Budget Graphics Card Malaysia

Happy New Year Gamers!

2012-01-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

What's up Malaysian Gamers! Hey, you know what?- New year arrives, living expenses arises, yet graphic card's price is declining.. Awesome! Anyway, what's your resolution for this year? ;) Whatever it is, looking forward for this year's resolution to be accomplished!

Since i'll be quite busy this year, i would like to open an invitation to anyone who voluntarily would like to become a moderator in BudgetGC to bring us more frequent updates about latest news in GC industry. Thus, please do not hesitate to sent me an enquiry through budgetgc@gmail.com or using the form in the "Contact BudgetGC" section. Thanks!

ATI Catalyst Driver 11.9 Update for ATi Users

2011-11-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

2 months ago, an update for the HD series driver aka ATi Catalyst was officially opened for download (sorry for the outdated news). Though i'm not a fan of ATi (All HAIL Nvidia!), this update should be important and bring major improvements for the ATi card users. Visit the download page link here to download the driver.Below are the descriptions and improvements gained from the ATi Catalyst 11.9 driver:

New Features:
AMD HD3D support enhancement
Enables AMD HD3D technology support on DisplayPort panels, such as Samsung 750 and 950 series 3D displays.
Enables existing Stereo 3D displays, such as the Viewsonic V3D241wm-LED monitor and 3D projectors.

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System:

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.9 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

STALKER – Call of Pripyat no longer hangs randomly when launching a new game or opening a previously saved game.

Scaling options are now correctly displayed when connecting a Digital monitor to the Display port on some video cards.

The following games no longer experience random hangs during game loading :

Call of Duty – Black Ops

F1 2010

Dungeon Siege 3

The following games no longer hang intermittently during gameplay:

Battlefield - Bad Company 2

Borderlands

Dead Rising 2

The following games no longer hangs while running the benchmark :

Serious Sam 2

Resident Evil 5

HAWX 2

HAWX 2 no longer displays random flashing black pixels

Flashing pixel corruption is no longer experienced while playing F1 2010 and Dirt 2

The Windows Event Log no longer reports unwanted Distributed DCOM errors.

Negative Crossfire Scaling is no longer occasionally observed while playing EarthSim 2, Battle – Bad Company 2 , Metro and HAWX

Video corruption is no longer observed while playing full screen HD WMV format files using PowerDVD with Windows Aero Mode turned off.

Blank video playback is no longer observed when hardware accelerations is enabled in VLC 1.1.10

Dawn of War II – Retribution no longer exhibits a black screen when alt-tabbing in and out of the game

Random display corruption is no longer observed when playing WMV format files using Windows Media Player

City of Heroes no longer experiences stuttering after excessive use if in-game Anti-Aliasing slider

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System:

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.9 software suite for Windows Vista. These include:

The screen no longer goes black on when the Aero Desktop is enabled on some Radeon products.

Lost Planet 2 no longer randomly crashes when running the benchmark

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System:

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.9 software suite for Windows XP. These include:

Enemy Territory – Quake Wars no longer displays random screen corruption

Cyberlink PowerDVD no longer hangs when attempting to play a BluRay disc.

Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system:

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst™. These include:

Random screen tearing may be observed while playing Portal 2

Random screen corruption may be observed while playing Wolfenstein in multiplayer mode

Random corruption may be experienced while playing Enemy Territory – Quake Wars

Choppy playback may be experienced during playback of interlaced DVD content in full screen mode using PowerDVD 11

Known Issues under the Windows Vista Operating System:

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst™. These include:

Windows Aero options may not be available after installing the driver

Nvidia's Latest Driver : New release of 280 series

2011-09-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm a little bit outdated, but the driver version of 280.26 for the GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs has been released a month ago. The driver can be downloaded here (Nvidia.com).

New in Release 280.26

NVIDIA SLI
Enables SLI technology on SLI-certified motherboards with AMD chipsets: 990FX, 990X, and 970.

NVIDIA 3D Vision
With Release 280 drivers, the 3D Vision Controller driver is now included with all GPU driver installations. Users are no longer required to install a separate 3D Vision Controller driver or CD driver. This driver includes the 280.19 3D Vision Controller driver. For more information, please view this knowledgebase article for more information.
Adds support for viewing 3DVisionLive.com and YouTube 3D with NVIDIA SLI PCs. Please view this knowledgebase article for more information on 3D Vision Window Mode.
Adds support for Window mode for 3D Vision Video Player. This requires v1.7.2 or higher of the player.
Adds support for new 3D Vision monitors: ViewSonic V3D245
Adds support for new 3D Vision projectors: Acer X1111, BenQ W710ST, and NEC NP-V300W
Added the following 3D Vision game profiles:
Alice Madness Returns
Back to the Future (Episodes 1-5)
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
Chuang Shi Xi You (创世西游)
Dao Jian 2 刀剑2
The Darkness 2
Dead Island
Deep Black
Dou Zhan Shen 斗战神
Dragon Ball Online
Dungeons and Dragons: Online
Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
L.A. Noire
League of Legends 英雄联盟
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean
Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North
Mars
Might & Magic Heroes VI
Mount & Blade: Warband
Mount & Blade: With Fire and Blade
PROUN
RAGE
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
Rise of the Immortals
Rusty Hearts
Serious Sam 3: BFE
Virtua Tennis 4
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Update the following 3D Vision game profiles
Crysis 2 – rating changed to Excellent. NVIDIA recommends using the v1.9 game patch.
Deep Black – rating change to 3D Vision Ready
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition – convergence changes and rating changed to 3D Vision Ready

Other
Installs HD Audio driver version 1.2.23.3
Installs PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0514
Supports playing back Blu-ray 3D discs when connecting your GPU to an HDMI 1.4 3D TV. Playback requires compatible software application from CyberLink, ArcSoft, Roxio, or Corel. For GPU and system requirements, visit the NVIDIA Blu-ray 3D website.
Supports the new GPU-accelerated features in Adobe Creative Suite 5 including Photoshop CS5.
Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with Adobe Flash.
Supports OpenGL 3.3 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
Supports OpenGL 4.1 on GeForce 400 series and later GPUs.
Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards.
Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Basic Review

2011-03-03T00:14:00.000-08:00

My reviews are going years backwards...Who cares? This card is a good bargain for budget gamers...

Radeon HD 2600 XT is the oldmid-range video card from AMD/ATI, supporting Shader 4.0 unified architecture (i.e., DirectX 10) and competing directly with GeForce 8600 GT from NVIDIA, both costing around USD 150.
The second problem is that AMD there are two basic versions of Radeon HD 2600 XT, one using GDDR4 memories running at 2.2 GHz (1.1 GHz DDR) and another using GDDR3 memories running at 1.6 GHz (800 MHz DDR). And for Radeon HD 2400 they allow the manufacturer to set any clock rate they want. The problem is that the reference models we got for reviewing were running at the top clock speeds and other Radeon HD 2600 and HD 2400 boards you will find at the market may be running at lower clock rates and thus achieving a lower performance.
With both GeForce 8600 GT and Radeon HD 2600 XT with GDDR4 memory having a suggested price of USD 150, they are clearly targeted to users that are looking for the best cost/benefit ratio possible, i.e., to users that want to play games at a good performance but don’t want to buy an expensive high-end model.

So, which one is the best for Average Joe?

Well, we are pretty confident that GeForce 8600 GT still is the best video card for the average user that is willing to spend up to USD 150 on a decent video card. It is faster than Radeon HD 2600 XT in almost all situations, you can buy it right away and, best of all, even though its suggested price is of USD 150 you can easily find GeForce 8600 GT models costing less. Since Radeon HD 2600 XT is not available at this writing, it may reach the market initially costing more than GeForce 8600 GT.

It is also very important to keep in mind that another Radeon HD 2600 XT model will be available using GDDR3 memories running at a lower clock rate and at a lower price: it will have a suggested price of USD 130. So if you find a cheap Radeon HD 2600 XT being sold, beware, this particular model isn’t a direct competitor to GeForce 8600 GT. And cheap here will mean far slower.

For those interested, here is a summary of our bechmarking. GeForce 8600 GT was between 9% and 50% faster than Radeon HD 2600 XT on 3DMark03, between 8% and 20% faster on Quake 4 and between 17% and 98% faster on Far Cry. On F.E.A.R. Radeon HD 2600 XT was between 42% and 47% faster when no image quality settings were enable, but when we increase image quality GeForce 8600 GT was between 37% and 50% faster. And on Battlefield 2142 Radeon HD 2600 XT was faster than GeForce 8600 GT only at 1024x768 with no image quality settings enabled (6% faster), on other scenarios GeForce 8600 GT was between 4% and 28% faster.

The only program where Radeon HD 2600 XT was faster was on 3DMark06, with a performance advantage between 5% and 7%. Which isn’t really a significant advantage when we consider all other results.

Oh yes. Radeon HD 2600 XT supports HDMI with digital audio routed directly to the HDMI connector. That is definitely an advantage over GeForce 8600 GT if you are into high-def video.

HIS Radeon HD3650 IceQ Basic Review

2011-02-27T00:06:00.000-08:00

Hey, an old product but still kick ass performance for its price...

HIS has a lot of information about the HD 3650 on this page from which I got most of this information.

Here is their description:
HIS HD 3650 IceQ Turbo (Full HD 1080p) HDMI 512MB/256MB (128bit) GDDR3 Dual DL-DVI & TV (HDCP) PCIe

* Powered by Radeon® HD 3600 GPU
* HIS IceQ 3 Cooling Technology
* 512MB/256MB(128bit) GDDR3 memory
* Superscalar unified shader architecture
* 120 stream processing units
* 128-bit memory interface
* DirectX® 10.1 / Shader Model 4.1 support
* PCI Express® 2.0 support
* ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
All the features:
HIS IceQ 3 Cooling Technology

HIS IceQ 3 is the 3rd generation of IceQ cooling technology which is endorsed by worldwide media. HIS IceQ 3 innovative design doubles the strength to its predecessor. It ensures lower operating environment for GPU and memory, extends headroom for overclocking and provides longer service life. HIS IceQ 3 can cool down the core temperature dramatically; lower than original cooler. Heat transfers rapidly out of GPU and reduces temperature faster. Also it is sensitive to ultra violate light with special UV effect.

HD Concept output with gold plated

HIS has applied the ‘HD’ concept design on its new models. Features include: high-quality gold-plated ports, black panel plate which sync. with the ‘High-definition’ concept of the new Radeon HD Series.

HD Gaming in the Next Generation

Experience the next generation of gaming with incredible performance, life-like graphics and support for the latest Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1. With 120 stream processors and PCI Express® 2.0 support, you're ready for demanding titles that need more throughput. And thanks to plug-and-play ATI CrossFireX upgradeability, it is easy to turbo-charge your 3D performance.

ATI Avivo HD Technology

ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series GPUs feature ATI Avivo HD technology with advanced audio, video processing, display and connectivity capabilities for high definition entertainment solutions. ATI Avivo HD technology includes fully integrated HD audio capabilities and supports playback of multi-channel (5.1) audio streams. When combined with the integrated HDCP copy protection, ATI Avivo HD enables a one-cable HDMI connectivity solution to high definition home theaters.

ATI Unified Video Decoder Technology (UVD)

Connect your PC to your home theater and start watching HD content from your computer using new ATI Radeon HD 3600 series graphics cards. The ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series is designed to decode and playback Blu-ray and HD DVD formats using dedicated hardware within the GPU. This technology, known as UVD or Unified Video Decoding, is part of ATI Avivo HD, the new collection of technologies that are designed to improve the visual and connectivity capabilities of ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series GPUs

HDMI Video and Audio

The ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series GPU further enhances the HD entertainment experience by making it easy to make the connection to a big- screen or home theater system. With built-in 5.1 surround audio (AC3) pass-through capabilities, the new GPUs and graphics cards support a single HDMI connection direct to a compatible TV or receiver. This single cable carries both the HD video and 5.1 surround audio for a clean, high definition connection. Some graphics cards will have an HDMI connector built in, while others will use a special ATI Radeon DVI-I to HDMI adapter. These options mean greater choice and flexibility for consumers when connecting to PC monitors or home theaters for maximum enjoyment of full HD 1080p content.

Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 support

ATI Radeon HD 3600 series GPUs offer full support for the new DirectX® 10 and DirectX 10.1 API (Application Program Interface) from Microsoft®; ready to meet the demanding needs of new, next generation games. DirectX® 10 is the first totally new DirectX® in the last 4 years and brings important graphics innovations that can be used by game developers for the next generation of games. DirectX® 10 introduces crisp, never-before-seen detail-rich images, visual effects and game dynamics capable of accurately simulating the real world. No matter which ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series GPU you choose, you can be assured that games will look as good as the developer intended!

ATI CrossFireX Technology

New ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU technology takes your gaming experience to the next level with more scalability, performance and compatibility. The technology combines the awe-inspiring capabilities of multiple ATI Radeon graphics cards and an ATI CrossFireX ready motherboard to meet the hard-core demands of your alternate reality. New ATI Radeon HD graphics cards are designed with an internal ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect system to simplify installation. Experience stunning visual realism in today's demanding 3D games with uncompromising image quality, especially on HD displays.

Microsoft® Windows Vista®

ATI Radeon HD 3600 series GPUs provide total support for the Microsoft® Windows Vista® operating system and improve the performance of the Windows Aero graphical interface. You will be amazed by the dazzling 3D visual effects and have peace of mind that the ATI Catalyst software and drivers are designed and thoroughly tested to ensure full compatibility and stability to keep you up and running. All these new technologies and features make the ATI Radeon HD 3600 series of GPUs the ideal solution for ultimate HD gaming and HD video entertainment with the Windows Vista OS.

The features of the ATI RV635 chipset:

* Superscalar unified shader architecture
* 120 stream processing units
* 128-bit memory interface
* DirectX® 10.1 / Shader Model 4.1 support
* PCI Express® 2.0 support
* ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
* Use up to four GPUs with an AMD 790FX based motherboard
* High-speed 128-bit HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering
* Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing
* 55nm process technology
* ATI Avivo HD video and display technology
* Built-in HDMI and 5.1 surround audio
* Support for the ATI Radeon DVI to HDMI adapter
* Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray and HD DVD
* ATI PowerPlay energy conserving technology
* Dynamic geometry acceleration
* Game physics processing capability
Bundled with the HD 3650, you will find a driver CD, instructions on how to get free games on Steam, a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, a DVI-to-VGA adapter, and a CrossFireX bridge.

Ask BudgetGC for more info and similar product.

MSI Radeon 6870 HAWK Basic Review

2011-02-25T01:52:00.000-08:00

Incredible performance of HAWK series.. The card looks promising... I hope they have long enough warranty for the enthusiasts to mod them more like crazy..

It is quite interesting to see that there is an extensive shift towards the more high-end and enthusiast products in the past year or so. It seems that next to good performance and features, the end-users like to tweak more and more as well. Well that and they want the "good stuff". MSI is exhibiting that on all fronts, with their motherboards but of course also with their graphics cards.

And even when a graphics card is segmented in the mid-range .. they know precisely how to pimp it up in order to bring you a very attractive product at an okay price. Yeah, rock-solid designs with no compromises at all. In that context MSI just released their HAWK edition Radeon HD 6870 graphics card and well, the only thing left original is the actual GPU as everything else was changed.

It doesn't end there though, MSI is pre-overclocking this 1024MB HAWK model towards 930 MHz. And then there's the overclock potential, a new voltage regulation circuitry was embedded, allowing not only to play and tweak around with GPU voltages, nope ... they added voltage control for the memory and Auxilary/PLL voltage as well.

As a result this graphics card can get overclocked to 950 MHz easily, and if you apply a little voltage tweaking with the help of Afterburner, 1 GHz is without doubt a threshold you can pass. All in all definitely something you want to check out.

Within it's own lineup the Radeon HD 6850 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5830 and the Radeon HD 6870 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5850, but not faster than the 5870 . The Radeon HD 6870 will be a pure reference product, while the Radeon HD 6850 will see many custom designs and boards. In the end it will be all about pricing of course.

Let's have a quick comparative overview of some of the specifications representing a certain cope of mid-range performance products.

There's no way around it, the R6870 HAWK is a very impressive product. See, the reference R6870 all by itself is obviously already a great value product that offers good performance. MSI upped that up a notch by the (though petit) standard overclock.

The HAWK however is not about that shy standard overclock, it's about build quality, sturdy and cool looks and sure, the exemplary cooling. The new TwiNFrozr III cooler definitely managed to impress me. With the help of a little switch you can setup the silent or performance mode and yeah, the card even at the performance mode switch remains silent while keeping GPU temperatures below 65 Degrees C under full load, that's just good.

Combined with the latest revision of MSI AfterBurner you can tweak the card much further though. Without voltage tweaking you'll reach say 950~975 MHz on the graphics processor core. But really, when you buy a card of this caliber and do not apply even a little extra voltage on the GPU, well it would be a shame really. At 1.25V you will be able to pass that 1 GHz barrier, in fact we reached 1044 MHz on the GPU completely stable. Small tip, if you decide to tweak with added voltages, please bare in mind that you should only increase the voltage when needed.

We got the gDDR5 memory clocked (effective data-rate) to 4800 MHz stable as well. These two tweaks ensure you gain another chunk in performance.

The HAWK as such is an exemplary product in many ways, the problem with it is the recent price drop and introduction of the R6950 1GB, you can purchase that product at 230 EUR already, and that's the same price as the HAWK. At default that product is at least as fast or slightly faster and that might hinder the HAWK as GPU specs wise, the 6950 1GB is simply more advanced. But as you have been able to see, performance wise you'll have noting to complain about, pretty much any game up-to 1920x1200 will run just fine with a decent set of image quality preferences enabled. The R6870 is a nice success story, and the HAWK brings it a level higher.

If you can find the MSI R6870 HAWK for the right price, we can wholeheartedly recommend the product. The sheer design and quality components alone make this an awesome product, and is something that the more tweaking and enthusiast crowd will like very much.

Definitely recommended for your average hardware tweaker.

Source: http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-radeon-6870-hawk-review

GeForce GTX 560 Ti Basic Review

2011-02-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

The sheer amount of new and updated graphics cards released lately is quite amazing.

Typically in the past around CeBIT time and Christmas you'll see product releases in the graphics arena. But with competition being this stiff it seems that each month or two we see new products being introduced.

Ti -- does that ring any bells? Well for those that can't remember it, NVIDIA started Ti (Titanium) branding in the GeForce 3 era many many moons ago; which stretched all the way to products like GeForce 4 Ti 4200 back in the year 2002. After 2003 the Ti series came to a grinding halt as the naming schema had to be changed to GeForce FX.

One thing we can say about the current NVIDIA's GTX 400/500 series naming schema is that it is very clear to the end user, so we find it a bit unfortunate to see confusing SE and Ti tags all of the sudden again. The market can definitely do without it.

Anyways, back to the GeForce GTX 560 Ti itself, aimed against the Radeon HD 6800 series the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is based on a new GPU refresh, the GF114 silicon which features 384 shader processors, a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, and a core clock speed of 822 MHz.

All factors combined deliver a product onto the market that is quite interesting performance and features wise, a product that is noiseless and has a power consumption level we can all life with.

Reference specifications:

Assasin's Creed 2 Gamepley using Gigabyte GTX560 Ti

What is PCI Express? Guide to high speed PCI-E technology

2011-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

Introduction

So you want to know about PCI Express? PCI Express is a recent feature addition to many new motherboards. PCI Express support can have a big impact on your hardware choices both now and in the future. This article will explain the topic in plain english withoutboring you with useless information.

Why should I care about PCI-Express?

There are two main reasons to care about PCI-Express:
1) PCI is now an old standard dating back to the early 90's and no longer fits our needs in terms of speed/performance.
2) AGP also is in a similar position as PCI now, and chipset manufacturers are killing AGP motherboard support in favor of the much faster PCI Express interface. This means you are looking at a forced transition in the graphic sector, thus you really don't have a lot of choice in the coming years. At this point (August, 2008) choices in AGP cards represent less than 5% of available cards, and the latest chipsets can not be found in the form factor.

While we've spent plenty of time and energy improving the speed of processors, memory, and other parts of the PC we've done virtually nothing with the main connection betweern many devices-PCI. As such we are stuck with a technology in our PCs and Servers that still runs at the speeds and bandwidth we were comfortable with in the 90's. PCI as we know it is holding us back - it is a bottle neck - a limitation to the maximum performance of our systems.

We all want the most from our PC. To get the most out of our PC we must remove all bottlenecks (obstacles to performance). To that end we must turn to the next best alternative: PCI Express.

Easing into It - All about the Why?

If you have read the guide to the Front Side Bus then you are familiar with the analogy of a PC as being like a city with many road (buses) in it that move cars (data) to any number of destinations. Let's quickly revisit my explanation of PCI from that article:

PCI Bus- The PCI bus connects your expansion cards and drives to your processor and other sub systems. On most systems the bus speed of the PCI bus is 33MHz. If you go higher than that, then cards, drives, and other devices can have problems. The exception to this is found in servers. In some servers you have a special 64-bit (extra wide) 66MHz PCI slots that can accept special high-speed cards. Think of this as a double sized passing lane on a major road that allows higher speed cars to go through.

If you ever have sat in your car looking at the back bumper of another car during rush hour then you probably have a good idea of what's going on in the modern PCI Bus. You've got too many cars (data) going through too narrow and too slow a road (pci bus) at one time.

Bandwidth

PCI Express in all it's flavors: 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x and 32x all have much greater bandwidth than basic PCI.

Common Buses and their Max Bandwidth
PCI	132 MB/s
AGP 8X	2,100 MB/s
PCI Express 1x	250 [500]* MB/s
PCI Express 2x	500 [1000]* MB/s
PCI Express 4x	1000 [2000]* MB/s
PCI Express 8x	2000 [4000]* MB/s
PCI Express 16x	4000 [8000]* MB/s
PCI Express 32x	8000 [16000]* MB/s
USB 2.0 (Max Possible)	60 MB/s
IDE (ATA100)	100 MB/s
IDE (ATA133)	133 MB/s
SATA	150 MB/s
SATA II	300 MB/s
Gigabit Ethernet	125 MB/s
IEEE1394B [Firewire 800]	~100 MB/s*

* Note 1 - Since PCI Express is a serial based technology, data can be sent over the bus in two directions at once. Normal PCI is Parallel, and as such all data goes in one direction around the loop. Each 1x lane in PCI Express can transmit in both directions at once. In the table the first number is the bandwidth in one direction and the second number is the combined bandwidth in both directions. Also please note that in PCI Express bandwidth is not shared the same way as in PCI, so there is less congestion on the bus.

Update: Table above contains speeds for PCI Express 1.0 bus. For version 2.0, multiply all bandwidths by 2. For example a PCI Express 2.0 16x slot has a max bandwidth of 8000 MB/s one way or 16000 MB/s both ways.

* Note 2 - Firewire 800 has a bandwidth of 786.432 Mbit/s this converts over to between 98 and 99 MB/s.

Increased bandwidth can be equated into increased system performance. We've long known that to get the most out of your processor you need to get as much information into it as possible, as quickly as possible. Chipset designers have consistently addressed this by increasing Front Side Bus speeds. The problem with this is that front side bus speed increases the speed of transfer between the memory and CPU but often you've got data that's coming from other sources that needs to get to the memory or CPU like drives, network traffic, video, etc. PCI Express addresses this problem head on by making it much faster and easier for data to get around the system.

Physical Differences: PCI Express [ PCI-E ] vs AGP vs PCI

Currently, the most common use for PCI Express is Video. On the graphic at right you can see the physical differences between the cards.

The connector on PCI Express video cards will always start out with a small piece not directly joined with the rest of the slot, and then a notched piece not directly joined with the rest of the slot. This notch goes into the 1x portion of the 16x slot. The characteristic notch makes it easy to tell the difference between PCI-E (PCI Express) and an AGP Video card. As you can imagine, a PCI Express Video card will not fit into an AGP card slot, and a AGP Video card will not fit into a 16x PCI Express card slot.

Another physical difference between PCI Express Cards, AGP, and PCI is the distance between the card's bracket and the start of the connector. On PCI Express cards, there is very little distance between the metal bracket and the start of the connector. On both PCI and AGP the distance is much longer.

PCI Express 1x / 4x cards also have the physical difference in regard to bracket distance. They are both a good deal smaller than standard PCI. At this time this type of card is still quite rare so at this point there is little chance of confusing them with something else. The PCI Express 1x connector does however bare some minor resemblance to an AMR slot, so it is important not to confuse the two. No motherboard on the market today currently has both the older AMR slot and PCI Express.

Q&A Common Questions about PCI Express

Q:Is PCI Express Faster Than PCI?
A:PCI Express is much faster than PCI. For 1x Cards it at least 118% faster. When you compare PCI Express video to PCI Video the difference is enormous: PCI Express 16x video is over 29x faster than PCI Video.

Q:Is PCI Express Video Faster than AGP Video?
A:Yes and No. A 16x PCI Express connection is at least 190% Faster than AGP 8x but this is the connection between the system and the video card. You use the connection the most when your video card is low on memory or when the game you are using uses a Direct X or Open GL feature that isn't supported in hardware.

So, what this means is that in terms of real world performance there may not be a huge difference between AGP and PCI Express if you are talking about identical chipsets. Unfortunately this is very hard to prove because graphics chipsets are designed either for PCI Express or AGP. If you have a card that is available in both forms then you have a graphics chipset that was designed for PCI Express and has a special bridge chip installed to let it communicate with the AGP bus. The short of this is: if two cards of the same chipset are available in AGP and PCI-E then the PCI-E one will always be faster. On PCI-E you don't have the overhead of the bridge chip so it's faster, and you have the better bandwidth so in intense situations such as high resolution gaming you'll come out on top every time.

The main point here is: If you have a system with AGP on it, it doesn't make sense to upgrade just to get PCI-E video right now. The fastest AGP card to ever come out is likely to be the nVidia 6800GT. If you are at a point where that is too slow then by all means it makes sense to make a complete switch. If your happy with your AGP graphics options, wait until you are ready to upgrade the processor or other components before making the PCI-E switch. For more information on AGP and PCI please see the general FSB guide.

Q:What is SLI?
A:SLI or Scalable Link Interface is a technology that lets you take two identical nVidia based graphics cards *that support SLI* and a motherboard *that supports SLI* to achieve a very high level of video performance. SLI works by splitting the rendering of the screen between the two cards- one card renders half, the other card renders the other half. This technique is extremely effective. For instance two 6600GT cards in SLI can do vastly better than a 6800GT or X800 card even though the price is lower for two 6600GT Cards. The downside to this is that SLI is still new and is limited to systems based on AMD 64 / AMD FX Socket 939 processors.

Q:Do I need a special power supply for PCI-E [PCI Express].
A:Yes and no. Although the PCI-E spec calls for a PCI Express power connector, most PCI-E cards don't currently use it. This means that you should only probably worry about this if you are buying bleeding edge PCI Express parts. Card based on the ATI X600, ATI X700, ATI X300, ATI X1300, Nvidia 6600, Nvidia 7600 or Nvidia 7300 series graphic chipsets rarely use the connector. If you are in a situation where you need a PCI Express power connector but the power supply doesn't have one you can always just use a PCI Express Power Adapter that converts a 4-pin molex connector to PCI-E Power.

Conclusion

PCI Express is an exciting advance in the area of computers. Although AGP is now starting to die rapidly, standard PCI is taking/will take longer to die off. Expect to see at least 1 or 2 standard PCI slots along side PCI-E in all motherboards for at least the next 2 years. By that time there will be PCI-E replacements for all common devices such as modems, network cards, raid cards, i/o and more.

The best thing to do if you want to get the specs correct is to contact the working group associated with said hardware.

In the case of PCI-e, you can go to this site.

http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pciexpress/

Also make sure you get the correct version of it, since the newest listed is 3.0

Resources: http://www.directron.com/expressguide.html

MSI GeForce GTX 460 1GB Hawk Review

2011-02-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

With so much fuss being made lately about the high end GPU range, many seem to have forgotten the value a sub-RM900++ graphics card can bring to the table. NVIDIA’s GTX 460 and AMD’s HD 6800 series have proven time and again that an ultra high end card isn’t necessarily needed to play today’s most popular games. This has led these two product lines to become the de facto leaders in the price / performance battle in the latter half of 2010. Meanwhile, the introduction of the GTX 560 Ti has had a profound effect on both cards’ prices and the GTX 460 can now be found for well under RM900. Man may think this is an odd time to be reviewing a GTX 460 card but when you factor in these new prices, these slightly older cards are still highly desirable.

With the release of the GTX 460 SE, NVIDIA has continued to plug perceived holes in their lineup regardless of if there were any or not. This has led to a supposedly drastic increase in GTX 460 1GB sales as prices have fallen and board partners have scrambled to feed the market with new and interesting cards. AMD’s board partners have also increased their pressure with their own custom HD 6870 and HD 6850 cards.

One way to captivate the public’s interest and money has always been to introduce cards which divert from the reference design and specifications. Many have done this with varying degrees of success but MSI’s Lightning and Hawk series of cards tend to stand out as quite unique. Their GTX 460 1GB Hawk is the card we will be looking at today.

Unlike some other manufacturers, MSI sees fit to completely redesign their non-reference cards from the ground up before hitting them with higher clock speeds and a custom cooler. The Hawk continues this tradition but at a surprisingly low price point. At a mere RM800+ before rebates, it barely costs more than a reference GTX 460 1GB and yet is equipped with a laundry list of features alongside the aforementioned speed increase.

Amazingly, MSI has aimed for price / performance leadership with their Hawk series and when taken at face value this card does indeed have a lot going for it. There are however several competitors knocking at the door so let’s see if it can leverage its features to really break from the usual mold.

Resources: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com

Know Your GC with GPU-Z

2011-02-14T01:59:00.000-08:00

Checking the status of your video card and GPU is a good idea in these days of graphics-intensive PC games and Web sites. This little application will give you a snapshot of those items.

GPU-Z is a basic tool that launches a small, tabbed interface with no bells and whistles, just information in a dialog box-style window. The download is simply an executable file that you run directly - there's no installing or configuring necessary. This free utility supports Nvidia and ATI cards. At launch, it automatically scans your system and reports the card name, GPU, release date and transistors, BIOS version, ROPs, memory type, and memory size.

This utility performed quickly in our tests. It doesn't include a Help file, but its function is limited to describing a single element of your system, and it performs automatically, so a Help feature really isn't necessary--but a readme file would be a nice addition. Although the tool didn't allow us to tweak our system's video performance, we liked that it displayed the driver version, GPU clock, default clock, as well as pixel and texture filtrates. We also liked that we could log sensor data to a file for later comparisons and had the option of disabling polling for individual sensors.

GPU-Z doesn't offer a wide feature set, but it does one thing and does it well. Novices may be a bit overwhelmed by the type of data this tool displays, but if your system's video card is acting up, this utility may help identify some necessary info.

Screenshot of GPU-z 0.5.0

You can download the software here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1930/mirrors.php

First Wireless graphics card in the world!

2011-02-14T01:25:00.000-08:00

Wow, look at that attenna.... IT just pawned WIFI!

Now that wireless keyboards and mice are the norm, there's just one cable left that tethers us to desktop computers: the display cable. With a wireless graphics card, you can finally cut that last cord and get all your desktop power anywhere you want it.

The KFA2 GeForce GTX460 is a standard (and halfway decent) NVIDIA graphics card that's had its display ports ripped out and replaced with five antennas, making it the world's first wireless graphics card, according to the company. The card broadcasts on the WHDI (wireless home digital interface) standard, and can pump uncompressed 1080p video at 60Hz through the ether to a base station that plugs in to the back of a monitor.

The wireless is supposed to work up to 100 feet away, even through walls, and the upshot is that you can now wander around your house with a wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, and external monitor and set up your desktop computer wherever you feel like. KFA2 seems more interested in the media center streaming potential of this thing, but I like the idea of being able to have at least some of the flexibility and convenience of a laptop embodied in my desktop. True, you'd still have to lug a monitor around, but you're not tied to within five feet of your desk anymore. As technology improves and we all start using displays like these, desktop systems themselves will no longer need to be directly accessible, and we'll just stuff them in a closet somewhere and forget about them.
Pricing info isn't quite available yet, but Europe will be getting their fancy hands on them 'sometime soon.'

[SOLD] Palit 8600GT Sonic+, 256MB GDDR3 PCIe

2011-02-13T03:41:00.001-08:00

The version “Sonic” of Palit 8600GT does not have the stock 8600GT frequencies , but as the name

“Sonic” indicates it, it is a overclocked version. The 8600GT reference has 540MHz Core and 700MHz (1400 effective) for memory GDDR3. Palit OCed this card to 600/1600MHz, a surplus of more than 10%, not negligible at all.

Palit GeForce 8600 GT sonic have dual-slot cooling system (thickness of cooler is 35 mm);. The video chip has an aluminum cooler from zalman production .

A lot of differences from a normal 8600GT with Palit 8600GT Sonic+ . Compare the clock and the bandwidth from the gpu-z software diagnose results.

Normal Nvidia 8600 GT Card result

Palit 8600 GT Sonic+ result

Video of NFS Undercover gameplay which I recorded while gaming using Palit 8600GT Sonic+ 256MB GDDR3.

Video of Resident Evil 5 gameplay which I recorded while gaming using Palit 8600GT Sonic+ 256MB GDDR3.

Palit 8600GT Sonic+ is available @ BudgetGC.blogspot.com

Offer me price ..(shipping price borne by the buyer)

AMD Radeon™ Video Card Drivers Update

2011-02-12T16:25:00.000-08:00

Last Updated
1/26/2011

Article Number
GPU-98

This article provides information on the latest posting of AMD’s software suite, AMD Catalyst 11.1. This particular software suite updates both the AMD display driver, and the AMD Catalyst Control Center. This unified driver has been updated to provide enhanced level of power, performance, and reliability.

Package Content
The AMD Catalyst software suite 11.1 contains the following:

AMD display driver version 8.812
HydraVision™ for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7
Southbridge/IXP Driver
AMD Catalyst Control Center version 8.812

AMD Product Compatibility

The AMD Catalyst driver is compatible with the following AMD products.

AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4700 Series
AMD Radeon HD 6300 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4670 Series
AMD Radeon HD 6200 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4650 Series
ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series
ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4550 Series
ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4350 Series
ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series
ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series
ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4890 Series
ATI Radeon HD 2900 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Series
ATI Radeon HD 2600 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 Series
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series

AMD FireStream Product Families

AMD FireStream™ 9350
AMD FireStream 9250

AMD FireStream 9270
AMD FireStream 9170

AMD Chipset Product Families

ATI Radeon HD 4290
ATI Radeon 3200 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4250
ATI Radeon 3100 Series
ATI Radeon HD 4200 Series
ATI Radeon 3000 Series
ATI Radeon HD 3300 Series

AMD Mobility Product Family Compatibility

AMD Catalyst Mobility is a notebook reference graphics driver with limited support for system vendor specific features. When used with Windows Vista or Windows 7, users may have unwanted experiences.

The Installation Verification Software will prevent driver download on certain notebook products. This is to protect against the installing of drivers that may disable features or functionality provided by the system manufacturer. If unwanted experiences occur using AMD Catalyst Mobility, it is recommended to revert back to the driver provided by your system vendor for your specific platform. Please contact your system vendor for the most recent drivers for your notebook.

AMD Mobility Product Families

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6900M Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6800M Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4100 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6300M Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6300 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3600 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6200 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5700 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3100 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5600 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2700 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5100 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 Series
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4800 Series
ATI PowerXpress™ enabled notebooks
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4600 Series
using AMD chipsets
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series

NOTE! The following notebooks are not compatible with this release:
Any notebook launched after this driver release
Switchable Graphics enabled notebooks using Intel® chipsets.
Toshiba® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
Sony® VAIO® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
Panasonic® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)

Compatible Operating Systems
The latest version of the AMD Catalyst software suite is designed to support the following Microsoft Windows platforms:
Windows 7 32-bit version
Windows 7 64-bit version
Windows Vista 32-bit version
Windows Vista 64-bit version
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.1 Windows release includes:

Performance highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.1 release includes:
F1 2010:
Performance increases up to 12% on AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
Performance increases up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
Left 4 Dead 2:
Performance increases up to 17% on AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series single and Crossfire configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
Performance increases up to 8% on AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series single configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.

Resolved Known Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.1 software suite for Windows 7. These include:
Aliens vs. Predator game no longer fails to load with quad Crossfire enabled..
Text is no longer missing randomly in Nostradamus- The Last Prophecy demo.
Graphical corruption is no longer seen occasionally in Nostradamus- The Last Prophecy demo.
The Protoss Pylon Matrix is now rendered correctly in Starcraft 2.
Task switching in Dirt2 with Vsync enabled no longer causes a dual link monitor to go black.
System no longer crashes when enabling Crossfire with 2 monitors connected to the primary card and 2 monitors connected to the secondary card.
List of supported TV resolutions now includes 1080p 24Hz (if supported by the TV display).
Cyberlink PowerDVD no longer randomly exits when playing a blu-ray title with the “Aero-on” option enabled in the player.
An error message is no longer intermittently displayed when viewing a slideshow using Windows Live Photo Gallery.
Windows Media Player no longer displays a black screen when continuously playing several VC1 format files over a 4 hour period.
“Host Application not responding” error message is no longer randomly displayed when launching the AMD Catalyst™ Control Center.

Resolved Known Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System
Video corruption is no longer randomly seen during DVD playback using Windows Media Player.
Progressive scan DVD content no longer causes Windows Media Center to hang.
Interlaced DVD content no longer exhibits frame drops and jerky playback.
“Host Application not responding” error message is no longer randomly displayed when launching the AMD Catalyst™ Control Center.

Resolved Known Issues for the Windows XP Operating System
Frame drops are no longer observed when playing HD interlaced content in Windows Media Center.
Call of Duty – Black Ops no longer randomly hangs on AMD Radeon HD 57xx series products.
Crossfire using AMD Radeon HD 68xx series products no longer hangs intermittently when running 3dMark 2006.
“Host Application not responding” error message is no longer randomly displayed when launching the AMD Catalyst Control Center.

Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:
Blocky video corruption may be displayed randomly when playing back SD DVD content using Windows Media Player.
Video may flicker randomly when using PowerDVD to play the blu-ray edition of “Iron Man 2”.
Screen may flicker and objects may be duplicated in Medal of Honor under DirectX 11 with Crossfire enabled on AMD Radeon HD 69xx series products.
Objects may be duplicated in Dead Rising 2 when Super Anti Aliasing is enabled on AMD Radeon HD 69xx series products.

Known Issues Under the Windows Vista Operating System
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:
AVIVO options do not take effect on WinDVD 10 blu-ray playback.
Doom 3 and Quake 4 may display corruption when running on a AMD Radeon HD 47xx series product.

Known Issues under all Windows Operating Systems
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under all supported Windows operating systems in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:
An error message may be displayed if the power plan is changed several times (from Power Save to High Performance) when the AMD Catalyst Control Center is open.
The AMD Catalyst Control Center may flicker when adjusting brightness using a hotkey.

Installing the AMD Catalyst Software Driver
For further information and general help on software driver installation, game issues, and more, visit AMD Customer Care.

The driver can be downloaded here:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

The Real Power Consumption of 73 Graphics Cards Comparison

2011-02-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

Wondering if this device can be found in Malaysia.. I guess not..

The french team of Hardware.fr has done a big test by measuring the real power consumption of 73 graphics cards.

The power consumption of a graphics card is the sum of two powers:
the PCI-Express X16 power: up to 75W
PCI-Express power supply connectors:
up to 75W for the 6-pin version
up to 150W for the 8-pin version

So the max theoretical power consumption of a card can’t exceed 75+75+150 = 300W.

To measure the power consumption of PCI-Express power supply connectors, just use a voltmeter and and amperometer. To measure the power consumption of the PCI-Express X16 bus, a PCI-Express bus extender is required like this one (see picture above).

Two 3D apps have been use to push the cards to the max: FurMark and 3DMark06 (Pixel shader test).

FurMark results in 1920×1200 (Stability test + Xtreme burning mode):

Prepare for monthly electrical bills, gaming enthusiast!

3DMark06 results in 1920×1200

Total of 73 cards...quite long isn't it?

In the single GPU cards, the GeForce GTX 275 is one of the greedy…

The complete test is available HERE in french.

Nvidia Users, New Driver For Your Card!

2011-02-11T11:19:00.000-08:00

Attention all Nvidia card enthusiast! Latest drivers has been released on 18/01/2011 version 266.58. This is the first release from the Release 265 family of drivers (versions 265.xx to 269.xx)

This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs.

New in Release 266.58

GPU Support
Supports the newly released GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 570 GPUs.

Performance
Increases performance for GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. the latest Release 260 drivers. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured on Windows 7. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:
GeForce GTX 580:
Up to 7% in Battlefield Bad Company 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 12% in Battleforge (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF Very High)
Up to 11% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 7% in Dirt 2 (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 7% in Far Cry 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 5% in Just Cause 2 (1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF Dark Tower)
Up to 5% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (SLI – 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Up to 9% in Stone Giant (SLI 1920x1200, DOF on)
Up to 8% in Unigine Heaven v2.1 (SLI 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF)
Improves performance in Final Fantasy XI on GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs.

Visual Quality
Adds ambient occlusion support for one of the most popular games of the year: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. Ambient occlusion improves the quality of lighting, shadows, and depth perception in many parts of the game.

Added the following 3D Vision game profiles:
Arcania: Gothic 4
Crazy Racing Kart Rider 크레이지레이싱 카트라이더
Crossfire 穿越火线
Darksiders
DC Universe Online
Dragon Nest
Front Mission Evolved
Guild Wars 2
Hank Haney's World Golf
Lineage 2
Medal of Honor (2010) Multiplayer
Medal of Honor (2010) Single Player
NED
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
NVIDIA Demo: Aliens vs. Triangles
NVIDIA Demo Endless City
PopKart 跑跑卡丁车
QQ Dance QQ 炫舞
QQ Xian Xia Zhuan QQ 仙侠传
Tian Long Ba Bu 天龙八部
TRON: Evolution
Vizerra (fullscreen version)
World Rally Championship 2010
Xun Xian 寻仙
Update the following 3D Vision game profiles
Lost Planet 2 – rating is now changed to Fair
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2- rating has been changed to 3D Vision Ready

NVIDIA SLI
Adds SLI profiles for the following PC games:
Alien vs. Triangles Demo
Endless City Demo
Lionheart: Kings Crusade
Moscow Racer: Legends of USSR
Rift: Planes of Telara
Shaun White Skateboarding
Enhances SLI profiles for the following PC games:
Age of Conan
Arcania: Gothic 4
Civilization V - DX11
Lost Planet 2
World Of Warcraft

Important other features
Installs HD Audio driver version 1.1.13.1
Installs PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0514
Supports the new GPU-accelerated features in Adobe CS5.
Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with Adobe Flash 10.1. Learn more here.
Supports DirectCompute with Windows 7 and GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
Supports OpenCL 1.0 (Open Computing Language) for all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
Supports OpenGL 3.3 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
Supports OpenGL 4.1 on GeForce 400 series and later GPUs.
Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

The driver can be obtained at Nvidia website here:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Make sure that your card is updated to the latest version driver to ensure the utmost stability and performance of your gaming.

HIS ATI Radeon 7000 PCI

2011-02-11T08:40:00.000-08:00

HIS ATI RADEON 7000 is a PCI interface graphic card with an outstanding support of maximum resolution by 2048 x 1536. With this card you can turn your old pc into basic media center with DVI and S-Video out port featured with the card. This card also support OpenGL and DirectX for very basic gaming like Counter Strike Zero.

HIS RADEON 7000 provides leading 3D/2D and multimedia graphics performance for today's applications in full 32-bit color. Its 3D architecture also includes innovations that enable advanced new features in upcoming applications without compromising performance. With flexible memory support, RADEON 7000 permits implementations targeted at both the consumer desktop and commercial desktop platforms.

Price RM 100 (includes shipping) @ Budget GC
Contact us for more details.

Zedyll GC.

Knowing Your PC before Buying a Graphic Card !

2011-02-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

Whether you’re building a new computer from scratch, or just upgrading your current PC to handle new developments in video games and graphic design tools, buying a video card is one of the most important choices you’ll make for your PC.

It can also be one of the most confusing experiences you’ll have to deal with, especially if you’re a beginner or relative layman. But as long as you learn a few key points, the information on the back of the box won’t seem so much like gibberish, and you’ll be able to make an informed decision about what you need.

Connectivity

Finally, two connections will be key to the vast majority of card users, and those connections affect how the card connects to the computer and how the card connects to the monitor.

For connecting to the computer, there are three options out there:

PCI (Old, slower)

AGP (Current, fast)

PCI-Express (New, fastest)

You really won’t have much of an option here—your choices will be limited by the connection slot your have available on your PC. But it’s nice to see the progression of the technology, and to know which to choose, if you can, if speed is your main interest.

And for connecting from your card (the back of your computer) to your monitor, you’ll almost certainly be using a DVI output, as that’s what is used by modern LCD monitors. Older CRT monitors will connect with a VGA cable, and you’ll need an adapter to connect your old monitor to your new video card. Such an adapter is usually included along with either your monitor or your video card.

Comparison between DVI and VGA output

Connectivity is where you’ll have the least amount of options. Beyond that, there are as many video cards out there as there are colors in the rainbow. It’s not always about which one is best, but more so about which one is best for you.

Zedyll GC.