Saphire Radeon HD 4870

Video card sets new standards-in performance and price



AMD MUST BE CAUSING some headaches in the halls of its chief competitor, Nvidia. First, AMD ships the ATI Radeon HD 4850, a $199 card that ran neck-and-neck with the Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX, resulting in Nvidia significantly dropping the price of its own card. Now, AMD's $299 Radeon HD 4870 offers even greater performance, putting the card in competition with Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 260-which sells for $100 more.
Our review card came in the form of Sapphire's Radeon HD 4870. Along with the usual accessories, Sapphire bundles CyberLink's PowerDVD 7.0 and DVD Suite, a registered copy of Futuremark's 3DMark06, AMD's Ruby sampler DVD, and a 2GB USB flash drive containing a number of videos and wallpapers.
Although its HD 4850 little brother is a single-slot,single-power-connector card, the bigger HD 4870 has a thicker cooler-and-heat-sink combo that blocks an adjacent slot, and it requires a pair of six-pin PCI Express (PCIe) power connectors. Like the HD 4850, the HD 4870's RV770 GPU chip runs hot, idling at about 78 degrees Celsius. Its larger cooler vents air out the back of the case, however, so the hot GPU shouldn't have as much effect on overall system temperature. The fan is very quiet while idle but noticeably louder than the HD 4850 when it gets up to speed at high loads. It seems to cool things down quickly, however, and doesn't stay loud for long periods.
The card has a pair of dual-link DVI outputs, an analog output that support S-Video and component video, and HDMI and VGA adapters. The HDMI connector has its own integrated digital audio device, so you don't need to connect a pass-through cable to your motherboard sound card like you do with HDMI-capable Nvidia cards. The cad, which uses a fsater version of the DirectX 10.1-capable RV770 GPU introduced on the HD 4850, gets some of its increased performance from its 512MB of cutting-edge GDDR5 memory.
The card's performance is groundbreaking for its price. With 3D effects and details maxed, the Sapphire HD 4870 turned in playbale frame rates at 1,920x1,200 pixels in all our tests, clocking 35 frames per second (fps) in Call of Juarez, 36fps in World in Conflict, 39.9fps in Company of Heroes, and a whopping 100fps in F.E.A.R. This is something none of the previous-generation ATI cards could manage-not even the dual-GPU HD 3870 X2, which turned in a pokey 12fps at that resolution in World in Conflict and 26.9fps in Company of Heroes. The HD 4870 significantly outpaced Nvidia's 9800 GTX in all our tests except the two lower-resolution COmpany of Heroes; though admittedly, at its new price, the 9800 GTX now competes with the less expensive HD 4850.
The HD 4870's performance doesn't match that of Nvidia's high-end GTX 280 card, of course, but for the price of that model, you can buy two HD 4870 cards. You can drop up to three additional HD 4870 cards into a system that has a CrossFireX-compatible motherboard and additional PCIe slots, boosting performance even further.
Its bundle of useful PowerDVD applications might make Sapphire's version sound like a better pick than someting you already own, but though the company offers a two-year warranty on its video cards, all service requests must be handled through your place of purchase-not with Sapphire. (The company offers support via e-mail or a toll call.)

Given the Radeon HD 4850's already impressive performance, the $100 more you'll spend on an HD 4870 will net you about a 30 percent speed increase at higher resolutions. That additional speed might be overkill unless you're using a 24-inch or larger monitor; at lower resolutions, the HD 4870's additional performance is more of an investment in the future-something that used to be the domain of more expensive cards.-Denny Atkin
source: Computer Shopper October 2008.

www.sapphiretech.com

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Asus Trinity

Asus Trinity
Three GPUs, One PCB

Asus has been well known over the years as being a leading ODM for many top-tier computer manufacturers, from motherboards and graphics cards to notebooks and other types of SFF systems. Although motherboards and graphics cards have historically ben an Asus core competency, Asus is also well known for its ability to execute on new, leading-edge design and architectures that push the envelope beyond the standard reference design from OEMs such as Nvidia, AMd, and Intel. Often, with its significantin-house engineering resources, Asus is also the first to market some new innovation or design twist in graphics or motherboard.
Though multi-GPU graphics cards are nothing new, reference designs that employ more than one GPU on a single board are few and far between. You can probably count on one hand the number of procuts like Nvidia's dual-GPU-based GeForce 9800 GX2 or AMd's Radeon HD 4870 X2. However, as of late, AMD specially has been rather vocal about the future of graphics moving away from the single, billions-of-transistors, monster GPU to smaller multi-GPU designs that allow higher efficiencies at the wafer manufacturing level.
As such, it was no surprise when Asus contacted us regarding a wild new 3D graphic s product that was intended to be nothing more than a "Hey, look what we can do" proof of concept. Asus developed a prototype graphics card code-named Trinity that was built with not just two GPUs on board, but a trio of AMd ATI Radeon HD 3850 GPUs in CrossFireX on a single card. As you can imagine, we were pretty fired up to get our hands on this thing for a closer look, although we should underscore again that this card will never ship as a retail product and is more of a test vehicle than anything else.
The Asus Trinity is a single-card design that extends well beyond the standard ATX motherboard depth and consumes two slots in term of real estate in the card slot area. What you see on the top and back sides of the card are actually MXM (Mobile PCI-E Module) graphics modules slots hosting three horizontally mounted mobile GPU graphics modules. Some of you may be thinking Nvidia develped the MXM mobile graphics form factor and interface standard for its own use, but recall that ATI also decided to follow it for some of its mobile offerings, as well; it really isn't anything more innovative than bringing out PCI-E links on simple card edge "gold fingers" design.
If you look closely, sandwiched between the daughter card modules and the main PCB are traditional AMD ATI CrossFire ribbon cables. Also although we weren't daring enough to actually pull this one-of-a-kind prototype apart to confirm this, there must be a PCI-E switch under the Trinity's hood, allowing a single x 16 PEG slot link to be divided up amongst the three Radeon HD 3850 GPUs.
Finally, you'll also notice the Trinity has some exotic cooling going on, with a custom heatpipe and heatsink design that connects to liquid-cooling hoses. In fact, Asus shipped us Trinity along with a Thermaltake Bigwater 760i liquid-cooling kit. There's no question that this graphics card is way out there, in terms of both its board design and its base multi-GPU architecture.
Now obviously, a three-way CrossFireX configuration on a single board has never been done. In addition, efficient GPU performance scaling, especially in certain game engines, can be hit or miss. We begged Asus to let us run a few numbers on Trinity. For starters, we pulled down 16888 3DMarks in 3DMark06 and were then greeted by 50.1fps in Company of Heroes at 1,680 x 1,050 with 4X antialiasing. And believe it or not, it could play Crysis at 1,680 x 1,050 with medium image quality, clocking in 42.84fps. That's not bad for a prototype card with prototype drivers.
The Asus Trinity was definitely a fun diversion from the norm and possibly a glimpse of things to come for the future of multi-GPU graphics.

by Dave Altavilla

source: Computer Power User October 2008.
www.asus.com.tw

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Asus ENGTX280

Asus ENGTX280
Powerful, no-compromises video board

ASUS'S NEW VIDEO CARD based on nVidia's GTX280 chipset, the ENGTX280, is all about the speed. A single card nearly doubled the performance of the 9800 GTX in many of our tests, and even beat a pair of dual-GPU GeForce 9800 GX2 cards running in Quad SLI mode on others.
This card finally makes DirextX 10 (DX10) games playable at full resolution and detail on 30-inch monitors. With a pair of GRX280s in SLI mode, even those demanding DX10 games manage silky-smooth frame rates; you can install a third card in a 3-Way SLI system for an even greater performance boost. (As with earlier cards, nVidia's drivers disable multiple monitor support when running in SLI mode; you'll have to disable the second card to use more than one display.)
Such performance comes at a price-the ENGTX280 sells for $499. The board features a pair of High-Bandwith Digital COntent Protection (HDCP)-enabled, dual-link DVI ports; a digital audio input for use with an HDMI adapter (not included); and a component-video/S-Video output.
Visual quality is superb, and the board supports nVidia's Pure-Video HD, which lowers CPU load during DVD and Blu-ray playback, offering full hardware decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 video, and partial acceleration of VC-1 video. DVDs and HD WMV files both looked stelar, with rich color and smooth playback even on a 30-inch screen.
With the release of the GTX 280, nVidia is making a big splash about its GPU computing technologies, which helps the card's GPU process information faster than your computer's CPU. nVidia claims that the GTX 280's GPU, with 240 cores running at 1.3GHz, is the fastest floating-point processor yet for the PC. -D.A.
source: Computer Shopper September 2008.

www.asus.com.tw

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Asus EAH4850

Asus EAH4850
Midrange graphics card is tops in performance

ATI'S RADEON HD 4850 CARDS cost less than half as much as nVidia's GeForce GTX 280 (see review on this page) and can run today's most demanding games on typical systems. You won't be able to crank settings to full on 30-inch monitor, but you get performance rivalling cards that until very recently cost $350.
Our review card, the $199 Asus EAH8450, offers excellent image quality and performance comparable to the 9800 GTX, but it supports DirectX 10.1 (DX10.1), requires just one power connector instead of two, doesn't block an adjacent slot, and includes a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. The 512MB card is a single-slot PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 device that uses one sis-pin power connector and a 450-watt power supply. It features the aforementioned HDMI converter, two dual-link DVI ports ready for High-Bandwith Digital Content Protection (HDCP), and an analog video ports that supports S-Video and component-video output.
The card ran neck and neck with nVidia's GeForce 9800 GTX in our benchmark tests, with the cards trading places for the lead depending on the game and the resolution, but we were thrilled with the result in DX10 games like Company of Heroes and World in Conflict. To boost performance even further, you can drop up to three additional EAH4850 cards into a system that has a CrossFireX-compatible motherboard and additional PCIe slots.
Though the EAH4850's fan is nearly silent at idle, the single-slot cooler doesn't seem to do a great job of cooling the card-an idle temperature of 78 degrees Celcius rose to 85 degrees under load. Not only will those high temps increase system heat, they also mean the HD4850 won't tolerate much overclocking.-Denny Atkin.
source: Computer Shopper September 2008.

www.asus.com.tw

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Asus, ATI Unveil External Mobile Graphics Modules

LAPTOP GAMERS dissatisfied with the performance of mobile graphics cards will soon have a new option thanks to Asus and ATI: external units that house one or more graphics cards and that can be plugged into a notebook.
ATI's solution is called XGP (short for External Graphics Platform), and consists of a thin case that will initially ship with a card from ATI's recently announced Mobility Radeon 3800 series. XGP features a proprietary PCI Express 2.0 connector an d a cable, so it will only work on laptops with a similar connector, which is available solely on notebooks utilizing AMD's new PUMA mobile platform. The card found in the XGP unit can work in tandem with a laptop's onboard graphics card in CrossFire mode. It also features a USB port that can be used to attach a TV tuner card or a Blu-ray drive, and it offers DVI and HDMI outputs. It can be used to power up to four displays.
Asus has created a similar solution with its ROG XG Station, which uses a card based on nVidia's GeForce 8600GT desktop GPU and connects to a laptop via an Express Card connector. It also pack audio features from Dolby Laboratories including Dolby Virtual Speaker, which simulates surraound-sound audio from a laptop's pair of build-in speakers. The ROG XG Station comes with four USB ports and a built-in LED display to let you monitor the graphics card's clock speed, temperature, and fan speed.
At press time, pricing and availability of XGP products had not been announced, though Fujitsu-Siemens plans to use the technology in its Amilo GraphicsBooster product. Asus has also not yet announced the ROG XG Station's price and releae date.

source: Computer Shopper August, 2008.
www.asus.com.tw

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