Monday, April 25, 2011

X58A-OC Review -MOST In Depth! VRM Analysis+Physical+Initial Results - XtremeSystems Forums

(After staring at this board for a few hours, as I do every board, I try to analyze what type of design this board is trying to model. I have a feeling this board is supposed to have heatsinks that resemble a car, and a fast one at that, but I felt as though this ICH (Southbridge) heatsink looks like a flag waving in the air.)

Today I have my first close encounter with this masterpiece of a motherboard. Like no other motherboard its sole purpose is to fulfill the needs of overclockers, and overclockers only. Yes it is true, every motherboard is overclockable, yet not all motherboards are overclocking friendly. This isn’t the first motherboard to be tuned to overclock, and it’s not the first to hold world records, but it is the first motherboard to be targeted solely at overclockers, and extreme overclockers at that. Not everyone may agree with that statement, but it is true. While many motherboards feature overclocking as their main feature, they still are marketed towards gamers as well. As we saw earlier the G1 series is targeted towards gamers, and hardcore gamers at that, this board is on the exact opposite side of the spectrum in terms of features. While the G1 Assassin might have a creative 20K2 audio processor and a Bigfoot NIC, the X58A-OC has a revamped voltage regulator module and direct hardware controlled multiplier, BLCK, and even switching frequency adjustments. This board is similar to a few other boards in terms of its features, but this board is without any features that overclockers do not need. With this board you don’t pay a premium for ICs(chips) you will never use (extra USB, dual NIC, eSATA, IEEE, or even 6 channel audio), instead GIGABYTE took the money that was saved and invested it in custom order parts for the voltage regulator module, and some nifty overclocking features.

By far the most interesting part of this board is GIGABYTE’s take at miniaturizing their 24phase voltage regulator module (VRM), following that are the OC buttons, and then small things (4GHZ easy button, PWM switches, BIOS switch, 4 way CF/3 way SLI, triple slot spacing, etc….). Today I will begin by going over the parts of the board, and then I will explain how the new VRM compares to the old one. Following the explanation of how everything works with the VRM, I will go on to explain every chip, one by one. For you to get a real sense of what this board has to offer you will need to see what makes it tick, and then how it performs. Of course that is a huge venture so just as usual I split my reviews into two parts, with this one being all about the physical stuff.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

HEXUS.net - Review :: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 590 review, with a twist : Page - 1/15

NVIDIA proudly proclaims the GeForce GTX 590 graphics card to be thefastest in the world. Our review of the card paints a different picture, with AMD's Radeon HD 6990 just ahead, but there's little denying that GTX 590 is one fast beastie.

It transpires that only a handful of NVIDIA's many partners have the right to market the card in each territory. Motherboard giants Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI all get a look-in, which is interesting insofar as the trio all market AMD's Radeon HD 6990, as well.

Gigabyte has done rather well with its NVIDIA line-up in recent months, with the non-reference GTX 460 SO and GTX 560 SO cards deserving of particular attention.

But the twin-GPU GeForce GTX 590 is a different kettle of fish, as all partners are tied to the reference design for the foreseeable future. One reason for this is the complexity of the cooling used, and it will take a while for partners to figure out how to better the impressive reference heatsinks.

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 - Quad SLI Review - Introduction

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 - Quad SLI Review - Introduction:

Earlier today we took a look at the new GeForce GTX 590 for the first time, comparing it to the GTX 580 and Radeon 6990 in a selection of real world scenarios. At that time there was no driver available which allowed us to look at quad SLI however that has now changed and we have spent the majority of the day testing Zotac's model on driver version 267.84. So let's take a look at how the GTX 590 in SLI compares to the Radeon 6990 in CrossFire with games such as Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2 and Shogun 2."

Cooler Master Test Bench V1.0 Open Air Chassis Review :: TweakTown USA Edition

Introduction

With the random products I receive sometimes, like memory with a cooler or even better, for graphics card coolers, what I have found is that tinkering with components inside my cases has become a real pain in the rear end. This alone had sent me on the quest for the simplest design that would fit my needs and take up the least amount of room possible. I had thought of a Lian Li motherboard tray and just laying things out on a table, but that just doesn't work for me. I already had the Banchetto 101 and the Lian Li Pit Stop, but while they were both excellent products in their own right, they just weren't what I was looking for.

Gigabyte Aivia M8600 Wireless Gaming Mouse Review - Introduction

Gigabyte Aivia M8600 Wireless Gaming Mouse Review

Back in October 2010 we took a look at the Aivia K8100 keyboard from Gigabyte. That high end gaming product was the result of the Gigabyte design team being let loose to create the best product they could. At the end of the review we noted that the build quality and design were of a very high level and that the board performed well so it was a great start to the Aivia range. Now, 5 months later we see the release of a new device in the product family. The Aivia M8600 is a new wireless gaming mouse from Gigabyte, a high end model with a number of innovative features that set it aside from the competition.

Let's take a closer look at what the Aivia M8600 has to offer.

GIGABYTE Aivia M8600 Wireless Macro Gaming Mouse Review :: TweakTown USA Edition

First impressions last. That's the first thing you'll think of when looking at the GIGABYTE Aivia M8600 Wireless Macro Gaming Mouse. It's quite striking to look at; to hold on the other hand is a different argument. I use as my everyday mouse a Razer Mamba and it's quite curved; the GIGABYTE Aivia M8600 mouse has a high ridge where your palm rests which can be annoying - you may ask why I'm starting off with a negative?

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP! Edition - Components - Reviews - ITP.net

The GeForce GTX 580 is the latest high-end GPU from nVidia and being a key nVidia partner, Zotac is among the first companies to have SKUs on the market.

To date Zotac has released two different cards based on the GTX 580. The card on test here, like Zotac's other AMP! Edition cards, ships factory overclocked. The GPU runs at a clock frequency of 815MHz whereas the standard GeForce GTX 580 GPU ticks along at 772MHz.

The GPU's core isn't the only component that received Zotac's overclocking treatment, the core's shaders and the card's memory have also been tweaked. So whereas the standard shader clock and memory frequency is set at 1,544MHz and 4,008MHz respectively, the AMP runs at 1,630MHz and 4,100MHz.

Comparing the GTX 580 to its predecessor the GTX 480, both GPUs are quite similar and this isn't surprising given both GPUs are part of nVidia's 'Fermi' family. That said a closer look at both GPUs reveals a number of differences; the GTX 580 packs 512 stream processors to the GTX 480 GPU's 480. And whereas the texture address/filtering units on the GTX 580 stand at 64/64 respectively, its predecessor offers 60/60. The new GeForce also includes support for OpenGL 4.1 while the older GPU is limited to OpenGL 3.2.

In terms of similarities, both GPUs rely on a 384-bit memory bus, ship with 1.5GB of graphics memory, are comprised of three billion transistors and are manufactured using a TSMC 40nm process. The GTX 580 also supports nVidia SLI support.

One of the biggest problems we had with the GTX 480 when it was first launched and indeed even up to when nVidia launched the GTX 580, was that it ran extremely hot while offering only a marginal improvement in performance over its predecessor.

Thankfully, the GeForce GTX 580 doesn't suffer from the same difficulties. Running our benchmarks on the card starting with Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X the card managed framerate results of 195fps, 152fps and 133fps at 1024 x 768, 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 pixels. The GTX 480 on the other hand managed figures of 167fps, 119fps and 100fps. Firing up World in Conflict the Zotac spat out figures of 98fps, 84fps and 79fps to the 480's 79fps, 76fps and 69fps. Moving to the DirectX 11 Heaven v2.0 benchmark the card managed figures of 94.2fps, 66.6fps and 62.6fps to the GTX 480's 87.5fps, 58.9fps and 62.6fps. Impressive.

Throughout testing the GTX 580 maintained its composure in terms of both heat and noise. While the new GeForce GPU still consumes over 350-watts of power running at full tilt and thus runs quite warm to the touch, the card is nowhere near as noisy.