The most recent articles from PC Magazine

Sparkle FX5700 Ultra DDRIII

PC Magazine Team — 2004-06-30T16:02:36.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 30 June 2004 at 16:02:36

Does this graphics card from Sparkle have anything new to offer?

What's so special about GDDR3 memory? Its major advantage is that it requires only 1.8V (Micron) or 1.9V (Samsung) and it also has to have on-die termination, both of which allow it to run at much higher frequencies (500-800MHz) than GDDR1 and the disappointing GDDR2 (because of the high heat generated by the chips).

Although 800MHz GDDR1 chips are available they are prohibitively expensive. The new chips run cooler, especially at the slower speeds.

But it's not quite all good news. The new chips have higher latencies than the older GDDR1, so the GDDR1 modules are slightly faster then GDDR3 chips at the same clock speed, but this is outweighed by the higher frequencies that are possible with GDDR3.

NVidia's FX5700 Ultra was the company's first card to use the new chips. It shows the advantage of using 256MB modules as it needs only four chips to reach 128MB, instead of the eight modules for the original FX5700 Ultra.

Sparkle's FX5700 Ultra DDRIII is a reference design even down to the heatsink and fan, but it is highlighted by Sparkle's use of a gold edging strip to the edge of the PCB.

There's no big bundle of goodies with the card, but this helps to keep the price down. All you get is a power cable, SVideo cable, DVI-I to VGA adaptor and a driver CD.

Contact: Discount Computer Supplies

www.dcs-online.biz

MSI NX6800 Ultra (T2D266)

PC Magazine Team — 2004-06-28T13:57:56.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Monday 28 June 2004 at 13:57:56

This graphics card from MSI comes with an impressive bundle of games andutilities.

MSI's NX6800 Ultra is the first retail board we have seen based on nVidia's new NV40 core. The basic PCB is as nVidia's reference design, including the dual DVI/I and single TV-out ports on the expansion plate, but MSI has added its own style of heatsink and cooler.

MSI supplies an impressive bundle of games and utilities with the card. These include MSI's own useful utilities; Media Deluxe Centre, which allows you to browse all your multimedia files under a single application; 5.1 DVD player, Super Pack with Photoshop Album SE and 3D Album SE; and 3D Desktop.

There's also a CD containing Virtual Drive 7 Professional and Restore It 3. The driver CD includes yet more useful goodies, including Live Update, which supports live BIOS updates; drivers for the graphics card; and WMIinfor, a DMI system information.

The games supplied are full copies of URU, XIII and Prince of Persia 3D, and if these aren't enough there is also a 14-in- games collection.

Contact: Scan Computers

www.scan.co.uk

Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro

PC Magazine Team — 2004-06-25T12:00:05.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Friday 25 June 2004 at 12:00:05

This sapphire is similar in looks to its predecessors but this latest version has some added features.

The first retail card based on ATI's latest R420 core to appear in VNU Labs came from one of ATI's long time partners, Sapphire Technology.

As you can guess from the name, the Radeon X800 Pro uses the 12-pipeline version of the R420 and, as is usual for the first of the retail cards, it?s clone of the reference ATI design complete with red PCB and reference heatsink and fan.

It's a nice, compact card. At first glance you could you were looking at one the previous Radeon 9800XT cards because they look similar.

Bundled with the card are the usual goodies from Sapphire: all the cables you need, including power, plus copies of Tomb Raider, CyberLink PowerDVD, Tweak (overclocking utility) and a driver CD.

Although the Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro is excellent value for money even at its full price, you can find it up to £40 cheaper if you shop around.

Contact: ebuyer

www.ebuyer.com

PowerColor Radeon 9600XT

PC Magazine Team — 2004-04-06T10:38:22.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Tuesday 6 April 2004 at 10:38:22

PowerColor's version of the 9600XT graphics card.

PowerColor's 9600XT Bravo, like its Radeon 9800XT, looks for all the world like ATI's reference design. While for the most part this is true, it does have one extra - ATI's Rage Theater chip, which supports ATI's VIVO functions, including the Multimedia Centre - and uses a non-reference heatsink and cooler.

While the heatsink looks good and has a red LED fan, it is a little over the top as the 9600XT isn't exactly one of the hottest cards around.

The single S-Video port on the back plate handles both video in and video out, so PowerColor has included a dongle. A nice touch is the provision of two S-Video and two composite cables. Even though both types of connectors are included, a converter is also in the box.

Although PowerColor doesn't include ATI's own DVD player, both WinDVD and Cyberlink's PowerDirector 2.0 ME are supplied, so you can create VCDs and DVDs from your video captures.

The rest of the software bundle is identical to the Radeon 9800XT: Lara Croft Tomb Raider - The Angel of Darkness, Big Mutha Truckers and several demo versions, including Splinter Cell and Warcraft III - Reign of Chaos.

Contact: Komplett 0870 8727 107

www.komplett.co.uk

PowerColor Radeon 9800XT

PC Magazine Team — 2004-04-01T15:11:59.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Thursday 1 April 2004 at 15:11:59

This graphics card is similar in looks to ATi's reference design but how does it compare on performance.

As PowerColor is an AIB partner of ATI, it comes as no surprise that its Radeon 9800XT looks identical to ATI's reference design for the GPU.

As with its appearance, its specifications are as per the reference card: 256MB of DDR memory, a 256-bit memory bus with the memory clocked at 730MHz (365MHz DDR), a core clock speed of 412MHz and dual 400MHz RAMDACs.

It comes with the standard fare of a DVI-I to VGA adaptor, composite and S-Video cables, and a power cable for the card. Unless you have been visiting a parallel universe, the voucher for Half Life 2 instead of the game itself should not be unexpected. The rest of the software bundle comprises Lara Croft Tomb Raider - The Angel of Darkness, Big Mutha Truckers and a 3D Games pack with a number of demo versions.

The only application included is WinDVD 4. PowerColor provided Catalyst 3.8 drivers with the card, but to get the best out of it, visit ATi's site and download the latest driver, currently Catalyst 4.2.

Contact: Komplett (0870) 872 7107

www.komplett.co.uk

AOpen Aeolus FX5700 Ultra DV128

PC Magazine Team — 2004-03-18T11:40:54.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Thursday 18 March 2004 at 11:40:54

Is this graphics card any better than others in its price segment?

At the heart of the Aeolus FX5700 Ultra is nVidia's 0.13 micron NV36 core, which is an update of the NV35 core of the FX5600. Improvements include faster memory and core clock speeds, updated shaders and 128MB of DDR-II memory.

Clock speed is now 475MHz while the memory speed is 900MHz (450MHz DDR-II). With a 128-bit memory bus this gives the FX5700 Ultra a bandwidth of 14.4GB/s.

AOpen's Aeolus uses a reference nVidia cooling solution for both the GPU and the memory chips. The GPU cooler is fitted with a low noise fan and cools both the GPU and the top memory chips while the bottom chips are cooled by a ribbed plate. Although this gives a single slot-width solution, the DDR-II memory chips get hot and therefore still need some circulation of air around them.

The software package is basic - just a driver CD and a copy of WinDVD. This isn't a bad thing as it allows AOpen to sell the card at a competitive price.

The FX5700Ultra offers great performance for its price segment. But, like all FX5700 Ultra cards, AOpen's Aeolus day in the sun has been short, overshadowed by the recent release of the faster FX5900XT for almost the same price.

Contact: Dabs.com

www.dabs.com

Sapphire Ultimate Radeon 9600XT

PC Magazine Team — 2004-03-17T11:18:02.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 17 March 2004 at 11:18:02

A graphics card that uses heatpipe technology for cooling rather than a noisy fan.

As even mainstream graphics cards get more and more powerful, they need ever more cooling. This in turn leads to larger, faster fans and yet more noise from inside the PC, especially when the fans get dusty or the bearings begin to wear out.

An ideal way to combat this problem is to get rid of the fan completely, which is what Sapphire has done with its latest card based on ATI's Radeon 9600XT - the Radeon 9600XT Ultimate Edition.

Working with Zalman, the masters of quiet cooling, Sapphire has produced a card that relies on Zalman's heatpipe technology. In place of the fan there is a large heatsink on the front of the card and another on the rear, with a single heatpipe connecting the two. This neat solution keeps the card as a single slot card.

Along with all the standard hardware, cables, adapters and user manual, there is a software bundle comprising Redline (Sapphire's own overclocking utility), Power-DVD XP4.0, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, a Direct X9 game and the standard issue for a XT card - the Half Life 2 voucher, redeemable should the game ever appear.

It's a shame that with this cooling solution Sapphire didn't try and push up the core and clock memory speeds.

Contact: Ebuyer

www.ebuyer.com

AOpen Aeolus FX5900XT

PC Magazine Team — 2004-03-10T12:12:49.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 10 March 2004 at 12:12:49

This graphics card uses Aopen's heatsink and cooler design.

It's hard to believe there are any gaps left in the graphics card market, but somehow people keep finding them.

The latest nVidia offering for the mid-range market is the GeForce FX5900XT that, along with the recently released FX5700Ultra, is aimed at taking on ATI's 9600XT.

The 5900XT has slower core (400MHz) and memory clock (700MHz, 350MHz DDR) speeds than the FX5700 Ultra (475MHz and 900MHz respectively), but it uses a 256-bit wide memory bus.

This gives it a peak memory bandwidth of 22.4GB/s, compared with the 14.5GB/s of the FX5700 Ultra's 128-bit bus. There are two pixel pipelines with eight textures per clock.

AOpen uses the FX5900XT for its latest graphics card, the Aeolus FX5900XT-DV128. Cleanly laid out, the board is an nVidia reference design, but with AOpen's own design of heatsink and cooler.

The heatsink is not the usual huge one that's common these days, but a compact design that just covers the GPU and blows air over the memory chips. The heatsink is confined to one side of the board, and there are no memory chips on the reverse.

As with most AOpen cards there isn't much software bundled with the FX5900XTDV128, but why bother paying for games you are never going use? Apart from the driver CD all you get is InterVideo WinCinema.

The hardware included is limited to a DVI-I/VGA adaptor and composite video cable.

Contact: Dabs.com

www.dabs.com

Prolink PixelView FX5700 PDF

PC Magazine Team — 2004-03-09T11:20:51.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Tuesday 9 March 2004 at 11:20:51

This graphics card comes with a unique PDF (Plasma Display Fan).

It seem there's no end to the avalanche of graphics cards hitting the market. It takes something special to make you take notice of a product, and Prolink's PixelView FX5700 PDF certainly falls into this category.

Based on nVidia's GeForce FX5700 (NV36) GPU with 256MB of DDR-SDRAM memory, the core speed is 425MHz while the memory is clocked at 600MHz (300MHz DDR).

What makes the card stand out from the crowd is PDF - not something offered by Adobe but a Plasma Display Fan. This is a combination of a large heatsink (so large it covers the whole card), a quiet variable speed fan (quoted at around 25dB) and a readout that displays the GPU temperature and fan speed.

Both the fan and the display feature a blue backlight. Along with the gold heat sink this is one card that absolutely needs a case with a clear perspex side panel.

Because of the size of the heatsink, connecting power to the card requires a short extension lead instead of the normal 4-pin Molex connector.

Other hardware in the box consists of the standard VIVO splitter box, video cable and a DVI-VGA.

Apart from the driver CD, the software is limited to CyberLink PowerDirector PRO and InterVideo WinDVD 4.

Contact: Micro Direct, (0870) 444 4456

www.microdirect.co.uk

Sapphire The Beast

PC Magazine Team — 2004-02-05T10:20:10.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Thursday 5 February 2004 at 10:20:10

Is this all-in-wonder 9600 Pro really the beast of all graphics cards?

Amid all the ballyhoo surrounding the launch of the Radeon 9600XT and 9800XT, you may have not noticed that ATI also launched an addition to its All-in-Wonder series, the All-in-Wonder 9600 Pro card.

Unlike previous All-in-Wonder products, the AIW 9600 Pro has benefited from some tinkering to the memory clock. With a speed of 650MHz, it runs 50MHz faster than the standard 9600 Pro. So, although it sits in the product line between the 9600 Pro and the 9600XT, its performance edges it closer to that of the 9600XT.

Also new is the FM tuner added to the Philips analog TV tuner. Because of this additional input, there's a new output port and cable bundle for the video out functions.

Another addition is dual monitor support, something the AIW series had been lacking.

Sapphire's AIW Radeon 9600 Pro is identical to the ATI reference design, a compact design with only a small cooling fan on the GPU while the 128MB of DDR memory chips have no cooling all.

As you might expect with an All-in-Wonder, the box is full of goodies. Apart from the new cable bundle, which has the dual VGA outputs (it would be useful if the number one cable was a different colour), there's a composite video cable, video/audio input block, Remote Wonder and the Remote receiver.

The software bundle comprises Pinnacles Studio v8 SE, the Redline overclocking utility and a full version of Tomb Raider - The Angel of Darkness.

Contact: Komplett.co.uk

www.komplett.co.uk

AOpen Aeolus FX5950 Ultra

PC Magazine Team — 2004-02-04T15:23:36.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 4 February 2004 at 15:23:36

Try this card with a huge but quiet cooling system.

The Aeolus FX5950 Ultra is based on the reference nVidia design. This means that it has a huge, but surprisingly very quiet, cooling system. Unfortunately, this takes up two expansion slots, therefore making two PCI slots unusable, so this isn't the card for you if you have a small form factor case.

The rear bracket has 15-pin D-sub, DVI-I connectors along with a combined TV-Out/ Video-in port.

AOpen's software bundle may seem a little sparse, but it does include a couple of useful utilities. Live Update Wizard, for example, like a normal BIOS update wizard can auto detect the VGA driver/BIOS version, link to AOpen's Web site and download and automatically install BIOS and driver updates. There's also E-colour 3Deep, which provides colour and lightening correction to the Gamma settings of the card and monitor to get the best out of your game. You even get Inter-Video WinCinema, WinProducer and a driver CD to round off the bundle. No games are included, but then with these cards costing so much why pay extra for games you're not interested in?

Contact: Dabs.com

www.dabs.com

ASUS Radeon 9800XT

PC Magazine Team — 2004-02-04T15:09:05.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 4 February 2004 at 15:09:05

Looking for a 'cool' solution then this could be the card for you.

When the 9800XT was launched, one of the more surprising announcements was that ASUS - a long time nVidia champion - would be one of ATI's launch partners for the new card.

The first thing that strikes you about the Radeon 9800XT is that it's suffering from a severe case of over packaging - the box it comes in is huge.

The bright orange card uses ASUS' own cooling solution for the 9800XT. A huge copper heatsink sits on top of the GPU and upper memory chips. This incorporates two cooling fans and a cooling pipe. The memory chips on the underside are cooled by another huge copper plate.

ASUS has also included a Rage Theater chip to support Video-in, so you no longer have to use an All-in-Wonder card to get this feature.

Although the box says you get a copy of Half Life 2, at the time of writing the game still hasn't been released so you get a voucher instead. What, however, does come with the card is still impressive. Utilities included are Medi@Show SE, Power-Director ME, ASUSDVD XP and Ulead Cool 3D, while the game bundle contains Battle Engine Aquila, Gunmetal and a Games Power bundle.

Contact: Perfex (0870) 141 7161

www.overclock.co.uk

ASUS Radeon 9600XT

PC Magazine Team — 2004-02-04T14:35:48.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 4 February 2004 at 14:35:48

A cool running graphics card.

Unlike its 9800XT offering, the ASUS Radeon 9600XT looks much closer to the reference design, with just the cooling heatsink and fan unit changed, making the board look quite attractive with an orange PCB and silver cooling components. The bottom of the card doesn't even have a cooling plate, demonstrating how cool the card runs.

The expansion plate has the usual three ports on it; DVI-I, D-sub and S-Video output.

It also comes with the same extras bundle as the ASUS 9800XT, which at this price point is very impressive.

Contact: Perfex (0870) 141 7161

www.overclock.co.uk

Sparkle SP8835-PT Platinum

Simon Crisp — 2003-12-19T16:36:19.000Z

Simon Crisp, PC Magazine, Friday 19 December 2003 at 16:36:19

One of the best looking graphics cards around.

The first thing you notice about Sparkle's SP8835-PT Platinum is its packaging. The card and bundled software arrive in a large metal tin about the same size as a small pedal bin.

Based around an nVidia GeForce FX5900, the card really needs a case with a window in to show it off, as Sparkle has spared nothing to make the GRAPHICS CARD FX5900 one of the best-looking cards around. It even has a goldcoloured edging strip to the PCB.

Built on a 0.13-micron core, the FX5900 has a 256-bit memory interface, a core clock running at 400MHz and dual RAMDACS running at the same speed. It supports 8X AGP and is Direct X9-compatible. The SP8835-PT Platinum comes with 128MB of DDR memory, with the memory clock running at 425MHz of DDR (850MHz).

Accessories are neatly packaged in a zip-lock plastic bag and include a SCART adaptor with audio, video and S-video ports. These are switchable between input and output. There's also a DVI-I adaptor and power cable. A second bag contains the driver CD-ROM, which includes Sparkle's SmartInstall software for a one-click driver installation, provides information about your settings, system information and connects directly to Sparkle's Web site for downloading the latest drivers. The SP8835-PT is a very well presented card.

Contact: Sparkle

www.sparkletechnology.co.uk

AOpen Aeolus FX5600P-VC128 Personal Cinema

Simon Crisp — 2003-12-18T12:59:55.000Z

Simon Crisp, PC Magazine, Thursday 18 December 2003 at 12:59:55

nVidia's answer to ATI's All-in-Wonder series.

Personal Cinema is nVidia's answer to ATI's All-in-Wonder series, with many of the same capabilities as the AIW, including an RF remote control. It's a long-awaited update to the original Personal Cinema, based on the GeForce 4 family of chips.

The latest addition to AOpen's line up of graphic cards is the Aeolus FX5600 Personal Cinema, which supplements the Aeolus FX5200 Personal Cinema in Aopen's range. As its name suggests, the Aeolus FX5600 is based around nVidia's FX5600 DirectX 9 GPU - the mid-range version of the FX5800 high-end card. It comes with 128MB of DDR memory, a 325MHz core clock and a 400MHz memory clock with the GPU being actively cooled by a fan.

With an integrated Philips TV tuner taking up space on the board, there's only space for one monitor connector. AOpen has chosen to go with the normal 15-pin D-sub connector, rather than a DVI port. Joining this on the backplate is the TV input port and the 41-pin connector for the AV breakout box.

The AV box has stereo input and output ports, composite video I/O and S-Video I/O ports, so all types of audio and video appliances can be hooked up to the card. The remote control looks very much like the one that comes with ATI's products, which is no surprise, as they're both made by the same manufacturer. The receiver for the remote plugs into a USB port.

The software bundle includes nVidia's NVDVD, Ulead DVD Movie Factory, Ulead VideoStudio and WinDVR.

Contact:Dabs or Aopen

www.dabs.com

www.aopen.nl