they will be useless. Unlike my CPU, I don't often change out my sound card, motherboard, SCSI card, or other such devices, so when it comes time to upgrade my system, PCI Express will be the order of the day for me. Reply
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - linkGood to see your real opinions, wesley #50. I too am worried about this slow latency DDR2 particularly with the a64 where I see system memory latency as being the bottleneck for improved gaming speed. AMD have got themselves a winner with a64/newcastle but still have mainboard issues as well as heavy debt. In these conditions, good poker dictates that you play conservatively. So I'm quite happy to see only DDR1 and PCI on the nF3-250 for the moment.
draven31 - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - linkYes, the lack of PCI Express is a disappointment
But, so is the lack of PCI-X. It means that system integrators and postproduction facilities will be hesitant about using NF3-250 motherboards for workstations because a significant portion of the current NLE cards want at least a 64-bit PCI slot, if not a PCI-X 66, 100, or 133.
This lack of PCI-X slots on Athlon64 motherboards (you have to get a dual opteron board to get them) means i may have to go Intel for my next systems, and i was really hoping to get an Athlon64 because Lightwave runs best on them overall. Reply
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link#49 -
I heartily DISAGREE with your conclusions. As you will see soon enough DDR2 is at present the same performance as DDR (at best) at twice the price or more. While I do appreciate the potential of DDR2, the current execution is like Prescott - much ado about very little.
As for your bandwidth, we are talking about an Athlon 64 and NOT an Intel CPU. Intel design and deep pipes keep it constantly starved for bandwidth; A64 on the other hand has been shown to perform just about as well with current single-channel DDR as it does with much greater bandwidth dual-channel DDR. This actual performance certainly refutes your claim for the A64 "needing DDR2". Even dual-channel is more a checklist item most consumers demand than it is a huge performance booster on A64. But dual-cahnnel will indeed be a part of socket 939 - doubling memory bandwidth for an Athlon 64 that already competes quite well with single-channel memory.
I do agree with your point about hard-drive throughput, and there is little to complain about in the nF3-250Gb design in that regard.
Talk to memory manufacturers about DDR2. Most are extremely frustrated at having to add huge buffering to even get the 533 stuff to work. In addition latencies are so high at 4-4-4-8 that any performance gain is pretty much nullified. And the cost is prohibitive (sound like early Rambus?). Things WILL improve with time on DDR2, but your sweeping pronouncements are just misinformed.
jcoltrin - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkPCI Express and Hyperthreading won't make a bit of difference in today's games. The only benefit I can think of with nForce3 is *maybe* better sound, and gigabit LAN. PCI Express has been shown to only produce minimal effects on fps, and who cares about hyperthreading unless you enjoy burning CD's and compressing your latest movie while playing a FPS. What this chipset really needed, and the ref . board doesn't support is DDR2. Memory bandwidth and SATA hard drives are the only thing that's going to unleash the power of our already over-kill video cards and load the expansive levels in an acceptable time. Why this article failed to acknowledge this I don't understand. Reply
Reflex - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link#46: For purely gaming purposes the Soundstorm does an adequate job. No complaints there. But many people use their PC for more than gaming, and anyone who cares about the actual quality of the sound coming out, especially for music playback would care about the differences. Yes the S/N ratio is very poor on SoundStorm setups. Anyone who cares about excellent reproduction would not be using SPDIF cables as well, they would demand a coax solution for digital output(Turtle Beach SC for instance offers this).
Like I said, it was a leap over what was included on motherboards when it was first released, but it has stagnated since then and the competition is far ahead now. Even Creative Labs, which is not even remotely close to being a leader in sound quality, is far beyond the SoundStorm nowadays. Now give me a SS solution with 24/96 capabilities and 106 S/N ratio and they would be back in the hunt. But that won't happen, nVidia is not a audio company. Reply
Pumpkinierre - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkThe dually is good if you're running a game and other apps even if they are single threaded. I don't of course but many do, to switch quickly to avoid the boss or for 10 minutes relaxation while working. There is some loss of performance as a result of the cpus watching each other but with the present design and power of the opteron it wouldnt be noticeable. I'd like a dually.
BikeDude - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link#41: Soundstorm=poor quality in what way? S/N? I'm using the SPDIF connector and get 5.1 surround in most of today's games and DVD movies. What other audio solution features Dolby encoding in hardware? I have not seen (heard) one yet.
SoundStorm is the only audio solution that offers Audigy2 much competition when it comes to CPU usage in games.
When something better appears, I'll switch in a second, but for now I dread my next motherboard upgrade as it'll mean I'll have to go back to standard audiocables again (and no less than three at that, in addition to the SPDIF cable!). :-(
As for USB2: It sucks. Compare external drive solutions, the old firewire400 interface wins every time. If nVidia has really cut firewire support, lets atleast hope they get USB 2.0 support right this time. I had to install an extra USB 2.0 controller to get my Thrustmaster FF wheel working for more than five minutes at a time (I tried with both Epox 8RDA3+ and ABit AN7 motherboards).
GoatHerderEd - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link#44:
My bro is a BeOS fan too! How fun is that? Reply
iwantedT - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkpersonally i wouldnt mind a dual cpu a64 solution. In my experience, it means a hell of a lot more time between upgrades. Hell, i've even still got a dual celeron 500 bp6 setup that is quite usable still, even tho its running BeOS, ie. support is kinda dead :) Reply
ripdude - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkGood article I must say, though the lack of PCI-Express is a small disappointment.
Also, the conclusion states that socket 939 is a couple of months away, is there a bit more certain release date? Perhaps somewhere in april/may? Reply
Reflex - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkTrogdor: Yes multi-threading is more complicated, however its a shift that everyone *is* making. There is really very little excuse to make single threaded applications on today's hardware and operating system environments, its an issue more of an established method of doing things giving way *very* slowly to new ways. For an industry that embraces most new technology, its strange that they did not change their design philosophies long ago, really once Win9x(and Pentium CPU's) became a standard the infrastructure was in place... Reply
Reflex - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link#39: In my honest opinion, the lack of Soundstorm is an improvement. The APU they were using was a lot of marketing, but relatively poor quality. Even the 'cheap' off brands had better chips available, and nowadays with Via's Envy line the Soundstorm is very, very out of date. I think its absence represents the reality that nVidia did not see enough of a benefit in trying to become a full fledged audio processing company, and since most motherboards without nForce chipsets have other solutions it wasn't a huge value-add(many NF2 boards did not even utilize the nVidia solution).
Any serious enthusiast would be using a Turtle Beach, M-Audio(or other Via Envy solution), or Audigy anyways, at least if sound quality mattered to them at all. Soundstorm was decent in its time, but they did not try to compete when the next generation arrived(Audigy/Envy) and they weren't top of the line when they were introduced(TB Santa Cruz had that crown).
Its a risk/reward scenerio, and the rewards did not outweigh the risks of the heavy investment it would take to keep up with the big boys. Reply
GoatHerderEd - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkWhy did I say it is mostly for servers, and also it would be good for laptops. erg! You get the point. Reply
GoatHerderEd - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - linkI don't understand why they don't have fire wire. It can't be that hard to include it, and MB manufacturers would be very happy with that since they wouldn't need to mess with another chip and leads. It would also help in the whole SFF and laptop areas.
For all the people wining about the sound, I still think they are aiming this at servers and workstations. Plus gamers would want the pci sound anyways, I know people who add pci sound even with the awesome nforce 2 sound, go figure.
Finally, enough bitching about the typos, once is enough. I don't see you with a reference board in hand!
jlfowler78 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkI'm disappointed there's no PCI-Express support. What's the deal with that? When will nVidia make a chipset like the n3-250 plus PCI-Express? Geez, even SiS has a good chipset w/ PCI-E. Reply
xt8088 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkHave at another NForce 3 250 review at http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dX...
This review mentioned the lack of APU, and it had the benchmark tests. Reply
Shinei - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkI'm fairly certain that this is just a generic board to test the chipset out with, it's not going to be the final product put out by GigaByte or Abit... After all, most nForce2 boards have 3 DIMM slots, while the GigaByte GA-7Nxxx series all had 4...
Now that nVidia's shown that they can still make motherboard chipsets, I think it's time they showed us they can still make video cards that rock your pants off. Reply
Regs - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkWow @ 2.4 Ghz. But Only 2 DIMMs for RAM? Please tell me other boards will have more than 2! Im running with 2x 256 + 1 x 512 Dimm. It would kill my bank account to waste another 100 bucks on ram. Reply
TrogdorJW - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#31 - You ever tried to make a gaming engine multi-threaded? How about making it really multi-threaded so that you might get a 50-100% boost in performance by adding a second processor? I won't say it can't be done, but it is a *major* change in design philosophy and coding. My experience with multi-threaded applications is that they are much more complex to get working properly. The only game so far that I've heard of trying to use multi-threading was Quake 3, and it didn't work very well. I think the estimate of 3 or more years before games start taking advantage of multi-threading is pretty optimistic, but we'll see. Reply
Doormat - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkWow, this is the first product in a few months that has been interesting (though, the coming NV40/R420 war will be fun to watch).
The gigE interests me because I'm looking at a home media network that would be seperate from my normal network, and looking at putting out simulatenous DVD/HDTV feeds over the network was kinda iffy on 100Mbit networks (HD can be up to 19Mbit/s, DVDs are probably anywhere from 2Mbit/s to 4 or 5Mbit/s).
My only gripe is that the socket 939 chips arent ready yet. I'm waiting for those to show up before I make a move. Reply
wassup4u2 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkThen again, the NF3-150 reference board had a "working" AGP/PCI lock... Reply
Reflex - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkOnce again, the only person who said anything about gaming performance and dual CPU rigs in reference to today's environment is you, Prisoner. I fire up a game on my PC maybe once a month, so honestly buying ANY pc component for gaming reasons is more than a little rediculous in my case(thats what I have an Xbox for).
However I have plenty of reasons to run dual CPU's, I mess around with making my own DVD's, occasionally I am known to compile a kernel, etc. These are becoming increasingly popular in the average home as well, especially with DVD recorders getting cheap and people wanting to convert those home movies.
As for games, my only point was that the installed base is being created now. I'd recon that at this point there are more HT compatible P4's sold than there are NV30 or R300 class and higher graphics cards on the market, and they are already developing games targetted for those platforms. All it really would take is Epic and id making their next generation engines more multi-threading friendly and you'd see mass adoption since those engines form the basis for a huge number of games. The potential for major increases in gaming performance is there, it just has not been tapped yet.
However, as I said, gaming is a relatively *minor* reason for dual CPU adoption. Believe it or not, most people don't do any sort of serious gaming on their PC, so it would really never be much of a selling point... Reply
JADS - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#27 what is your obsession with games? Anyway my argument that dual CPU systems are highly relevant to enthusiasts stands and that has very little to do with games and more with multi-tasking and highly demanding applications such as video editing, image rendering, code compilation, server duties, etc...
Anyway the gap between a dual and single CPU systems with regards to games really is quite small these days and mostly it is down to the board in question being focussed on stability and reliability rather than outright performance. I'm guessing you wouldn't want for games performance from a dual Athlon FX-53 system on an nVidia nForce3-250 chipset. Reply
AMDfreak - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkI'll be waiting for PCI Express versions too. It doesn't appear that the jump to A64 is going to give me enough of a speed increase over an OC'd Barton until I'm ready to replace my 9800 Pro anyway. Reply
truApostle - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkall your base belong to them Reply
prisoner881 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#24 and #25, the idea of buying "ahead of the curve" for technology has historically been a stupid, cost-ineffective idea. Buying a duallie system today (at mucho $$$) because you expect to find duallie-ready games in the next three to five years is just dumb use of your money. I say three to five years because that's how long it's going to be before gaming companies produce software that either demands dual CPU's or demands Hyperthreading. In the meantime, you'll have one very expensive processor on a very expensive motherboard just sitting around twiddling its thumbs. And by the time these games DO come out, both of your CPU's (and very likely your motherboard as well) will be obsolete. Such is the way of things.
Now, one of you DID touch on a good reason to get a duallie system, namely if you're doing compute-intensive stuff like 3D rendering. I happen to do that for a living, and I've got 8 dual Athlon systems in a render farm. Much more cost effective than single CPU systems, but none of them will ever win any points in a gaming match. Reply
agent2099 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkAC97 Audio? This is a step backwards from Nforce2. Where is the MCP-T?
JADS - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#22 I didn't say specifically for games, I said enthusiast. A dual CPU system is inherently more flexible, be it compiling code faster, to rendering pictures quicker to multi-tasking using many apps. How many enthsiasts simply run one program at a time? I know I don't and could make use of a powerful dual CPU system.
Dual CPU systems do not need to run with ECC/Registered memory although typically due to the target market this is a feature. Running a dual processor FX system with standard DDR memory could be a very fast and cost effective machine. Reply
Reflex - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#22: I agree with you until you get to the part about 'never will'. HyperThreading is making developers consider making thier apps multi-threaded, and starting sometime next year multi-core CPU's will be introduced most likely. When most machines sold have the ability to process more than one thread at a time, it would be pretty stupid to ignore that factor.
So for now, multiple CPU's is not that helpful for *gaming*, although it is for many other applications. In the future, however, I expect it to be very helpful for everything, including gaming. Reply
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#4 -
Ass-kissing has never been my forte. I consider myself an equal-opportunity offender. After finding none of the AGP locks worked on Round 1 chipsets, you better believe I would test for myself whatever I am told about the new boards.
Frankly I really like nF3-250GB, but I also hear good things about SiS 755FX for 939 (1200HT) and VIA's update for 939. After some of the crap we've had to endure with Round 1 chipsets, it will be nice to have some good Athlon 64 choices in Round 2. Reply
prisoner881 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#20, gamers that buy dual-CPU systems are just being stupid. Practically no game out there makes good use of more than one CPU, and none are planned. Add to that the overhead of having additional CPU's in the system, the cost of a dual system versus a single, and the slower memory (Reg'd ECC), and you've got a tremendous waste of money. I have *never* seen a dual-CPU game box outrun a single-CPU game box, and I doubt we ever will. Reply
prisoner881 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#18, I know it's full duplex, but even then you will have a hard time getting full utlization under normal working conditions. Benchmarks are designed to run things at unrealistic rates. The point is, although I don't encourage it, you can certainly put Gigabit on the PCI bus and get very usable performance out of it. In most cases, the limiting factor is going to be CPU utilization anyway. Reply
JADS - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkExternal HDDs could make good use of a Firewire connection, especially now it is whizzing along at 800MBit/s.
The multi CPU implementation sounds interesting, of course AMD will completely fail to capitalise on it by not making the FX dual processor capable. How many enthusiasts (AMD wise) could resist the chance of dual FX-53s, especially with the possibility of overclocking them? You have the distinction between the 2xx series and the FX due the removal of ECC/Registered memory in the FX 939 series, so they essentially serve two different markets. Reply
sprockkets - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkWhy would you need firewire with USB2? OK, ipod and camcorders.
I have one question. Since you use a browser to configure the firewall, does this mean it is OS independant, i.e., I can use it in Linux without needing drivers to run it?
Soundstorm not present on here, oh well, almost all uATX boards had the MCP and not MCP-T so it didn't matter anyhow, and it doesn't work in Linux anyhow. VIA sound is troublesome in Linux too. I rather use my own sound card. Just hope there is a driver for the cool LAN adapter. Reply
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#10 -
LAN is Duplex. Gigabit on PCI with overhead can do about 820mb/sec in industry standard tests. nVidia's on-chip LAN could output about 1840 mb/sec in the benchmarks we have seen. This is more than twice as fast IF you have a source that can actually output 1GB in both directions.
#11 -
PCI Express will be seen on Intel boards very soon. AMD boards will not move as rapidly to the Intel PCI Express standard.
#12 -
Firewire is not on-chip. Undoubtedly many mfgs will add firewire with an additional chip on-board nF3-250. Reply
fla56 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link''No one can possibly complain about the feature-set of nForce3-250''
to add my vote to what's already been said, no firewire for my iPod and no SoundStorm/DolbyDigital for that lovely Yamaha amp I just bought mean i think someone needs to calm down a little about all that excitement (and learn a little about the difference between megabits and bytes by the sound of things)
i wonder if they'll release Soundstorm as a PCI eXpress card.... Reply
Reflex - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link#8: Actually, to date nVidia has had a *very* troublesome PCI implementation, anyone with a PCI RAID controller and a 4 disk RAID 0 array can tell you that. It is so bad, in fact, that prototype NF3-150 boards for Opteron used AMD PCI chips just to avoid using the nForce3 integrated PCI bus. I am not certain if these boards ever reached production status however.
As for this chipset, it looks nice, but honestly I'll wait until there is a PCI Express solution out there, I was just forced due to power problems destroying my equipment to upgrade my motherboard prematurely, and I don't intend to buy another until the next wave of features is available... Reply
DAPUNISHER - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkKeep your eyes open for my AN50R listing for sale at rock bottom pricing in the FS/FT forum when the 250 is on shelves :D Reply
fla56 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkReply
prisoner881 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkLooks like another error on the "Conclusion" page. Last sentence, second paragraph says "We expect that some enterprising companies, which specializes in catering to the computer enthusiast, will slip in some Socket 954 boards based on the Ultra chipset with a Gigahertz HyperTransport."
Socket 954? Methinks that ought to be Socket 754. Reply
arswihart - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkWhat about firewire connectors, do you guys think they'll be added to production boards? Reply
Curt Oien - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkPCI EXPRESS ? Reply
prisoner881 - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkThere's a huge gaffe on the On-Chip Gigabit page. It states that Fast Ethernet runs at "100MB/sec" and Gigabit runs at "1000MB/sec." "MB" is shorthand for mega<i>bytes</i>, not mega<i>bits</i>. Megabits should be abbreviated "Mb."
Normally I wouldn't be this anally-retentive, but the poor usage leads to another problem later on down the page. The article states that Gigabit Ethernet running at "1000MB/sec" is faster than the PCI bus which runs at "133MB/sec." The PCI rate figure is correct, but the Gigabit figure makes it look like Gigabit is about 8 times faster than the PCI bus itself. <i>It's not!</i> The PCI bus runs at (133Mbytes/sec X 8 bits/byte = ) 1064Mbit/sec, which faster than Gigabit. The article is very misleading in this respect.
In truth, the PCI bus can almost never reach its peak 133MB/sec rate (usually it's around 100MB/sec) but then again Gigabit can't reach it's peak either.
Regardless, the article is completely incorrect when it indicates a Gigabit card would overwhelm a PCI bus. This is not true. Reply
BikeDude - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkArgh... I keep forgetting that it's 1000Mbps _full duplex_... nVidia are indeed correct, the PCI bus is only half that speed. :-/
Rune Reply
BikeDude - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkFirst off: GB is GigaByte. Wesley wrote "GB" more than once while actually referring to Gigabit (bit has lowercase b).
Next, 1000Mbps is roughly 125MB/s (theoretical peak I expect). 33MHz 32-bit PCI is roughly 133MB/s. I dislike PCI Gb implementations as the next guy, but I'd still like to know how nVidia managed to come up with the half speed figure? Perhaps nVidia's PCI-bus implementation is sub-par? (which is a real issue! Via has struggled with really bad PCI performance for years :-( )
Finally there's 6-channel audio; What happened with Soundstorm and Dolby encoding implemented in hardware? (I currently use only the SPDIF connectors on my nForce2 and get surround sound both in games and while playing DVDs -- is there no way to get this functionality with Athlon64?)
Hopefully the next article will shed some light on some of these issues. Cheers! :)
Rune Reply
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkgigE is awesome and worth it. i dunno about the firewall but eh. 45MB/s network transfers are fun.
Kristopher Reply
Verdant - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkschweet... when is my 16x nforce 250 mobo comming the the mail? Reply
klah - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkhmmm.. seems that last page was slipped in from the November SiS article. weird.
Phiro - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkyeah, the SiS 755FX plug at the end was sort of a red-herring - didn't fit at all with the article, which was soley about Nvidia, it didn't need SiS's recent efforts tacked on the end at the last second.
A couple things:
1) to all you nay-sayers about the worth of gigabit ethernet - I thumb my nose at you! Let's not play chicken or the egg games here, let's just usher in new *desired* technology as smoothly as possible - having gigabit ethernet will push me to replace my netgear 10/100 switched hub, not the other way around.
2) Anandtech, what's with the nvidia ass kissing? When you say things like 'Nvidia assured us.." and "We did test Nvidia's claim... [and we believe it]" - come on, a little healthy doubt is a good thing. Just because they supplied you with a reference nforce3 250 mobo doesn't mean you have to see how far you can stick your tongue up their butt. Honestly, the article felt like it leaned toward Nvidia abit. Believe it or not, you can report on a product without it sounding like some money changes hands or something.
mechBgon - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - link*drool* Reply
bldkc - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkWhat's with the SiS 755 crap at the end of the article? Someone didn't proof read, huh? That is also obvious in the spelling errors. Excellent article. Better than recent ones. I do wish that you had been able to include the performance portion, cuz now I'm itching to see them.
One thing tho, how many people have several gigabit systems at home? I know I will not upgrade any of mine until they are replaced, so it will be awhile. Therefore I am not too excited at this point, especially if the high speed wireless standards work out to high enough throughput to allow real time multi-media transfers. Love the on chip firewall, but Zonealarm is still the only useful application specific solution I know of. Not that I'm an expert, I am far from it, but the Blackice debacle was seen coming long ago. Reply
wicktron - Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - linkweeeeeee!! pci/agp lock! Reply


text:
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So Comfy 04-25-2017
My favorite! I have both colors. Super lightweight
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My favorite! I have both colors. Super lightweight


text:
Over Labor Day weekend, I got to go to my Grandparents' cabin at Fish Lake, Utah, and it was a BLAST! My Mom, who always plans fun activities for the family, brought the materials to make Duct Tape Purses. After I saw the creativity…I just HAD to show you all how to make them. 🙂
Below is my daughter Oaklyn's creation: I thought her purse turned out very cute!
Materials needed:
* A few rolls of Duct tape. (Wal-Mart has a great selection of colored duct tape…it is "duck" brand duct tape. It costs around $3.50 a roll).
* Scrap fabric to go on the inside of your purse
* Large grommets
* Rope for the strap
* Scissors
* A flat work space
Step 1: Choose what size you want your purse to be and cut a piece of fabric for the inside of your purse. Take note that your purse will be half the size of your fabric.
Step 2: Tape your fabric face down to the table to secure it in place.
Step 3: Decide what kind of colors and pattern you would like to do on your purse. Oaklyn chose these colors in this order: green, leopard, hot pink, and tie dye. She also wanted to do her pattern on a diagonal. Sidenote: I have to admit, I was a little scared at how it would turn out…I thought it might be a bit crazy…but when it got done, I loved it. (Plus, it fits my daughter's personality perfectly!)
Step 4: Start covering your fabric with your colors and pattern. Make sure that your duct tape covers all of your fabric. You will need to go past the fabric an inch or so to do this. You will also need to overlap your duct tape as you go.
We started at one corner and worked our way to the opposite corner. We taped it right to the table.
Step 5: Carefully peel off your tape and turn it over.
Step 6: Cut off the excess tape along the edge
Step 7: Turn over your purse.
Step 8: Pick a color or pattern of duct tape for your seams. Fold your fabric in half to start securing your seams. We found it was easier to lay the duct tape on the table while we taped the sides of the purse together.
Step 9: Tape both sides of your purse shut. (Not the top). 🙂
This may be a better picture to understand which sides to tape. 🙂 After you have taped the sides, trim the excess tape off with scissors.
Step 10: Here is the tricky part…I tried to take good pictures to illustrate what you do next. Tuck in the botton edges of your purse. It should look like this:
And it should look like this while standing up:
And this is what the inside should look like:
Step 11: Tape across bottom of the INSIDE of your purse
Step 12: Tape up the sides of the INSIDE of your purse, and trim off the excess tape.
Step 12: Tape along the top edge of your purse, all the way around the purse opening. This part is a bit of a challenge, so don't worry if your duct tape bunches a little.
Step 13: Measure how long you want your strap or straps to be. Cut the rope and cover it with duct tape.
Step 14: Follow the directions on the grommet package to insert grommets into the position of your choice.
Step 14. Insert strap into the grommets and secure the strap. We taped the strap into place or we tied knots to secure them.
VOILA!….Your purse it complete!
Here are a few more examples that my Mom and Sisters made too!
Think of the possibilities!!! We had a few purses with the tape stripes going vertical and horizontal, but I didn't get any pictures of them. They turned out darling too! My niece made hers to be big enough to carry her piano books. My Mom even made some wallets for the boys. I wish I would have taken better pictures of the wallets. The duct tape comes in camouflage, so the boys loved it too! What a fun kids' craft project!