Sunday, November 27, 2005

NVIDIA’s GeForce Go 7300 Benchmarked. NVIDIA’s New Entry-Level Mobile Part Reviewed

10:57 pm | Anton Shilov

NVIDIA Corp. introduced the GeForce Go 7300 graphics processing unit (GPU) without much marketing hype and advertising campaign. The firm even did not reveal many details about specifications of the newly revealed GPU. Meanwhile, the GeForce Go 7300 is not only NVIDIA’s first mobile graphics processor for the entry-level market, it is also a foundation for the company’s future products for affordable add-in graphics cards for desktops, which is they the GeForce 7300-series of the GPUs is very interesting.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Go 7300 visual processing unit for notebooks with PCI Express interconnection is believed to sport four pixel processors, three vertex processors as well as variety of other innovations found in the GeForce 7-series of GPUs, such as Shader Model 3.0, transparency antialiasing, PureVideo, multi-monitor capabilities and so on. The default version of the chip advertised by NVIDIA works at 350MHz and utilizes 700MHz memory with 64-bit interface, but actual specs may vary depending on the manufacturer.

HKEPC web-site has had an opportunity to compare performance of the GeForce Go 7300 against the GeForce Go 6200. Given that overall specifications of the GeForce Go 7300 and 6200 are approximately similar, performance difference is mainly conditioned by efficiency of the architecture.

According to benchmarks by HKEPC, the GeForce Go 7300 is 9% faster than the competitor in 3DMark2001 and 3DMark03, but managed to leave the predecessor behind by 17% in 3DMark05. In Doom III game performance difference between the parts is about 10%, while in Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2 the GeForce Go 7300 is faster compared to the GeForce Go 6200 by 14% and 11% respectively.

• HKEPC: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 Exposed.

How the Pentium Processors Are Made: A Factory Tour. Intel Fab 18 Factory Tour Posted

7:25 pm | Anton Shilov

A lot of computer enthusiasts either are capable of assembling personal computers themselves, or, at least, know for sure how those machines should be brought together. Fewer know how actual computer components work and not a lot know peculiarities of their manufacturing process. Meanwhile, from different points of view knowing the depths is even more interesting than simply understanding the outcome.

Hardware Secrets, a recently established web-site, has managed to have a tour around Intel’s Fab 18 located in Kiryat Gat, Israel and watch the real process of how wafers that will eventually become real processors are manufactured using Intel Corp.’s 90nm fabrication technology. The article complements an earlier issue from the web-site that covered manufacturing process of semiconductors in general.

• Hardware Secrets: Intel Fab18 Factory Tour in Kiryat Gat, Israel.
• Hardware Secrets: How Chips are Manufactured.

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