Friday, May 5, 2006

Merom against Yonah: Overclocking Duel. Yonah Is Good, but Merom Is Even Better

3:12 pm | Aleksey Razin

The well-known overclocker and hardware enthusiast aka Coolaler has already tested a mobile Yonah processor in the i975X based mainboard having enabled the SLI support in the modified driver. Of course, we expected more exciting experiments from the guy.

Coolaler managed to successfully overclock future Core Duo T7400 (2.16GHz) on the 0.065micron Merom core and described his results in three on-line sources: his own site, XtremeSystems.org and in a review posted on IAMEXTREME site.

  

He managed to get hold of a Merom engineering sample: model T7400 (2.16GHz) with 4MB of shared L2 cache and 667MHz bus support. This CPU is based on A1 core stepping and the mass production processors are most likely to be B0 core stepping based. Therefore, we would like to prevent you from making any hasty conclusions.

With the help of a highly efficient Tuniq Tower 120 cooler he managed to overclock his CPU to 2.92GHz by raising the Vcore from 1.2V to 1.4V. The processor was compared against Yonah T2600 (2.16GHz), which is not only its architectural predecessor but also works on the same nominal clock speed. He overclocked Yonah up to 250MHz on the bus, while Merom could only reach 225MHz on the bus. Coolaler believes it is the peculiarity of the Merom and Conroe processors: they do not favor high bus frequencies. Although it could also be the limitations imposed on this particular sample or the entire A1 stepping batch.

Note that the maximum clock frequency multiplier of Merom T7400 processor equals 13x, which could help overclock this CPU quite efficiently if it hadn’t been for the notorious limitation of the bus overclocking. In idle mode the EIST technology drops the CPU frequency to 1.0GHz (6x166MHz) and only if we raise the bus frequency to 200MHz the total idle speed reaches 1.2GHz (see the screenshot above).

According to the benchmark results we can say that Merom is faster than Yonah working at the same clock speed. Namely, Merom need to reach 2.8GHz clock speed to show the same performance results as the Yonah processor working at 3.0-3.2GHz.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that first-generation Merom processors supporting 667MHz bus will be compatible with mainboards and chipsets designed to support Yonah. For example, the desktop AOpen i975X a-YDG needed just a BIOS update to start working with Merom.

Looks like Conroe will not really affect the popularity of the “Mobile-On-Desktop” platform as we would have expected it to: some hardware enthusiasts will love overclocking their Merom processors in desktop mainboards.

New AGEIA PhysX Reviews: Now in Numbers. First Physics Accelerator Failed

2:49 pm | Aleksey Razin

The first AGEIA tests in actual gaming environment were based on the evaluation of visual quality improvement provided by the physics accelerator. The editors who had their hands on the new PhysX card recorded a few movies and offered the users to be the judges. In the meanwhile, many of computer users are more used to the numeric representation of performance results, so they were longing for new product reviews that would discuss the performance gain or drop in case with and without PhysX solution.

Luckily, two hardware review sites – Anandtech and Hexus - posted articles like that these days. But before we discuss the obtained results let’s once again dwell on the differences between the ASUS PhysX P1 and BFG PhysX cards. As you know, the BFG solution features 128MB of memory vs 256MB of memory on the ASUS card. But besides that, the BFG memory is also slower – it works at 500MHz DDR, while the memory on the ASUS card works at 733MHz DDR.

It is quite natural that the official test program was Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter game that is one of the first applications to be optimized for AGEIA PhysX. The guys from Hexus site pointed out one remarkable feature: although the physics accelerator makes very bright first impression, you start noticing that it is all a sort of illusion later on. All fragments that break off the shot objects are designed from the same sprites: they have been turned different ways and scaled up or down to create the impression of uniqueness of each piece. Moreover, once the pieces touch the ground they dissolve spoiling the realistic effect.

Note that optimization for AGEIA PhysX is useful not only for the future owners of extension cards like that. In fact, the same effects can also be calculated by the system CPU or a special PhysX chip, the latter however should do it faster and unload the CPU significantly, because it is specifically designed for tasks like that. ATI and Nvidia on their end suggest using graphics chips to calculate physics effects, including the chips used in SLI and CrossFire configurations. Although in this case they will have to use the competitor’s Havok FX engine that is AGEIA PhysX owners will hardly be interested in this option.

The current implementation of the PhysX technology doesn’t allow the end-user to adjust the physics processing speed by rearranging the workload between the CPU and the so-called PPU. So far the game developers are the ones setting what they think is optimal workload balance, which is not always optimal in the end. Our colleagues from Anandtech site noticed that AGEIA PhysX solution causes the fps rate in the game to drop down dramatically for a few moments especially after completing the calculation of a significant effect, such as an explosion for instance. When the same scene is calculated on the software level, no harm is done to the gaming performance but at the same time, the visual quality is less impressive, because the same explosion generates considerably fewer broken off pieces and other object fragments. As a result, the game slows down because it has to transmit the data to and from the PhysX chip. Maybe it is the narrow PCI bus that is to blame here, so when we see physics accelerators for PCI Express x1 and PCI Express x4 the problem will be eliminated.

Of course, the situation should get better when there appear new games optimized for AGEIA PhysX and when the drives get better. So far the games where we can see the new AGEIA PhysX working look like something fun to watch but not impressive enough to spend extra $300 on :) New gaming hits with high-quality optimization for PhysX that are expected to be released within the next 12 months should push the new technology forward. And in the meanwhile looks like there is no real need for a new unusual piece of hardware.

• Anandtech: ASUS Debuts AGEIA PhysX Hardware;
• Hexus.net: Ageia PhysX PPU.

Apple’s Patent Covers Wireless Music Purchases. Apple Patents “Reservation of Digital Media Items”

1:49 am | Anton Shilov

Apple currently holds the largest market share in the market of digital music players and is also very successful with its iTunes music store, however, the company has gone further and patented “an invention that allows cell phone or wireless handheld users to interact with an online music store”.

The invention appears to be a way for Apple to capture revenue from music fans with short attention spans, notes Cnet News.com web-site. For example, cell phone users on the go who hear a song might want to purchase that tune right away, but by the time they get back to their PC, they have forgotten the name of the song or the artist.

The patent abstractly describes itself as “techniques for interacting with an online media store using a first device to identify a digital media item of interest to a user of the first device, using the first device to store an interest indicator for the digital media item of interest at the online media store, and subsequently interacting with the online media store using a second device to purchase or preview the digital media item of interest as identified by the interest indicator. Additionally, ring tones and graphics associated with the digital media item of interest can also be purchased.”

It is unclear whether Apple’s plans include a patent that covers a situation when a user can purchase and download a music file directly from his cell phone.

• Cnet News.com: Apple Patent Covers Wireless iTunes Distribution.
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: Reservation of Digital Media Items.

PowerColor Gives Away Free Radeon X800 GTO Graphics Cards. PowerColor Establishes PowerColor Club

1:14 am | Anton Shilov

Tul Corp., the owner of PowerColor brand and a leading provider of graphic cards, recently launched PowerColor Club, which members will get certain benefits as well as abilities to win free graphics cards from the company.

Upon joining the club, members will receive a wide range of services, including  exclusive news on events and offerings on contests, downloads and giveaways. Up-to-date information on the latest news from PowerColor will be posted in the member area or delivered via the email. Members also have a chance to voice their opinion on a voting forum that is updated periodically, according to the company.

To become a member, it is not compulsory to own a PowerColor graphics cards, but the 1^st, 100^th, 300^th, 500^th and 1000^th persons to sign up for a free membership will receive a PowerColor Radeon X800 GTO valued at $150, the firm indicated.

• Club PowerColor.

S3 Graphics Enables Multi-GPU. S3’s MultiChrome Reviewed

12:48 am | Anton Shilov

Virtually all desktop graphics companies that are on the market today have tried to play with multi-processor technologies in one form or another and both ATI and Nvidia have been successfully promoting their CrossFire and SLI among consumers. But for S3 Graphics, who has about 1% market share, enabling a multi-graphics processing unit (multi-GPU) technology is something new, as this is the first time in life for the company.

S3’s latest Chrome S27 top-of-the-range model features the company’s revamped fourth generation DirectX 9.0-supporting micro-architecture, a bit evolved from the GammaChrome introduced in 2005. The S27 features 8 pixel processors and 4 vertex processors as well as flexible PCI Express support, which means that the chips can function in any type of electrical PCI Express slots – x1, x4, x8 and x16. The model S27 graphics card sports graphics chip clocked at 700MHz with up to 1400MHz GDDR3 memory (128-bit bus).

While S3 positions its Chrome S27 at sub-$100 market and below, where price matter much more than some other characteristics, the company has decided to spend time and resources to enable ability of two Chrome S27 boards in tandem, thus, providing higher performance. While the technology was announced formally quite a while ago, The Tech Report web-site was the first media to check it out very recently.

The web-site revealed that just like other multi-GPU solutions, MultiChrome relies on a database of game profiles in order to determine when to do its thing and which load-balancing method to employ, if the game does not have a profile, it will simply run on one card, without the performance benefits of dual GPUs. S3 currently has profiles for about 50 games, including many of the more popular titles of the past few years, but does not allow users to tweak or create game profiles themselves.

Right now, S3 has only implemented one of the two most common load-balancing techniques used in dual-graphics solutions: alternate frame rendering (AFR). AFR is used widely because it offers the best performance scaling by boosting both vertex and pixel throughput. S3 says the other technique, split-frame rendering (SFR), is coming soon but is not yet enabled in its current drivers.

The author says that the MultiChrome technology is relatively mature, he did not experience a significant amount of crashes, or something like that. However, performance-wise, the MultiChrome is not that good.

“I’m somewhat disappointed that the total peak performance S3 can offer when it combines two of its best GPUs isn't terribly compelling. I had really hoped going to dual GPUs would allow S3 to offer some form of solution that might appeal to PC gamers and enthusiasts. Too much has happened since MultiChrome was first announced, and that’s simply not the case. There’s just no way this is a $200 graphics solution on the order of the GeForce 7600 GT,” the report concludes.

• The Tech Report: S3’s MultiChrome Dual-GPU Technology.

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