Hardware news !!

[Terror]

yeah that would be nice, i know quite a bit of that stuff myself often. I just have to see when i start posting here with new crap, and where Nyar and the others left off.

grtz, Rene Smeitink

[Terror]

Well, let's start with my first hardware news post, even though it is not THAT new:

Nvidia (edit: looooooool i meant intel ofcourse )has come up with it's new Pentium 4 3,06 ghz processor, which again gives Intel the honor of the fastes processor on the market, improving even on their 2.8 ghz Pentium 4 which already beated the AMD Athlon XP 2800+

However, good news for the AMD fans as well, as they have just released the AMD XP Barton 2.8 ghz and 3.0 ghz processors. This new processor generation will eventually probably even beat the Pentium 4 and bring AMD back in the lead of the fastest processors.

The test results i read so far are not too great, as they can hardly rival the older XP processors and are even beaten by the Pentium 4 processors. Still i think the new processor will give AMD a temporary advantage, untill Intel comes up with their new generation processor, as the Pentium 4 also seems to have reached it's speed limit.

info about some speed comparisons can be found here:

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/bar30003.htm

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/bar30004.htm

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/bar30005.htm

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/bar30006.htm

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/bar30007.htm

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/bar30008.htm

A good site to find some general cpu benchmark comparisons can be found at the site of cpuscorecard. Strangely they always were the first to compare the newest processors, but it looks like they're sleeping or on vacation for a while as they have still not compared the 3.0 ghz processors. Still it is a great site to see how good your processor actually is compared to newer ones, and to decide which one to buy if you want to get a new computer. As you can see on the site, the Pentium 4 2,8 ghz is still leading, closely followed by the AMD Athlon XP 2800+ at 97% of the Pentium 4 2800's speed.

http://www.cpuscorecard.com/

[gryphon]

As I have to buy a new RAID controler for my own computer. I thought it could be informative to make a post out of it. As it is probably a techniek not many people will be fammiliar with. Some of you may buy one, some won't and some will just want to buy one.

Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID for short can come in several forms. Using 2, 3, 4, 5 or in some cases more hard drives to store data on. Files can be divided into 2 sections stored on mirrored linked drives to gain speed.[ called stripping ] Or 2 disks, 1 as origional and one as a real time copy.[ called mirroring, there is a 3th option called parity but I'll skip that for now ] A more detailed explenation on the types of RAID is stated below.

RAID 0: Striping. RAID 0 distributes data evenly in horizontal stripes across an array of drives. While RAID 0 offers substantial speed enhancements, it provides no data protection: If one drive fails, all data is lost and all drives must be reformatted.

RAID 1: Mirroring. RAID 1 creates a pair of mirrored drives with exactly the same data. It provides a high level of data availability and, by using both drives simultaneously, offers fast read performance.

RAID 3: Striping with parity. RAID 3 stripes data across two or more drives and stores parity data on a dedicated drive. In the event of a disk failure, the redundant parity bits can be used to reconstruct data on any drive.

RAID 5: Striping with distributed parity. For the best balance of fault tolerance and read/write performance, RAID 5 distributes both data and parity information across an array of drives one block at a time, with each drive operating independently.

RAID 0 + 1: Striping over mirroring. This hybrid RAID level is created by striping data across multiple pairs of mirrored drives. With Xserve RAID, both striping and mirroring are set up in hardware, which means the array can run independently of the server processor.

RAID 10, 30, and 50: These hybrid RAID levels are created by combining RAID level 1, 3, or 5 with RAID 0 (RAID 50 refers to RAID 5 + 0). You create two hardware RAID sets and then stripe the data across the two sets using software RAID.

Now why is this in Tech Support under Hardware news. ..

As RAID controlers have been used in SCSI array for a long time, a few companies have "resently" been producing IDE raid controlers as PCI cards. And some of the MOBO's can have the feature onboard when you would buy a newer model.

Adaptec, Highpoint and Promise might be the 3 most well known producers of IDE RAID PCI controlers.

Now, the advantage of RAID systems for a home user compared to a server system are verry small. Althoug RAID 0 can have some advantages for the home user who wants just that little bit of extra speed out of his hard drives. [ or just if you want a lot of hard drives in your pc but don't want to pay the SCSI prices ]. A system without RAID would shift about 24,250 Kbytes per second via a normal IDE bus, where the same system with RAID has an average data transfer rate of over 55 Mbytes per second.

I'm not really shure if you like to know the above, or whould have wanted to see more pictures / test data. .. [ IM kind'a new to this MOD job here ;) ]

For some more general information there are 1, 2, 3 article links on Tom's Hardware.

[number6]

Good info Gryphon, but I think only us techies actually read/respond to this thread. I have never had to setup a RAID disk array, but it is good of you to share the info. Maybe my next system will have one :)

[chrisbak3]

How does this new ATA serile connection work

[gryphon]

This is a site that could provide you with more information about it. Just some simple questions and answers. [ didn't even know the site was there myslef :- ]

The connector at the right is a SATA connector.

This is an article at Tom's hardware with a small brieving about it.

In short, the current parallel connection of your IDE channels is going to be replaced with a serial standard. That gives besides smaller connectors a way of faster and more stable data transfer between your IDE devices and MOBO. [ if should give less electromagnetic interferance, but I'm not shure on that ]

[ace1gold]

i have had several nvidia cards and only 1 ati card and i can tell you from my experience ati takes nvidia cards to the cleaners, dont be put off by negative stories from generals about ati cards because generals was designed around the nvidia cards not the ati ones...

[Nyarlathotep]

i have had several nvidia cards and only 1 ati card and i can tell you from my experience ati takes nvidia cards to the cleaners, dont be put off by negative stories from generals about ati cards because generals was designed around the nvidia cards not the ati ones...

I can't confirm, nor deney the story about Generals, but Generals causes a lot of problems for many users, with many setups. As far as ATi goes, I've owned one of their cards and their driver support was (and still is) complete crap. Nvidia may be taken to the cleaners in your opinion, but ATi can learn a thing or two from Nvidia about driver support.

Apart from drivers, all products are judged on by experience. If you have good experience witha product, you stick with it. Bad experience will lead you to other products. Tests can show a lot, but they can invent an ATi card right now that's 5 times faster then an Nvidia card, but I will surely not buy it. It's a matter of personal experience.

[number6]

i have had several nvidia cards and only 1 ati card and i can tell you from my experience ati takes nvidia cards to the cleaners, dont be put off by negative stories from generals about ati cards because generals was designed around the nvidia cards not the ati ones...

Please point me to your source of info on your statement that Generals was developed specifically for Nvidia cards. As far as I can tell Generals was designed to use DirectX and there are no specific Nvidia API's for the app to call anyway. Both manufacturers video cards have respectable specs and are practically equal from a hardware perspective. The reason a lot of people like Nvidia better is because of the software driver support is awesome. ATI is known for taking forever to fix issues. I have had both brands and I must say ATI sucks in my opinion, though they are getting better. If you like ATI that's fine, but it is going to take ATI a long time to catch up with Nvidia as far as compatbaility and support are concerned (which is more important than raw performance).

[ace1gold]

lol ive read it at several sources ages ago when generals 1st came out on the official boards, i didnt mean it was designed especially for it just saying it was designed with nvidia users more in mind than ati users. i.e that the performance of the game would be superior on a nvidia card as opposed to an ati 1, of course it may be totally wrong im just telling u what i read, im not gonna go trauling through the 1000s of topics trying to find it i dont have the time, and nyar ive never had 1 single problems getting drivers for my ati radeon and the amount of problems i had with the nvidia cards was greater than that of my ati, the quality of the ati is fabulous..

[ace1gold]

and your right nyar i stick to what ive had good experience with, i like u are an asus fan altho i defected from intel after the shit p3 and got an athlon.

[number6]

lol ive read it at several sources ages ago when generals 1st came out on the official boards, i didnt mean it was designed especially for im just saying it was designed with nvidia users more in mind than ati users. i.e that the performance of the game would be superior on a nvidia card as opposed to an ati 1, of course it may be totally wrong im just telling u what i read, im not gonna go trauling through the 1000s of topics trying to find it i dont have the time, and nyar ive never had 1 single problems getting drivers for my ati radeon and the amount of problems i had with the nvidia cards was greater than that of my ati, the quality of the ati is fabulous..

I would not want to look through all those threads either :) . Unless one of the developers of Generals posted that info I highly doubt the source that said the game was made with only Nvidia users in mind. I am curious what Nvidia cards you had problems with. Were they TNT's, Geforce 1,2,3,4? I have a radeon in my older PC and it runs fine, but so does my newer Nvidia Geforce 3. I only ever had problems with my older video cards like my Voodoo 3. Nowadays there is really little that seperates these video cards spec wise. I have not heard of any Nvidia game compatability problems of late, but I have heard quite a few about ATI Radeons. It's great that you like your Radeon and have had no problems, you seem to be the minority in this area. I would still recommend Nvidia over ATI because as I have said the driver support is a lot better and Nvidia has worked very hard to build this reputation. Right now ATI is playing catch up in the support department. The other reason Nvidia is better in my opinion is because there are several vendors competing against one another with Nvidia cards and this keeps the prices lower. Even very basic Radeons cost a lot more than a medium speced Nvidia. Only ATI makes radeons and they can dictate higher prices for lesser performing cards. So from a cost to performance ratio Nvidia is the way to go and from a user support area Nvidia is clearly superior.

[ace1gold]

well if u read the generals forums nearly all of the graphics card problems are ati card ones but whether thats to do with driver support or generals being geared around nvidia i dont know. i think ati is the better option if ur more of an expert user as u will know how to fine tune it and u can get better performance but obviously if ur looking for support and that ur probably right nivida is the way to go, i had a geforce 3 and a tnt and the tnt was awful and led to choppy video signs, i just wasnt impressed resolution performance was low whereas when i got my ati radeon it was awesome from the word go and i havent had 1 problem on any game ive tried it with, including generals emperor war craft 3 renegade etc

i think the 1 they gave me was a super happy nice working card ;)

[number6]

Well there is a big difference between an TNT and Geforce 3. If you want to compare a TNT to a competing ATI product take a look at the ATI Rage Fury, that card was aweful. I am sure the geforce 3 was smooth and had very crisp graphics and that would be a better card to compare your Radeon to. You can also tweek geforce video cards as well (Most vendors supply tools to do this).

[Nyarlathotep]

Ace, don't forget that most users on the General forums have absolutely no idea about what's going on in their computers. Most of them even blink after someone asks them "Did you update the drivers ?". And with blink I mean they wonder why they should update.

Also, I've read further then the Generals forum and it seems that ATi does have issues with their drivers (I'll try to look if I can find where I read it and post it here for you).

And in this time, no matter how masterful you are, no matter how good you are able to tweak things, if there's a lack of driver support you can absolutely do nothing. Therefore my vote goes to Nvidia all the way (I might change if ATi changes it's support position though). And like Number6 said, comparing a TNT to a radeon is like comparing apples to oranges.

Let me make things clear though, if you compare both cards in performance and only performance, they both make excellent cards (they top eachother whenever one brings out a new card). There can be no question about it.

[ace1gold]

when did i compare a tnt to a radeon? u asked me what cards i had and i said id had a tnt, im not comparing it im merely pointing out i wasnt impressed with it

[number6]

i had a geforce 3 and a tnt and the tnt was awful and led to choppy video signs, i just wasnt impressed resolution performance was low whereas when i got my ati radeon it was awesome from the word go and i havent had 1 problem on any game ive tried it with...

That sounds like you are comparing a TNT to a Radeon to me.

[ace1gold]

lol well what i meant was i was dissapointed with 1 and pleased with the other, if i was comparing them i wld have shown the advantages and disadvantages off both.. anyways moving on with the topic again...

[gryphon]

Lowzeewee, I've splited your topic to search for a CDrom drive to this one so we could keep this one for hardware news. :)

[Nyarlathotep]

Alright, time for an update..

For all AMD fans, here's a review of chipsets for AMD. It shows some good results comparing VIA and Nvidia chipsets.

SiS lately started making good boards for a resonable price. In this test you'll get presented with a test of the first board with dual DDR333. Interestin ? Maybe, but compared to the dual DDR266 chipset it doesn't do that well IMO.

Again SiS shows up with interesting news. I said that RAMBUS was fading out, SiS just proved me wrong. This test shows that RAMBUS still lives. The test is about the new SiS 658 chipset. IMHO I'd expected more from chipset, but it offers quite a lot more then the ancient (but still top performer) Intel 850E chipset. Notice the performance of the Intel 7205 chipset (dual DDR266). I'm eagerly awaiting the follow up on this new SiS chipset, the SiS 659.

Wanted to more about RAM and it's future ? Head over here and find out !!

Here's a test of the latest released video cards (The several Nvidia FX cards and the ATi 9000 series cards).

[Nyarlathotep]

AMD fans will weap, Intel fans will cheer. Intel has released a new motherboard chipset, 875i and with that, it's leaving RAMBUS behind. Reviews are xcellent and I for one can't wait for it to be in the stores !!

[Nyarlathotep]

Alright, next to the above motherboard chipset, Intel has been so kind to release a new 3Ghz processor to go with it. It's basicly the same as the "old" one, but the new one has 800FSB. The excellent processor to go with the new 875i chipset !!

I've ordered the stuff for my new computer, although some parts will be replaced later this year. For example, the GeForce 5800Ultra still isn't available in the Netherlands, so I decided to take another GeForce for now and I'll see later this year to what I'm going to change it to.

The parts I ordered:

1) Asus P4C800 - This board has the new Intel 875i chipset. It offers a lot of features, like Inteligent overclocking. What it means is that the BIOS will tune your CPU settings

2) Intel P4 3,066Ghz - 512kb cache and 800FSB

3) 80gb Maxtor 8Mb PLUS9 Liquid (2x) - I wanted Seial drives, but they wern't available to my likings. The 8mb cache makes sure that these drives have great performance. I also have a spare 10gig drive from IBM, which I will use as Swap drive.

4) 1Gig (2 x 512) DDRRAM (PC400) - Seems obvious, doesn't it

5) Sunflower case - The case is completely aluminum and has 6 cooling fans.

6) GeForce 4 Ti 4800 128mb DDR ram - This card will be replaced later this year. It has the same functinality as the Ti4600, but is AGP 8x.

7) Sounblaster Audigy II platinum - I think this speaks for itself.

As OS I have chosen Windows XP Pro. I will take pictures of the building process and try to attach them here with explanations. Hopefully you'll all be able to build your own PC after that

[number6]

That sounds like a sweet system Nyar. Are you going to do any case modding? I have wanted to try modding a case myself. I think with my next system I might. You know put a window in the case with neon lights and some extra holes in the case for massive airflow. Add to that a custom paint job. Oh well I can dream can't I?

[Nyarlathotep]

Nope, I'm not case modding. All those lights would only distract me from the game I'm playing

[GUNWOUNDS]

nice system