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Dell Studio XPS 16: Highest Color Gamut Ever?by Jarred Walton on 2/26/2009 6:00 AM EST
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- Laptops
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Hrel - Sunday, March 01, 2009 - linkI've always wanted to see a quick switch button, like in the task bar or something; that would allow me to switch between different resolutions instantly. Cause on a 15 or 16" screen, 1280x800/1366x768 is great for reading, like articles on anadtech, but when it comes to watching movies and stuff I'd rather have 1920x1080/1680x1050, really though 1920x1080. As for gaming, it's a laptop which means limited GPU power, but 1440x900 looks just as good to me as 1680x1050; so that would be good enough, then when ur card gets a little dated you can just turn the res down to 1280x800/1366x768. However text is too small at full resolutions, (I sit a couple feet from the screen), I forget how to activate the zoom in firefox, but the ie zoom didn't work that well last time I used it, point is I need the res to be lower so I can read. And I'd only turn it up for movies, or gaming if the laptop could handle it. I'd also like to see a resolution somewhere around 1571x883. That's a 16:9 resolution, just in between 720p and 1080p. Just to make it so an older/weaker GPU could run a new/more demanding game with decent settings; without turning the resolution all the way down.
Also, as far as I'm concerned LED backlighting is a must, for battery life. I don't really care if it's RGB LED or regular LED, I just want better battery life; like 12hours+. It's WAY up there on my list of priorities. Reply
whatthehey - Monday, March 02, 2009 - linkToshiba's X305 (and probably others) has a "zoom" keyboard shortcut that does exactly that. It's not that great IMO, but if you like it I'm sure other utilities can do something similar. Reply
weh - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - linkI'd be willing to pay $500 extra for a laptop with a 15+ to 16-inch, 16:10 aspect ratio, 1680x1050 resolution, whatever-IPS LCD panel that could match or exceed the image quality and color integrity of my HP LP2475W desktop monitors. (And color LED-back-light would be nice, too.)
I will NOT buy a "serious" laptop with a TN panel. Ever! I have bought an Eee netbook to serve for general connectivity purposes when I'm away from desk machines. Reply
piroroadkill - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - linkCurrently on a Latitude D800 with a 1920x1200 15.4" screen and that's exactly what I voted for, it's glorious Reply
Alien959 - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - linkI nice to see a wider gamut, but what about saturation?
I have a Philips 170B monitor and against my laptop there is considerable difference in richness-saturation-life like colors.
And my notebook LCD has calibrated contrast of 540;1 and the desktop 400:1 and still the desktop LCD is far better especially in color.
mechafreq - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - linkThe color saturation is no issue if you set the brightness higher; however that means less contrast since the black level starts turning unacceptably grey. I usually set my Studio XPS 16 to just one notch over 50%, but in brighter conditions where pure black is difficult to discern, I re-calibrate it to about 75% brightness.
In general, this particular laptop display easily competes with and blows away most every TN panel I've seen. It's actually quite disappointing that this is a TN and not one of the other technologies. My only real gripe besides the black levels and necessity of external calibration, is the vertical viewing angle. Viewing angle on a notebook is heavily stressed due to a lack of height adjustability.
My normal display is a Dell 24" Ultrasharp 2407WFPb, which has an extended color gamut with I believe, an S-IPS panel. The flexibility of the viewing angle makes work much easier, and can even be used in portrait mode in a pinch. The laptop however, gets some colors much more vibrant and deep, which is very disconcerting.
The http://www.cccp-project.net/">http://www.cccp-project.net/ website is no contest in favor of the RGB LED lit panel. It's so shockingly superior in its color reproduction of FF0000, it's difficult to remove the disparity from my mind.
It is seriously, something you have to see in person to remove your doubts. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - linkUnfortunately, I still haven't seen any laptops that have displays that truly compete with desktop LCDs - even though this one has a wider color gamut. Set this next to an S-IPS, S-PVA, or even a good TN desktop display and I'll pick the desktop every time. Reply
mechafreq - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI'm using the Studio XPS 16 with the RBG LED screen as I view this website.
I work as a photographer and post-processor that requires some travel, so I picked up this laptop with the screen on some anecdotal testimonials on how good the screen was. It turned out to be true, but has some issues.
First off, the screen comes in horribly calibrated, with very heavy emphasis on blue and green. Not something you can tweak by hand looking at gamma charts and bars, but it's something that needs re-working of the gamma curves. I used a Spyder 3 Pro to get everything back into line for a white point of 6500 and gamma of 2.2. Might seem overkill for normal users, but even less critical things like gaming and watching videos, you notice flesh tones off, with nuclear greens being very distracting.
Second issue is the black level on the display is very poor as well, decreasing usable contrast. You have to pick and choose what you want as your optimal trade off. In a bright room you can crank up the brightness more, but in a dark room it's very noticeable that the blacks are greyish. LCDs in general have this problem however, so this is not unique--almost normal unfortunately.
Good things about this display is the uniformity of lighting, extreme brightness, full working color gamut, and wide viewing angle (for a TN). Difficult colors that many displays have trouble getting like true reds, really pop out with intensity instead of trailing off as a bit desaturated and a little orange. It's very impressive in person; possibly equal or better than the 'wide gamut' Dell Ultrasharp 24" I use at the desk. 1900x1080 is a little squinty on a 16" screen, but it allows for much more working space in Photoshop.
I suppose until OLED makes its debut as a cost effective alternative, this is probably the best we can get on a laptop. Reply
Kibbles - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI think after reading the article I moved my vote slightly towards the "better, pricier" votes. However, today after really thinking about it, if I were to really purchase a laptop right now, I would probably opt for a bare minimum for the display.
For people who want a desktop replacement, a higher quality monitor might be needed, but for me the laptop is just a secondary. Reply
ET - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI like the Sony P series, but I could make do with a 1280x600 (or so) 8" screen at that form factor, if it made the price significantly cheaper. As for screen quality, the important thing for me is decent sunlight visibility. Technology, I don't care at all. If it has the features I want, why should I care? Why would anyone care? Reply
cvt - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkConsidering myself, and everyone I work with only select dell latitude notebooks for the high density screens, has almost left me wondering why so many people are happy with screens that are so.... sub-par.
I am quite surprised by the numbers here, and now really have to question why so many manufacturers don't even offer a decent resolution on their notebooks.
Personally. 15.4" was the biggest I ever wanted, I am considering breaking that to reach out to this 16" screen, only due to colour gamut, and the amount I work with photo's. 17"+ notebooks, and terribly low resolution notebooks have never made any sense to me, and its a relief I am not alone in these thoughts..
Fact of the matter is I would pay in excess of US$300 extra if it meant a high density (1920x1200 or more) screen with a large colour gamut, non glossy surface, and of moderate size (15.4")
On that, I don't know anyone that actually likes glossy surfaces, its nothing more than a shiny thing for shop floors that cause eye strain.
If only the manufacturers would listen to the customers hey. Reply
visibilityunlimited - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkMy Dell Inspiron 6000 has 1920x1200 with 15.4" screen. I dual boot with WindowsXP and XWindows. I agree with many comments that WindowsXP is difficult to use because the individual dots are hard to see. Using XWindows on this display is exceptional and does not have any problems working at very high resolution. The display and programs scale about everything and things are never too tiny under XWindows. If you really want to see dots like WindowsXP then they can easily be built by adding many microscopic dots.
So I want the very highest resolution possible. I would be very happy with a 14" diagonal screen with 4000x3000 pixels or even 12,800x8,000 pixels. Why stop there? The best screen is a screen where you cannot see the individual pixels.
If you must use a display showing dots then why not simply make the dots (squares) out of 4 or 9 or 16 or even 25 pixels?
I also have a 4.3" display with 800x480 resolution. The same size pixels would sure look good on a notebook with a 15" screen using XWindows. The factories can make those pixels now.
I have never seen anything except TN so wouldn't know any better.
ilkhan - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkresolution really depends on the size. I voted 1280x800 (enough for 720p), but thats for a 12-13" screen size. If you are talking about a 15", Id say 1920x1200.
But I will probably never buy a 15-16", I'll either get a T&L and run 12-13"/1280x800, or a real desktop replacement 17"/1920x1200.
Panel tech for either one shouldn't be the top priority of the machine, but it does make a difference. TN is crap (especially for tablets), but for a budget machine its appropriate. Laptops are replaced more often than desktop LCDs, and the price of the panel needs to reflect that (given that the screens are also smaller and cheaper for that reason). Reply
mschira - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIt sounds to that the technique they used to get the high gamut is using 3 colored LEDs as a light source, and I don't think that can do the trick of expanding the color space without cheating.
What do I mean?
I think what they are probably doing is changing the brightness of the LEDs to increase the distance between their brightest and darkest red it can produce.
However this would affect an area of the screen rather than a single pixel.
Also I think as other people have mentioned before - it's not only about the maximal distance between brightest and darkest, but also how many steps there are, and if it would be still only 8bit the steps would get bigger, which is not only good...
Finally, I absolutely agree there should be a market for people who care about color accuracy and gamut in a notebook. (me for one...)
However, i don't think the industry is listening to that...
AmdInside - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI am not sure how much the chart with the color gamut is representative of image quality. The Dell 2408WFP has the highest color gamut in the chart but if you talk to wedding photographers, that is one of the hardest LCD monitors to calibrate. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI'm not sure why that would be the case. I tested it and calibration was extremely simple... no different from any other LCD I've tested. I used the "Normal" color setting I think. Then I set 50 Brightness, 50 Contrast, and 80-80-80 RGB. It achieved excellent color accuracy before and after calibration with those settings - the lowest dE score ever prior to hardware calibration in fact. Reply
michaelklachko - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkWhat LCD panel technology would you most like to see in a laptop?
I would like to see a laptop with an electrophoretic display, something like an advanced version of Kindle panel - with color, touch-sensitive, and 100 times faster. I'm willing to pay extra 3-4 hundred bucks for such a laptop. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI like it. Reply
motopen1s - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI find 1280x800 for 15,4" (98 DPI) and 1440x900 for 17" (99.9 DPI)laptops to be the best. I am 22 and have perfect sight, but working on lets say 16" laptop with full hd resolution within second makes me feel as if I look at an old CRT screen - my eyes begin to hurt. I find even 1680x1050 already too small for 17" (116,5 DPI).
I deal a lot with pc's and I am yet to meet anybody with age 35+ who would tolerate high resolution (for some even 1280x800 on 15.4" is not comfortable to work on). I can only see young people buying ~100+ DPI screens, which I dont think is very wise anycase. I believe that Acer for example has such large market share to a great extend because they cover a much higher segment using optimal resolution screens on most of their laptops.
I do like quality, but I would choose a standart 1280x800 panel in 15.4" laptop over super high quality 1680x1050 LCD with LED backlighting any day.
Those of you who claim that one just need to zoom while working are probably using iphone for too long for internet. I use my laptop for work while traveling (as well as media center connecting it to audio reciever using hdmi output) and I want it to be absolutely relieble and easy on the eyes.
p.s. and hey, setting custom DPI in Windows just sucks - a lot of things do not scale properly especially when browsing the net Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, February 27, 2009 - link800 just isn't enough vertical pixels.
It's interesting that webpages are setup to be 1024 wide and very long, yet widescreen goes in the opposite ratio, and laptops' primary use is for webpages! Reply
norlas - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkBeing a professional photographer I've used a Dell XPS 1730 since it became available a year and a half ago. Before that I used a Fujitsu/Siemens 17" laptop for a few years in parallell with a desktop setup with an expensive Eizo pro LCD (have forgotten the name)
I'm working with color profiles in all my work and my experience is that the end result is more dependent on factors other than the display's color gamut. When using a properly calibrated (using Eye-One) LCD-display in a daylight environment the printed end result end up to be very like what you see on the screen.
However, when doing serious work on an LCD display (desktop or laptop) in any non-daylight ambience, the quality of the output is always questionable.
My criteria for a good LCD display thus becomes;
- high enough resolution to create the impression of a continous picture when sitting in a normal working position. For a 17" 16:10 monitor this seems to correspond to 1920x1200 for me.
- ability to adjust contrast and light within a wide range.
- ability for the whole setup to retain the settings resulting from a display calibration. Auto-contrast and -light is banned...
- it should be pleasant to work with, ie. factors like the displays reflexivity and ability to display believable black comes into play. Reply
tygrus - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI think TN LCDs can be reduced for laptop. Slower tha desktop, less power to drive than others (*VA, S-IPS).
Laptop screens actually use the off-angle low contrast of TN as a security feature and is less pronounced on a smaller screen.
In the past, laptops (notebooks) were used for business work on the go ie. mostly typing in WP, SS, DB, programmming.
Now, more home user want a large screen notebook to replace bulky desktop. Used for multimedia and sharing. Notebooks become very price sensative and so there are still compromises. How many today would spend $3000 for desktop & $6000 for laptop as the top models were in early 90's. Reply
sooverexposed - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI just cannot and probably will never understand why anyone wants to spend his or her money on a laptop that big and heavy as 15inch - ones currently are.
laptops are supposed to be carried along on. for anything else you are better of with a pc and a decent monitor.
look over to the asian ppl. sony, ibm and the likes offer special 13" sized versions of their machines, which are just not available in europe. that just makes sense.
bigger is not always better.
strikeback03 - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI have no need to always carry a laptop with me, instead I use it to take on trips and such, and otherwise as a low-power always-on system at home. So the extra couple pounds are well worth the more usable screen. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkDude, get a $150 22" screen. Even a monster 17" laptop screen sucks compared to a monitor. Reply
mechafreq - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkSome of use require a mobile workstation to be used at set-up location that moves from time to time. Bringing along an extra monitor along with all the other equipment makes it a job that a single person can no longer handle.
A larger laptop works just fine for streamlining that process with acceptable compromises, even if we have to pay a premium for a higher quality screen.
It's not like most photographic post-processing can be handled on-the-go; say on an airline fold down tray, or like situations anyhow (especially without a power outlet). So people like me don't really care about getting a slightly smaller and lighter notebook that has the extra mobility use we never take advantage of. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkA lot of people don't want a desktop anymore, but they don't necessarily move their laptops around much. Plus there's the whole issue of keyboard size, LCD size and resolution, etc. A reasonable DPI would have a maximum resolution of 1280x800 at 14", 1440x900 at 15.4", or 1680x1050 at 17" - assuming you don't have great eyesight. Since there are plenty of people that would like a higher resolution display, that means 17" and larger laptops become viable. Plus, if you do need to take your computer somewhere you can always grab your laptop.
As an example, I have two brothers and a father that all run - and are very happy with - 17" laptops. My dad tried a 17" and a 15.4" (and had a 14") and very much prefers the large 17" model. The number keypad clinched the deal. Reply
mrSHEiK124 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI'm not entirely sure but I could've sworn my Inspiron 9300 had either a Samsung PVA panel or an LG IPS panel. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIt's really easy to test: tilt the display back and see if the contrast goes dark when you look at it from below. TN panels always do that at around a 30-40 degree angle (or less), but PVA and IPS can usually go to around 70 degrees without huge problems. Reply
aguilpa1 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkQuite frankly 1920x1200 resolution is best suited for a 17" laptop or higher. On anything lower you better have darn good eye sight. I happen to have darn good eye sight with no glasses but it still tires my eyes out quicker than a honking big screen at the same resolution. I have a 43" Westinghouse at 1920x1080 for my main workstation. Almost identical resolutions but much easier on the eyes.
I would have rather had an LED screen based LCD like the one on the new studio and actually looked at them and was about to buy one but the crappy video card options on those models were a deal breaker for me.
The studio line will make a nice photoshop editing machine but graphics wise don't expect much else out of it. Reply
minimal - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI agree. For my desktop I use a 37" Westinghouse at 1920x1080. It's a joy to work on at 2.5ft to 3ft away. Those at work with 30" screens running at 2560x1600 would much rather have my set up then using that microscopic resolution once they experience it. Regardless of how good your eye sight it's still much easier on the eyes. For me anything lower than a 0.29 dot pitch is too small. The only LCD's that can accommodate this is the old 19" 4:3 screens and the current 27" monitors, that's it. While I found that anything over 37" is too big for desktop use, I would still much rather have a 42" 1080p then a 30" 2650x1600. The desktop space is nice but they are terrible to work on comfortably. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI agree to a certain extent, as someone that has used a 30" LCD for the past couple of years. However, I can't give up the resolution. I'd really like a 42" 2560x1600 display now. LOL! Reply
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI want those 9 megapixel displays to go up in size and down in price. $8000 is too much for a monitor. Reply
mechafreq - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkReadability is not the problem of the monitor's high physical DPI, but the UI not scaling properly to make it usable.
Case in point, my SLR's small display has a very high DPI, but things are very readable since the UI was designed around it. Even more, the preview displays are whole different level in terms of smoothness, accuracy, and concentration in the display of information as needed. I would never want to trade it in for a lower DPI screen to make it more readable for some archaic UI limitations (if it existed). Reply
sbuckler - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIn contrast to everyone else who seems to be getting netbooks I got an acer 8920G (Full HD, 18.4 inch screen).
Awesome is the only word for it. Looks amazing for blue ray, and really nice for day to day work - high res means lots of space for your windows, and colours/contrast make it very pleasant to look at. Reply
heulenwolf - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI voted in the poll but I didn't see the options I was looking for. Size and resolution interact to determine comfortable viewing distance. I've spent significant time using 3 different laptop screen size and resolution combinations:
1) 15.4" (1920x1200) work
2) 14.1" (1280x800) work
3) 15.4" (1280x800) entertainment laptop at home
Unless you want to look like the highly evolved guy at the end of this pic - http://www.cyberiapc.com/gallery/pic_details.php?p...">http://www.cyberiapc.com/gallery/pic_details.php?p... - having a super high resolution relative to screen size (dot pitch of 0.0068") as in laptop #1 is frustrating. Windows' settings allow you to turn up font size but not all software pays attention to those settings (Mozilla and Apple, please pay attention). So, I ended up constantly futzing with font size settings (Firefox) or crouching over the screen trying to read text in programs with limited or no font size options (sorry iTunes, your "Large" setting just isn't enough). I had to keep my eyes no more than 19" from the screen to comfortably read text.
On the other end of the spectrum is laptop #3 where the resolution is low relative to screen size (dot pitch of 0.0102"). Small text that would otherwise be legible looks blocky. There isn't enough vertical resolution to read a document. Its fine for playing DVDs and web video content but isn't great for web surfing or document editing (too much scrolling). Comfortable reading distance extends out to 29", farther than I want to be from the keyboard.
Laptop #2 strikes the right balance for a comfortable reading distance that aligns well with how far I want to be from the keyboard of about 68cm (dot pitch of 0.237 mm). Sure, the vertical scrolling is still necessary for document editing and web surfing. Since I drag the thing home and back every day, though, the lighter weight makes up for some amount of scrolling.
I really don't know much about the different panel technologies and, having never seen them in action on a laptop, I don't know whether they make a tangible difference to my eyes. More important to me is dot pitch and its linear realationship with comfortable viewing distance. Vertical resolutions below 800 pixles become so frustrating as to be useless to me and, to be honest, I'd really prefer more. To keep dot pitch in a comfortable range for me, that means the minimum screen size is 14.1" (sorry Macbooks and Netbooks) for 16:10 aspect ratio screens. My ideal would be a 15.4", 16:10, 1440x900. I ended up setting Laptop #1 to that resolution and just living with the minor issues caused by non-native panel resolution. An alternative would be 16", 16x9, 1536x864, with the full keyboard number pad. Since we're talking ideals, I'd also like weight around 4.5 lbs. Those large sizes with that low weight are magic by today's standards, I know, but ideals aren't necessarily meant to be acheivable. Hopefully, battery technology will improve to that point where those specs are possible along with all day away from a plug.
BikeDude - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkSo you disqualify a higher resolution display because you insist on running obsolete browser software that doesn't work properly with a high resolution display? IE7 works just fine. Why do you want to stop progress? Reply
heulenwolf - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkAt the time, I was using IE6 on XP, which didn't have the shortcuts for fine-grained control that Firefox did. I felt I was forwarding progress by using Firefox.
I agree with the other replier that IE7, though a significant improvement of IE6, remains a security hole. As a result, I use it only when a site doesn't render properly in an alternative browser.
Thanks to those whom responded about the shortcuts for adjusting font size in Firefox. I knew about them and used them until my ctrl-key wore out on laptop #1. When I opened up 15 tabs to review the news for the day, however, and had to adjust the font size for every tab when I got to it, it was still a pain. I'm glad to see they've begun addressing this issue in Firefox 3.x.
Firefox was only example of an app that didn't adapt to my font size needs. Frankly, dot pitch was an issue nearly all the time with laptop #1. The only time it came in useful was in viewing local photos. Since I'm not a photographer, futzing with each individual app's method for controlling font size got in the way of using the computer. Its that simple. Reply
crimson117 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIE7 inherits windows font scaling but does not scale pictures or divs, throwing off web page formatting.
Firefox scales the whole page, images and all, but it doesn't inherit windows' font scaling.
I much prefer Firefox's implementation. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkOn a related note, Safari scales everything quite nicely in a quick test (although rendering of certain elements seems off, i.e. in this article the "0%" on a few graphs overlaps the bar below it - regardless of zoom). Safari also doesn't support the CTRL+0 shortcut to reset zoom to 100%.
Chrome has terrible scaling, handling only text and leaving everything else alone, which messes up page layouts on the vast majority of sites. (It would have worked great back when HTML 1.0 was the standard, though!)
Internet Explorer 7 appears to scale everything now, but on the several sites I tested (AnandTech, Facebook, even Google) you *always* get a horizontal scroll bar if you aren't at 100% magnification. That's seriously annoying, as anything that's supposed to be centered ends up being pushed to the right.
Conclusion: Firefox wins again. Throw in Adblock Plus with the Easylist subscription, and it also loads most web sites 2-4 times as fast as the competition! (I posted a comment about that at DailyTech in their http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14397">Safari 4 article.) Reply
crimson117 - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI guess I hadn't used IE7 in a while :) Scaling's better than it used to be, but iffy.
cnn.com scales decently, but the google homepage does that horizontal scroll thing you mentioned. Reply
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI logged in just to respond to the IE comment, but Jarred beat me to it.
You could also suggest not using Windows, stuff seems to scale nicely in Linux the few times I have tried. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkBecause IE is the single biggest source of security breaches out there? Not to mention the MUCH better list of extensions/add-ons in Firefox.
Anyway, for the original poster, you might consider using the CTRL+Mousewheel shortcut to scale the magnification within Firefox, IE, etc. if you haven't tried that. Firefox in particular does very well, usually scaling images, flash, etc. along with the text. Images do look a little blurry, but I'm quite happy with the result. And in case you didn't know: CTRL+0 resets the magnification to 100% Reply
timmiser - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - link"you might consider using the CTRL+Mousewheel shortcut to scale the magnification within Firefox, IE, etc."
It is funny that you would suggest that technique on this forum website where it does not work.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIt works perfectly for me. I'm running Firefox version 3.0.6 on Windows Vista 32-bit. IE 7 works as well, and so does Safari 4. Chrome scales the text but not images/flash. Reply
Mclendo06 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkMy opinion on a laptop is that it should be a portable alternative to my desktop. I've lived with a laptop as my only computer and it was certainly not optimal. My priorities in a laptop are as follows -
1 - Portability - This includes battery life, size, weight, and build quality
2 - Usability - I'm looking to strike a happy balance between having something I can fit in my pocket and something I can type on and have multiple windows opened on
3 - Performance - I'm doing word processing, web browsing, code writing, email, and remoting into my workstation to run FEA codes. If I'm gaming, I'll be sitting at my desktop at home.
With the above said, I've been really excited about the Atom. it would give about the same performance as my ~4 year old dying Pentium M which, until it started refusing to turn on, was plenty fast for what I wanted. My issue with nettops, however, has been the display resolutions. I just want more workspace. The fact that the LCDs on most nettops are surrounded by a thick bezel just bugs me. I was interested in the Sony P series, but it's too expensive and doesn't have a trackpad. Some of the dell products are interesting. I'd just like to see more companies offer a nettop that has a 10" to 12" screen with higher resolution than 1024x600. 1440x900 would be about the sweetspot for me. Granted that Dell seems to be pushing this direction with their minis, when I look on Newegg all I see is 1024x600. I'm not buying a laptop, even a nettop, with that low a resolution. Reply
Roland00 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkBut I would love to see an E-IPS panel that LG is making and dell is using on some of their monitors. Supposedly it is similar in picture quality to the other IPS types of panels but it is much much cheaper, about the same league as a TN panel. Reply
Spinne - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI don't need a powerful laptop necessarily since I already have a very powerful desktop. What I'd like is a laptop with excellent color reproduction that I can use in the field to check images with when I'm not going to be able to access my desktop for an extended period of time. Reply
drfelip - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkYou have to take into account professional laptops in the comparison: Sony AW RGBLED screens already got 137% color gamut months ago:
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkThey're comparing to the NTSC color space, which is I believe around 82% of Adobe RGB 1998. So, the 112% of this LCD divided by 82% yields the same 137% of the Sony - and I'm sure it uses the exact same panel as this Dell. Reply
tpurves - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkWouldn't apple displays be the obvious ones to be comparing with here?
Just about anyone significantly/professionally concerned about color accuracy is going to using an apple display or considering one right?
CK804 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkAnyone concerned about color accuracy would be looking at professional displays with IPS panels from companies such as NEC, Lacie, and Eizo. Additionally, anyone concerned about color accuracy wouldn't be using laptop screens if they had a choice.
strikeback03 - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkPlenty of sports and reportage photographers have to process and upload their images almost immediately after they are taken, no time to go back to the office/home to edit. So yes, there is a market for high quality laptop screens. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkYou would think so... but then wouldn't there be a market for professional laptop LCDs as well? I think there is; I for one would appreciate an IPS laptop display with accurate colors! Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkHaven't managed to get a MacBook for testing from Anand, but I've seen them and they seem to rate around the level of the Acer 6920G - better than average but not perfect. Older MacBooks used S-IPS I hear (several years ago), which would have been awesome. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkWell by MacBook, if you mean 13.3" MacBook, then they aren't that good. I'd be specifically interested in the new 17" Unibody MacBook Pro since Apple claimed during the launch that it has a new screen that offers their widest gamut ever in a Mac laptop. I don't believe the 15" MacBook Pro has this claim, so it's only the 17" model. Reply
garydale - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkFirstly, I don't like laptops. The keyboards and pointing devices are cramped and clumsy. And having the keyboard and screen connected means you have either the screen too low or the keyboard too high. They're just no good for doing real work.
Secondly, despite the ongoing hype about them closing the gap with desktops, they are and will likely always be far behind desktops in terms of shear computing power. Moreover, you pay twice what a desktop costs for equivalent performance.
However, they do have their uses. I especially like the netbook idea of a small, long-lived and light weight computer for when you're not near your regular work environment(s).
My ideal laptop needs a wide screen to accommodate a decent size keyboard. Otherwise, I prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio for desktops. It needs lots of pixels, which again implies a decent size screen to be able to see what's on it. It needs to be light weight because I'll have to carry it around. But it also needs to able to run on battery power for hours on end even after years of use.
Do I need great colours on screen? Probably not.
Still, I can't wait to see this LED technology appear on desktop displays. I still use a CRT because LCDs just can't do what my old 21" Dell P1110 can do (1792 x 1344 - actually, it can do more but then the text gets too small, with more colours than any LCD). Sure it's heavy and uses too much electricity, but I don't move it, and nothings perfect.
Frallan - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - link
I would love to see good screens in range 17-20" at full HD res. But without the Oomph in the GFX and drive department it quickly becomes worthless.
Mastakilla - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI'd rather have them make some more Normal Gamut Laptop LCDs then jumping on the stupid (and for 99.99999% of the people also completely useless) Wide Gamut crap Reply
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkSo then what would these new Normal Gamut LCDs add over the crap that is currently available? Reply
Mastakilla - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkthat it is possible to look at a color as it is supposed to look like in the other 99,999% of the applications that dont support colour profiles (wwhich 99% of the people with Wide Gamut monitors don't even have anyway) Reply
strikeback03 - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkJust look at the deltaE plots Jarred provides in the display reviews. Default settings are so spread out that there is no way to guarantee that even half the people will see an image the way you saw it when it was created. At least with an accurate, calibrated display, others who care enough to do the same will see it properly.
You said you want to see new normal gamut designs,but didn't answer what actual new features these would bring to the table. Reply
KikassAssassin - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkIdeally, I'd like to see high-gamut displays become standard and 72% gamut displays phased out. It's just a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario where there aren't many mainstream high-gamut displays because there isn't much demand for them. The demand isn't there because a lot of software isn't written with them in mind, so colors can look off in a lot of applications. And the software isn't written with them in mind because there aren't a lot of mainstream high-gamut displays. And so on and so forth.
Someone's going to have to give in and make the leap first, and the monitor manufacturers are in the best position to do so. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkJust because some people won't see the better colors doesn't mean you shouldn't want them. Not everyone wants to spend more money on a better LCD; conversely, not everyone is happy with the crappy colors most laptop LCDs provide. Applications that benefit from better colors will usually support color profiles (i.e. Photoshop and other image editing apps), and Windows does allow you to specify a standard color profile as well. Sure, Firefox, IE, Word, etc. may run in the sRGB color space instead of Adobe RGB 1998, but you can still see a difference.
If you're happy with inaccurate colors, that's fine, but I've used and tested enough displays to say without doubt that a good colorimeter and calibration will help in more than just 0.001% of applications. It's unfortunate that videos and games bypass the profiles, though. Reply
KikassAssassin - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkIf you want to use your color profile in games, get Monitor Calibration Wizard (http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp)">http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp). It lets you load a color profile, and then force that profile not to change even if another application (like games) tries to use its own color profile (check the "Persistent Profile" box). Reply
KikassAssassin - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkoops, fixed link:
http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp">http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp Reply
Mastakilla - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkeuh... I forgot the word "hype" in the end of my sentence...
(Isnt there an edit button somewhere?) Reply
npp - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkYou seem to be getting it right. A wide color gamut sounds nice, as every other big number (clock rate, megapixel count, etc.), but there are a few things that are worth mentioning when talking about wide gamuts.
First of all, there is color consistency: very few people know what color profiles are and how to handle them, and not many applications support them. So what this means is that a nice, saturated green square I've drawn in Photoshop on my notebook with extended color gamut will show up as something slightly different on most other displays, which is not always preferable. Or think for instance about preparing a presentation on such notebook - there might be quite a few unpleasent surprises when displaying it via a projector. This may create more confusion than happiness in the average user.
Another point is color count - extending the gamut while retaining the same 8 bits (well, sort of, on TN+ displays) per channel means you won't get the same transitions between neighbour colors, which may be visible sometimes and is not considered a nice effect.
At least that's what I've heard.
So aiming at sRGB at first would be a very, very nice idea. Besides, there are much more parameters determining the quality of a LCD display beyond color gamut - white balance, gamma curves, latency, overshoot, etc., etc., which may be much more important for the average user. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkYou're right, and I'll hold off the reporting on delta E and other aspects of the laptop until I have the final shipping version. Suffice it to say that initial testing shows the dE to be right there with the other laptops - i.e. okay, but still with some spikes on some colors and an overall quality that can't touch the best desktop LCDs. Too bad, as otherwise this would be my dream laptop display. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkOops... forgot to mention that while wide color gamuts aren't in and of themselves the best thing ever, the colors and images definitely look better on the Studio XPS 16 than other laptops. That's one thing I absolutely LOVED about the old ASUS G2P, which I used as my work laptop for over two years. Photoshopping at 1440x900 wasn't as nice as 1920x1200, but the colors were noticeably better to my eye even if the delta E was about the same. Setting it next to any other LCD (prior to the XPS 16) you could immediately see the difference. Reply
valv - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI think that most laptop users are like me. We use the laptop mainly for office work, or browsing the internet and in these uses, it doesnt matter what the colors are. (As long as there are colours)
An in these uses I prefer 5:4 display, because it gives you more vertical space (better for text and documents than 16:9 or 16:10). For movies, 16:9 is naturally better, but i like to watch my movies from a bigger screen.. Way bigger. Reply
djc208 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI have to agree, my little 14" laptop has a 16:9 screen and a lot of times you can barely get a youtube video to fit the window properly. You're always scroling up or down. For video content on the go it's fine (assuming the video content is 16:9, but otherwise I prefer my regular 19" CRT for text and web pages. Reply
strikeback03 - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkI don't think YouTube videos are even 400 pixels tall. Reply
murphyslabrat - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkActually, for reading, I prefer the wider screens. I find vertical scrolling much less annoying than having to scroll horizontally. I do do a lot of reading on my laptop, and I find that, most often, I am fitting documents to the width, rather than the height. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIt's good to see I'm not alone in my thinking. So far, the tally is going overwhelmingly in favor of moderately sized laptop LCDs of a high quality, with a higher resolution than we typically see. Every time I get another 15.4" laptop with a 1280x800 LCD, I'm disappointed. I'd love to see more 1920x1200 options that aren't in 17" (or larger) notebooks. That was one of the best parts with the Alienware m15x - the other highlight being the ability to turn off the discrete GPU to conserve battery life.
Okay, continue on... I'm off to bed! Reply
minimal - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI was considering the Dell Studio 16 until I realized you can only get the the LED screen in 1080p. My eye sight is perfect yet this is insanely small. It's an unfortunate trend that makes laptops that much more annoying to use.... just more hunched back computing on a small keyboard, even more microscopic text at awkward angles. 1280x800 is perfect on my current 15.4" laptop. I find anything over 1440 is excessive. Now the only other option on the Studio 16" is 1366x768 (not LED). So now they took away all that horizontal space to accommodate movie watching when all I need is to get work done. It's unfortunate that "entertainment" is driving laptop design when a lot of us would prefer 4:3 to get work done. I still remember my old ancient 15" Dell with a 1400x1050 resolution, I really miss that screen. Reply
Hrel - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - linkyou do realize that 1366x768 provides more horizontal real estate than 1280x800. It's just slightly less vertical room, which is made up for by going from a 15" screen to a 16" screen. It would be nice if the lower res screen was RGB LED but at least it's LED so we get the battery life bennefits. I'm still waiting for a laptop that I can charge up, go out and use all day, and not have to charge up again till I go to bed. 12 hour minumum without batter degredation would be good, cause then I'd just need two batteries to make sure I could get through the whole day, or maybe just switch to an over-sized battery. I can dream, and in 5 years or so it will probably be true... Reply
JarredWalton - Sunday, March 01, 2009 - linkJust FYI, my testing to date has shown virtually no battery life advantages to having a lower resolution with the same screen size. It's tough to say for certain, but overall I think LCD size is the main item and the resolution is a negligible factor. LED backlighting with a higher res would certainly use less power than lower res CCFL. Reply
plewis00 - Friday, February 27, 2009 - linkThe 1366 x 768 panel IS a LED-backlit, just not 'RGBLED'.
Back to the article, but I think the reason we don't see anything other than TN screens is down to the considerably higher power consumption of the other technologies and that's a trade-off few people will want to make. Reply
BikeDude - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkHigh resolution is great for pictures.
MS have already done quite a bit in Vista to help high resolution display users, and there is more to come. Just zoom... Reply
oymd - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkNice read...
Is there any possibility of rating the Macbook Pro's screen as well? The 2008- ones, with LED backlights?
They r 15.4, 1440x900, and quiet a joy to work with. I wonder where would they be on your list of laptop LCDs?
Thanks Reply
oymd - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkOh...I meant the aluminum ones, not the new black framed ones...guess they are the 2007- models Reply
Jorgisven - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI'd agree, but the only time I even appreciate the extra pixels is in gaming. 1440x900 seems fine to me for normal web browsing and documents, but for gaming, the issue is that the graphic technology for laptops lags behind that of desktops. Trying to crank out 1920 res on an integrated chip usually results in abysmal performance, and gaming performance is more important to me. I realize laptops are not necessarily the best candidates for gaming though...
Also, when cranking that much power to an LCD and optical drive, watching a Blu-Ray is sometimes out of the question on any battery older than a year or two. This isn't an issue yet, because laptop blu-ray hasn't been out long enough. Hopefully, this issue will get addressed by OEM's in the near future. Apple already has their 8-hour battery rolling out with a high-res screen, but neglects to offer a Blu-Ray player. Reply
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkHonestly, I'm not sure how people deal with such ridiculously high pixel pitches on laptop monitors. I have perfect vision and anything below .2mm (such as a 1920x1200 panel in a 15" laptop) is an absolute bear to work with unless my nose is up to the panel. Even adjusting DPI doesn't go far enough in Vista (although it's better in OS X).
I'd just as much rather see reasonable resolutions on high quality LCDs on laptops, rather than this insane push for 1080+ resolutions and the resulting subpar panels on screens little more than a foot big. The XPS 16 does seem to be an outlier in this respect, though. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI think part of it has to do with the intended use. I have a 30" LCD, and I find the default text size too small at 2560x1600. I routinely bump up the "magnification" in Firefox and Word. However, a 1920x1200 15.4" LCD is no worse and probably a bit better in terms of comfort. That's largely because I sit 2-3 feet from my 30" LCD and only half that with a laptop. I totally agree that MS needs to make the DPI setting more useful, but sadly that has a lot to do with all the applications that do things their own way.
FWIW, I don't think most of the higher DPI panels are subpar; usually it's the opposite, with slightly higher than average results. Really, I don't think *all* laptops need an awesome LCD, but it would be great to have more choice in the matter. Dell offers the RGB LED backlighting as a $50 upsell, and I think it's well worth the money. Reply
crimson117 - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkLooks like a http://lt.dell.com/lt/lt.aspx?CID=27399&LID=62...">$250 upsell...
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkI was told $50 at CES, but then that was supposed to be going from a standard 1080P to the high color gamut 1080P. Now they've dropped the other 1080P it seems, so the $250 is for resolution as well as color. Oh well. Reply
GaryJohnson - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkSpeaking of MS's DPI settings:
[Rant]What the heck happened to the totally scalable vector-based GUI that was talked about pre-Vista? I've heard no mention of it in 7 either.[/Rant] Reply
Spivonious - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkIt's called WPF. We're starting to see more apps use it, but it won't get widespread adoption until we can get rid of all of those pre-XP machines, as it requires .NET 3.0 or higher. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkLOL... and I thought I was the only one who noticed. ;-)
I remember seeing a demonstration of a few applications, like Minesweeper and Calculator, and at least Minesweeper uses some method of scaling the app nicely. Unfortunately, none of the major applications work right.
On a related note, MS Word also seems to have some real issues scrolling properly when you use the internal magnification and a web page layout (which is what I always use when writing articles). It's a bug that has been present since at least Word XP. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 26, 2009 - linkUpdate: I added another question to the poll (panel technology). Sorry if you already voted, but I want to see answers to that question without resetting the other questions. Reply


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text: NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- If you are paying alimony you may be able to claim an "above-the-line" deduction on your 2012 Form 1040. To be deductible alimony payments must be in cash (or check) and required as a condition of the divorce agreement. You and your "ex" must not live together in the same household, and payments must end upon the death of the "ex." The deduction for alimony is not limited to support payments. You can also claim as alimony any payments required under the terms of the divorce agreement that you make to a third party on behalf of your former spouse. This includes payments for medical expenses, housing costs, taxes, tuition and life insurance premiums (if the former spouse owns the policy). The payments are treated as being received by your former spouse and then paid to the third party. For example, if the divorce agreement says you must pay all the mortgage payments (principal and interest) on a home you own jointly with your "ex," you can deduct half of these payments as alimony. If you are required to pay all real estate taxes and/or insurance on a home held as "tenants in common," you can claim half as alimony. (If the home is held as "tenants by the entirety" or "joint tenants," none of the payments are deductible as alimony.) The above rules also apply to separate maintenance payments made under a separation agreement. Child support is not deductible.


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text:
ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT: Calling a Spade a Spadeby Derek Wilson on 5/14/2007 12:04 PM EST
- Posted in
- GPUs
86 Comments
Back to Article
wjmbsd - Monday, July 02, 2007 - linkWhat is the latest on the so-called Dragonhead 2 project (aka, HD 2900 XTX)? I heard it was just for OEMs at first...anyone know if the project is still going and how the part is benchmarking with newest drivers? Reply
teainthesahara - Monday, May 21, 2007 - linkAfter this failure of the R600 and likely overrated(and probably late) Barcelona/Agena processors I think that Intel will finally bury AMD. Paul Ottelini is rubbing his hands with glee at the moment and rightfully so. AMD now stands for mediocrity.Oh dear what a fall from grace.... To be honest Nvidia don't have any real competition on the DX10 front at any price points.I cannot see AMD processors besting Intel's Core 2 Quad lineup in the future especially when 45nm and 32 nm become the norm and they don't have a chance in hell of beating Nvidia. Intel and Nvidia are turning the screws on Hector Ruiz.Shame AMD brought down such a great company like ATI. Reply
DerekWilson - Thursday, May 24, 2007 - linkTo be fair, we really don't have any clue how these cards compete on the DX10 front as there are no final, real DX10 games on the market to test.
We will try really hard to get a good idea of what DX10 will look like on the HD 2000 series and the GeForce 8 Series using game demos, pre-release code, and SDK samples. It won't be a real reflection of what users will experience, but we will certainly hope to get a glimpse at performance.
It is fair to say that NVIDIA bests AMD in current game performance. But really there are so many possibilities with DX10 that we can't call it yet. Reply
spinportal - Friday, May 18, 2007 - linkFrom the last posting of results for the GTS 320MB round-up
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2953...">Prey @ AnandTech - 8800GTS320
we see that the 2900XT review chart pushes the nVidia cards down about 15% across the board.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988...">Prey @ AnandTech - ATI2900XT
The only difference in systems is software drivers as the cpu / mobo / mem are the same.
Does this mean ATI should be getting a BIGGER THRASHING BEAT-DOWN than the reviewer is stating?
400$ ATI 2900XT performing as good as a 300$ nVidia 8800 GTS 320MB?
Its 100$ short and 6 months late along with 100W of extra fuel.
This is not your uncle's 9700 Pro... Reply
DerekWilson - Sunday, May 20, 2007 - linkWe switched Prey demos -- I updated our benchmark.
Both numbers are accurate for the tests I ran at the time.
Our current timedemo is more stressful and thus we see lower scores with this test. Reply
Yawgm0th - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - linkThe prices listed in this article are way off.
Currently, 8800GTS 640MB retails for $350-380, $400+ for OC or special versions. 2900XT retails for $430+. In the article, both are listed as $400, and as such the card is given a decent review in the conclusion.
Realistically, this card provides slightly inferior performance to the 8800GTS 640MB at a considerably higher price point -- $80-$100 more than the 8800GTS. I mean, it's not like the 8800Ultra, but for the most part this card has little use outside of AMD and/or ATI fanboys. I'd love for this card to do better as AMD needs to be competing with Nvidia and Intel right now, but I just can't see how this is even worth looking at, given current prices. Reply
DerekWilson - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - linkreally, this article focuses on architechture more than product, and we went with MSRP prices...
we will absolutly look closer at price and price/performance when we review retail products. Reply
quanta - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkAs I recalled, the Radeon HD 2900 only has DVI ports, but nowhere in DVI documentation specifies it can carry audio signals. Unless the card comes with adapter that accepts audio input, it seems the audio portion of R600 is rendered useless. Reply
DerekWilson - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - linkthe card does come with an adapter of sorts, but the audio input is from the dvi port.
you can't use a standard DVI to HDMI converter for this task.
when using AMD's HDMI converter the data sent out over the DVI port does not follow the DVI specification.
the bottom line is that the DVI port is just a physical connector carrying data. i could take a DVI port and solder it to a stereo and use it to carry 5.1 audio if I wanted to ... wouldn't be very useful, but I could do it :-)
While connected to a DVI device, the card operates the port according to the DVI specification. When connected to an HDMI device through the special converter (which is not technically "dvi to hdmi" -- it's amd proprietry to hdmi), the card sends out data that follows the HDMI spec.
you can look at it another way -- when the HDMI converter is connected, just think of the dvi port as an internal connector between an I/O port and the TMDS + audio device. Reply
ShaunO - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkI was at an AMD movie night last night where they discussed the technical details of the HD 2900 XT and also showed the Ruby Whiteout DX10 Demo rendered using the card. It looked amazing and I had high hopes until I checked out the benchmark scores. They're going to need more than free food and popcorn to convince me to buy an obsolete card.
However there is room for improvement of course. Driver updates, DX10 and whatnot. The main thing for me personally will be driver updates, I will be interested to see how well the card improves over time while I save my pennies for my next new machine.
Everyone keeps saying "DX10 performance will be better, yadda yadda" but I also want to be able to play the games I have now and older games without having to rely on DX10 games to give me better performance. Nothing like totally underperforming in DX9 games and then only being equal or slightly better in DX10 games compared to the competition. I would rather have a decent performer all-round. Even saying that we don't even know for sure if DX10 games are even going to bring any performance increases of the competition, it's all speculation right now and that's all we can do, speculate.
Shaun. Reply
Roy2001 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkThe reason is, you have to pay extra $ for a power supply. No, most probably your old PSU won't have enough milk for this baby. I will stick with nVidia in future. My 2 cents. Reply
Chaser - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
While AMD will tell us that R600 is not late and hasn't been delayed, this is simply because they never actually set a public date from which to be delayed. We all know that AMD would rather have seen their hardware hit the streets at or around the time Vista launched, or better yet, alongside G80.
First, they refuse to call a spade a spade: this part was absolutely delayed, and it works better to admit this rather than making excuses.
Such a revealing tech article. Thanks for other sources Tom.
archcommus - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link$300 is the exact price point I shoot for when buying a video card, so that pretty much eliminates AMD right off the bat for me right now. I want to spend more than $200 but $400 is too much. I'm sure they'll fill this void eventually, and how that card will stack up against an 8800 GTS 320 MB is what I'm interested in. Reply
H4n53n - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkInteresting enough in some other websites it wins from 8800 gtx in most games,especially the newer ones and comparing the price i would say it's a good deal?I think it's just driver problems,ati has been known for not having a very good driver compared to nvidia but when they fixed it then it'll win Reply
dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - linklol...fail. In retrospect it's really easy to pick out the EPIC ATI fanboys now. Reply
DLeRium - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkI skimmed this article because I have a final. ATI can't hold a candle to NV at the moment it seems. Now while the 2900XT might have good value, I am correct in saying that ATI has lost the performance crown by a buttload (not even like X1800 vs 7800) but like they're totally slaughtered right?
Now I won't go and comment about how the 2900 stacks up against competition in the same price range, but it seems that GTSes can be acquired for cheap.
Did ATI flop big here? Reply
vailr - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkI'd rather use a mid-range older card that "only" uses ~100 Watts (or less) than pay ~$400 for a card that requires 300 Watts to run. Doesn't AMD care about "Global Warming"?
Al Gore would be amazed, alarmed, and astounded !! Reply
Deusfaux - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkNo they dont and that's why the 2600 and 2400 don't exist
ochentay4 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkLet me start with this: i always had a nvidia card. ALWAYS.
Faster is NOT ALWAYS better. For the most part this is true, for me, it was. One year ago I boght a MSI7600GT. Seemed the best bang for the buck. Since I bought it, I had problems with TVout detection, TVout wrong aspect ratios, broken LCD scaling, lot of game problems, inexistent support (nv forum is a joke) and UNIFIED DRIVER ARQUITECTURE. What a terrible lie! The latest official drivers is 6 months ago!!!
Im really demanding, but i payed enough to demand a 100% working product. Now ATi latest offering has: AVIVO, FULL VIDEO ACC, MONTHLY DRIVER UPDATES, ALL BUGS I NOTICED WITH NVIDIA CARD FIXED, HDMI AND PRICE. I prefer that than a simple product, specially for the money they cost!
I will never buy a nvidia card again. I'm definitely looking forward ATis offering (after the joke that is/was 8600GT/GTS).
Enough rant.
Am I wrong? Reply
Roy2001 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkYeah, you are wrong. Spend $400 on a 2900XT and then $150 on a PSU. Reply
yyrkoon - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkSee, the problem here is: guys like you are so bent on saving that little bit of money, by buying a lesser brand name, that you do not even take the time to research your hardware. USe newegg , and read the user reviews, and if that is not enough for you, go to the countless other resources all over the internet. Reply
yyrkoon - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkBlame the crappy OEM you bought the card from, not nVIdia. Get an EVGA card, and embrace a completely different aspect on video card life.
MSI may make some decent motherboards, but their other components have serious issues. Reply
LoneWolf15 - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - linkUm, since 95% of nvidia-GPU cards on the market are the reference design, I'd say your argument here is shaky at best. EVGA and MSI both use the reference design, and it's even possible that cards with the same GPU came off the same production line at the same plant. Reply
DerekWilson - Thursday, May 17, 2007 - linkit is true that the majority of parts are based on reference designs, but that doesn't mean they all come from the same place. I'm sure some of them do, but to say that all of these guys just buy completed boards and put their name on them all the time is selling them a little short.
at the same time, the whole argument of which manufacturer builds the better board on a board component level isn't something we can really answer.
what we would suggest is that its better to buy from OEMs who have good customer service and long extensive warranties. this way, even if things do go wrong, there is some recourse for customers who get bad boards or have bad experiences with drivers and software. Reply
cmdrdredd - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkyou're wrong. 99% of people buying these high end cards are gaming. Those gamers demand and deserve the best possible performance. If a card that uses MORE power and costs MORE (x2900xt vs 8800gts) and performs generally the same or slower what is the point? Fact is...ATI's high end is in fact slower than mid range offerings from Nvidia and consumes alot more power. Regardless of what you think, people are buying these based on performance benchmarks in 99% of all cases. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkNo, you're wrong. Did you overlook the emphasis he put on "NOT ALWAYS"?
You said 99% use for gaming--so there's 1%. Out of the gamers, many really want LCD scaling to work, so that games aren't stretched horribly on widescreen monitors. Some gamers would also like TVout to work.
So he was right: faster is NOT ALWAYS better. Reply
erwos - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkIt'd be nice to get the scoop on the video decode acceleration present on these boards, and how it stocks up to the (excellent) PureVideo HD found in the 8600 series. Reply
imaheadcase - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkI agree! They need to do a whole article on video acceleration on a range of cards and show the pluses and cons of each card in respective areas. A lot of people like myself like to watch videos and game on cards, but like the option open to use the advanced video features.
Turnip - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link"We certainly hope we won't see a repeat of the R600 launch when Barcelona and Agena take on Core 2 Duo/Quad in a few months...."
Why, that's exactly what I had been thinking :)
Phew! I made it through the whole thing though, I even read all of those awfully big words and everything! :)
Thanks guys, another top review :) Reply
Kougar - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkFirst, great article! I will be going back to reread the very indepth analysis of the hardware and features, something that keeps me a avid Anandtech reader. :)
Since it was mentioned that overclocking will be included in a future article, I would like to suggest that if possible watercooling be factored into it. So far one review site has already done a watercooled test with a low-end watercooling setup, and without mods acheived 930MHz on the Core, which indirectly means 930MHz shaders if I understand the hardware.
I'm sure I am not the only reader extremely interested to see if all R600 needs is a ~900-950MHz overclock to offer some solid GTX level performance... or if it would even help at all. Again thanks for the consideration, and the great article! Now off to find some Folding@Home numbers... Reply
mostlyprudent - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkFrankly, neither the NVIDIA nor the AMD part at this price point is all that impressive an upgrade from the prior generations. We keep hearing that we will have to wait for DX10 titles to know the real performance of these cards, but I suspect that by the time DX10 titles are on the shelves we will have at least product line refreshes by both companies. Does anyone else feel like the graphics card industry is jerking our chains? Reply
johnsonx - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkIt seems pretty obvious that AMD needs a Radeon HD2900Pro to fill in the gap between the 2900XT and 2600XT. Use R600 silicon, give it 256Mb RAM with a 256-bit memory bus. Lower the clocks 15% so that power consumption will be lower, and so that chips that don't bin at full XT speeds can be used. Price at $250-$300. It would own the upper-midrange segment over the 8600GTS, and eat into the 8800GTS 320's lunch as well.
GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkIf I know this, and YOU know this.... wouldnt anandtech? I see money under the table or utter stupidity at work at anand. I mean, I know that the .01+ version does a lot better in benches as well as the higher res with aa/af on sometimes get BETTER framerates than lower res, no aa/af settings. This is a driver thing. If I know this, you know this, anand must. I would rather admit to being corrupt rather than that stupid.
GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkwrong section. dt is doing that today it seems to a few people Reply
xfiver - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkHi, thank you for a really in depth review. While reading other 'earlier' reviews I remember a site using Catalyst 8.38 and reported performance improvements upto 14% from 8.37. Look forward to Anandtech's view on this. Reply
xfiver - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkMy apologies it was VR zone and 8.36 to 8.37 (not 8.38) Reply
GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkIf I know this, and YOU know this.... wouldnt anandtech? I see money under the table or utter stupidity at work at anand. I mean, I know that the .01+ version does a lot better in benches as well as the higher res with aa/af on sometimes get BETTER framerates than lower res, no aa/af settings. This is a driver thing. If I know this, you know this, anand must. I would rather admit to being corrupt rather than that stupid.
Gary Key - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
If I know this, and YOU know this.... wouldnt anandtech? I see money under the table or utter stupidity at work at anand. I mean, I know that the .01+ version does a lot better in benches as well as the higher res with aa/af on sometimes get BETTER framerates than lower res, no aa/af settings. This is a driver thing. If I know this, you know this, anand must. I would rather admit to being corrupt rather than that stupid.
I have worked extensively with four 8.37 releases and now the 8.38 release for the upcoming P35 release article. The 126.96.36.199 alpha driver had the top performance in SM3.0 heavy apps but was not very stable with numerous games, especially under Vista. The released 220.127.116.11 driver on AMD's website is the most stable driver to date and has decent performance but nothing near the alpha 8.37 or beta 8.38. The 8.38s offer great benchmark performance in the 3DMarks, several games, and a couple of DX10 benchmarks from AMD.
However, the 8.38s more or less broke CrossFire, OpenGL, and video acceleration in Vista depending upon the app and IQ is not always perfect. While there is a great deal of promise in their performance and we see the potential, they are still Beta drivers that have a long ways to go in certain areas before their final release date of 5/23 (internal target).
That said, would you rather see impressive results in 3DMarks or have someone tell you the truth about the development progress or lack of it with the drivers. As much as I would like to see this card's performance improve immediately, it is what it is at this time with the released drivers. AMD/ATI will improve the performance of the card with better drivers but until they are released our only choice is to go with what they sent. We said the same thing about NVIDIA's early driver issues with the G80 so there are not any fanboys or people taking money under the table around here. You can put all the lipstick on a pig you want, but in the end, you still have a pig. ;-) Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkThere's nothing sinister going on, ATI gave us 8.37 to test with and told us to use it. We got 8.38 today and are currently testing it for a follow-up.
Take care,
Anand Reply
GlassHouse69 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkwow dood. you replied!
Yes, I have been wondering about the ethics of your group here for about a year now. I felt this sorta slick leaning towards and masking thing goign on. Nice to see there is not.
Thanks for the 1000's of articles and tests!
-Mr. Glass Reply
johnsonx - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkand to which are you going to admit to?
What was that old saying about glass houses and throwing stones? Shouldn't throw them in one? Definitely shouldn't them if you ARE one!
Puddleglum - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
quote:You mean, while it does compete performance-wise? Reply
ATI's latest and greatest doesn't exactly deliver the best performance per watt, so while it doesn't compete performance-wise with the GeForce 8800 GTX it requires more power.
johnsonx - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkNo, I'm pretty sure they mean DOESN'T. That is, the card can't compete with a GTX, yet still uses more power.
INTC - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link
We certainly hope we won't see a repeat of the R600 launch when Barcelona and Agena take on Core 2 Duo/Quad in a few months....
Chadder007 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkWhen will we have the 2600's out in review?? Thats the card im waiting for. Reply
TA152H - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkDerek,
I like the fact you weren't mincing your words, except for a little on the last page, but I'll give you a perspective of why it might be a little better than some people will think.
There are some of us, and I am one, that will never buy NVIDIA. I bought one, had nothing but trouble with it, and have been buying ATI for 20 years. ATI has been around for so long, there is brand loyalty, and as long as they come out with something that is competent, we'll consider it against their other products without respect to NVIDIA. I'd rather give up the performance to work with something I'm a lot more comfortable with.
The power though is damning, I agree with you 100% on this. Any idea if these beasts are being made by AMD now, or still whoever ATI contracted out? AMD is typically really poor in their first iteration of a product on a process technology, but tend to improve quite a bit in succeeding ones. I wonder how much they'll push this product initially. It might be they just get it out to have it out, and the next one will be what is really a worthwhile product. That only makes sense, of course, if AMD is now manufacturing this product. I hope they are, they surely don't need to make anymore of their processors that aren't selling well.
One last thing I noticed is the 2400 Pro had no fan! It had a heatsink from Hell, but that will still make this a really attractive product for a growing market segment. Any chance of you guys doing a review on the best fanless cards? Reply
DerekWilson - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - linkTSMC is manufacturing the R600 GPUs, not AMD. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link"I bought one, had nothing but trouble with it, and have been buying ATI for 20 years."
That made me laugh. If one bad experience was all it took to stop you from using a computer component, you'd be left with a PS/2 keyboard at best.
"...to work with something I'm a lot more comfortable with."
Are you more comfortable having 4:3 resolutions stretched on a widescreen? Maybe you're also more comfortable with having crappier performance than nvidia has offered for the last 6 months and counting? This kind of brand loyalty is silly. Reply
MadBoris - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkAs far as your brand loyalty, ATI doesn't exist anymore. Furthermore AMD executives will got the staff so you can't call it the same.
Secondly, Nvidia has been a stellar company providing stellar products. Everyone has some ups and downs. Unfortunately with the hardware and drivers this is ATI's (er AMD's) downs.
This card should do ok in comparison to the GTS, especially as drivers mature. Some reviews show it doing better than GTS640 in most tests, so I am not sure where or how discrepencies are coming about. Maybe hardware compatibility, maybe settings. Reply
rADo2 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkMany NVIDIA 8600GT/GTS cards do not have a fan, are available on the market now, and are (probably; different league) much more powerful than 2400 ;) But as you are a fanboy, you are not interested, right? Reply
TA152H - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkFanboy? What a dork.
I've had success with ATI, not with NVIDIA, and I know ATI stuff a lot better so it's just easier for me to work with. It's not an irrational like or dislike. I bought one NVIDIA and it was a nightmare. Plus, I'm not as sure they'll be around for very long as I am ATI/AMD, although they had a good quarter, and AMD surely had a dreadful one.
Selling discrete video cards alone might get a lot more difficult with the integration of CPUs, and GPUs. Reply
yyrkoon - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkYou are a fanboy, face it. 'I tried a nVidia card once . . .' How long ago was that ? Who made the card ? Did you have it configured properly? Once?! Details like this are important, and seemily/conviently left out. Anyhow, anyone claiming that nVIdia cards are 'junk' has definate issues with assembling/configuring hardware. I say this because my current system uses a nVidia based card, and is 100% rock solid. 'Person between the chair and keyboard' rings a bell.
Ask any Linux user why they refuse to use ATI cards in their system . . . You are also one of these people out there that claims ATI driver support is superior to nVIdias driver support I suppose ? If you have truely been using ATI products for 20 years, then you know ATI has one of the worst reputations on the planet for driver support(and while it may have improved, it is not as good as nVidias still).
Yeah, anyhow, ATI, and nVidia both can have problems with their hardware, it is not based 100% on their architecture, but the OEM releasing the products have a lot of effect here also. There are bad OEMs to buy from here on both sides of the fence, knowing who to stay away from, is half the work when building a PC, and probably had a lot more to do with your alleged 'bad nVIdia card', assuming you actually configured the card properly.
I also had a problem with an nVIdia card once, I bought a brand new GF3 card about 7 years ago, and a few of the older games I had, would not display properly with it. What did I do ? I waited about a month, for a new driver, and the problem was solved. I have also had issues with ATI cards, one of which drew too much power from the AGP slot, and would cause the given system to crash 1-2 times a day. This was a design issue/oversight on ATI's behalf(the card was made by Saphire, who also makes ATIs cards). What did I do ? I replaced the card with an nVIdia card, and the system has been stable since.
So you see, I too can skew things to make anyone look bad also, and in the end, it would only serve to make me look like the dork. But if you want to pay more, for less, that is perfectly fine by me. Reply
Pirks - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkI've got all problems and crappy drivers (especially Linux ones) only from ATI while nVidia software was always much better in my experience. power hungry noisy monsters made by whom? by ATI! as always :) same shit as with their x1800/x1900 miserable power guzzling series
discrete video cards are not going away any time soon. ever heard of integrated video used in games, besides ones from 2000, like old Quake 2? no? then please continue your lovefest with ATI, but for me - it looks like I'll pass on them this time again - since Radeon 9800Pro they went downhill and continue in that direction. they MAY make a decent integrated CPU/GPU budget-oriented vendor in a future, for all those office folks playing simple 2D office games, but real stuff? nope, ATI is still out of the game for me. let's see if they manage to come back with reincarnation of R300 in future.
ironically, AMD CPUs on the other hand have best price/performance ratio, so intel won't see me as their customer. I wish ATI 3D chips were as good as AMD CPUs in that regard (and overclockers please shut up, I'm not bothering to OC my rig because I don't enjoy benchmark numbers, I enjoy REAL stuff like games, and Intel is out of the game for me as well, at least until their budget single core Conroes are out) Reply
utube545 - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - linkGet a clue, you fucking cretin. Reply
dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - linkhaha... lol, wow. facepalm. Reply
dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - linkDamn you're a fail noob of an ATI fanboy. Time has not been kind to the HD2900XT, and now you sound more ridiculous then ever... lol. Reply
yzkbug - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkNot a word about new AVIVO HD and digital sound features? Reply
DerekWilson - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - linkwe mentioned this ...
on the r600 overview page ... Reply
photoguy99 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkFirst to be clear and I do not condone the title of this article, there's no need to bring racism into this.
But my point is NVidia can and will react by making the performance per dollar competitive for the R600 vs 8800GTS.
Once the prices are comparable, why buy a more power hungry part (the ATI)?
This is one disadvantage they can't correct until the next respin.
DrMrLordX - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkBased on the benchmarks results, the only reason I can see for getting 2900XTs is if a). you don't care about power consumption and b). want to run a Crossfire rig at a lower cost of entry than dual-8800 GTXs or 8800 Ultras.
As others have said, some more benchmarks in mature DX10 titles might show who the real winner here is performance-wise, and that holds true for multi-GPU scenarios as well. Reply
dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 25, 2011 - linkYou forgot c).
-if you're an ATI fanboy Reply
vijay333 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkhttp://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...">http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...
"the expression to call a spade a spade is thousands of years old and etymologically has nothing whatsoever to do with any racial sentiment." Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - linkWhat about in Euchre, where a spade can be a club (and vice versa)? Reply
johnsonx - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkJust wait until AT refers to AMD's marketing budget as 'niggardly'... Reply
bldckstark - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkWhat do shovels have to do with race? Reply
Stan11003 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkMy big hope out all of this that the ATI part forces the Nvidia parts lower so I can use my upgrade option from EVGA to get a nice 8800 GTX instead of my 8800 GTS ACS3 320. However with a quad core and a decent 2GB I have no gaming issues at all. I play at 1600x1200(when that become a low rez?) and everything is butter smooth. Without newer titles all this hardware is a waist anyways. Reply
Gul Westfale - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkthe article says that the part is not a failure, but i disagree. i switched from a radeon 1950pro to an nvidia geforce 8800GTS 320MB about a mont ago, and i paid only $350US for it. now i see that it still outperforms the new 2900...
one of my friends wanted to wait to buy a new card, he said he hoped that the ATI part was going to be faster. now he says he will just buy the 8800GTS 320, since ATI have failed.
if they can bring out a part that competes well with the 8800GTS and price it similarly or lower then it would be worth buying, but until then i will stick with nvidia. better performance, better price, and better drivers... why would anyone buy the ATI card now? Reply
ncage - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkMy conclusion is to wait. All of the recent GPU do great with dx9...the question is how will they do with dx10? I think its best to wait for dx10 titles to come out. I think crysis would be a PERFECT test. Reply
wingless - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkI agree with you. Crysis is going to be the benchmark for these DX10 cards. Its hard to tell both Nvidia and AMD's DX10 performance with these current, first generation DX10 titles (most of which have a DX9 version) because they don't fully take advantage of all the power on both the G80 or R600 yet. Its true that Crysis will have a DX9 version as well but the developer stated there are some big differences in code. I'm an Nvidia fanboy but I'm disappointed with the Pure Video and HDMI support on the 8800 series cards. ATI got this worked out with their great AVIVO and their nice HDMI implementation but for now Nvidia is still the performance champ with "simpler" hardware. The G80 and R600 continue the traditions of their manufacturers. Nvidia has always been about raw power and all out speed with few bells and whistles. ATI is all about refinement, bells and whistles, innovations, and unproven new methods which may make or break them.
All I really want to wait for is to see how developers embrace CUDA or ATI's setup for PHYSICS PROCESSING! Both companies seem to have well thought out methods to do physics and I cant wait to see that showdown. AGEIA and HAVOK need to hop on-board and get some software support for all this good hardware potential they have to play with. Physics is the next big gimmick and you know how much we all love gimmicks (just like good 'ole 3D acceleration 10 years ago). Reply
poohbear - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkthey dont make a profit from high end parts that's why they're not bothering w/ it? that's AMD's story? so why bother having an FX line w/ their cpus? Reply
GoatMonkey - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkThat's obviously BS. This IS their high end part, it just doesn't perform as well as nVidia's high end part, so it is priced accordingly. Reply
poohbear - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linksweet review though! thanks for including all the important and pertinent cards in your roundup (the 8800gts 320mb inparticular). also love how neutral Anand is in their reviews, unlike some other sites.:p Reply
Creig - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkThe R600 is finally here. I'm sure the overall performance is not what AMD was hoping for. Nobody ever shoots to have their newest product be the 2nd best. But pricing it at $399 and including a very nice game bundle will make the HD 2900 XT a VERY worthwhile purchase. I also have the feeling that there is a significant amount of performance increase to be realized through future driver releases ala X1800XT. Reply
shady28 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Nvidia has gone over the cliff on pricing.
I know of no one personally who has an 88xx series card. I know one who recently picked up an 8600 of some kind, that's it. I have the best GPU of anyone I know.
It's a real shame that there is so much focus on graphics cards that virtually no one buys. These are niche products folks - yet 'who is best' seems to be totally dependent on these niche products. That's patently ridiculous.
It's like saying, since IBM makes the fastest computers in the world (they do), they're the best and you should be buying IBM (or now, lenovo) laptops and desktops.
No one ever said that sort of thing because it's patently ridiculous. Why do people say it now for graphics cards? The fact that they do says a lot about the mentality of sites like AT.
DerekWilson - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkWe don't say what you are implying, and we are also very upset with some of NVIDIA's pricing (specifically the 8800 ultra)
the 8800 gts 320mb is one of the best values for your money anywhere and isn't crazy expensive -- it's actually the card I'd recommend to anyone who cares about graphics in games and wants good quality and performance at 1600x1200.
I would never tell anyone to buy an 8600 gts because nvidia has the fastest high end card. In fact, in this article, I hope I made it clear that AMD has the opportunity to capitalize on the huge performance gap nvidia left between the 8600 and 8800 series ... If AMD builds a part that performs in this range is priced competitively, they'll have our recommendation in a flash.
Recommending parts based on value at each price or performance segment is something we take pride in and will always do, no matter who has the absolute fastest hardware out there.
The reason our focus was on AMD's fastest part is because they haven't given us any other hardware to test. We will absolutely be talking a lot and in much depth about midrange and budget hardware when AMD makes these parts available to us. Reply
yacoub - Monday, May 14, 2007 - link$400 is a lot of money. Not terribly long ago the highest end GPU available didn't cost more than $400. Now they hit $750 so you start to think $400 sounds cheap. It's really not. It's a heck of a lot of money for one piece of hardware. You can put together a 650i SLI rig with 2GB of DDR2 6400 and an E4400 for that much money. I know because I just did that. I kept my 7900GT from my old rig because I wanted to see how R600 did before purchasing an 8800GTS 640MB. Now that we've seen initial results I will wait to see how R600 does with more mature drivers and also wait to see the 640MB GTS price come down even more in the meantime. Reply
vijay333 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkhttp://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...">http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1...
"the expression to call a spade a spade is thousands of years old and etymologically has nothing whatsoever to do with any racial sentiment."
yacoub - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkYes, a spade was a shovel long before muslims enslaved europeans to do hard labor in north africa and europeans enslaved africans to do hard labor in the 'new world'. Reply
vijay333 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkwhoops...replied to the wrong one. Reply
rADo2 - Monday, May 14, 2007 - linkIt is not 2nd best (after 8800ULTRA), not 3rd best (after 8800GTX), not 4th best (after 8800GTX-640), but 5th best (after 8800GTS-320), or even worse ;)
Bad performance with AA turned on (everybody turns on AA), huge power consumption, late to the market.
A definitive failure. Reply
imaheadcase - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Bad performance with AA turned on (everybody turns on AA), huge power consumption, late to the market.
Says who? Most people I know don't care to turn on AA since they visually can't see a difference. Only people who are picky about everything they see do normally, the majority of people don't notice "jaggies" since the brain fixes it for you when you play. Reply
Roy2001 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkSays who? Most people I know don't care to turn on AA since they visually can't see a difference.
Wow, I never turn it of once I am used to have AA. I cannot play games anymore without AA. Reply
Amuro - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
the majority of people don't notice "jaggies" since the brain fixes it for you when you play.
Says who? No one spent $400 on a video card would turn off AA. Reply
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, July 08, 2009 - linkBoy we'd sure love to hear those red fans claiming they turn off AA nowadays and it doesn't matter.
It's just amazing how thick it gets. Reply
imaheadcase - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - link
Says who? No one spent $400 on a video card would turn off AA.
Sure they do, because its a small "tweak" with a performance hit. I say who spends $400 on a video card to remove "jaggies" when they are not noticeable in the first place to most people. Same reason most people don't go for SLI or Crossfire, because it really in the end offers nothing substantial for most people who play games.
Some might like it, but they would not miss it if they stopped using it for some time. Its not like its make or break feature of a video card. Reply
motiv8 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - linkDepends on the game or player tbh.
I play within ladders without AA turned on, but for games like oblivion I would use AA. Depends on your needs at the time. Reply