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Originally Posted by Strider
Cant wait to get my hands on these to give them a try for myself. Would make for an inexpensive "general" build for average everyday computing and gaming.
The only thing I don't like about this specific review is they consider no Cuda or PhysX support a negative. Really?
Cuda is not a "support", it's a brand name. Nvidia calls its processing cores and GPU computing Cuda, AMD calls them Stream Processors and Direct Compute. One is not better than the other, they can both do the exact same things, this is all about the software and driver support. Not the technology itself. Cuda simply gets more attention and overly hyped. Not that its a bad thing by any means, just hate it when it's represented as a negative if something does not have it. It's far from necessary in any respect.
The other point is PhysX. Of course there is no PhysX support on an AMD chipset, it's an Nvidia proprietary engine. PhysX is not the only physics engine on the planet, hardly any mainstream games use it anymore, most use their own engine or a Havoc based one. The PhysX engine can run on any GPU, the ONLY reason it will not run on an AMD/ATI GPU is purely political. Nvidia will not allow it unless they are paid for it. Hence why most game developers do not use PhysX. AMD was beating Nvidia in video card sales the last time I looked, developers are not in a hurry to alienate a vast portion of their customer base. heh
Beyond that, great review. Like I said, I want to get my hands on one of these setups and mess around with it myself. lol
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Yes, you got thing right about Nvidia CUDA support. AMD still have FireStream to compete. So why doesn't GPU-Z have AMD FireStream support checkpoint in it?
And about PhysX, I only see as an unlock key for some extra details in some games, no more. Strong GPU like GTX580 or HD 6970 is strong enough to handle these details. The thing is if your GPU is not a Nvidia GPU, the games with PhysX will pass these details to CPU forcefully.
With some games you clearly need two strong Nvidia Cards to have PhysX enabled because those cannot be played on just one card. The FPS will be heavily dropped down to nearly un-playable with very high settings for the GPU has to handle the PhysX details as well. That proves that a GPU with PhysX is just a mere GPU like another non-physX GPUs no more. And AMD wants it to be available on its GPUs? pays for the license just like SLI
and no GPU modification is needed to be made.