text:
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti: Upsetting The $250 Marketby Ryan Smith on 1/25/2011 9:00 AM EST
88 Comments
Back to Article
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkPage one, first chart, the 560 Ti is "$149" instead of "$249".
Although, I kinda prefer the former. Reply
alcortez - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link...wow a 460 for negative $160.
I want in on that. ;) Reply
loubarouba - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linklol thats definitely an approximately sign (~)...unless of course i was late and has already been edited to that.. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkListed at $149 when you meant to write $249. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link1st chart to clarify. Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI think ImSpartacus beat you to it ;) Reply
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkYeah, I was secretly hoping to be the first to mention that. I feel special!
.) Reply
Rocket321 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkpg. 16 - Series Load Voltage chart has wrong title. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkwhat's crazy is that when I posted and refreshed the page I was the only comment. It wasn't until page 3-4 of this review (as I was reading after the comment post) that I noticed yours was there so there is some lag between when a post is made and when others see it (even though you see it right away). I wish we had a time stamp feature on the post! :) Reply
maniac5999 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkSo the GTX 560 Ti has a 4004mhz DATE rate? Wow, it sure gets around. (chart on P1) ;-) Reply
auhgnist - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link1920x1080 graph is wrong, should be mistakenly used that of 2560x1600 Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkFixed. Thanks. Reply
Marlin1975 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link6950 1gig look good.
I am guessing the 560 will either drop in price very quickly or the 6950 will sell better. Reply
Lolimaster - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkNot impressive at alla the 560, 6950 1GB is a good value over the 2GB 6950. I think if you just prefer 1GB 6870 offers more bang for buck. Reply
cactusdog - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkWow, plenty of good options from AMD and Nvidia. Since the introduction of eyefinity and 3D surround, we dont need to spend a fortune to play the latest games. For most users with 1 monitor a $250 dollar card gives excellent performance. Reply
tech6 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkLike top end desktop CPUs, the high end GPU really seems to be increasingly irrelevant for most gamers as the mid-range provides plenty of performance for a fraction of the cost. Reply
Nimiz99 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI was just curious about the 2.8 FPS on Crysis by the Radeon HD 5970 - is that reproducible/consistent?
I am just curious, b/c on the first graph of average frame-rate it leads the pack; if it fluctuates that badly I would definitely like a little bit more background on it.
'Preciate the response,
Nimiz Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkNo, it's highly variable. With only 1GB of effective VRAM, the Radeon cards are forced to texture swap - the minimum framerate is chaotic at best and generally marks how long the worst texture swap took. With swapping under the control of AMD's drivers, the resulting minimum framerate ends up being quite variable. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkCan somebody explain why 1GB is not enough when 1GB is enough memory to store over 160 frames at 24 bits at 1920x1080. At 60fps, 1GB should be able to supply a constant uncompressed stream of frames for almost 3 whole seconds. Seems like more than enough memory to me. Sounds like somebody is just haphazardly wasting vast amounts of space for no reason at all. Sort of like windows with its WinSXS folder. Lets just waste a bunch of space because we can! Reply
ciukacz - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkare you streaming your benchmark video through youtube ?
because i am rendering mine realtime, which requires loading all the textures, geometry etc. Reply
surt - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkIt doesn't work like that. Computer games generally have no more than 3 frames rendered at a time. The remainder is pre-render textures, models, etc ... everything that might be needed to render a frame. They need to have everything handy that might be needed to make a picture of your view-point. Any enemy that might step into view. The mountains behind you in case you turn around, etc. If it isn't already stored on the card, they have to go get it from disk, which is comparatively extremely slow (thousands of times slower than anything that is already in memory). Reply
ATOmega - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkOkay, so it's released today. Where are they? I can't find one at local stores and they don't even know when they're getting them in. Reply
MrJim - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkFull bitstreaming audio capabilities? Thinking about this card and Adobe Premiere CUDA-hack :) Reply
heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkThe 560 is only faster when you feature games that show a bias towards Nvidia products. Heck, in some of those tests, it was beating a 6970! Reply
Lolimaster - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkAnd know you can adjust that absurd tessellation levels(that no one notices) with 11.1a hotfix.
560 is unimpressive, without much effort 6870 1GB / 6950 1GB are taking the bang for buck crown. Specially 6870 at near $200.
If you want futureproof don't look back, 6950 2GB all the way. Reply
cknobman - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkthats exactly what I was thinking. Reply
heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI just don't see how a game like HAWX, with its history, can be a indicator of the 560 being faster. Reply
Sufo - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkYeah, i have to agree here. In the the two games generally considered the most taxing of modern systems (crysis and metro) the 6950 comes out on top (by like 15% at that) - i think it's a mistake to say:
"The GTX 560 Ti ultimately has the edge: it's a bit faster and it's quieter than the 6950, and if that's all you care about then there's the answer you seek."
I haven't totted it up but even if the 560 over all benches has a few frames over the 6950 (tho tbh, it doesn't even look that way :/) the fact that it loses in games like this means people buying it on that recommendation, thinking it's the faster card, will be disappointed. Reply
murray13 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI just don't get your conclusion. You say that the 560 is faster than the 6950 1g but looking at the graphs it's a draw. It's faster is some games the AMD is faster in others.
I originally just looked at the games I play and when I did that the 6950 won all of them. It's a good thing I went back and looked at all of them before I posted. I was ready to really give it to ya. But as it is I just think these two cards are about as evenly matched both in performance and price as I've seen from the two camps in a long time.
Running a 8800GTX I'm about due for a gfx card upgrade. With what is out right now the 6970 is about the best bang for my buck.
Ever since Anand stopped doing the vid card reviews (yeah it's been a while) I haven't exactly agreed with the conclusions being given. Everyone's entitled to theirs I guess. Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI'm still on the E6600 C2D with a 9800GTX - the next upgrade is going to be crucial. It all hinges on that Z68 chipset.
We've been looking at i7-2G for our workstations as well. I don't think we're considering the Z68 for that, since it's not necessary and the P67 is a good capable board.
All-in-all; personal upgrade is still on schedule (sometime around 2011Q2-2012Q2), hinging on Z68 and SSD releases. Reply
heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkWell, at least they have the distinction of being the only site (that I've seen thus far) to say the 560 is faster than the 6950. It's just laughable, IMHO, that they'd feature several titles known to favor Nvidia (with results showing the 560 beating top-tier AMD cards), yet still reach the conclusion that the 560 is "faster" at stock.
I've been slowly taking AT less and less seriously.........Thank goodness for their benching charts. Reply
ritalinkid18 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkOne thing I've noticed about the comments so far... every single person disagreeing with the conclusion ends up agreeing conclusion in their reasoning.
i.e. "what games you play"
"The deciding factor seems to come down to just how much to value noise and cooling (560) versus power consumption (6950), what games you play, and whether you're currently invested in the NVIDIA (CUDA, 3D Vision) or AMD (Eyefinity) ecosystem." Reply
heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkWell, in that case, Anand is contradicting themselves.....Since (using that logic) the 560 wouldn't be "a bit faster" in performance, or have the overall edge. In other words, they wouldn't be able to conclude which card is "faster." They're conclusion of "faster" is based on their own benchmarks. Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkTo be clear, on my master charts the GTX 560 Ti has an average of a 2% performance lead over the 6950 1GB at 1920, and a 10% performance lead at 1680. This doesn't preclude the fact that performance varies wildly by game; it only means that on average the GTX 560 Ti was faster. Reply
heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkNot surprising looking at the results in HAWX, Civ 5 and Dirt 2. Reply
Touche - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkThat's just a terrible way to reach a performance conclusion, in so many ways. Then again, the number of people taking Anandtech's (GPU) reviews seriously is smaller every day. I miss the years it was practically my homepage and main reference point. Reply
dananski - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI was puzzled by your comment (and others'). It seemed to me that while the 560 and 6950 1GB were changing relative position in the charts, the 560 really wins hard when it does win, so it would come out slightly above the 6950 on average.
Plus, I'd prefer a card that does well every time (the 560) but gets slightly beaten occasionally, rather than a card that does well most of the time but really falls behind in certain games. Reply
heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkPeople are always jaded when it comes to games that show a significant bias for a particular manufacturer. In the case of Civ 5, HAWX and Dirt 2 (as of late); these titles favor Nvidia products. If you look at the benches, the 560 is even beating a 6970 in some instances. Reply
qwsa - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkAnandtech has always had their nose up Nvidia and intels ass so no surprise there, but what a lousy conclusion to an awfull review. Apparently Anandtechs efforts to find good writers were in vane. Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkPlease... let's not start this again... Reply
ggathagan - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI believe you mean "Apparently Anandtech's efforts to find good writers were in vain." Reply
phoible4 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkThe GTX560 looks interesting. However, prices for 768MB 460s are hitting rock bottom. I just paid $90 for one from TigerDirect (after rebates), and it looks like there are a few under $130 on Newegg. It seems like it would cost about the same to run SLI 460s and 1 560 (assuming your case can handle it), and I can guess that the SLI config would be faster in most games.
I actually kind of expected NVidia to release a dual-chip 460 as their next-gen 580, and take a page out of AMD's playbook (wonder how hot/loud that would be). Reply
Belard - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkThe GF 460-768mb are slow compared to their 1Gb versions. They run out of memory way too quick. But for $90... that would be a great deal that is worthwhile. Newegg is showing $150 on avg for the 768mb 460s. Which is about $25 less than a newer 6850 card which is easily faster. Its even faster than the 1GB 460 and cost less. Reply
mosox - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link[quoteAMD's scramble to launch the Radeon HD 6950 1GB has produced a card with similar levels of performance and pricing as the GTX 560 Ti, making it impossible to just blindly recommend the GTX 560 Ti.[/quote]
What? The 6950 2GB is faster than the 560 and the The 6950 2GB is FASTER than the 6950 2GB at every resolution except the highest ones like 2560x1600.
This is from Tom's:
Of course, mid-week, a 1 GB card showed up, so I ran it through our complete benchmark suite. In just about every case, the smaller frame buffer (and tighter memory timings) yields one or two more frames per second than the 2 GB model. It's not worth rehashing in a page full of charts. Literally, expect one or two more frames per second across the board.Reply
mosox - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkRead that as The 6950 1GB is FASTER than the 6950 2GB, sorry. Reply
Visual - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkyou read that right - "tighter memory timings" Reply
ritalinkid18 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI would just like to say, very nice article... well written and informative. I've been a fan of anandtech for many years and the GPU articles never disappoint.
Is it just me or does anyone else find reading about Nvidia's architecture a lot more interesting?
Also, I really hate that the comments are filled with people that say you are bias towards NVIDIA. To all those people, PLEASE go read the some other reviews. A majority of them praise the 560. This article is more critical of the 560 value than most. Reply
jonks - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link"The GTX 560 is always faster than the GTX 470, but never immensely so; and at higher resolutions the GTX 470 still has an advantage."
So the 560 is always faster than the 470 except when it's not. :) Reply
poohbear - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkwow the gpu market is definitely intense! nvidia and AMD are neck & neck now, very nice time to buy a vid card! Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkThanks again Ryan and Anandtech for keeping the 4870 in your charts for 1920X1200 res. I've always read the new gpu reviews and been saddened that although the new cards are fast they were still not approaching 2X the performance of my 4870. With the constant name change with the same parts, or slightly faster parts, it's taken until just about now to have a card worth the upgrade.
Now my question is will I see the performance improvement in GAMES using my C2D 8500 (OC'd to 3.8GHz), or do I need to rebuild the system with Sandy Bridge to actually see the 2X GPU performance? Reply
Nimiz99 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkOne of my buddies has a C2D 8500 system OC'd to 3.5 i think. He got himself a 5870 (overclocked) to game. The problem we ran into was that the C2D is too slow to handle games like Civ5 that heavily rely on the CPU to keep up (you can still play the game, but it's literally wasting the 5870 with noticeable lag from the chip). Basically, he is upgrading now to a sandy bridge. I'd wager some of the older i7's or maybe even a Thuban (OC'd to 3.8 with a good HT overclock) could manage, but why bother when a new architecture is out form Intel (or AMD later in the year).
So enjoy your new build ;),
Nimiz Reply
Beenthere - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkOver the last couple years Nvidia has really struggled and they may be on the ropes at this point. They have created a lot of their own problems with their arrogance so we'll see how it all plays out. Reply
kilkennycat - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkeVGA GTX560 Ti "Superclocked" Core: 900MHz, Shader 1800MHZ; Memory 4212MHz $279.99
~ 10% factory-overclock for $20 extra, together with a lifetime warranty (if you register within 30 days) ain't too shabby.... Reply
Belard - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkSure, the name shouldn't be a big deal... but each year or worse, Nvidia comes up with a new marketing product name that is meaningless and confusing.
Here is the full product name:
GeForce GTX 560 Ti But in reality, the only part that is needed or makes ANY sense is:
GeForce 560
GTX / GT / GTs are worthless. Unless there were GTX 560, GTS 560 and GT 560. Much like the older 8800 series.
TI is only added to this idiotic mess. Might as well Ultra, Pro or MX.... so perhaps Nvidia will come out with the "GT 520 mx"?
The product itself is solid, why turn it into something stupid with your marketing department?
AMD does it right (mostly), the "Radeaon 6870" that's it. DUH. Reply
omelet - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkYeah. Not that it really matters. And while this might be what you meant by "mostly" note that AMD's naming was pretty retarded this generation with the 68xx having lower performance than 58xx.
But I don't see why they readopted the Ti moniker. Reply
Sufo - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkno, that's only a result of the 5xxx series being stupidly named. Using 5970 for a dual chip part was the error. Use an x2 suffix or smthng. AMD is back on track with the 6xxx naming convention... well, until we see what they do with the 6 series dual chip card. Reply
Belard - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkThe model numbers of:
x600, x800, etc have been consistent since the 3000 series.
x800 is top
x700 is high-end mid range ($200 sub)
x600 is mid-range ($150 sub)
x400~500 low-end ($50~60)
x200~300 Desktop or HTPC cards.
AMD said they changed because they didn't want to confuse people with the 5750/5770 cards with the 6000 series. Which is completely stupid... so instead they confuse everyone with all th cards.
If the 6800s were called 6700s - they would have been easily faster than any of the 5700s and at least somewhat equal to the 5800s (sometimes slower, others faster). Instead, we have "6850" that is slower than the 5850.
The prices are a bit high still, yet far cheaper than the 5800 series, in which a 5850 was $300+ or $400 for the 5870. But by all means, I'd rather spend $220 on a 6870 than $370 on todays 5870s.
Anyways, I'm still using a 4670 in my main computer. When I do my next upgrade, I'll spend about $200 at the most and want at least 6870 level of performance, which is still about 4x faster than what I have now. Noise & heat are very high on my list, my 4670 was $15 extra for the better noise & heat cooling system. Perhaps in 6 months, the AMD 7000 or GeForce 700 series will be out. Reply
marraco - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkIs the first time I see a radiator geometrically aligned to the direction of air velocity thrown by the fan.
Obviously it increases the efficiency of the fan, increasing the flow of air thrown across the radiator, and reducing noise.
It's an obvious enhancement in air cooling, that I don't understand why CPU coolers don't use. Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI wouldn't be surprised if in some cases the increase in fin surface area (from having a bunch of straight fins packed more closely together) produces better cooling than having a cleaner airpath. Reply
MeanBruce - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkYou should check out the four Asus Direct CU II three slot radiators that came out today on the GTX 580, 570, and the HD 6970 and 6950, each using two 100mm fans, five heatpipes and three slots of pure metal, they claim you can easily fit two of them on ATX for SLI and CB? Reply
MeanBruce - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkWonder if you can tune the fans separately in SmartDoctor? Damn cool Asus! Reply
Burticus - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI picked up a GTX460 768mb for $150 last summer. I assume the GTX560 will be down to that price point by this coming summer. I am very happy with the GTX460 except in Civ 5 and I think I am CPU limited there (Phenom II x3).
So when this thing hits $150 I will sell my GTX460 on fleabay for $100 and upgrade, I guess. I wish I could buy one and stick it in my 360.... Reply
JimmiG - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkLooks like the video card market is picking up the pace again, which is both a good thing and not. I guess my GTX460 1GB from only 6 months ago now officially sucks and is only usable as a doorstop...a crippled, half-broken, semi-functional video card such as it is.
On the other hand, it's great that technology is moving so fast. It just means that instead of buying a new video card and keeping it for 1.5 - 2 years, you once again have to upgrade every couple of months if you want to stay on top.
Also, regardless of the marketing, anything below a 570 *sucks* for gaming above 1680x1050. Look at the results of Stalker, Metro 2033 and Warhead. You need to drop to 1680x1050 before the 560 Ti manager near 60 FPS which is the minimum for smooth gameplay. Reply
Soldier1969 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkAnything below $400 is a poor mans card period, I wouldnt stoop to that level of card running 2560 x 1600 display port max settings there is no substitute! Reply
omelet - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkCongratulations. Reply
silverblue - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkI'm sorry to say, but knowing the 560 Ti is going to be a weaker and hence far cheaper part than the 580, why did you give it any thought? :) Reply
otakuon - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkThe GTX 460 is still the best card in nVidia's lineup with regards to price for performance. The 560 is just nVidia's standard interim update to keep itself relevent. I see no need for current GTX 460 owners to rush out and buy this card (or anyone who wants to replace a Fermi card for that matter) when the 600 series will be out this summer and will most likely have new arcitecture. Reply
DeerDance - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link6850 beats them in price/performance, they are start at $150 at newegg Reply
DeerDance - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI was kinda surprised by final thoughts
out of 34 pictures of fps in games, 17 won 6950, 12 gtx560 and 5 were in range of 1frame from each other (4 of those are for 6950) so I wonder why the final thoughts gave edge to GTX560. Reply
omelet - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkHe may have just done an average of the percentage differences between the two.So if, for instance, the 560 won by 50% in one test and lost by 10% in each of two tests, that method would call the 560 10% faster, even though it was slower in 2/3 of the tests.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the conclusion is accurate (I think 6950 looks more powerful overall from the benchmarks), I'm just saying how I think he might have come to his conclusion. Reply
martixy - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkLooks quite good.
Would get it for the GP compute power just as much as the pixel-pushing power.
I just question the end price in my little corner of the world. :) Most likely it will be double that($249). 250 I can do, 500 - nah... Go figure. Reply
tonyblair - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkAh, do my eyes decieve me or has good old Anandtech gone back to using bog standard reference GTX460's for Nvidia launches? Haha. Reply
mapesdhs - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Yeah, it's kinda lame, given nobody in their right mind would buy a stock 460
anymore. Many places don't even sell them now, and a highly oc'd 460 is
easily $50 to $60 less than a 560, so a proper comparison would be useful.
Alas, they succumbed to the moaning minnies.
If anyone's interested, I can run the downloadable Stalker COP benchmark
using this review's settings (my own 460 FTW tests have been using 1920x1080,
Extreme detail, SSAO = Default/High, Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting, so not
directly comparable).
I can't test 2560x1600, but I can test 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, also with
Ryan, what full settings did you use for the Stalker test? ie. the SSAO (or
other) mode, etc.?
Ian. Reply
JimmiG - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkI agree.. GTX460 cards are available at speeds up to 850MHz or perhaps even more, a huge difference from the 675MHz that the card supposedly launched at (though even at launch, cards running at anything under 7xx MHz was pretty rare). Reply
Parhel - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkHa! I just bought a stock 460 1GB two weeks ago. Terribly cheap cooler, so the thing only OC's to about 750Mhz before it throttles and I have to reboot. But I only paid $130, so I'm thrilled with the card. I'm on 2560x1600 screen, otherwise the 768MB card would have been the better value. Reply
overzealot - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - linkI remember the Geforce 2 Ti, back in 2001.
It wasn't the highest end offering then, either - but it sure was a great cost/performance offer.
It's so bad! Reply
Belard - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkThe GF2ti was really a die-shrink GF2Pro at 50Mhz faster GPU clock, nothing more. In the real world, it was cheaper than the GF2Pro and was a new CHIP process/series they used for the GF3-TI series. Still, the GF2ti was a pretty good deal in its day at about $125 or so... far cheaper than the $300 GT2-Ultra which just lost its crown to the GF3 series.
A little history lesson.
All GF400mx /4000mx series are GF2 technology built on a smaller process, nothing more. Sadily, even now, you can STILL buy NEW GF2mx and GF4000MX cards. The 4000MX is a Frankenstein card. Nvidia took a very slow GF2mx GPU and stuck in DX8...
Check out the stats on Wikipedia - (Basic mid-range cards $200~250)
GF2ti (2001 - 10 years ago) = Fillrate = 00.2 GT/s Bandwidth = 006.4 GB/s DX7
GF4 4200 TI (2002 favorite) = Fillrate = 00.2 GT/s Bandwidth = 008.0 GB/s DX8
GF 6600GT (2004 favorite) = Fillrate = 04.0 GT/s Bandwidth = 014.0 GB/s DX9
GF GTX 260 (2008 favorite) = Fillrate = 41.4 GT/s Bandwidth = 112.0 GB/s DX10
GF GTX 560 (2011 Today) = Fillrate = 52.6 GT/s Bandwidth = 128.2 GB/s DX11
*While the fillrate of GF2 & GF4 are the same, GF2 is a DX7 card, so the GF4 might do the DX7 benchmark at 0.3~.4.
Wow, bandwidth wise, the 560 is 20x faster than the old GF2. Graphic Texture Fillrate is way beyond what those old GF2~4 cards could handle.
Hence, playing Crysis on 560 in 1280x1024 could be around 65fps, on a GF6600, it would be under 10fps with LOW details and maybe 1 frame every 6~10 seconds on the GF2... :) Reply
Lepton87 - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkThis card hardly even caught up to my over-a-year-old Radeon 5870. I don't know why this card looks comparatively slow in anandtech's reviews whilst on other tech sites it is about on par with 6950 and thus ever-so-slightly faster then 560Ti.
so far I find those charts the most informative when it comes to relative performance between cards. It looks like anandtech's blend of games somewhat favor NV hardware. Reply
SolMiester - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkThis is a mid range card that in some benchies surpasses your high previous generation card, at a cheaper price, is quieter and smaller to boot. What more do you want? Reply
MeanBruce - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkThe Asus 560 looks really amazing, guess it's faster than my brand new Asus 6870 directcu, but that's ok I knew the 560 was coming out, and wanted the Asus 6870 for it's beautiful triple heatpipe and gorgeous backplate heatsink the way it looks thru the window of the Corsair Obsidian 650D. Yup it's not out yet, April but man thru that window with my new Corsair AX850! I'm just buying parts for a window! Oh man the sweetness, that view while I work with Microsoft Word. The 6870 came with dual full sized DisplayPorts fantastic, but the Asus 560 comes with just a mini-HDMI. What is that all about? I didn't even know they came in mini. Maybe AMD will release the 7000 series early this year die shrink and all, 7870 for Christmas ahhh life is good. Reply
SolMiester - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkHi can we please have some benchies on this feature please...While surround is not an option for the single nVidia card, 3D is, and it is hard to judge performance with this enabled. Readers need to know if 3D is an viable option with this card at perhaps 16x10 or 19x10
Ta Reply
DarknRahl - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - linkI agree with some of the other comments and find the conclusion rather odd. I didn't really get why all the comparison's were done with the 460 either, yes this is the replacement card for the 460 but isn't really to relevant as far a purchasing decision goes at this moment in time. I found HardOCP's review far more informative, especially as they get down to brass tacs; the price to performance. In both instances the 560 doesn't make too much sense.
I still enjoy reading your reviews of other products, particularly power supplies and CPUs. Reply
kallogan - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkPut those damn power connectors at the top of the graphic card, think about mini-itx users !!! Though this one is 9 inches, should fit in my sugo sg05 anyway. Reply
neo_moco - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkI really don`t understand the conclusion :
The radeon 6950 wins hands down in 1920x and 2560x in almost all important games: crysis , metro , bad company2, mass effect 2 and wolfenstein
The geforce wins only the games who not a lot of people play : civ 5 , battleforge, hawx , dirt 2
Add to that others tests : 6950 wins in the popular call of duty , vantage .
In 3dmark 11 the geforce is 15 % weaker(guru3d) so the conclusion as i see it : radeon 6950 1 gb is aprox. 5-10 % better and not the other way . Reply
neo_moco - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - linkafter 15 months of the radeon 5850 launch we get a card 10 % better for the same price; i dont get the enthusiasm of some people over this cards ; its kind of lame Reply
HangFire - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link"By using a center-mounted fan, NVIDIA went with a design that recirculates some air in the case of the computer instead of a blower that fully exhausts all hot air."
I don't think I've ever seen a middle or high end NVIDIA card that fully exhausted all hot air. Maybe it exists, I certainly haven't owned them all, perhaps in the customized AIB vendor pantheon there have been a few.
This is not just a nitpick. When swapping out an 8800GT to an 8800 Ultra a few years back, I thought I was taking a step forwards in case temperatures, because the single-slot GT was internally vented and the Ultra had that second slot vent. I didn't notice the little gap, or the little slots in the reference cooler shroud.
That swap began a comical few months of debugging and massive case ventilation upgrades. Not just the Ultra got hot, everything in that case got hot. Adding a second 120mm input fan and another exhaust, an across-the-PCI-slots 92mm fan finally got things under control (no side panel vent). Dropping it into a real gamer case later was even better. (No, I didn't pay $800 for the Ultra, either).
I'm not a fan of, um, graphics card fans that blow in two directions at once, I call them hard drive cookers, and they can introduce some real challenges in managing case flow. But I no longer run under the assumption that a rear-venting double slot cooler is necessarily better.
I'd like to see some case-cooker and noise testing with the new GTX 560 Ti reference, some AIB variants, and similar wattage rear venting cards. In particular, I'd like to see what temps a hard drive forward of the card endures, above, along, and below. Reply
WRH - Saturday, January 29, 2011 - linkI know that comparing an on CPU chip graphics with GPU cards like the ones on this list would be like comparing a Prius to a Ferrari but I would like to see the test results just the same. Sandy Bridge on CPU GPUs come in two models (2000 and 3000). It would be interesting to see just how far below the Radeon HD4870 they are and see how the 2000 and 3000 compare. Reply
technojakeb - Monday, May 02, 2011 - linkhey ive found another best review in the internet.......goto
http://gadgetnova.blogspot.com/2011/04/nvidia-gefo... Reply


text:
Intel Shows Off Competitive Medfield x86 Android Power & Performanceby Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/21/2011 4:09 PM EST
39 Comments
Back to Article
dagamer34 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkAn Intel-powered Android phone is quickly becoming the next Duke Nukem Forever. Reply
retrospooty - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkExcept that Atom has room for growth. This is just now on 32nm, but 22nm is online and shipping in a month or 2 with Ivy bridge... They can stay one process ahead of the rest and compete.
Dont forget, the last time Intel had any real pressure they answered with the Core2 Duo/Quad. If Intel puts their focus behind this, they will get it. Reply
dagamer34 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkExcept Intel isn't one process ahead. TSMC is already producing 28nm chips for Q1 2012, where as Intel is talking about 32nm chips. And last I checked, I don't ever remember the Atom line ever getting first dibs on Intel's latest fab process. That always goes to their desktop and laptop designs.
Besides, Intel still needs to deal with the biggest problem for switching: in order to beat the competition, you can't just be a little bit better, you have to be an order of magnitude better to get people to switch. Reply
retrospooty - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link"Except Intel isn't one process ahead. TSMC is already producing 28nm chips for Q1"
Intel is just starting 22nm while TSMC and others are starting 28nm.
" I don't ever remember the Atom line ever getting first dibs on Intel's latest fab process"
They have already announced that that will change in 2012. Atom will be right in front.
"in order to beat the competition, you can't just be a little bit better, you have to be an order of magnitude better to get people to switch"
And that is exactly what I am saying not to count Intel out of. If they put their efforts into a platform, they will get it. They have some of the best chip engineers on earth, and plenty of them. They have unlimited cash reserves, talent, manufacturing experience and industry clout.
As far as switching, they also have the ability to Run Win8 and x86 apps, so that gives more flexibility and opens up the enterprise market to tablets in a way that ARM never will. I am not saying everything will work out perfect for them and go 100% as planned, but If I were to bet on it, my $ is behind Intel getting it done. Reply
web2dot0 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkNot so fast Sherlock.
Intel is WAAAY behind in the mobile space. It's not that easy to compete with the x86 baggage. There is a limit to what you can do. Throwing more people to a problem doesn't solve the problem faster. Some things just takes time.
Besides, with Apple having their own chip, it's only a matter of time before they create a fully integrated Siri / Gaming solution with their A6-7 chips. With their S/W and H/W all lined up, no amount of Intel intervention can save them.
The problem is not as simple as you make it out to be. Reply
SlyNine - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkForget the X86 baggage, If you think thats a problem then you don't understand how X86 is done today and how little it effects anything.
Intel will compete in the mobile market. Like it or not. Reply
retrospooty - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkThat and x86 isnt "baggage" in the enterprise sector. With Win8 and using x86 apps, companies can actually do real business on tablets instead of these "silly" little apps that are written for ARM tablets. X86 will make tablets a useable work computer. Reply
JoeTF - Friday, December 23, 2011 - linkNo, it won't.
You're conveniently forgetting that all those 'awesome' legacy x86 are written for mouse and keyboard interaction and are all but useless in touchscreen based tablet.
At best, trying to use them will be horrible, at worst, it'll be outright impossible.
x86 alone will NOT make smartphones and tablets into useable work computer. Writing new applications that fully utilize touchscreen useage model will. Reply
web2dot0 - Saturday, December 24, 2011 - linkx86 is overkill is obsolete in the mobile sector. There is no dependancies of x86 in mobile. You're no going to run a desktop app on a mobile phone.
You'll need to rewrite a mobile app which exploits the mobile phone's capabilities. That is why ARM is such a beast.
Do you really think Intel can compete with RIM in the enterprise sector or Apple in the consumer sector that easily?
Intel's got a LOOONG way to go before I declare them a legitimate challenge. It'll make multiple execution mistakes from either of the companies before Intel has a shot. This is not out of the realm of possibilities, but Intel by itself cannot determine its own destiny in this sector. Reply
fteoath64 - Sunday, January 01, 2012 - link"Intel will compete in the mobile market. Like it or not. "
But with WHAT ?. This junk?!. It loses out in the power consumption department like 2W vs 500mw. Its performance is not outstanding. Have you seen the ARM A15 dual core performance ?. Intel will say WTF!.
So this chip is almost the same as the netbook chip and hardly usable in tablet form. In phone formfactor, its battery life is going to be short. Who wants it when you have great choices way better elsewhere. Reply
retrospooty - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkOKeedokkee... Wait and see then. Reply
xytc - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkWait till Apple sue them like they sue everyone else, then will be game over for Intel Medfield x86 Andoird Phones. Or even worse maybe till Intel manages to release the Medfield in 2012, Apple will already succeeded to ban all Android OS&phones then Intel will have the CPU but no OS to support it or no mobile phone that can integrate it since they will be all banned by Apple. After all that was the dream of Steve Jobs to destroy all Android eco-system phones+OS+processors that means destroying all other mobile phone makers besides Apple, destroying all other mobile OS'es besides iOS and destroying all other processor developers besides Apple, what a wonderful dream of a dead man this was. ROTFL Reply
retrospooty - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link"Apple will already succeeded to ban all Android OS&phones"
What are you smoking that makes you think Apple will win? They have already lost most of their cases that have come to court becasue they have no merit.
Apple is suing for very vague concepts. If you want to say "Apple is being copied", then take it back to the root. Apple "copied" the whole mobile phone idea, as well as putting and OS and apps on a phone from Palm/Handspring. All companies do this. The entire industry builds off ideas of others. It always has, as all industries always have. Its as if to say, Toyota, GM, BMW and Honda shouldnt be allowed to make cars because they all copy Ford. Specifically Appl's suits are as if Ford sued GM because they have cupholders and mudflaps on their pick up trucks. Petty and irrelevant. Reply
Tchamber - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - linkI agree, let's wait and see...Remember when we all first saw a netbook? It was kinda cool, but it turned out to be a failure...and that was a major initiative of Intel's. Dell just stopped making all their minis. But make it or not, another player is going to be good for us consumers. Let's wait and see what happens, worst case is they fail. Best case, we see Intel chipped tablets and phones. And like it or not, the Intel brand sells. Heck, they'll even try to buy their way into products, and it will probably work. It would be nice to see an Android tablet beat the featureless iPad2 in EVERY benchmark. That's my 2 cents. Reply
tipoo - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkIntel is still being annoyingly vague with this, current Atom cores draw magnitudes more power (watts vs hundreds of milliwats) than ARM cores, I'd be surprised if it actually drew less power than ARM cores like they are saying here. And graphics performance is as compared to what? A measly 535, a Mali 400, or a SGX543MP2? Or what is performance in general compared to, a single core Cortex A9 or dual core A9 or quad core Tegra 3, etc etc. I'm excited to see some new blood in the SoC market but this tells us almost nothing. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkIts nice of them to compare to "shipping smartphones," as vague as that is. What range does that include, the 3GS all the way up to Droid Bionic? Reply
Hector2 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkQuite awhile ago, IDF I think, Intel announced that the new 22nm process with the new FinFET 3D transistors has still lower active power and a 20X reduction in standby leakage power over even 32nm products -- that means much improved battery life over Medfield's 32nm. Medfield 32nm gets Intel in the door and in the race. 22nm is the real winner over ARM. While 22nm is indeed a generation ahead of ARM, the 22nm FinFET puts them out even further. No one but Intel has that until at least the 16nm node. Reply
Einy0 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkAgreed... Notice no comparable apps power usage. Everything they show for battery life could be done with a idle or near idle core using on-chip task specific dsps etc... Standby 3G, Audio Playback, Video Playback all easily off loaded. Fire up that ATOM cpu to run a web browser and bam suck down half your battery in 5 mins or did Intel make a giant leap in power consumption? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkIs there any public data showing that a 32nm LP, highly integrated Atom based SoC isn't power competitive under load with ARM Cortex A9 based SoCs?
I'm not saying this is or isn't the case, but what if Intel were competitive on that front as well? I suspect we'll find out soon enough :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
DanNeely - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkNot all CPU manufacturing processes are requivalent. Netbook/Nettop atoms are made on the same high power optimized process as normal laptop and desktop chips. The phone atom is built on a low power process (like existing arm CPUs). The Intel version is reported ~10% slower; but has 10-100x lower idle power consumption than its desktop version. This is enough to get Intel into the same ballpark as ARM SoCs; until Intel gets working hardware into the hands of independent hardware sites we can't know precisely how competitive their hardware is but on the face of it these slides look about right. Reply
PubFiction - Sunday, January 01, 2012 - linkYa that is the question. Another problem is the last time I think intel tried to show similar graphs the problem was SHIPPING smartphones by the time anyone takes their product and turns it into a phone ARM will be forward another generation. At that point you will have a low end SOC that probably draws too much power and no one will buy it.
Intel is a mixed bag with success so we will see. SSDs they got in the game. Graphics at anything other than bottom end they are still a joke despite all the hype about larrabe. Reply
Matias - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkLet's not forget this a future chip compared to current chips. Let's see how the competition changes until it launches! Reply
LtGoonRush - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkOne big thing I notice is that Intel's power consumption numbers only reflect idle and near-idle workloads. I worry that this means it has the potential for performance, but comparatively high power draw if you actually load the CPU. Reply
SlyNine - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkNot surprising, Intel has always been about hurry up and idle. Reply
tipoo - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - linkYeah, I want to see some real world tests already. Its possible that even with a higher load power draw they get to idle faster and so save power on the whole while doing something like web browsing, and we know this will offload video to dedicated hardware. Its all just talk until we have someone actually test it though. It would be quite exciting if they had higher performance at the same battery use as ARM chips.
Another thing I wonder about is how it would compare to the quad core Tegra 3, being a single core chip itself, and also future A15 designs. Reply
iwod - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - linkAgain, without knowing what shipping smartphones is these figure are completely pointless.
Graphics better 50% better? I wouldn't believe that is comparing to Apple's A5.
Much Faster? Properly so, but compare to a Shipping Cortex A8 800Mhz?
Third in Power Usage? Those in the charts much be the most power hungry ARM chips ever.
I still believe Intel wont be competitive until 22nm. Reply
ET - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - linkI want a phone that could be used on a phone, but docked to a screen and wireless keyboard/mouse and used as a full Windows PC. Since Windows 8 won't provide a full Windows experience on ARM, Intel will be the only choice to realise that dream. Reply
N4g4rok - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - linkWe don't know yet whether or not the full windows experience is going to be supported or not. There are for too many rumors going either direction to make a legitimate prediction. Reply
Braumin - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - linkWell, we do know a lit. The only thing up in the air is if the desktop is even going to be available on ARM or not.
ARM is not going to run x86 apps without a recompile, so instantly you don't have the full windows experience.
I think by the time Windows 8 comes out, the ARM vs x86 debate will pretty much be over. Intel will likely be the dominant platform for Windows 8 tablets.
As for phones, that may take a bit longer but Intel will get there. They have the best engineers, and the best chip fabs in the world. It would be pretty hard to believe that they won't overtake ARM based chips. Reply
dealcorn - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - linkIf Medfield were fatally flawed in its power requirements, Intel's in house council would block presentation of the misleading slide (copy above) from the investor's conference even if each data-point was factually correct. The concern is misled shareholder lawsuits and people getting fired. If you seek some fatal flaw to confirm that it is impossible that Intel could compete successfully with ARM, look elsewhere.
As far as good words for posts, "ecosystem" sounds great, once had a scientific meaning, and should sound credible until Intel's mobile market share exceeds 50%. "Baggage" does not work because Intel already has that and the article reveals that from a performance and power efficiency perspective Intel already has "baggage" more than covered at 32 nm. Remember, Intel is still trying to show it understands the rules of the mobile game and Medfield may do that. Show time starts at 22nm which is when Intel reveals it's tick tock A-Team. Reply
Visual - Friday, December 23, 2011 - linkI don't care for a x86 android phone. Not unless Wine runs on it anyway.
I am however curious about a x86 Windows device in a similar form factor. Maybe it is time for the UMPC comeback.
But aren't we forgetting something before we can even talk phone-sized form factor?
I am still waiting to have a decent variant in the comparatively much larger (and so supposedly easier to get) form factor of 9-12 inch tablets. We do have a few options, but they fail in comparison to AMD Bobcat alternatives, and even those aren't too great.
And last, it's not just the CPU that needs focus for a "design win". When will some manufacturer finally comprehend that they can not cut corners with crappy TN panels with resolution worse than my wrist watch, passive touchscreens with no stylus, or only the minimum integrated GPU even for when their device is plugged in or docked, etc? Reply
Exophase - Friday, December 23, 2011 - linkRegarding the comment about how Moorestown was dismissed for being too power hungry w/o evidence, there is at least one data point: Fujitsu LOOX F-07C. This phone combined both a Z600 processor at 1.2GHz meant for running Windows 7 and an unknown ARM SoC meant for running Symbian.
Here are some reviews:
The phone is equipped with a 1400mAh battery, which is pretty standard for smartphones today. Windows 7 mode runs for only about 1-2 hours. This was despite the Z600 being clocked at a meager 600MHz, which would put its typical performance far below what a 1+GHz Cortex-A9 would give you. And the unit got hot just by downloading things. Part of this is Windows' fault, but that only extends so far. Reply
ssj4Gogeta - Monday, December 26, 2011 - linkWas the Z600 made on an LP process? Reply
Exophase - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - linkAllegedly, but bear in mind that this has more to do with idle power consumption than active. Reply
LtGoonRush - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - linkVR-Zone posted some Medfield benchmarks and it looks pretty damning, only a 40% performance increase over a Tegra 2 in CaffeieneMark 3 with a 1.6Ghz Medfield. I don't see how it has any chance of standing up against Tegra 3, much less anything based on Cortex A15 or Qualcomm Krait processors.
Link: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s-32nm-medfield-... Reply
ChrisOz - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - linkIf I remember correctly x86 (Intel) was able to beat the pure RISC chips through being ahead on the process curve. This allowed them to offset the disadvantage of CISC instruction set decoding with more transistors for better RISC cores, faster switching ie higher frequencies and cheaper chips.
I am suspicious that Intel may not have the head room to be far enough in front to offset x86's problems. I remember reading somewhere that there are only 2-3 further design rule shrinks (16 nm, 10/12nm and may be 8 nm) before chip makers have to look else where for performance improvements. This doesn't give Intel much time to get in front particularly with ARM manufactures already jumping to 28 nm which will put them ahead of Medfield on 22nm both in power and performance.
ARM is cheap, doesn't have to worry about x86 overhead and the software is legacy ARM in the mobile space so x86 loses unless it is much better. It will be interesting to see what Intel can do. Reply
skydrome1 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - linkI really think that they have an uphill challenge. Tegra 2 isn't Medfield's competition. Tegra 3 is. Qualcomm's Krait is.
I can only hope that Intel manages to push Silvermont to Q4 2012, or it might be quite problematic for them. After all, by then, A15s will be in the market too.
Since Silvermont is speculated to be OoO and have a new architecture, it has hope of really beating (or perhaps tying with) ARM.
Another thing that concerns me is the GPU. What GPU is Intel running? I heard that previous Atoms use the SGX535. Is that right? Hopefully Medfield has an SGX 544MP2 (not 543, Intel would need DX support).
Last chance, Intel. Let's see how you dance. Reply
slugrail - Monday, January 02, 2012 - linkI don't think SGX544 (or at least the dual-core configurations) will be out until NEXT year. And most likely the more valuable choice would be to cut off and use a SGX543MP4 instead (delivers better performance overall than the 543MP2 - if I'm not wrong) Reply
extide - Friday, December 30, 2011 - linkThis battle seems to be more interesting to me than the desktop x86 battle. Again we see Intel coming from behind but with a TON of money and world class fab capability. 2012 and 2013 will be fun to watch, for sure. Reply

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Apple's MacBook Pro: Using it as a Mac and a PCby Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/13/2006 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- Mac
50 Comments
Back to Article
Sengir - Saturday, July 22, 2006 - linkI'm mainly a PC guy, but while working on Apple notebooks at a Notebook Depot, I've become interested in the Mac OS. Previously I had little to no exposure to it.
I will say this. Apple has made alot of improvement with the Macbook/Pro in terms of repairing. Alot easier to get to the motherboard, hard drive, memory or anything.
Unfortunately they didn't redesign for the heat of the CPUs, the ventilation just doesn't seem adequate and as a result, overheating is common.
There are other issues with the hardware, but none I can really go into. I believe people buy Macs for the OS and not the hardware. Since some of the design/materials are cheaper than an HP notebook, for more cost. If I buy a Mac, it will probably be a mini, due to cost. The Macbooks are very nice, but have several flaws that need to be addressed. Reply
redison - Tuesday, September 05, 2006 - link"I've become interested in the Mac OS ..... believe people buy Macs for the OS and not the hardware"
Right on, and check out the Leopard ( OS X 10.5 )Preview on Apples website, even better if you have the time see Jobs Kenote
hasapi - Monday, April 17, 2006 - linkExcellent reading - I just received my 2GHz MBP - and its just fantastic in every way. My only gripe which was noted in the article is the battery life of just over 2.5hrs!, its probably unrealistic but my old PB was getting 3.5hrs - maybe a new third party battery might help but would have been nice to see upwards of 5hrs imo? Reply
Eug - Sunday, April 16, 2006 - link
I would recommend waiting for a Merom version if you can. By the time Merom is introduced later this year there will be even more Universal Binaries available for the platform and hopefully by then all of the issues with the current MacBook Pros will have been worked out.
I agree. Moreover, Boot Camp and Parallels' Workstation both will be improved by then, and Apple's pro line of laptops may just have Blu-ray drives as well available as an option. Even if we don't get Blu-ray drives by the time Merom is incorporated into MacBook Pros, in the very least we'll have 8X DVD-R support as well as dual-layer support.
I'm most interested in a smaller model though, so I have to wait regardless. I suspect the smallest model may get a 13" 1280x800 widescreen too, considering that as of the Aperture 1.1 update, Apple has arbitrarily (and very annoyingly) removed support for my 1024x768 iBook G4 12" 1.33 GHz, and is saying that a minimum 1280x780 screen is required, even though no such laptop is available yet from Apple. Reply
tekkstore - Monday, April 17, 2006 - linkhttp://www.tekkstore.com">tekkstore.com Reply
gamehack - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - linkHi there,
I have a question to any owners of a MacBook Pro - Is the keyboard suitable for heavy use? I planning to get a MBP and use it as my main dev machine so I would typing quite a lot.
Kind regards,
gamehack Reply
bertd - Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - linkin my opinion, the keyboard is one of the best keyboards i've ever used on a laptop... and i code a lot of html, php and css so i use it a lot too Reply
bertd - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - linkAnand:
great review!
I've also bought a Macbook one week ago, and I also had a keyboard issue... My 'e' button wasnt working sometimes... When i lifted the key off the keyboard i could see the plastic under the key was kind of broken: there was a little crack in it. I went back to the apple shop, and because I only had the laptop for like 2 days they just gave me a complete new one...
I've also experienced the 'heat' problems.. the first macbook i had was an 'earlier' version of the macbook : the serial number was W8611*****... With the new one, the one they have given me to replace the one with the broken 'e' key, the serial number started with w8612****, and I've read that macbooks starting with these numbers in their serial should be newer revisions...
The heat problem is not as bad as with the first one, but still the bottom gets kind off hotter than with any other laptop i've ever had... Reply
mzlin - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - linkExcellent review, Anand! The Parallels vs Boot Camp comparisons are really well done and very helpful.
I thought the comment about PowerBook weight being 1/3 more than any other laptop you've used was a little misleading. I'm sure you didn't mean to say the PowerBook was especially heavy, but since you didn't actually mention what it weighs (5.6 pounds), it could be construed as the Powerbook weighs 1/3 more than other 15.4-inch laptops.
I have been looking for 15.4-inch laptops, PC or Mac, that weigh less than 6 pounds with an integrated optical drive. (For me, having the drive integrated is non-negotiable; I wouldn't want to have it in the wrong place when I needed it, so I would be carrying it around regardless, and much better to save the hassle of digging it out and plugging it in when one needs it.) But the Powerbook/MacBook is the only one I have found so far. On the PC side, the VAIO BX and Toshiba Satellite A105 manage to get to 6.0 pounds, but are also are 1.5 inches thick.
hechacker1 - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - linkI'd just like to point out that the buzzing due to power state switching (transitioning between C3 and C4 states) also happens in windows and linux. It's purely a hardware issue, and in most cases it just means the manufacturer used low quality components (capacitors).
In windows it is not as noticible because it runs with a kernel frequency of 100Hz. In linux it's often run with 1000Hz. Because of the increase in frequency of power state switching the buzzing becomes audible to the ear.
In windows it happens 10 times less than most linux boxes. Hence you don't hear it as much even with low quality components. My own Dell 700m laptop has this issue.
The only solution in linux is to disable the lower power states, or change the kernel timer to 100Hz like windows. The best solution is to use dynamic tick switching so you get exactly the responsiveness you need, only when you need it. With a patched linux kernel my laptop automatically goes to 54Hz when idle, and 1000Hz when under load.
Anyways... the only reason those "fixes" work is probably because they cause the processor to do just enough work to avoid having to go into the lowest power mode. Reply
corequadro - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkI found it as a perfect help against the annoying whine. Just start and then stopp it, and you will – if you aren't using ichat – have a perfectly silent macbook till the next reboot.
Of course, a fix from Apple would be more effective, but I can live with the widget fix. Reply
brich - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkI really think the MacBooks have legs to grow, especially once the intel transition is completed over the next year and universal support becomes more 'universal.' My 12" PowerBook G4 1.5 has served me very well, even with the limitations of XP Pro running in VPC 7 inside Tiger. I think that some of the PC-only enthusiasts who add a MacBook to their arsenal will discover that the integration of excellent hardware esthetic and design with an OS that is continually developing/improving (OSX) will make the Mac solution quite compelling.
That said, if I were a user who was totally satisfied with Windows and was not interested in OSX, then I would not buy a Mac to run Windows...no reason to do it. The real differentiation is the new flexibility of the intel Macs with OSX as a viable alternative to XP now and Vista later. Ther ability to run XP on them is frosting on the cake, imho. Reply
ohnnyj - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkDear Apple,
I want a 12in Merom MacBook. Reply
Desslok - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkAcorrding to Daily Tech the hardware bugs you talked about are fixed with the new revs of the MacBook Pro. The article also stated that Apple would allow you to trade your MacBook in if you were having these problems. Reply
JAS - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkTonight, I visited an Apple Store to see the MacBook Pro in person. What a gorgeous, well engineered laptop -- and impressively fast! The units on display did have rather warm undersides; but perhaps these are from the initial manufacturing run ("version A"). Reply
trooper11 - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkGreat job on the review, it was interesting to see how close things are coming on the software side to run a Windows environment on Macs and pointing out how similar Macs have gotten to every other laptop maker, at least in terms of parts and performance.
The thing that gets me now is that the change over to Intel processors and ,in general, a more universal system, has made the Mac just another notebook vendor. So whst the Mac Book Pro has going for it is OS X and any of the Apple software, the machine itself is no better or worse then the many laptop manufacturers putting out Windows based pcs. In the past Macs had sort of mystique relating toa percieved uniqueness.
If everyone realizes this, then Id like to see a review of a Mac Book from the perspective of any normal system evaluation. Comparing the experience with Apple with those of HP, Dell, Acer, or even Lenovo. If Im not a fan of the Mac OS, then I dont see any other reason to pick them over say Acer or Lenovo. I certainly wouldnt pay a price premium for the Apple name unless I saw some first hand reviews relating to price/performance and quality of service you can expect. Reply
anthlover - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkThose who have a powerbook that runds under 1ghz will be well served by the new books NOW. Those that have 1.5 and 1.67 have not need to quickly switch unless there is some native apps including apps free ones they want to use.
Those that have no book will do well with them.
Waiting unless somthing new was coming out in a couple of weeks is silly. Computers and their prices change constantly, models are refreshed and replaced rapidly. One should always buy what they need and try to future proof too much.
Of course those wanting to save might want to wait for the Ibooks err Mac Book.
Glad to hear replacing the drive got **easier then on the earlier Alumibooks... Or at least the 12 inch one. I got through the keyboard replacement part of the disasemly I had done before and then read ahead to the upper case disassembly and realized that I need a brighter room, no cats trying to help, and a lot of care. Too much risk. With the books It sounds like when you want that 200gb 7200 rpm drive it will be easy to put in:) Reply
plinden - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkThe choppiness can be made almost unnoticeable by reducing the "Hardware acceleration" - Display Properties/Settings/Advanced/Troubleshooting, and move the slider one notch to the left. Reply
nels0360 - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkThe hardware issue mentioned have been or are being fixed.
Apple has release silent revisions of the MacBook Pro. It is well documented on other sites such as Macrumors.com
In fact, I believe Apple will give you a new revision if you complain about one of these problems. Reply
plinden - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkI know they are different benchmarks, but over at http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/firstlooks/xpbench...">MacWorld, they found that the MacBook Pro was faster at running Windows than three Windows-only PCs.
I'm not going to editorialize here, just bringing this to your attention. Reply
ss284 - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkWhich pretty much drops macworld's benchmark credibility to zero. Actually, their credibility was already really low so its no big deal. Reply
ss284 - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkUnless the benchmark was how fast it could burn a hole in your pants and sterilize your important parts. Reply
jbb132 - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkSadly, even the most recent MacBook Pro's continue to suffer from the hardware problems you noticed. I've now had two units with the "whine," particularly when the laptop is running on battery power. The only way to stop it is to turn photobooth on and leave it on. Various hacks (magicnoisekiller in particular) help but really...
Pirks - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkHey Anand!
Thanks for an interesting review! Now, what was the video source codec and resolution in your H.264 encoding test? I've got a Mac zealot here saying he's got only 2 frames per second in similar H.264 encoding task. He also has Mac OS X 10.4.6 and Quicktime Pro 7.0.4. I wonder is you used source with resolution like 160 by 120 for that test??
To other readers: take with a grain of salt Anand's view on running multiple apps simultaneously in XP. He says something like "uh oh we can't run multiple apps all the time on win coz win can't manage its RAM blah blah", but in fact if you disable XP swap AND if you stick 2 or 3 gigs or RAM in your mobo you'll get my experience of running dozens of apps open at the same time and even some games while at it (DOOM 3 + Matlab + Maya 7 + other little apps like VDub open at the same time is a no brainer on my XP). Stick 4 gigs and open even more, without loss of performance. In fact if you wanna get Mac OS X experience, just stuff your mobo with RAM and turn off swap, that's it, no need to spend $$$ on Mac to get this "experience" :-))
One last minor correction - Anand tells you "anything more than 2GB of RAM on your PC is useless" but he does not know about /3GB switch (google up "/3GB switch") which again allowed me to run Matlab with THREE gigs or RAM consumed, not two.
Just my 2 cents to debunk some myths that Mac zealots love to spread ;) Don't get caught in that stuff, read docs/mans and be smart. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkThe source for my H.264 test was the Hoodwinked trailer from Apple's Quicktime trailers site.
My comments about memory usage and Windows XP have nothing to do with the /3GB switch. The point I was trying to make is that Windows XP does not do a good job of caching to reduce disk accesses. Microsoft itself has admitted that there's lots of room for improvement, which is why you hear about all of the caching improvements that will be introduced in Vista.
Take care,
Anand Reply
kleinwl - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkBTW: if you don't think that anandtech knows about the /3GB switch you certainly haven't been here very long. Reply
Pirks - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - link
quote:Did Anand ever mention this switch in any of his reviews? Or anyone else besides him from AT staff? I've never seen it before. How about you? Would you provide me with a link or some other proof? I'd love to be corrected here, since AT guys should know about it, and I wish I were wrong stating the opposite, especially about Anand himself.
if you don't think that anandtech knows about the /3GB switch you certainly haven't been here very long.
As for the stability - I run Matlab with 3GB consumed routinely, it also loads some Maya 7 stuff internally via my own DLL and there's another Maya 7 hanging around to check results from Matlab quickly, and I never saw a slightest glitch. Of course YMMV but I heard too much "omg windoze is 2GB limited and mac is TrUe 64-bit WoNdEr" and I've got some experience with Matlab on both Mac OS X (no 64-bit matlab there) and WinXP (now this is true 64-bit product) to let Anand repeat that kind of sh.t. Mac guys are ok to say that, they live like this, so no big deal but not Anand please :-) So let's just say "please Anand be a bit more correct in some places and don't sound like a dumb Mac user", saying windows can't properly run a lot of apps at once and stuff like that.
Speaking of Vista I've read somewhere on MSDN that a lot of XP 64 code is in there so it _should_ be as robust as XP 64 with regard to RAM handling. I'm sure after SP1 or SP2 it'll be absolutely rock solid :-) Reply
kleinwl - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkI've used the /3GB switch as well... however it can (and does) degrade the stability of your system (running fluent (a CFD program) on XP SP2). I wouldn't run around recommending the normal use of the /3GB switch. Some programs don't even support it (ie. Catia V15). Ultimately we upgraded to XP x64 (which came with it's own headachs).
2.5GB seems to be the most that XP SP2 can really handle well.. everything else is a waste. OS X just does a better job handing large amounts of ram and not "losing" it with time.
I am interested is seeing how VISTA will perform and if will be as good as OSX or XP x64 with ram... or something quite better (or worse). Reply
boinkle - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkGreat review, apart from making me think "that's still quite pretty!", at the end of the day it's just a PC in an Apple enclosure. It's shiny, fast, but has all the problems of an Apple 1st gen product, with few of the benefits of Core duo showing up...
How I wish someone had given Freescale some incentive to develop the G4 further (to a reasonablt timescale). It's amazing that it's still even *reasonably* competitive. Imagine dual-core, 65nm G4 derivative production? Don't TI have a 65nm fab up and running now? That's where your 5 hours would come from, Anand... pie in the sky, I know.
*sigh* Reply
littlebitstrouds - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkHow about some gaming benchmarks. If you run windows and game are you getting good performance numbers? If I could have a Mac for everyday use and boot up windows when I want to game I might jump on this. Reply
Visual - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkyou have some borked page 18 after the "final thoughts" page showing up in the dropdown.
in printarticle.aspx it shows up as a duplicate of page 17 for some reason
as to the article itself - good job :)
my guess as to why the vm is faster than the real thing is because the hdd emulation works somewhat like a ramdrive - its a file on the apple hdd but it probably gets cached up by osx or by the vmsoftware itself.
plinden - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - link
my guess as to why the vm is faster than the real thing is because the hdd emulation works somewhat like a ramdrive - its a file on the apple hdd but it probably gets cached up by osx or by the vmsoftware itself.
That could be - I have maxed out at 2GB RAM in my iMac, and I get wired RAM is close to the max and a hefty number of Page Outs (up to 210,000 last time I looked. before it setayed below 5000 even after being on for a week) while running Parallels VM. Reply
ibisbowti - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkI been using the 1.83 Core Duo for about a week now. I think it is one of the latest builds according to the serial number. No problems at all, other than it does get pretty warm. Heat issue seems better after latest firmware update. I think the aluminum is designed to be a big heat sink! I thought the Front Row software would be a little gimmicky, but it is pretty cool, especially when sitting the unit on a coffee table and watching the HD movie trailers, IPhoto pics, etc with others. It's an awesome machine so far. Reply
artifex - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkSince you say you ran the same tests as in your earlier review, I'd like to see graphs comparing the results of the Intel iMac vs. the MBP. and add in ones for the Intel Mini, if you can. I suspect we'll see iMac > MBP > Mini, but it would be nice to be sure.
Also, if you could slap Parallels on the Mini and tell us how much of a hit the virtualization takes because the hardware virtualization is disabled for that line, that would be really interesting.
Thanks. Reply
AppaYipYip - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - link"Apple quality control at it's best"
That comment bothers me. Overall, there are no other manufacturers that come even close to Apples quality, design, and workmanship. Yet, you find one key that sits slightly off and suddenly feel the need to make such a blanket statement. If it bothers you so much, take it back and Apple will repair it for you, in record time. Reply
Calin - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkThe IBM thinkpads (before the Lenovo deal) were regarded as the best business laptops (or at least PC laptops) as quality and workmanship. Too bad they were designed with cramped keyboards (at least the models I saw) and no trackpad. Reply
Ryan Norton - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkI'm a PC guy but I like Macs a lot and will probably buy a Macbook Pro, either now or when Merom ones come out. I figure Anand probably is too. Yet I work with Mac zealots who give me endless shit about the unequivocal superiority of Apple everything over PC (except for games, which they concede). So when someone like me finds a glaring flaw that seems like something that should have been spotted before it got to the end user, it's easy to take a cheap shot at Jobs =^) Reply
Sunrise089 - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkIf I had my dream review of this product, here's how I would have you test gaming performance:
Test performance in Windows mode. Then compare it to other Core Duo notebooks. Then see if there is any game written natively for OS-X under Core Duo, and run the OS-X version and the Windows version to see the difference in OS on performance on the same machine.
Other than no gaming info, terrific review. Reply
Calin - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkThis could be thanks to slower drivers in BootCamp Windows XP, or slower hard drive access/speed. Everything else is a disadvantage for VM: one more level of indirection in disk access, less memory, running the OS X behind the VM.
Could you do some disk speed comparation between VM and native XP? Reply
BigLan - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkI think it's going to be hard drive speed throwing off the benchmarks. The BootCamp partition is going to be at the outer edge of the disk, with much slower speeds than the VM client virtual drive which is on the faster Apple partition.
I'm not sure if it's possible to assign the entire HD to a windows partition using Bootcamp, but that's about the only way i can think of to level the playing field. Reply
Calin - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkTo nitpick, it would be at the center of the hard drive, not at the outer edge :) (ok, based on sector numbers, which starts at the edge).
Near the "end" of the hard drive, the transfer speed is reduced (there are fewer bytes on a full circle). Reply
jimmy43 - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkExcellent Review. This may be my first laptop purchase, seems to have everything I could possibly want. Reply
monsoon - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkHello Anand,
...i'm waiting for Parallels to finalize their VT release and maybe Merom Macs too...
I was wondering if the ONE CORE only VT tech is to be the final result of their virtualization software or just a middle-step.
Seems to me it's rather poor a solution ( ok, it's the best out there for now ) to use a dual-core computer to run both OS on a single core
Better would be smart distribution of tasks to the CPU depending on which OS is actually under load...
...any thoughts / info on that ?
Thanks for your nice review !=) Reply
plinden - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - link
Better would be smart distribution of tasks to the CPU depending on which OS is actually under load...
Looking at CPU load while running Parallels VM, I see the load spread evenly over both processors (usually < 10% total CPU except at boot, when it reaches 150% CPU). It's just that the VM itself sees itself as running on a single processor. Reply
shuttleboi - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkI've read that the ATI X1600 in the Mac can run games well, but only IF you overclock the GPU. I can't imagine the Mac getting any hotter than it already supposedly is, and the idea of overclocking an already hot laptop is not appealing. Reply
JoKeRr - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkOverall I enjoyed it.
Would have been nice to see a comparison of screen brightness, as apple claimed 67% brighter!
And also, the slowness in windows, could it be related to chipset driver stuff?? And what's the gaming experience so far like?? Would it be similar to a desktop 6600 or 6600gt??
Thank you. Reply
rolls - Friday, April 14, 2006 - linkVery interesting numbers all round.
35% improvement in iTunes when comparing a single core 1.5GHz 7447 with the old slow bus etc, and a new 33% faster dual core intel CPU. 50% improvement in H.264 encoding etc. These numbers suggest that had Apple stuck with Freescale and moved to e600 core based systems, performance figures could have been off the scale. If only...
JarredWalton - Thursday, April 13, 2006 - linkOn paper the X1600 Pro desktop cards actually look pretty decent. 12 pipelines at 500 MHz, with 800 MHz RAM. I would have thought they would at least give the 6600GT a run for the money, given how X1800 compares to 7800. Amazingly (to me), the X1600 gets completely stomped by the 6600GT. What's worse, the cards I have can't even overclock worth a darn on the memory side - 800 is stock, and they get unstable at even minor changes. (Could be an issue with the overclocking tool, though?)
Anyway, for now I would say X1600 Mobility is going to be somewhere in the realm of 6600 (non-GT) performance, maybe slightly faster. That means gaming is definitely possible, but you will want low-to-medium detail levels for any recent titles. Just a guess, of course, and Anand will have to run benches to get any final confirmation. Really, though, this laptop isn't intended as anything more than a light gaming solution. Reply
user31415 - Monday, September 26, 2016 - linkWhat are the unities of the 0.3 performance per Watt (please mention is on your article) Reply
user31415 - Monday, September 26, 2016 - link*unity Reply


text:
"Zoe was fantastic and really great with our dogs! She was excellent at communicating throughout the ..."
"Alix did a fantastic job looking after our chihuahua whilst we were away on holiday. She even sent..."
"Sophie was great and took care of my dogs even though I contacted her really last minute. She..."
"Thank you Briana "
"Aurelie was fantastic in arranging for her partner Keith to look after Archie as she was away...."
"Alex was great and kept me up to date with what was happening with my cat. "
"As always the dogs loved Nadine, she was very accomodating to our schedule!"
"Thanks Eirelie, I hope Sadie was good for you."
"Once again Amy has done a superb job and I came home to a very happy little dog."
"Emma was fantastic and the hairy boys had a great time, will definitely use Emma again."
"Caitie was awesome with my dog. My dog was happy and well looked after. Thank you, Caitie!"
"Thank you! Peppa came home happy and clearly enjoyed her stay. Will definitely be staying with..."
"Zi was great! She picked Tav up from work, took him for a walk & a play in the park & dropped him..."
"Lya and her family were absolutely wonderful. Clearly kind dog lovers. I have no hesitation in..."


text:
Ebby Premium Printed Mobile Back Case Cover With Full protection For Sony Xperia M4 (Designer Case)
This item is currently not in stock.
- Stylish and Impact Resistant Plastic
- Cutouts for your regular charger and headphones
- Ebby Hard case that prevents fingerprints and smudges
- Highly sophisticated production process
- Perfect fit body to provide the best protection to the phone
Product description
Mobile 3D back covers are the best attractive accessory to make your mobile phone unique from other models .This Ebby Matte Finishing case is made out of a light, durable plastic called Polycarbonate. It is flexible enough to snap on to your phone with ease and strong enough to protect it from bumps, drops and scratches. The raised lip on the sides of the case also protects your phone's screen. It is the newest trend in the mobile phone accessories for the dual purpose of personalization and protection as well. Ebby 3D Back case offers you wide ranges of back cover. Ebby Matte Finishing Back case Printing Technology ensures incomparably high print quality and extra oridinary level of detail. Our catalog includes the wide array of designs and models. Ebby Designer covers 100% of the outer surface of the case is precision moulded with no seams or sharp edges No peeling,chipping or wearing off. The design on this perfectly finished .The Precision cutouts on this case leave all buttons, ports, speakers and microphones completely open. This case is 100% compatible with your regular charger and headphones.
Customer reviews
|5 star
|4 star
|3 star
|2 star
|1 star