Displaying items by tag: AMD

AMD’s 68xx series GPUs have been out for a little while now. This means that the boring time of stock and reference designs is well past and now we get to see what happens when a manufacturer puts their best effort into designing a graphics card. In the past we have seen Asus stand out with some impressive designs. Their DirectCU and Voltage Tweak offerings have been excellent. Today we have one of these on the test bench in the form of the Asus EAH6870 DC/2DI2S/1GD5. This factory overclocked card features their DirectCU (hence the name) cooling which has the heat pipes sitting right on top of the GPU for better thermal performance. This new card also features Asus’ Voltage Tweak to help you get even more performance out of it. So let’s take a look and see if this $200.00 card is worth your time and money.

Not too long ago while working on a GPU review I ran into an issue with a benchmark. Well per my usual policy I contacted the manufacturer and explained the situation. I was a little surprised at part of their response; "use better games". I have to say that one line stood out in my head. I do not think I even registered the rest of the e-mail. Well that got me to thinking; what games should I use? I have ones that I personally like, but they are certainly not the end-all of testing. So with that in mind I am going to ask you, my readers to help me pick the next round of games.

To do this either post below this short article or post on our Facebook page. We will choose seven games, two of each DX 9 and 10, and three DX11 games. We will also take suggestions on other benchmarks for our GPU testing.

Thanks for your help in making Decryptedtech.com better.

Welcome to 2011 and the re-birth of DecryptedTech.com. It has been a few months since I have written anything for this site; but then again there has been a lot going on. Instead or rehashing the dram and details let’s just dive right back in and kick things off with a review. For our return to the “living” we thought we would take a look at something fairly new. For years now Intel has ruled the low power CPU market (at least in the x86 space). Sure Via has had the Nano and AMD has had their version (the name of which escapes me), but for the most part if you wanted low power and you wanted x86 you were getting an Atom. Well things might be turning around as we find a new system offering from AMD.  This is the Fusion CPU that we have all heard some much about (and some of us have been waiting for).  The Fusion is an idea that puts a CPU in combination with a GPU much like the new Sandy Bridge CPUs but at the entry level. AMD refers to the whole package as an APU (accelerated processing unit). As we said these combine the power of a CPU and a GPU to get the best of both worlds. One of the first boards to hit the market from this family is the Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3. This features the AMD E-350 APU. The E-250 is a Dual Core CPU running at 1.8GHz. It also features 80 Radeon Cores that run at 492MHz.  This APU consumes only 18 Watts of power and still has room to support DX11. In all not a bad place to start for a new HTPC motherboard; so let’s dive in and see what else you get in our first preview of 2011.

William Shakespeare once wrote, “A Rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”.  Now this is a very true statement but it does not apply to marketing and the human perception of brand recognition. The global PR machine has done such an excellent job of making the brand the thing we buy that shifts in name or logos can have massive impacts on the way we purchase things. Let me give you a funny example; Back when it was first released the Chevy Nova was considered a market success in the US. People were buying it at an acceptable rate and of course Chevy was making money. Then they tried to market it to South America. It failed and I mean epic failed. The reason for this fail? The name; you see in Spanish (and its derivatives) Nova sounds like the phrase “No Va” which is apparently short for “No Go” as you can imagine that name killed the sales rather nicely.  Now car manufacturers make sure their product names are acceptable in the countries they plan to sell them in far in advance.

Recently we talked to you about AMD and their reaction to the GTX 460 as well as a PR Spin e-mail that we received. At the time we were invited to speak with AMD about their newly gained market share. This was an offer that we took them up on. After all the e-mail was odd enough that is piqued our interest.  For the sake of coherence we are reprinting part of the e-mail here.

Has AMD reached a point where they can no longer count on nVidia's bungling? Are we seeing a return to an even playing field after a year of failure from the green team? We know that AMD has a great GPU in the Radeon 5000 series GPUs, but are they ready to face head to head competition? Time will certainly tell on this one, but there are some very telling indicators that things might not be all sunny now that box sides have a DX11 GPU.

With all the hoopla over the GTX 460 going on we are taking the time to look at a GPU that is not really new, but is still worthy of some headlines. Although the AMD Radeon HD5870 is fast approaching its first birthday it is no surprise that it is still a big seller. But we wondered if it is the reference GPUs that are making the 5870 fly off the shelves or if it is products like the Asus EAH5870 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat edition (which we will just call Stalker COP moving forward) This is Asus’ V2 HD5870 with a voltage tweak option for great overclocking potential. As you might have guessed the box also contains the Stalker COP game as part of the bundle. So let’s try out this bundle and see if it is worth the $500 or so you will shell out for it.

Wow! Another product gets stripped from the safety of its box and shoved into one of my test benches. This one is a GPU destined for BSN, but will probably end up getting some commentary here as well. It is the Asus EAH5870 S.T.A.L.K.E.R.  Call of Pripyat Edition. We got this back in that big delivery the on the 9th and have just freed up the GPU testing station for its arrival. So let’s take a quick look at the box, the goodies and the card itself.

Not that long ago DFI sent me an interesting little board. This was their Mini-ITX  P55 LanParty board. Unfortunately, it died during testing (a choke blew up, literally blew up) but it was only the first of many that would begin to parade into the market.  Now sitting next to me is another Mini-ITX board, this one from GIGABYTE (and hopefully better made). It is their H55 version so it is really meant to run the Clarkdale series CPUs although it can certainly run any of the 1156 CPUs from Intel.

So nVidia has dropped the GTX 460 on the world. Starting at midnight the reviews, press releases and all the usual brouhaha surrounding a new product launch began.  For us, as a new site we are not going to expect to see one of the new GF 104s for some time. Thankfully we have plenty to keep us busy as we get the site up to speed. No the thing that we wanted to go over is the interesting e-mails that we have seen from AMD.