Wednesday, August 13, 2008

EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1GB FTW Edition Review

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Features
3. EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Layout
4. EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Bundle
5. Test Setup And Software
6. Overclocking And Gaming
7. 3DMark
8. DirectX 10
9. DirectX 9
10. PCMark Vantage
11. 3DMark Vantage
12. Conclusion


Introduction.

NVIDIA is on the warpath once again and like a rampant machine they keep making progress in the area of GPU technology pushing the envelope just a bit farther than previously attained. Fast video cards that push pixels and framerates beyond anything the competition can bring to the table has been NVIDIA’s claim to fame, and the new GTX 280 series once again validates that point.

When NVIDIA first announced we would see a new card just after seeing the latest release of the 9800GTX just a few months back I thought it was just going to be a little bump in the performance and rumor had it around the globe that the new 9900GTX was coming to town. I held out on posting that rumor as
I was specifically told that a new chipset was coming, but that the nomenclature of 9900 was not it.

The birth of the new GT200 chipset was the only truth in that rumor.





EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Features.

The new GTX280 is something that very much surprised me in how well it was supposed to work and my first impressions were very positive to say the least. EVGA was kind enough to provide us their FTW Edition of their GTX280 series and it is clocked much higher than the reference edition offering superior performance and faster gaming framerates than ever seen before. EVGA is known for their overclocking abilities in both the VGA and motherboard market and have many NVIDIA based products that have won the hearts of PC enthusiasts across the globe. NVIDIA is becoming more and more aggressive in their chipset development and are putting Moore’s Law to the test by releasing new technology with shorter and shorter time delays between releases. This card has less hype and more meat than any release yet and was kept under tight wraps until a few days before its release, let’s see how fast this new overclocked FTW Edition card really is and what it’s made up of.


EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Features.

NVIDIA calls the GTX280 their 2nd generation Unified Shading architecture, and as such this new card has a lot of new enhancements to things like General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU), which is using the graphics chip to process mathematical equations and other things than just gaming alone. The GTX 280 is based upon TSMC’s 65 nanometer process with 1.4 Billion transistors. This is in fact the first card to feature over a billion transistors from either ATI or NVIDIA. The new card has 240 Stream Processor cores based of the new GT200 Chipset. Earlier NVIDIA cards like the 9800GTX had 128 SPs so this is nearly doubling the number of processor cores. Each group of 8 Stream Processors is grouped into a Shader Multiprocessor. Each group of 3 Shader Multiprocessors make up a Texture Processing Cluster. The GTX280 has a total of ten TPCs which comprise the sum total of 240 SPs.
NVIDIA says that game developers don’t need DirectX 10.1 as it is an incremental upgrade from 10.0. Therefore they state that they didn’t make the GeForce GTX280 fully DirectX 10.1 compliant. Truthfully, at this moment there are no DirectX 10.1 games available except Assassin’s Creed and the developers took support for it out in the first patch. The GeForce GTX280 supports all of the features of DirectX 10.0, including Pixel Shader 4.0, Vertex Shader 4.0 and the Geometry Shader. NVIDIA says that they improved the Geometry Shading with the GTX280 and there are other architectural improvements as well bringing performance up on the new card. Below is a short evolutionary chart of the advancement of the NVIDIA VGA chipset.

The GeForce GTX 280 is designed to be both a computing processor and a graphics processor. The CPU of a system and GPU have been converging in terms of their features and flexibility as of late. Intel will launch their own graphics architecture next year based upon their multi-core CPUs in some part, presently code name Larrabee. NVIDIA is heading towards making the graphics processor more flexible and programmable heading towards making the CPU less and less important in the overall graphic equation. EVGA clocks their FTA version of the GTX 280 at an impressive 670MHz, a full 68MHz higher than the reference clock of 602MHz like the default clocked cards that will emerge onto the market. This gives the EVGA GTX280 a pixel fillrate of 21.4 Gigapixels a second and a texture fillrate of 53.6 Gigatexels a second. The EVGA graphics card is capable of over 1 TeraFlop of floating point operations a second, the first available graphics card with this capability enabled. That is an impressive fact just in itself kind of like breaking another sound barrier only quieter.
The memory clock on the EVGA card is 1215MHz. The reference clock on the standard GTX280 is 1100MHz, meaning that the memory clock is much higher than NVIDIA’s and other reference cards will be. NVIDIA’s GTX280 has a 512-bit memory interface, which is a jump from the 256-bit interface on the 9800GTX and a jump from the 384-bit interface of the original GeForce 8800GTX card launched in 2006. ATI is using GDDR5 memory with their next generation cards but on a 256-bit bus, meaning that the memory bandwidth will be more or less equal this generation. NVIDIA is really pushing physics processing with the GeForce GTX280 and GTX260 graphics chips. NVIDIA bought Ageia makers of the PhysX PPU (Physics Processing Unit) four short months ago. With the GeForce GTX280 launch they are pushing the fact that the GeForce GTX280 will be able to run PhysX software with a driver scheduled for a few short weeks from now. PhysX is used by every major platform (PC, Wii, X360, PS3) and upcoming games will allow wonderful effects like flags waving in the wind that have a more natural and realistic look to them. A good 20’’ through 28”” monitor will be the perfect matchup to this card as it is intended for high-resolution gaming that a 19’’ or smaller monitor just plainly cannot support


EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Layout.

The EVGA GTX 280 FTW card is similar in most respects to the NVIDIA reference card as far as looks go with the main difference being the card art from EVGA. The cooler is a 2-slot cooler with EVGA’s logo and the GTX logo prominent on the front side of the card. The fan itself is a 53-fin fan that covers the rear of the PCB to keep the capacitors cool. I am sure many aftermarket liquid cooler guru’s will have liquid coolers available for these cards in the near future.







The rear of the PCB has a vent that allows airflow from the rear of the card to cool the chip on the front. This is the first time an NVIDIA video chip has cooling on the rear of the PCB as well as the front. It’s interesting to note that the EVGA card follows the NVIDIA reference design exactly with only the paint job being different from an outside view. The overclocking is the backbone of the FTW series of cards not the artwork. Almost every NVIDIA partner will adopt to us the NVIDIA reference design as it is the fastest way to market.







There are two bridges for SLI connectivity on the top left hand portion of the PCB. This means that the GTX280 will be able to run in Tri-SLI mode as well as regular two card SLI mode. Tri-SLI requires three GTX280 cards and two bridges or a Tri-SLI bridge connector. It also requires a hefty power supply, as a single GTX280 requires a maximum of 236W of power and three would require 678W of power by themselves. NVIDIA will list compatible tested motherboards after launch and I am sure there will be many motherboards supporting this new series of cards as they get qualified.








The GTX280 is a PCI Express Generation 2.0 card. This means that the data transfer rate between the GTX280 and the motherboard is up to 8GB/second, twice that of PCI Express Generation 1.0. Note that the GTX280 is a long card being 10.5” long and weighs a decent amount as well. If you have a case that has trouble fitting long cards, you may need to upgrade the case to allow for the GTX280. The GTX280 has two Dual Link DVI connectors on the IO and a HDTV Output port. Dual monitors can be accomplished by using the two ports or using adapters such as DVI-to D-sub adapters or HDMI to DVI adapters. The GTX280 is capable of running HD-DVD content or Blue Ray Disc content with HDCP protection and the HDTV out can be used in conjunction with HDTV monitors.

EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition Bundle.


All the basics are included in the box that are needed to get up and going minus your PC with the appropriate PSU. EVGA has not given a game in quite awhile and that is a bit of a bummer, but their products are top-notch so to some a free game may mean nothing, to others it may mean a lot. All the proper cables, manuals, driver CD and adapters are in the box. You may still want to take a web trip over to NVIDIA’s website to get the latest BIOS and drivers available as they change pretty fast, especially in light of a new card release.


Test Setup And Software.

Test System.
· XFX GeForce GTX280 running 177.34 drivers default clock speeds
· EVGA e-GeForce GTX280 FTX Edition
· 2GB Crucial Tracer DDR3-2000 running@2000MHz
· EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard running 9.64 Forceware
· 2 WD Raptor SATA 74GB 10000 RPM SATA drives
· ASUS 16x DVD-ROM
· Antec Quattro 1000 PSU

Test Software.


DirectX 9.0C.

· 3DMark05/06 1280x1024, 1920x1200 no AA no AF
· COD4 Modern Warfare 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
· UT3 1280X1024, 1920X1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough
· SpecViewPerf 10
· PCMark05
· PCMark Vantage

DirectX 10.0.

· Crysis 1280x1024, 1680x1050 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS Walkthrough
· Bioshock 1280x1024, 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Custom FRAPS Walkthrough
· 3DMark Vantage 1280x1024, 1920x1200 no AA no AF, GPU score performance preset


Overclocking And Gaming.


Overclocking results on this card were not the greatest as this card is already pushed way beyond spec as is and the FTW version comes overclocked right out of the box anyways and we had a severe time limitation until publication. There is not a game available currently on the market that can daunt the GTX280, it just spits out major pixel muscle and framerates at excellent speeds.
Even at resolutions of 1920X1200(WS) every game we played on the new EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition was able to be run with all features set to their maximum game capabilities, and without any performance hits at all, all framerates remained at a constant 80 or above, yes even Crysis the doomsayer of bad VGA performance could not hinder the performance power of this card. It is a gamers dream card come to life in this time frame.




















3DMark.







































DirectX 10.




































DirectX 9.


































PCMark Vantage.


















3DMark Vantage.



















Conclusion.


Wow, there is fast and then there is faster and then there’s the fastest. The new EVGA GTX208 FTW Edition VGA card is the fastest single card solution we have ever had to grace our labs period; it’s as fast as an entry level 9800GX2 and faster than dual 9800GTX’s running in an SLI configuration. Usually with a release that comes so soon after a previous release you see just slight improvements in performance over its predecessor, but the GTX280 release brings over double the power of the 9800GTX. EVGA has also taken an already fast chipset and pumped up the volume by way of their FTW overclocked Edition, which just blazes a trail of pixel pumped framerates. And with EVGAs new overclocking tool called Precision you can push that little old GTX card just a wee-bit further lads.
There is no doubt that this card is going to sell well on the market and evens ATIs new 4000 series cards will be hard put to beat the performance of the new GTX280 series cards. Most retailers and e-tailors should have stock available for purchase as early as tomorrow, but they are going to sell out like pancakes to a starving audience with all the raving reviews surrounding them. If you already own an EVGA VGA card you can take advantage of their ongoing upgrade program and save yourself some cash with a trade-in. EVGA also has an excellent warranty program that is second to none and many users find buying comfort with that knowledge in hand as it adds another dimension to the final purchase choice. Like always with the luxury of the best comes the best price-tag and the new EVGA GTX280 FTW Edition is not for the meek of cash as it comes with a cost allotment of $650-680 American presidents to get your hands on one. There is no doubt that this is a serious Editors Choice Award product as it just plain kicks major pixel pumping ass and can even tame resource greedy games like Crysis. Its new, it’s fast and it’s here folks the GTX280 is the fastest single slot solution video card on planet Earth!
Thanks to Evga for this Fantastic product.
Till Next time....

Friday, August 8, 2008

Coming soon CoolerMaster HAF Review

Well the good folks at CoolerMaster has sent me a HAF case to review, as far as I know this case is one of a kind..
So stay tuned...And thanks for reading my reviews.....










CoolerMaster S Review

Well I was not sure if I really wanted to perform a review on the Cooler Master S case. since there was alot of reviews being preformed, but then I stared to read all these different review some where good some where bad and some that just did not make any sense at all, Then I really wanted to go ahead and review one but first I must say Thanks to Cooler Master for this lovely case... Thank you But bad shipping lol Bad UPS Bad Now I know that there where some concerns to the fact that Cooler Master had changed the way The S case looks.I know when I first laid my eyes on the S case I was shocked to see that the 6 drive bays where missing and you 3x5.25 inch drive bays, and no reset button Now me I was like WTF, Saying to my self wow they took a great case and made it a little lesser from it's bigger brother Cosmos 1000..But then I glanced over at my son and he pointed out right away dad look you can install a triple rad with ease I started to laugh so hard I lost my train of thought.But back to the case which I am still waiting on dame you customs lol Now as you can see this is a very big box and heavy as well, but no thanks to UPS which for some reason had a hard time delivering my case,I never us UPS I swear, but that is another story.



Here are some pictures for you to drool at,






The Cosmos S is the bigger, better brother of the original Cosmos RC-1000 and has a whole host of new features – a swanky touch sensitive button, a tweaked cooling system and a new bezel.Importantly, Cooler Master has taken away just as much as has been added on and hasn’t

been afraid to do away with some of the more striking aspects of the original’s design.


Those big foam sheets on the inside of the side panels on the original Cosmos are now but a

distant memory and by removing them Cooler Master has freed up more space inside the case. So, there’s plenty to be excited about with the new Cosmos S and at around 25 percent more than its predecessor in money-terms this aluminium monster could prove to be quite a good buy too – all the more reason to keep reading our review.King of All Cosmos…S



There’s a lot more goes into one of these reviews than you think, y’know. There’s testing, photography, complaints about fingerprints, cleaning, more photography and unboxing. It’s a tough job and, with the Cosmos S at least, even the unboxing was challenging.
The Cosmos S turned up on our doorsteps courtesy of Cooler Master in a thoroughly standard looking cardboard box. Quickly, I gathered round the box and, whipping out my trusty penknive In a matter of seconds I had the case out or so I thought. What we actually had was a case in a polystyrene shell.
Sure, nothing wrong there – most good manufacturers use that method to protect their products from damage. Good job Cooler Master, we said, as we chiselled off the polystyrene tomb and revealed the case underneath. Except there was no case underneath – there was a massive cloth bag bearing the Cooler Master logo.
It seems weird that Cooler Master would go to such lengths to disguise and hide the Cosmos S’ features anyway because, once you’ve tunnelled through the maze of packing techniques like a rabbit with its ass on fire, the Cosmos S is actually a very nice case. Very nice.
The overall aesthetic is still akin to the first Cosmos, with two huge handles on the top and the bottom. These handles are made from metal though, so a quick word of advice; make sure you ground yourself when you touch them. After wading through all the plastic sheeting and polystyrene, On the exterior though there have still been a few enhancements and changes.
The left side panel, which was previously blank and pristine, is now a grilled window hiding a huge 200mm fan. The door of the Cosmos has been done away with as well, leaving just a plain and straightforward set of drive bays. The top of the case has changed too and the Cosmos S gives by far and away the best results which tests the rattle of the power button as an indicator of overall build quality, isn’t especially valid here as the power button is actually a touch sensitive recess in the top of the case. Hidden on the top panel is a sliding cover that moves back to reveal an extended set of ports over the Cosmos.
So here is a few pictures side my side the real Cosmos 1000, gotta love that the real Cosmos 1000 LOL


































As you can see from top view the S is a bit bigger...

















Cosmos S Radiators


Here is a list of radiators that will fit in the Cosmo S

HWLab BlackIce GT Stealth III
HWLabs BlackIce GT Xtreme III
HWLabs BlackIce Pro III
HWLabs BlackIce GT
Watercool HTSF 360
XSPC RS360
XSPC R120-T
Aquacomputer Airplex Evo
Aquacomputer Airplex Pro
Alphacool NexXxoS Pro III
Magicool Aluminium 360
Magicool Xtreme 360 Radiator
Magicool Slim 360 Radiator

Not Compatible: But with a bit of Modding you can make it work......
Thermochill PA120.3
Swiftech MCR320 QP 360


.................................................. ...............................................
I must say wow nice design look and feel hat there is a lot of room to be used as you wished, Dual pumps dual rads you finally have choices, not like the first case where you where in a small way limited.
Coolmaster has done a great job but if you pay close attention you can see where Cooler Master Removing the side panels of the Cosmos S is, just as it was on the Cosmos, an incredibly easy task. There’s none of this fart-arsing around with screws or latches or ferrets that have been specially trained to stand next to the case and hold the sidepanels onto the chassis no matter what happens.The Cosmos and the Cosmos S have a simple lever on the back of the case that, when lifted, releases the side panels. Watch out though – they literally release the side panels, so if you aren’t standing by to catch them then you stand a chance of dropping and damaging said panel.Worse, if the 200mm fan is connected at the time then you’ll risk breaking the cable for it. So be carefull lol


It seems to be that although all the additions to the case have been made on the exterior of the Cosmos S, the inside is where the design has been reined in and the Cosmos S starts to look more like a streamlined Cosmos than an enhanced version.The noise-cancelling foam panels are the most obvious absentee on the Cosmos S. Good riddance, I say – they may have hypothetically kept things quieter, but I imagine they didn’t do a lot regarding dust problems and they certainly impeded on the amount of space in the case. The Cosmos S does still have plenty in the way of cooling through. There’s a 120mm in the back of the case, with another 120mm directly above it in the top. The HDD cage has a third 120mm on the front and there’s a 200mm fan built stylishly into one of the sidepanels. On top of that the case then has ventilation points all over.



There’s room in the top of the case for a decently-sized radiator if watercooling is your thing. In fact, this case could be the next best thing to the Cooler Master UPC 1100W soon to come in a new review thank for Cooler Master for shipping me the Power Supply.There's space for a 120mm radiator in the base and the back and a 3x120mm in the roof! This potential for watercooling is absolutely massive then and means that you could easily have a powerful water-cooler juggernaut all contained within the one shell... without the need to cut up your expensive home for your pride and joy. If water is what you're after then you probably can't do any better than the Cosmos S. Since the PSU fan will breathe through the base of the case (it’s raised a few inches off the floor) there’s an included air filter. The filter isn’t of excellent quality, but it’ll do the job and stop the fan sucking up too much carpet. Yes, there’s a rude joke in there somewhere.









All in all, the inside of the case looks fairly snazzy and it was plainly obvious that there was going to be plenty of room inside for working too – no need to worry about your oversized, over-blinged (or is that over-blanged?) graphics cards here.

That said, there is perhaps a little room for improvement. Having room to work is one thing, but a removable motherboard tray is even better and we’d have been even more confident about where we threw our elbows if we could get the tray out completely.

I want to point out that you have more room for cable managment
not like the 1000 it was hard to run cable,

The connectors that come from the top IO panel are 2 USB, 1 1394, 1 Audio (either HD or AC 97) and 1 eSATA cable. There also is a 24pin motherboard power adapter that has a split from it that goes to the touch sensor button to power the computer, this is so that it will get power directly from the power supply.

The HDD cage, which has changed away from the drawer system of the original and reverted to a more traditional design, still retains vibration dampening but also turned out to be a bit of a problem,



As you can see the HDD bay is diffrent from the Cosmos 1000












Overall though the case design is still miles above and beyond most other chassis’ and everything from the tool-less drive bays (i.e. those big blue buttons) to the removable hood on the outside of the case speaks of a high build quality and thoughtful approach to the design.Cooler Master you have out done your self..... Test will be done at a later date due to the fact I have a Evga 780I FTW board coming to me in 2 weeks and the Cooler Master UCP as well..ConclusionThe Cooler Master Cosmos S is an attractive and sleek case that looks even better than the standard Cosmos, holding its own in the higher end of the market when it comes to look. If the Antec P182 is just a bit too plain for your tastes then the Cosmos S is an acceptable compromise between that and a Cooler Master Stacker 830 Custom  Looking at the Cosmos as a whole, it’s clear to see that the re-design has mainly focused on improving the look and accessibility of the chassis rather than making the fan cooling capabilities more powerful. That’s a mixed blessing obviously, but to us the benefits of this door-less and funkier design (that looks great in champagne grey) outweighs the unimproved fan cooling. It's also worth bearing in mind that the Cosmos S seems more aimed at watercoolers too – there’s room for a self contained radiator and so forth in the top.But I like the overall aesthetic and, if you’re a watercooler, it could be seen as great value for money However, when you consider that the Cosmos S is 25 percent more than the original Cosmos you have to ask whether that extra cost is worth it. love the thought that has gone into the case’s design and some will definitely see value in the improvements made—especially on the watercooling frontThis case is made for vets and newbies alike....
Specifications With that said...






























Pros:
Simplistic & sleek design
Tool-free features
Carrying handles
Build quality
Low noise output fans
Temperatures
Large side fan

Cons:
HH Cage
Filters could have been a bit better quality for collecting dust
Large Side Fan Can interfere with large CPU heatsinks
Overall 9.0
Hope you enjoyed the review Thanks Cooler Master for the Sample....