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| 7.9 | |
| Date: | Jun 30th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Sapphire's new HD 4730 is based on the RV770 GPU which is used on the HD 48xx Series. Such a choice had to be made because the availability of the HD4770 GPU is extremely limited at this time - while customer demand is up. Sapphire offers their card with 640 shaders and 512 MB GDDR5 memory at an extremely competitive price point of only $79. But is that enough to take over that market segment?
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Jun 28th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
NVIDIA has silently introduced a new revision of their GeForce GTX 295. The new version crams everything onto a single PCB. While the performance characteristics have not changed, thermals, fan noise and power consumption did change indeed. Is the new single PCB GTX 295 a success or just an unimportant product revision?
| 9.4 | |
| Date: | Jun 12th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Sapphire's HD 4890 Toxic uses their exclusive Vapor-X cooling technology. This results in a card that delivers considerably more performance than the HD 4890 reference, yet does so without any excess noise. Actually the Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic is the quietest HD 4890 we ever had in our hands.
| 8.4 | |
| Date: | May 27th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Albatron is one of the first companies to come out with a HD 4830 design that does not require an external power connector. Another difference to the HD 4830 is the number of shaders. Instead of 640 like on the reference, Albatron has packed 800 shaders on their card for some extra performance.
| 8.5 | |
| Date: | May 6th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
ASUS has sent us one of the first samples of their new EAH4890 TOP which uses a SuperML capacitor that is supposed to offer cleaner voltage resulting in better overlocking. Also this is the first card to feature a 6+8 pin PCI-Express power connector for improved voltage delivery. Last but not least, ASUS is now using a dual fan cooler with six thick heatpipes.
| 8.0 | |
| Date: | Apr 30th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
PowerColor is one of the first board partners to release an overclocked, custom designed HD 4890. Instead of the AMD reference cooler a solution from Zerotherm is used. The clock speeds have also been bumped to 950 MHz core and 1100 MHz memory. Due to their improved PCB, PowerColor has managed to position their HD 4890 PCS at the price that normal reference cards go for: $249.
| 9.3 | |
| Date: | Apr 27th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Today AMD released the world's first GPU that is produced in a 40 nm process. The HD 4770 is aggressively priced around ~$100 and offers great performance for your hard earned dollars. In our testing realized out that the card performs almost on par with the HD 4850. With the amazing 30%+ memory overclock we got on our sample, the HD 4850 will be surpassed easily.
| 9.4 | |
| Date: | Apr 14th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Inno3D's latest graphics card release is the GeForce GTX 275 Overclocked. It is based on NVIDIA's P897 design but comes with considerably increased clocks. This results in a nice performance boost over the reference cards and allows the card to beat the much more expensive GeForce GTX 285.
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Apr 1st 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
AMD has just announced the availability of their latest HD 4890 graphics card series which is based on the new RV790 GPU. The highlights of RV790 are considerably higher clocks speeds and 1 GB of fast GDDR5 memory on all boards.
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Apr 1st 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Sapphire's new HD 4890 comes with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory and yet unseen clock speeds offering much better performance at a competitive price. Will that be enough to beat NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 275 ?
| Date: | Apr 1st 2009 |
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| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Our HD 4890 CrossFire review investigates whether running two of these brand-new cards is a viable choice if you need that extra bit of performance or want to run with even more eye candy than what is possible with a single HD 4890 board.
| 9.3 | |
| Date: | Apr 1st 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Today NVIDIA released their GeForce GTX 275 Series. While there are no architectural improvements, the new cards offer substantially improved performance at competitive prices. Zotac's Amp! Edition offers higher clocks out of the box - is that enough to combat ATI's new offerings?
| 8.6 | |
| Date: | Mar 26th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
The HIS HD 4650 iSilence with its passive Zalman cooling solution offers a noise free experience, which is especially important when building a quiet media PC system. On top of that you will also receive a full version of the STALKER Clear Sky game.
| 8.2 | |
| Date: | Mar 24th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
In addition to the long and complicated name, the HIS HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo features twice the memory compared to the AMD HD 4870 reference design. The clock speeds have also received a boost, now running at 770 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory out of the box. Last but not least, HIS replaced the AMD cooler with their own IceQ cooling system.
| 8.5 | |
| Date: | Mar 10th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
While NVIDIA's GTS 250 isn't really new technology, Galaxy has chosen to put an Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo cooler on their card. Even though it uses two fans, the card is extremely quiet making it an excellent choice for a media PC. The best is that it won't cost you anything extra. Galaxy is offering their cards at NVIDIA's reference design MSRP of $149.
| 7.5 | |
| Date: | Mar 3rd 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Today NVIDIA released their GeForce GTS 250 Series which is based on the G92 graphics processor that has already been used on a number of GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 designs. While NVIDIA's reference design comes with 1 GB of memory, Palit has chosen to create a card that comes with 2 GB of VRAM.
| 9.6 | |
| Date: | Mar 2nd 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
If you are looking for a quiet high performance card, then the factory-overclocked iChill GTX 260 is certainly a great choice for you. Using Arctic Cooling's Accelero XXX cooler it emits less fan noise than most low-end cards, yet offers performance close to the GeForce GTX 280.
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Feb 17th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Palit's new GTX 260 Sonic 216 SP is based on NVIDIA's latest GT200b 55 nm graphics processor. Palit has chosen to go with a dual fan design for improved airflow and increased overclocking. Not only the thermal design has been changed but also the PCB design, which features several cost optimizations and comes in an appealing ATI-red.
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Feb 12th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Zotac's GeForce GTX 295 comes with two NVIDIA GT200b GPUs sandwiched together in one graphics card. The card can successfully defeat ATI's HD 4870 X2 in our benchmarks and offers plenty of overclocking headroom beyond that. Thanks to the 55 nm GPU design and clever power saving methods the card even delivers in the performance per Watt segment.
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Jan 19th 2009 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
NVIDIA's latest addition to their graphics card lineup is based around the 55 nanometer GT200b. The new card offers more performance, consumes less power and is quieter than the previous model. Yet these improvements cost you a premium of about $70 over the GTX 280. Is that price justified?
| 9.1 | |
| Date: | Jan 18th 2009 |
| Author: | Darksaber |
| In: | Video Cards |
While many are satisfied with having a single screen, imagine gaming across 3 displays with 180° vision. The Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital overcomes the shortcoming of a single or dual display setup and gives you the possiblity to connect up to three DVI based LCD screens with a total resolution of up to 5040 x 1050 for real surround gaming.
| 8.9 | |
| Date: | Dec 19th 2008 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Sapphire's new HD 4870 X2 Atomic Watercooled is a special edition of the popular dual-RV770 design that comes with a prefilled watercooling kit that also includes a waterbock for your processor. Being delivered in a nice aluminum case there are a load of extra accessories ranging from software to cabling - but the price tag is also outstanding: over $600.
| 9.0 | |
| Date: | Nov 11th 2008 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Palit's new Revolution 700 Deluxe is the first graphics card that occupies three slots in your PC. The massive cooling assembly successfully increases overclocking performance, lowers temperature and reduces fan noise. But is that good enough to beat the AMD reference design?
| 9.2 | |
| Date: | Nov 5th 2008 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
The new Leadtek GeForce GTX 260 Extreme+ comes with an increased shader count of 216 compared to 196 on the regular GTX 260. Leadtek has also overclocked the card for some free extra performance. In our testing the GTX 260 Extreme+ delivers excellent performance per Watt claiming a number one spot in the test group.
| 8.8 | |
| Date: | Nov 4th 2008 |
| Author: | W1zzard |
| In: | Video Cards |
Being priced at reasonable $419, the Sapphire HD 4850 X2 is designed to take some market share from NVIDIA's GTX 280. The card features 2 GB of GDDR3 memory and comes with a custom designed cooling solution. Even though you would expect very little overclocking from a dual-GPU card, we saw an amazing 15% performance increase from overclocking without touching any fan settings.