t-break: Tech @ Its Fastest » amd

Nvidia regbadges old Fermi cards to series 600

Taimoor Hafeez — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:19:20 +0000

Rebadging previous generation cards to newer ones is not a new practice, as both Nvidia and AMD have done this in the past. A popular example by Nvidia is with their mid-range 9800GTX+ rebranded to GTS 250. Most recently AMD has done the same with their high-end mobile HD 6770M to HD 7690M XT, although rebranding in mobile GPUs is commonplace.

According to Fudzilla, Nvidia will be rebadging some of their old Fermi based entry-level cards to series 600; made popular with the new Kepler architecture of the GTX 680. Retail GT 610 will be a rebranded GT 520, the GT 620 will be a GT 430, and the GT 630 will be a GT440. The idea is that these cards will come with a new BIOS, faster clock speeds and, in the case of the GT 630, come with GDDR5 memory.

The GT 440; soon to be GT 630.

It seems that TSMC fabrication plant cannot keep up with 28nm production, and with the impending release of Intel’s Ivy Bridge and AMD’s A10 Trinity processors, the entry-level market for graphics will be extremely competitive. Under such circumstances it comes as no surprise that Nvidia is rebranding previous generation hardware to keep pace in the market.

ASUS HD 7850 Direct CUII Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:33:01 +0000

The ASUS HD 7800 series launched early last month, and the HD 7870 left us quiet impressed. Now it’s time to see if the little brother in the series has enough chops for big league. And so today I’ll be looking at the ASUS HD 7850 Direct CUII graphics card which comes with a bigger heatsink and higher clock speeds than reference AMD design.

The Direct CUII heatsink is a well known name amongst PC enthusiasts as it represents ASUS’s best and biggest heatsink for their graphics card. PCB designs are also custom; usually smaller than reference designs, so that the heatsink has the maximum possible effect on the entire card.

Now usually Direct CUII heatsinks are found on flagship cards, such as the HD 7900 series, where the heatsinks are so big that we usually end up with a 3-slot card instead of the usual 2-slots. In the case of the HD 7850, however, we have a simple 2-slot solution. The 28nm Pitcairn chipset runs fairly cool, so it stands to reason that we don’t need an extraordinarily large heatsink.

Packaging

The ASUS HD 7850 Direct CUII comes with installation manuals, a drivers CD, a CrossFire bridge and a DVI to VGA adapter. Given that this is a mid-range card, the lack of extras bundled with it comes as no surprise. With a minimum PSU requirement of just 450W and a single 6-pin power connector, the HD 7850 is good enough to fit into HTPCs as well.

Heatsink

Now the card itself is very interesting to behold. The basic design of the Direct CUII heatsink on the HD 7850 looks to be identical to higher-end cards such as the recently reviewed HD 7970 Direct CUII TOP. Closer inspection will reveal major differences, though. The GPU and memory modules are covered with an aluminum block extending out to multiple thick fins. The GPU itself is connected to three copper heatpipes that then extend into a secondary aluminum block with thinner, and more, fins. The whole unit is then cooled off by two 7.2cm fans. The entire heatsink is covered in a plastic casing right on the top, unlike the metal one on HD 7970 DCUII TOP.

Overclocking

So what does this Direct CU II heatsink give us? Well, firstly the card comes factory overclocked to 975MHz core clock and 1250MHz (5000MHz effective) memory clock speeds. This itself is 115MHz and 50MHz faster than reference AMD core and memory clock speeds. When overclocking, the Direct CUII heatsink also afforded a respective core clock of 1031MHz and memory speeds of 1300MHz (5200MHz effective). That’s clocked 5.7% faster than factory and 19.8% faster than reference AMD speeds. Memory speeds are 4% faster than factory and 8.3% faster than reference speeds.

Temperatures remained at 30°C when idling, going up to 69°C under full load. While overclocked, idle temperatures remained the same, but maximum temperature touched 70°C. For the most part eh fans remained fairly quiet, but running Metro 2033, Battlefield 3, Unigine and 3DMark made the fans loud. Not loud enough to be annoying, but on our open testbed then were audible in the whole room. Inside a rig, of course, even that much sound will be minimal.

Test setup

The below testbed was used for testing the ASUS HD 7850 Direct CUII.

The below settings were used in each of the benchmark.

The tests were carried out at a resolution of 1920×1080 and drivers used for the ASUS HD 7850 Direct CUII were the latest Catalyst 12.3 release.

AMD A10 Trinity APU first impression

Taimoor Hafeez — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:23:54 +0000

AMD’s latest entry for their Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) is going to come out soon. While both desktop and laptop variants will be out almost at the same time, we have a sneak peak at the A10 Trinity mobile APU.

The prototype laptop AMD had brought along with them had undisclosed specs, but they confirmed that it was running their top of the line A10 quad-core APU. This test unit specifically was running just the APU, there was no discrete graphics card within the laptop, ergo no CrossFire.

While they didn’t allow us to run the built-in benchmark on Dirt 3, we did get a chance to see the game running on the A10 APU with everything set on high and 2xMSAA. Check it out for yourself below.

Next up is a short demonstration of one of the new features AMD is implementing in the A10 APU. The AMD Steady Video technology is implemented at a hardware level on all Trinity based APUs, and one of the videos AMD demonstrated this image stabilization tech with was the extremely shaky Triple Tomcat Launch.

Lastly we wrap up the A10 Trinity demo with a short interview with AMD’s Stefano Chiavegati, Head of Commercial and Component Marketing for EMEA. We asked about the A10 Trinity’s launch, comparison with Ivy Bridge, CrossFire compatibility with HD 7600 series cards.

So expect the AMD A10 Trinity APUs to be out by the end of June. We’ll have more updated coverage on the new platform closer to release.

Nvidia GTX 680 SLI vs AMD HD 7970 CFX

Taimoor Hafeez — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:44:11 +0000

Now that the flagship single-GPU cards from both Nvidia and AMD are out, it’s time to see how well they perform in a dual-GPU setup. We know that the Nvidia GTX 680 beats the AMD HD 7970 without breaking a sweat; but history has taught us that SLI and CrossFireX don’t always have the same scalability one would hope.

So today I’ll be looking at the capability of a pair of GTX 680 and HD 7970, and how optimized both Nvidia and AMD drivers really are to take advantage of such heavy hardware.

Below is a spec comparison sheet between the GTX 680 and HD 7970 cards.

As you can see, on paper the HD 7970 seems superior to the GTX 680, in that it has a higher transistor count, more memory and shaders. Despite that, a standard GTX 680 will beat any HD 7970 in pretty much all our benchmarks. Increase the number of cards from one to two, though, and the picture changes colors.

Test Setup

For testing the graphics cards today, the following testbed was used:

The drivers used for the AMD HD 7970 cards were Catalyst 12.2 and for the Nvidia GTX 680 cards were GeForce 301.10.

The below settings were used in all of our benchmarks, run at resolutions of both 1920×1200 and 2560×1440.

Gigabyte HD 7770 OC Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:28:59 +0000

In all the hoopla over the last few weeks with the Kepler launch, I overlooked a rather interesting card from AMD that also launched recently. While not quite in the same category as the other mid-range to high-end cards I have recently reviewed, the HD 7700 series nonetheless deserves a look over. True, I wasn’t much impressed with the AMD HD 7750, but the HD 7770 presumably improves the situation somewhat. So with much hopes, today I’ll be looking at the Gigabyte HD 7770 graphics card.

Layout & Cooling

The Gigabyte HD 7770 OC, as the name implies, comes with a factory overclock. What we have here is 1100MHz on the Core clock, up from 1000MHz from reference AMD speeds.

The overclock is obviously a result of the custom heatsink Gigabyte has put on top of the Cape Verde GPU. The large metal (presumably aluminum) heatsink has multiple fins spreading out; kept cool with a large fan that’s mostly quiet.

Measuring a total of 21cm, this card requires one 6-pin power connector with a minimum 450W PSU for smooth operations. Inside the packaging you’ll just get the (outdated) driver CD and installation instruction manual.

AMD to launch two new FX processors

Taimoor Hafeez — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:33:12 +0000

According to a recent leak by donanimhaber, we maybe seeing two new AMD FX series processors coming out soon. The FX-6130 is a hexa-core CPU which will be running at 3.6GHz (3.9GHz boost). The 6-cores will be accompanied by 6MB L2 cache and 8MB L3 cache. Pricing will be roughly $155 as it will be sitting smack int he middle of the FX-6100 and FX-6200 priced at $165 and $145 respectively.

The second processor to be out is the FX-4130 running at 3.8GHz (3.9GHz boost). This quad-core CPU will have 4MB of L2 and L3 cache and will probably be priced around $100.

Both processors are rated at 125W TDP and are set to be released in Q2 2012; right around the time for Intel’s Ivy Bridge launch. Whether this will dent the sales in Intel’s new platform remains to be seen, but don’t be surprised if AMD will accompany these two new processors with an overall drop in the price for the entire FX series processors.

Nvidia GTX 680 Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:53:15 +0000

Another year passes along; another high-end card enters the market, another fight between AMD and Nvidia for the graphical crown. While the previous generation was completely owned by Nvidia when it came to the ‘fastest’ graphics card with the GTX 580, the HD 6990 vs. GTX 590 debacle notwithstanding, this time around things have gotten quite exciting.

Last year AMD released their flagship HD 7970 graphics card which easily bested NVidia’s GTX 580, but this was not an easy victory. And a short lived one at that, as you’ll find out soon enough. Today I’ll be looking at the Nvidia GTX 680 graphics card, a GPU many PC enthusiasts have been looking forward to since early this year.

Like the AMD HD 7000 series, the first thing to note about NVidia’s new Kepler architecture is that the GTX 680 runs on a 28nm core. It has a relatively low TDP of 195W and requires just two 6-pin connectors to power itself; a minimum PSU of 550W is recommended.

Measuring a little lesser than the GTX 580, the GTX 680 comes in at 10-inches. The rest of the specs for the GTX 680 are listed below.

Just on paper the AMD HD 7970 seems superior, tech wise, than the GTX 680. The memory bandwidth, number of transistors and shader count on the HD 7970 are more than the GTX 680, but NVidia’s champion does have higher clock speeds. We’ll soon find out whether the Kepler architecture is better than Tahiti or not.

AMD’s market share increases, Intel’s drops

Taimoor Hafeez — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 06:46:28 +0000

According to research firm IDC, the PC microprocessor industry shipment grew in 2011 by 3.6% compared to 2010. The revenue for the same time period grew by 13.2%, to over $41 billion.

“The average selling price (ASP) that OEMs pay for PC microprocessors rose more than 9% in 2011, making 2011 the second consecutive year of notable ASP increases,” said Shane Rau, director of Personal Computing research at IDC.

Things become rather interesting when the full market share for the year 2011 is looked into. AMD gained a total market share of 19.7%, a gain of 0.7% compared to 2010, while Intel gained 80.1% overall worldwide market share, at a loss of 0.6% compared to 2010.

For the coming year, IDC predicts that the PC microprocessor shipments will grow by 5.1% as the worldwide hard drive shortage continues to stabilize and the sales jump up due to new processors released form both Intel and AMD.

AMD Radeon HD 7870 Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:51:14 +0000

The AMD HD 5800 series was one of those rare times in the industry where a relatively mid-ranged card goes above and beyond the call of duty to give high-end results. The 5800s instantly became the darling card of choice for PC enthusiasts everywhere, and indeed are one of the most popular and widely used graphics cards to date. A look at the Steam Hardware Survey shows that the HD 5800s are indeed much more popular than the HD 6800 series released in 2010. It stands to reason then, that AMD would want to capitalize the success of those cards by providing a spiritual successor in the form of the HD 7800 series.

The ‘Pitcairn’ HD 7800 series sits nicely between the ‘Tahiti’ HD 7900 and ‘Cape Verde’ HD 7700 series, targeted at the $199 to $399 market segment. This is where mainstream gamers go for a good deal.

The HD 7800 series continue using the same Graphics Core Next architecture found in HD 7900 & HD 7700 cards, running on a 28nm process with PCIe 3.0 interface. The Pitcairn will also have dual tessellation engines, something AMD is touting a lot, which should give it the upper hand compared to previous gen AMD and Nvidia DX 11 cards.

That’s a lot of impressive specs, especially for the price. Unfortunately today we only have the chance to look at AMD’s HD 7870; the HD 7850 will have to wait for another day.

So with the suggested retail price of $349, AMD are pitting the HD 7870 straight up against the Nvidia GTX 570 in terms of pure raw performance. However, as we’ll find out from the benchmarks later on, the GTX 580 also has reason to fear the Pitcairn chip.

Layout, Design & Cooling

The first thing you’ll notice is that the reference design of the HD 7870 is identical to the HD 7970 released last year. Coming in at 9.5-inches, the HD 7870 is a medium sized card which benefits greatly from the new Vapor Chamber. As we’ll find out in a bit, the new heatsink along with the new GCN helps yield impressive overclocking results. Of course, AMD partners will be using custom cooling solutions for even better results which we should be looking into in the future.

The HD 7870 has a DVI, HDMI and two mini-DP ports on the back; ready for an Eyefinity setup out of the box. The grill just above these ports provides the majority of the hot air exhaust.

A bit on the top and we can see the CrossFire plug that’s good for up to 2-way CFX setup only. Moving down we see the two 6-pin power connectors which draws up around 175W under full load.

AMD almost acquired NVIDIA before ATI

Mohammad Qamar — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:58:17 +0000

Recently, Forbes magazine got an ex-AMD employee to open up about the company. It turns out back in 2006, before AMD acquired ATI in order to get into the GPU business, it almost went ahead and acquired NVIDIA. According to the ex-AMD employee, AMD actually had NVIDIA as first pick ahead of ATI but the deal went under because NVIDIA CEO Huang, insisted on being chief executive of the resulting combined company.

So instead, AMD went ahead with the acquisition of ATI for its fledgling graphics division. And the rest as they say, is history.

NVIDIA has since developed massively on a number of fronts. It has dominated the graphics processor industry, introduced new technologies like PhysX and stereoscopic 3D vision, and then made a splash in the mobile industry with its Tegra graphics chips and it is still going strong. But then again, who can say that NVIDIA under AMD would have been such a success?