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| MSI E350IA-E45 - AMD APU Fusion |
Category: Motherboard |
| Added: 2 July 2011 |
Aah, it's time for the second Fusion review based on the slowly growing popular APU from AMD, the E350. You know, the ultra small motherboards that offer fair enough performance yet come with decent integrated processor and graphics subsystem that just oozes with features and value.
Good examples of some products we have tested in the past where Intel Atom based, and let's not forget about the impact that NVIDIA ION made, the combination of a small form factor motherboard, an "okay" processor and power full graphics sparked and ignited the netbook and net-top market.
Also another segment suddenly became interested in these products, the HTPC audience. And when we look at the SOHO segment, a lot of NAS servers these days are equipped with small form factor products with ATOM. AMD however never had a real workable answer to this development and years ago they decided to pursue and bore into a new direction, yeah amongst others... Fusion, a combination of a processor and graphics processor integrated into one small die.
The idea is simple, but more complicated to manufacture then you think. AMD calls this APU, it is a processor with embedded graphics core merged directly into the die. A development that from here on will dominate the processor industry and a technology that will eat away a large piece of the IGP and low-end graphics card sales pie.
Intel started something very similar with the high end Sandy Bridge products, AMD is doing it vice versa... they start at low-end, the net-top and net-book market. For prices hovering in the 100 EUR bracket you can purchase yourself some amazing stuff, and sure let me immediately make clear that this is not high-end processor kit in terms of performance, contrary... this is netbook / entry level performance at best, but the combination of the GPU+CPU=APU is something that is very interesting.
We peek at the cutest mITX motherboard from MSI today, have a look at some of its performance on the CPU and GPU side of things but most of all, we'll discuss features as what these products bring to the table is just downright impressive for the money as you'll notice DDR3 support, SATA-600 support, HDMI support, gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel audio support and then the integrated dual-core processor at 1600 MHz and in that processor embedded DX11 ready graphics core.
The product we test today is based on the AMD E-350 APU -- Atom level processing performance with an AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics on-board.
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| MSI Z68A-GD80 motherboard review |
Category: Motherboard |
| Added: 28 June 2011 |
By: Hilbert Hagedoorn Edited by Ian R Barling
Earlier last week Intel released the Z68 chipset, and for good reason. In the first wave of all Sandy bridge related goodness, Intel, for the consumer market, allowed two primary chipsets in the mainstream and performance segment, H67 and P67. H67 is directed at mainstream, does not allow any overclocking yet comes with monitor output support like HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort. P67 on the other end is performance and enthusiast tweaking oriented, in combo with a K series processor like the Core i7 2600K we'll be using today you can do some seriously crazy stuff, like overclocking on air close to 5 GHz. But here you do not get the option for monitor outputs.
So something was clearly missing, and today Intel is going to close that gap with the Z68 chipset. A chipset that has the full feature set of BOTH the H67 and P67 chipsets, and then it also has a little surprise in store.
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| Crysis 2 DirectX 11 Update |
Category: News |
| Added: 28 June 2011 |
We’re sure you’re aware that EA and Crytek have released the long awaited DirectX 11 patch for Crysis 2. To enable the full DX11 glory, you need to do the following steps:
- 1. Patch the game to version 1.9
- 2. Install the DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade
- 3. Install the High resolution texture pack.
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| MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning review |
Category: VGA |
| Added: 28 June 2011 |
HAWKs, Lightning's, AfterBurner, Kombustor, Predator ... yeah the aeromotive theme of MSI products certainly stands out. And that makes sense, they try to compare and brand their products towards military class FAST (preferably flying) products. And with much success, ever since the last year or two the more high-end and enthusiast gear and sales definitely kicked off for MSI.
Today a perfect example of a review on all of the above, MSI took an Radeon HD 6970 GPU ... and just that. Then they designed a PCB around it, applied eighteen power phases, made a military class selection in components, upgraded the memory, added a lot of extra features, armed it with the new Twin Frozr III cooler and factory overclocked the product for you.
The end result surprised even us, a totally silent high-end product with a lot of overclocking headroom that has the looks to kill and the means to show of some pure muscle power.
Today as such, we'll review the R6970 Lightning, the most high-end, single GPU based product in the enthusiast lightning series. Pre-clocked at 940 MHz, you can actually take the product towards 1 GHz fairly easy with the help from MSI's AfterBurner software that allows the full spectrum of voltage tweaking on GPU and memory. The end result as stated, surprised even us. This is just a really nice card with a lot of features, extras and it just oozes with build quality.
Let's have a peek and then head onwards into the review.
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| MSI GTX580 Lightning Review |
Category: VGA |
| Added: 20 May 2011 |
by Tom Logan
Marketing is always full of semantics. Companies love to proclaim their card as the 'Fastest in the World'. Sometimes that's true only because there is more than one GPU on the board. So the HD6990 is the Fastest Graphics Card in the World, but not the fastest single GPU.
For those of us in the know, we always respect being able to do the most with the least, which is why the GTX580, the "Fastest Single GPU in the World" always makes us smile and drool, in equal quantities. Anyone can be super-fast with a multi-card setup. To have crushing performance from a single chip, that's something special.
In case the standard GTX580 isn't quite enough for you though you might look to a pre-overclocked model. If you've been around OC3D for a little bit you know how highly we rate the Twin Frozr cooling solution from MSI and here we have a Twin Frozr equipped, pre-overclocked model in the form of the MSI GTX580 Lightning.
Seems like a perfect combination. Is it? |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 Round-Up |
Category: VGA |
| Added: 18 May 2011 |
by Mathew Miranda in Graphics/Sound
When the GeForce GTX 580 arrived, it extended NVIDIA's lead in the single-GPU graphics card market. Although the green team's own GTX 480 previously held the title of fastest single-GPU, its reign was temporary as the first generation Fermi card required some tweaks in order to unleash all 512 shader cores, reduce heat output and power consumption, and minimize noise levels. With these issues addressed in the GTX 580, NVIDIA continues to be a leader in single-GPU graphics performance. AMD's Radeon HD 6970 was initially targeted to take on the GTX 580 in the high end market, but it's obvious now that those expectations were unrealistic. Rather, it's more competitive with the GTX 570 and the dual-GPU powered Antilles (Radeon HD 6990) is AMD's real heavyweight contender.
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