Asus Crosshair AM2 Motherboard (AMD)
Asus Maximus Formula Special Edition Motherboard (Intel)
XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX Edition
Enermax Galaxy 1000W Power Supply
OCZ FlexXLC 2048MB DDR2 Memory
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Hot Stuff: WD Raptor 150 GB SATA Hard Drives
If you
want the highest performance Serial ATA hard drives available, there's only one manufacturer to turn to and that's Western Digital. Its enterprise class Raptor hard drives are a hit among computer enthusiasts. The Western Digital Raptor hard drive achieves its remarkable performance thanks to the high rotation speed of its platters. At 10,000 RPM the WD Raptor is definitely one of the fastest spinning Serial ATA desktop HDD on the market, on par with enterprise level SCSI counterparts. While 7200 RPM drives are improving in performance by increasing platter density and putting larger caches on the HDD, Western Digital uses a "brute force" type method in increasing performance. It's not be the most elegant way but hey it works very well. ;-)The only drawback to Western Digital's Raptor family is the premium price it commands, and a relatively small storage capacity. Conventional 7200 RPM desktop HDDs come in capacities up to 1TB (1000GB), and 500GB models can be had for around $100US. Western Digital's 74GB Raptor goes for around $130 USD, so you see what we mean. Still, a 74GB Raptor will speed up the performance characteristics of a computer nicely, as PCSTATS demonstrated in this review.
Western Digital alleviate the storage bottleneck with the 150GB WD1500AFHD RaptorX, a serial ATA hard drive with a clear window into its inner workings. Western Digital offers two variants of its high performance 150GB HDD, the Raptor WD1500ADFD and the RaptorX WD1500AHFD. The difference between the two is that Raptor 'ADFD' has a solid steel top while the RaptorX 'AHFD' has a crystal clear plastic see through top - so you can see the hard drive platters spinning and the read arm moving rapidly back and forth. The Western Digital RaptorX is the only hard drive on the planet that lets you look into the heart of the drive.
For the PC enthusiasts looking to impress, the RaptorX WD1500AHFD hard drive is the Ferrari of data storage. Watching the platters spin and the read/write arms move around is pretty cool. The 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD SATA hard drive retails for about $206 CDN ($196 USD, £96 GBP), and comes with HDD management software and WD Secure Connect SATA DATA cable.
Special SATA Cable a Software Native Command Queing Support The Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD HDD's specifications include support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ). The benefits of NCQ have been discussed previously, but in essence NCQ allows the hard drive to retrieve data more efficiently off the disk when multiple reads are involved. If you would like to read about the benefits of NCQ, check out the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 motherboard review where we go into depth on the technique. Gamers Benefit from a Fast Drive In the computer industry rarely is there ever one well defined leader. Yet when it comes to enthusiast hard drives, Western Digital is clearly in front. It's Raptor series are fast Serial ATA desktop hard drives that have caught the attention of enthusiasts for all the right reasons. The RaptorX in particular for its visual and performance attributes. With the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD, WD deals with the biggest criticism that affected its Raptor line, namely the lack of storage space. A hard drive of 150GB isn't big by any means, but you can comfortably install the operating system like Microsoft Windows Vista along with all supporting applications without resorting to a slower secondary hard drive. As an enterprise class hard drive, the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD comes with a enterprise class price of $206 CDN ($196 USD, £96 GBP). When you compare with other hard drives in the 150GB RaptorX's class it's actually not too bad... but it's more than what desktop users are used to paying. The read, write and seek times of the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD are half that of high end desktop 7200 RPM drives (ie. much faster) and that alone should tell you that the RaptorX is quick. Of course with a 10,000 RPM rating means the WD RaptorX is more audible than a standard hard drive, but to be fair once the drive is behind the walls of a case it is not very noticeable. The plastic window on the RaptorX WD1500AHFD is a defining element to this hard drive, and there is nothing else like it around. For the computer enthusiast with everything, a RaptorX is that one piece of kit which can really trick a PC out. During operating the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD can get quite warm and you won't want to stack other hard drives close to the RaptorX. Having good system airflow is also recommended! The 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD was obviously fast and we're quite surprised that it performed quite a bit better than the 74GB WD Raptor. If you're a performance user and want your system to be more responsive, the 150GB WD RaptorX WD1500AHFD should definitely be on the list of things to upgrade - with or without the window. As a Raptor user, I can say that I definitely noticed a speed increase from moving from regular desktop 7200 RPM HDDs. Hardcore PC users need apply only, and the 150GB WD RaptorX WD1500AHFD is not for everyone. The price will turn off some users, but if you've built an ultimate gaming rig there's nothing else on the SATA desktop market that can match the RaptorX.
The RaptorX WD1500AHFD is equipped with both Serial ATA and molex power connectors, so it is a good candidate for users with older power supplies that lack SATA power adapters.
Hot Stuff: Enermax Galaxy 1000watt
Enermax Galaxy 1000W Power Supply
This is an exciting time to be involved in computers. New technology has just came out and newer technology is just on the horizon. Intel released the Core 2 Duo CPUs and redefined what it means to have a fast CPU. The quad core Kentsfield CPU is planned to be released later this year. The 7950GX2 has just recently came out that puts two 7900GT class GPUs on the same video card. This opens the door for quad SLI, which nvidia has just announced. ATI has a solution that uses three PCI-E video cards in a single system. If all of this stuff is getting you excited, you better take a look at your power supply first. It's going to take a monster to handle quad core CPUs and quad SLI. Enermax has just delivered that monster to us and we get to test it out.
Features
| • | 1000 Watts Continuous power for the most extreme systems |
| • | 900 Watts 12V power for the most extreme CPU's and Graphics |
| • | 24/7 @ 50°C Non-stop full power @ 50°C by design and components. |
| • | 2007 EPS12V Compliant World's first PSU compliant with upcoming 2007 EPS12V design guide revision. |
| • | World's first five 12V rails 2007 EPS12V specification for next generation systems and multiple USB devices. |
| • | Triple Quad + 24 Quad CPU, Quad Core, Quad Graphics, 24 Drives, Simultaneous! |
| • | 80-85% Efficiency @ 20-100% load for the smallest electricity bills. |
| • | Modular connectors Maximum SATA or IDE/SCSI drives (21+3 of free choice) |
| • | Silent & Cool by 13.5 & 8cm dual fans. |
| • | Power Guard 4 alert modes on PSU status with reset button |
| • | Triple transformer technology the utmost in stability and power |
| • | Dual tier minimum load design Outstanding compatibility with upcoming multi-core processors. |
| • | Dual Tier combined power combined power total separation of CPU(s) from the rest of the system for maximum stability. |
| • | RAM power cable World's first PSU with a dedicated RAM power cable to support next-generation 32-64GB RAM systems |
| • | Active PFC & Universal AC in Run your Galaxy from 90-246 VAC with automatic adjustment and active power factor correction. |
Specifications
| EGA1000EWL | |||||||||
| AC input | 100-240VAC, 50-60Hz, 12A max (Active PFC) | ||||||||
| DC output | +3.3V | +5V | +12V1 | +12V2 | +12V3 | +12V4 | +12V5 | -12V | +5Vsb |
| For CPU | For GPU/System/Drives | ||||||||
| 30A | 30A | 17A | 17A | 17A | 17A | 17A | 0.6A | 6A | |
| 200W | 408W (34A) | 492W(41A) | 7.2W | 30W | |||||
| Total Power | 1000W | ||||||||
| Peak Power | 1100W | ||||||||
Testing
Instead of relying on a monitoring program in windows, I'll be using my trusty multimeter and measuring the voltages directly from the connectors.
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 |
| CPU | Core 2 Duo E6400 |
| Video | eVGA 7900GT KO |
| Memory | 2GB OCZ PC2-8000 EL Platinum Edition XTC |
| Power Supply | Enermax Galaxy 1000W |
| Storage | 400GB Seagate |
| Optical | Lite-On 16X DVD+/-RW with Lightscribe |
| OS | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
Results
| Default clocks 266MHz FSB | |||
| | +12V | +5V | +3.3V |
| Idle | 12.19 | 5.03 | 3.349 |
| Load | 12.19 | 5.03 | 3.349 |
| Overclocked to 3.4GHz 400MHz FSB | |||
| | +12V | +5V | +3.3v |
| Idle | 12.19 | 5.03 | 3.349 |
| Load | 12.19 | 5.03 | 3.349 |
Conclusion
This is an incredible power supply. This power supply will keep your computer running for a long time and probably through several upgrades of the other components. This power supply gives you solid voltages on all of the rails with plenty of amps. Enermax has taken this power supply a step ahead of everyone else and has made it compliant with 2007 EPS12V standards. The Galaxy will power Quad CPUs, Quad Core CPUs and Quad SLI. If you have a computer that is too powerful for this power supply, then you are a computer God and I will bow down before you.
Hot Stuff: Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO DDR Memory
Introduction
Corsair Memory, a leader and innovator in the PC memory market, has teamed up with ASUS Technologies, a leader in the PC motherboard market, to develop an exciting new memory product for the performance enthusiast. The Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO package is a matched pair totaling 2GB of low latency memory modules with activity LEDs. This memory was optimized for the ASUS A8N32-SLI motherboard, which uses NVIDIA's latest nForce4 SLI x16 chipset. Have no fear though, Corsair tests their memory on a variety of the latest motherboards to ensure maximum compatibility and peak performance for all.
The TWINX2048-3500LLPRO is a 2GByte matched memory pair specifically designed for motherboards using chipsets with dual memory channels. This memory kit consists of two CMX1024-3500LLPRO memory modules that have been tested together on a current production AMD motherboard at DDR437 (218 MHz) and extremely Low Latency of 2-3-2-6 T1. These TwinX memory kits are designed to provide the ultimate in performance and stability in dual channel boards. As part of Corsair's XMS ProSeries, each module includes the high-efficiency aluminum XMS heatsink, and 18 activity LED's that show the level of memory activity on each bank.
Why upgrade your system to 2GB? Are you a serious gamer that plays the latest high-end games like Battlefield 2 or World of Warcraft? Do you do a lot of video or photo editing? Even just having a bunch of applications open at once can eat up RAM faster than one might expect.
Manufacturer's Features & Specifications
Features:
- 2048 Megabytes of memory
- Two CMX1024-3500LLPRO memory DIMMs
- High-efficiency aluminum XMS heatsink
- 95% greater surface area than standard memory heatspreaders
- Thermally bonded to the module
- 18 activity LED's show level of memory activity
- Benchmarked over multiple chip sets, processors, and motherboards
- Approximately 1.75" tall x 5.41" long x 0.30" wide; 2.9 oz
- Lifetime warranty
Test Specifications:
- Tested as a matched pair in an Asus A8N-SLI Premium at 218MHz
- Packaged together immediately following system test
- Tested at Plug and Frag 2-3-2-6-T1 latency settings
- Dual channel testing environment
- Tested at DDR437 (218MHz)
- SPD programmed at advanced 2-3-2-6 values
- Boots using ultra-low latency values (2-3-2-6-T1)
Performance Summary & Final Conclusions:
Corsair's TWINX2048-3500LLPRO certainly delivers, the combination of low latency settings and minimal voltage makes it an excellent candidate for any motherboard. Even though the memory is rated for DDR437, we managed to achieve much higher speeds while maintaining very good timings and for the most part no increase in voltage. Once again, Corsair has come through with flying colors providing an excellent product for the PC performance enthusiast.
The demand for 2GB of memory in a PC will only increase with time. With Windows Vista just around the corner and the expected explosion of 64bit computing, one can only guess at what new "realistic" baseline of PC requirements will be, but it is pretty safe to assume more memory will be needed to fuel this next generation of software. Even today's software can see a benefit from additional RAM, depending on the particular task.
Hot Stuff: Asus Striker Extreme
INTRODUCTION
Once in a proverbial blue moon, a piece of hardware comes along that promises to be within a league all its own. Such is the case with the ASUS Striker Extreme Edition motherboard. For what I do, I have to keep on top of the latest and greatest in hardware. Whether it be the launch of a new chipset, new and improved memory modules, or wicked fast processors, I do my homework.
I've read a lot about the ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard lately, and I've been rubbing my hands together in eager anticipation of this. I have the chance to review what many regard to be the fastest mother board on the planet.
Built upon the new NVIDIA 680i chipset, the Striker is a member of ASUS' new Military-themed motherboards. That's not to say ASUS has switched to a camouflage PCB, but names like 'Striker' and 'Commando' serve to suggest that these new boards are performers.
So without any further adieu, let's set our sights on the Striker. I want to get this soldier moving.
The Chipset
The ASUS Striker Extreme has been built around the NVIDIA 680i chipset -- the most powerful and feature filled of the NVIDIA 600-series chipsets. The NVIDIA 680i chipset is relatively new, and is making great strides towards becoming the choice chipset for extreme gamers and hardware enthusiasts looking for the SLI performance advantage. ASUS has bestowed the Striker Extreme Edition motherboard with the notable 'Republic of Gamers' tag. Though it may be simple marketing on the part of ASUS -- a simple hope to capture the interest of gamers -- those ASUS boards that have been dubbed with that definitive distinction 'Republic of Gamers' do tend to be among some of the top performers ASUS has to offer.
Board Impressions
The Striker has room for up to six SATA drives, one parallel port channel, and one floppy connector. The vertical style of SATA ports does save some room on the motherboard when compared to the horizontial flat style of port, but does make it more difficult to connect a SATA cable when the board is mounted in the case and you can't see the port. The parallel port is in a bit of an odd location, sitting right beind the 24 pin motherboard power connector, making for a very tight squeeze.
The Asus Striker Extreme also comes with surface mounted Power, Reset, and Clear CMOS buttons (in order from left to right). Very nice for us hardware testers, not having to jumper a motherboard to life with a screwdriver. I would have liked a skull and crossbones button for the Clear CMOS button, but the label is good enough. :-) Oh, and they glow too.
In the rear, there is the standard gamut of I/O ports, and a few little extras.
A nice complement of additional ports. Yes, some are incredibly standard, like the PS2 and USB ports, but some of these additons are very nice.
I have to say ... without a doubt these are the craziest heatpipes I've ever seen. They are considerablly larger than typical heatpipe systems. The three heatsinks around the CPU socket help to cool the MOSFETS (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors) for the VCM (Voltage Controler Module) as they regulate the CPU voltages. The 1/4" copper heat pipe tubing then swoops around the CPU socket zone to a huge heatsink on the Northbridge chipset. That then branches off to the Southbridge cooler -- the one with that 'Republic of Gamers' tag on it.
This is one heck of a setup, and it does cool incredibly well, but there is an issue or two that I have to touch upon. First, that thermal gum is a cheap alternative to that can't even begin to compare with a quality thermal paste. But the real issue is the physical obstruction caused by all this heatpipe plumbing.
Bundled Hardware
It is typical of ASUS to bundle ample amounts of extra software and hardware with their motherboards and other PC hardware products. It seems especially true of their high end enthusiast hardware, thus making it true of the Striker. Asus tossed in a lot of goodies, and we'll take a few minutes to discuss all of them.
CONCLUSION
The ASUS Striker Extreme is one hell of a beautiful motherboard. It's built like a brick house, near perfectly designed, and boasts a number of unique features. ASUS also bundled more hardware/software with the Striker than most motherboard manufacturers would ever consider. You certainly get your dollars worth with the Striker.
But as for performance, there was something lacking. I would have liked to have seen some far better figures in the stock testing, but can surmise as to why I didn't. I had tested the ASUS Striker with the initial 1004 BIOS it had shipped with. During my testing phase of this review, I did discover (somewhere in my digital wanderings) a BETA BIOS for the Striker. Of course I wanted to try it (despite the obvious risks inherent within), but never got the opportunity.
When finishing up the last bits or writing for this review (all of the testing and overclocking completed), I read a few forum threads from a few different sites that had ASUS Striker owners complaining of the latest BIOS release (version 1102). Apparently, this new BIOS had turned their system into a very expensive paper weight. It didn't kill the motherboard (or any attached hardware) mind you, and was easily remedied by re-flashing the BIOS to the earlier version. Scary when stuff like that happens, isn't it?
But this brings me to my driving point.
The Striker is great, the 680i chipset is nice, but the drivers suck. NVIDIA has to hammer out a better 680i BIOS, and iron out some of those chipset communications conundrums. Once ASUS gets their hands on an improved BIOS, they take their time augmenting and testing it before they release it for the Striker.
Don't get me wrong, I like the 680i chipset very much, but I do feel that it is still very immature. It really needs some time to grow.
On another note, there have been reports of some super Strikers out there, in some figurative sense. For what I achieved with roughly a 450 MHz FSB (450x4=1800), I was pretty happy. But I have heard of some folks hitting 500 MHz, and some even reaching 520 or 530 MHz. It seems that there may be some production discrepancies that ASUS isn't completely aware of. It's not like certain runs of the Striker are better than others, but that every so often, one Striker board will out preform the rest. There's many parts of the tech industry that are like that, and we'll have to live with those unexpected surprises/tearful disappointments for a while longer.
At about $330 bucks USD on-line, it is quite the investment. But considering that it will handle SLI with the dual 16x PIC-e slots, that's a big selling point. The third PCI-e 8x slot for physics calculations is another benefit. And the bundle alone is almost all the excuse you need to buy the Striker. It may not have the brute strength bandwidth of an Intel chipset based board, but data compression and memory throughput isn't everything.
Hot Stuff: XFX 8800 Ultra XXX Edition
XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX EditionINTRODUCTION
Today we are taking a look at the GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX Edition graphics card from XFX. The XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX Edition is based on the GeForce 8800 Ultra Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which was announced by NVIDIA back on May 2nd. With the GeForce 8800 having been in production for 7 months, continued design and manufacturing improvements began to pay off for NVIDIA and TSMC. In the case of the GeForce 8800 Ultra, the benefits consisted of tangible increases in processor, shader, and memory operating frequencies.
The core speed of the reference GeForce 8800 Ultra increased a modest 6% over the GeForce 8800 GTX (612MHz vs. 575MHz) while the shader processor increased 11% (1500MHz vs. 1350MHz). A 612MHz core is usually attainable by overclocking a GeForce 8800 GTX, but the 20% increase in the memory frequency (1080MHz vs. 900MHz) ultimately sets the Ultra apart from the GTX. The increased clocks generate a 20% increase in the amount of data that can be moved through the Ultra's memory bus compared to the GTX (103.7GB/sec vs. 86.4GB/sec), which is especially beneficial at ultra-high resolutions with antialiasing enabled.
The XXX Factor
What makes the XXX Edition special is that it boasts even higher clock speeds than the reference design as illustrated by the settings below - 675MHz core/1674MHz shader/1152MHz memory (2304MHz effective).
Compared to the reference GeForce 8800 GTX, the core, shader, and memory clocks of XFX's GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX Edition provide an increase of 17.4%, 24.1% and 27.8% respectively.
GEFORCE 8800 SERIES OVERVIEW
The GeForce 8 Series was designed as a unified architecture and used as the reference GPU for developing and certifying DirectX 10. The GeForce 8800 Ultra contains 128 stream processors operating at 1.50GHz. Individually, each stream processor is capable of processing information from different types of graphics-related programs such as pixel and vertex shaders.
The GeForce 8800 stream processor has characteristics that are similar to a general purpose processor. For example, in addition to processing pixel and vertex shaders, the stream processor is suited to handle geometry shaders, which are new to DirectX 10, and physics, via NVIDIA's Quantum Effects technology. An application of geometry shaders can be seen in NVIDIA's excellent Cascades demo. Video footage and secrets behind the Cascades demo can be downloaded here (~18MB).
A variety of image quality improvements were added to the GeForce 8 Series courtesy of its Lumenex Engine. There are three new Coverage Sample Antialiasing modes (CSAA), which use coverage samples to enhance an applications existing modes of antialiasing. An 8xQ antialiasing mode has also been included, which is standard 8x multisampling.
Texture filtering quality has improved as the high quality anisotropic filtering option removes angle-dependant optimizations. High Dynamic Range (HDR) can also be enabled in conjunction with antialiasing.
PACKAGING AND ACCESSORIES
Comparison
About It
The terms gaming PC and gaming computer refer to computers specifically built to play personal computer games at a higher resolution then domestic PCs. They commonly feature extravagant casings, high-end components and in many cases are water cooled instead of fan cooled. They often run on the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. Although PC games will run on general purpose home computers, a true gaming computer is specifically made to process the instructions necessary for 3D graphics acceleration processing, physics modeling, unified pixel shading technology, dynamic geometry rendering, and enhanced sound processing and effects engines. They also include readily available external connection points for for a variety of accessories such as, headphones, USB formatted devices and firewire connection points. Although gaming computers, sometimes called a "gaming rig", may be bought retail in the same manner as the common computer, they are frequently built by their creators for use in single player, or online gaming. Gaming computers are purpose built to gain the best possible performance advantage in order to produce a computer that will out-perform the opponents computer, thereby winning the game in an online contest, or to simply enjoy the best images and effects a new computer game has to offer.[1]
The personal computers made specifically for playing games started being popularized with the introduction of games back in the 90's such as Doom by id Software, made for Microsoft DOS based personal computers. These games pushed standard business and home computer hardware to their limit, and game enthusiasts began building computers with the highest performance hardware to run Doom at the best possible performance (measured in frames per second). Therefore, the gaming computer began as a modified utilitarian device for competitive events.
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