Second Generation DirectX 10 Graphics Card

After Computex 2008, ATI and NVIDIA graphics card launched their latest generation. CHIP four to see this card - Radeon HD4850, HD4870, the GeForce GT 260, GT 280 for you.
Forget what people say PC gaming problems. This is the best time to play games on the PC. Second-generation DirectX 10 graphics cards not only provide performance doubled compared to the first generation - Radeon 2900XT and the GeForce 8800GTS/GTX - but also present in the affordable range of U.S. $ 200 - 300. At the same time, awareness of many PC users will be noise and power consumption also require that the card-card is to apply the power and temperature management better.
AMD completed the R600 often considered as the 'underdog', AMD surprised many people with the Radeon HD3870/RV770. With the new focus, see AMD Radeon 2900XT/R600 back design and re-allocate their transistor budget for the card offers mainstream performance with the same - the internal ring bus memory controller and changed into 256 bits, and as compensation for core and memory clock improved. Based on information circulating, AMD is actually quite surprised HD3870 design work directly on the Spin first silicon.
The success with the Radeon HD3870 increase the sense of trust back AMD and remodel them back with a design R600/RV670 Radeon HD4870/RV770. Back using 55 nm manufacturing, they increase the number of shader units to 800 shader units, with the same pestle (1 light heavy pestle ALUdan 4). The main reviewers and users - small and texturing ability and performance when anti-aliasing enabled - also answered with the ability to add RBE be doubled, even though the number of units and pestle ratio: TeX not changed. In addition, the unit MSAA resolve hardware has been returned. Shader still used to resolve the custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA). To provide enough data to the RV770 core, AMD decided to use a 256 bit memory controller, but the version of the Radeon HD4870 is equipped with GDDR5 the clock is running high. Meanwhile, the Radeon HD4850 appear with GDDR3 memory with the aim to press charges.
NVIDIA - the more, bigger As with NVIDIA. For GT200, they are still using the 65 nm manufacturing process. The result is a chip that includes a giant 1.4 billion transistor. Most of the transistor budget is used for the additional number of shader units, which now totals 240 units and a memory controller upgrade to 512 bits. Still with multiple clock domains, shader units running in the GT200 speed more than double the core clock. All this certainly is not foreign anymore. In short, NVIDIA combines elements of the two G92 chips into one chip.Consequences of manufacturing 65 nm chip is a big, slow and expensive to be produced. NVIDIA is not considered a major problem, especially because AMD has stated they will not create a monolithic chip for high end market. AMD plans to use two RV770 chip as the solution to high end. Apparently, the assumption is wrong and look him in the chip.
Thanks CHIP grateful to have the Gigabyte GeForce provide a sample GT260 and GT280 for this article. In addition, CHIP also like to thank AMD and MSi that has been providing Radeon HD4850 and HD4870. In addition to the second card on top, CHIP also perform testing with other graphics cards as a comparison Sapphire Radeon HD3870 and Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT TurboForce.
Fourth graphics card tested this time running on the specification of reference. Therefore, the version of overclocking will be a little more quickly. Everything also use the reference cooling. One of the graphics card comparison - Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT TurboForce running faster than the specification reference 8800GT.
Power consumption and temperature
In addition to measuring performance, CHIP also make power consumption measurement system with four graphics cards this. Measurements conducted on the condition of idle (see the desktop) and the full load (run FEAR at a resolution of 1920 x 1440 with 4x AA and 16x AF). As a note, it is important to remember that this is the total power consumption of the entire system except the monitor and not the graphics power consumption is card.Selain, CHIP also noted the results of the measurement of thermal diode on-die each reported by the graphics card. Indeed, this means that CHIP should trust the reported results of graphics cards can only implement a system of monitoring the different temperature and / or put the diode in different places. However, CHIP remain confident that the temperature was reported when a more accurate measurement compared with the external thermal diode that is not touching the core / die.
Results of measurement that you see in addition to this fluctuating. So, add a margin of error of measurement for 5 watts power consumption. For temperature, if you plan to use graphics-card graphics in this room without air conditioning, add a margin of about 5 ° to 10 ° Celsius.Dari terms of power consumption, and the GeForce GT260 is the Radeon HD4850 graphics card terhemat when you work at the desktop. When you play, Radeon HD4850 interesting smallest power, while the GeForce GT260 and Radeon HD4870 approximately equal. You should ensure you have the chassis settings that air flow is very good, especially to see the temperature generated by this fourth graphics. Radeon HD4850 is equipped with only a single slot cooling the most heat during high idle, and slightly higher than the Radeon HD4870 at full load. This is because the Radeon HD4870 helped best dual slot cooling that use. NVIDIA in the side, need not doubt, Ge-Force GT260 work more cold from the three other graphics cards, even equal to the Radeon HD3870.
Outsmart fan Radeon HD4800 AMD to provide information that the graphics card Radeon HD4850 and HD4870 is not yet fully utilize all the power management functions held. The new BIOS are prepared not only reduce power consumption during idle, but also the core speed and the various' improvements' other. For now, CHIP will hold on the results obtained this time.
If you are not patient, you can apply traps were found by the community Guru3d.com to raise the level of speed cooling fan reference Radeon HD4850/4870. These tricks can be found in http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=2751569&postcount=8.
Many people have reported a decrease in temperature to 30 Celsius with the fan speed of 65 to 70 percent. At this level, the resulting sound can disrupt the user's sensitive ear. Therefore, you should experiment to find a combination of noise and speed fan that's right for you.
Until now, reviewers and AMD do not recommend that you use third-party heatsink, because not all third-party heatsink component VRM cool graphics card. When you use a third party heatsink make sure that the hot components (core, memory and VRM) are protected.
GT280 - the drivers or the BIOS
When you see the results of him, of course you see there is something awkward with him the results of the GeForce 280 GT. CHIP suspect there are problems with the sample Gigabyte received GT280 chip. Testing shows the performance of the performance should not happen in Quake 4 and Crysis on the resolution on the 1280 x 1024 - GT280 should be faster than GT260.
In addition, this graphics card generates heat so high that use rotating fan fast enough so fast you do not want to hear any previous-old. Sample GeForce GT280 received another chip and the GeForce GT260 does not show the same problem. Unfortunately, the sample GT280 is the GT280 version of overclocking, so do not use CHIP to this article. You should not use the results GT280 normally shown here as a benchmark for the performance of the GeForce graphics card GT280 other.
Too many cards, too few pages. Actually, there are still many things that should be reviewed, such as the burden of the CPU when the play H.264 video, how the burden of performance penalty when we activate the feature, such as coverage of the sampling AA (CSAA) and Transparency AA in the GeForce and custom filter AA (CFAA) and adaptive AA in Radeon. However, because the time limit and the page, CHIP can not be covered everything.
However, CHIP still had time to do additional testing to see the performance with 8x MSAA diban1600x1200 dingkan with 4x MSAA in Quake 4. The result is surprising - Radeon HD4870 winning here. In addition, CHIP also menyempatkan self test Crysis with High settings 0 and 4x AA and 16x AF. Here, again surpass Radeon HD4870 GeForce GT260, but it is more surprising is the Radeon HD4850 successful offer fps average above 40 fps.
In testing CHIP can see that the quality of the image that is displayed unchanged from the previous graphics card, both anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing.
Thank you, AMD / ATI
AMD has to prove that they have been back in the game of high end graphics card. How to explain again the performance graphics card is U.S. $ 300 graphics card that rival U.S. $ 500? NVIDIA also forced to cut the price of the GeForce GT260/GT280 to U.S. $ 329 and U.S. $ 459. While the GeForce 9800GTX price down to U.S. $ 200. This fact can be avoided if the steps NVIDIA AMD using 55 nm manufacturing. GeForce 9800GTX and 55 nm GT260/280 revision is currently being prepared, but you should not keep them waiting napas. They will not appear on the market until September this year. When it appears, they must meet with the Radeon 4800 X2/R700 which will be launched in August. NVIDIA will not be able to answer with the style GX2 card. This can only be done with a 55 nm chip. You are lucky NVIDIA and the new chip is ready in time quickly, they still need extra time for validation and design board. So the likelihood is very small. One notes that must be considered, particularly for gamers with a monitor on the 24 'or the resolution of 1920 x 1080 is the memory capacity Radeon HD4800. 512 MB is not clear enough to run the game, the game in the new resolution of 1920 x 1200. Testing with a resolution of 1920 x 1440 shows drastic decrease in Crysis, because the graphics card should take the data to RAM. When you pursue a high resolution, make sure you use the Radeon HD4870 1 GB or Radeon 4850 X2 2 GB.AMD still has one more surprise - AMD 790GX/SB750 with Hybrid Crossfire / Power Express and the potential to run * RKO Chic * ™ x4 in 3 GHz without change the voltage.
arnawa Widagda, Penulis@CHIP.co.id

source: Ed Chip magazine. 08/2008