nVidia Geforce GTX 460

By power666

^{Thu, July 15th, 2010 at 2:33PM CDT}
The reviews have landed for the nVidia Geforce GTX 460 this week. From glancing at the various reviews on the net, nVidia and gamers a lot to be optimistic about. The price is reasonable, performance good for what you pay and it appears to be great a overclocker looking at the various reviews.

The downside for consumers is that there are two distinct versions: a 768 MB and 1 GB of memory. Normally more graphics memory only helps when playing at higher resolutions and cranking up the anti-aliasing settings. The 1 GB version has more raster processors, more L2 cache and a wider memory bus. The additional changes in the 1 GB version do yield a small but noticeable performance increase even at lower image quality settings.

Pushing the 1 GB card to 800 Mhz core/1600 Mhz shader puts it with in range of the Geforce GTX 470 in terms of performance. In fact, the Geforce GTX 460 is build using a chip with 384 shaders but 48 of them are disabled. Using all units built into the chip would allows for it to exceed the more expensive Geforce GTX 470's performance at 710 Mhz. Expect the Geforce GTX 470 to be replaced in the coming weeks or months.

Overclocking isn't for everybody but the Geforce GTX 460 does deliver a shocker at stock speeds. In many cases the 1 GB version will out perform the Geforce GTX 465. The Geforce GTX 460 is simply cheaper, runs cooler and faster. So unless 3 or 4 way SLI is desired, it is best to avoid the Geforce GTX 465 unless they are discounted below the Geforce GTX 460's price.

The real comparison is going to be made against AMD's Radeon line up. The closest in terms of performance is the Radeon 5830. The 1 GB version of the Geforce GTX 460 often comes out superior but not necessarily the 768 MB version. With the 768 MB model and the Radeon 5830 at roughly the same $200 USD price, the edge certainly goes toward the Radeon 5830 due to having more memory and a few niche features. Vendors selling pre-overclocked 768 MB cards generally are faster and don't carry that much of a premium (~$210 USD). The reason is that overclocked 768 MB cards don't want to surpass the 1 GB variant's $230 USD price.

The next comparison would be between the 1 GB Geforce GTX 460 and the more expensive Radeon 5850. The Radeon 5850 does come out the performance champion at stock speeds but the gains may not be worth the extra $70 USD. Pre-overclocked Geforce GTX 460 cards are edging out the Radeon 5850 at a lower price. Expect the Radeon 5850 to drop in price but it will likely remain at a premium.

The final comparison will be to what's coming in the future. AMD is preparing a refresh of select chips later this year. Indications are pointing toward higher clock speeds and increased efficiency while using the same manufacturing process. There will not be the radical in performance due to increased parallelism as seen from the Radeon 4000 to 5000 series. These new AMD graphics chips are expected close to the end of the year though. nVidia will be launching a card with 384 shaders based upon the same chip as the Geforce GTX 460. This card will likely replace the Geforce GTX 465 and 470 in one move and arrive at a similar price. So people who recently bought a Radeon 5830 or Geforce GTX 460 won't find themselves in immediate obsolescence.

Various reviews online:
Anandtech Part 1 and Part 2
Guru3D
HardOCP Part 1 and Part 2
PC Perspective
TechReport

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For your education...

By power666

^{Wed, June 16th, 2010 at 9:51PM CDT}
A recent trend in higher education is the sharing of class resources online to the general public. For example, CS448s - Beyond Programmable Shading at Standford University. This class is being taught by two industry gurus: Mike Houston from AMD and Aaron Lefohn from Intel. Available are the presentations used in class which deal with future hardware architecture to advanced software algorithms. While this class is educational in nature, gaming is also covered.

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Intel to pass on discrete graphics cards (for now)

By power666

^{Wed, May 26th, 2010 at 6:35AM CDT}
Intel's director of Products and Technology, Bill Kircos, updated his company blog with a bit more information about their plan for Larrabee. Or more accurately what they are not going is provide chips for retail graphic cards. So for gaming it looks like it will be a choice between nVidia Geforce and AMD's Radeon video cards for the foreseeable future. The one major downside to Bill Kircos' blog post is that Intel's seems to be proud of their integrated graphics in chipsets and the Core i3/i5 CPU's that come with a graphics processor inside the package. The reality is that Intel's graphic solutions have historically been rather pathetic when it comes to performance.

There is a ray of hope. Intel's Kirk Skaugen will be detailing new information about Larrabee at next weeks International Supercomputing Conference next week. Could Larrabee see release for high performance computing before it finds its away into the hands of gamers? Will future Top500 lists be populated by Larrabee based systems?

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The Great Tech Cold War (Updated)

By power666

^{Thu, April 22nd, 2010 at 6:26AM CDT}
It is no secret that there are some great rivalries in the tech industry: Apple vs. Microsoft, Nintendo vs. Sony, IBM vs. HP ect. A new battle is emerging between two recent allies: Apple vs. Google. It was only a year ago the Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board of directors. Both companies worked against the dominance of Microsoft products online and in the mobile sector. Apple and Google are roughly the same size. Now not only are Apple and Google offer competing operating systems for smart phones but Apple is going after Google's core business in advertising with iAd. Publicly they've been rather friendly even though they're competing directly more and more everyday. Such civility may soon turn to bitter anger.

The Nuclear Option
There is a rumor that Apple is trying to buy ARM. This would expand Apple's own chip design team that they acquired from PA-Semi in 2008 while simultaneously crippling all there competitors. Not only would RIM, Nokia, and Motorola be directly affected but so would Google, Nintendo and Microsoft. Google produces the Andriod operating system for smart phones but also nullifies the Google's purchase of ARM based designer AgnilLux. Apple is Nintendo's biggest competitor for hand held gaming and all of Nintendo's recent offerings use chips based upon the ARM architecture. Microsoft has Windows Mobile running on ARM based smart phones and uses ARM based chips inside the Zune. In one swift move, Apple wipes out the future roadmap for all of their hardware competitors and puts plenty of ARM software development into a limbo state.

ARM has a long reach
To fully understand the importance of ARM, one must look at their business model. ARM does not make processors but rather designs them. ARM takes their own designs and licenses them out to other companies to manufacture. The CPU designs are often modified to an embedded system-on-a-chip. Essentially ARM does the grunt work of processor design and licenses their efforts to companies that'll finish the job for a truly custom product. They have an architectural definition that they license out to companies that want to design their own chip that are compatible with ARM's own CPU designs.

While Apple's interest in ARM is mainly for the smart phone market but ARM chips are used in nearly every market that can use a processor. Things like DVD players, radios, simple hand held calculators, answering machines, remote controls ect. exist that use ARM processors. The reason the ARM family of processors is so popular for these devices is not about raw performance but rather their ultra low power design and low cost.

The deal breaker
For Apple, there really is no downside to acquiring ARM. Yet this deal may never happen and for good reason. Such corporate acquisitions are subject to regulator scrutiny. With ARM so widely used, regulators will be hearing numerous and loud objections. If both US and EU regulators approve, Apple will unlikely be able to revoke any existing ARM licensing deals. With licenses existing for the architecture as a whole in the market, a potential Apple-ARM deal would not imply that Apple becomes the exclusive ARM provider.

UPDATE
The Guardian is reporting comments made by ARM's CEO Warren East:

"Exciting though it is to have the share price pushed up by these rumours, common sense tells us that our standard business model is an excellent way for technology companies to gain access to our technology. Nobody has to buy the company."

The thing worth noting is that Apple wouldn't be buying ARM to get technology as they already hold ARM licenses. Rather Apple would likely buy ARM for what they can take away from their competitors in the market place. How much Apple could remove based upon current designs is very hazy and subject to conditions placed upon them by regulators. Apple would likely have to honor all current ARM licenses, include those for the entire architecture as a whole. So even if Apple buys ARM, they likely would not be the sole provide of ARM chips. Such a move however would reduce the selection of ARM based chips in the future.

Even if Eric Warren disapproves of an Apple takeover, the case of acquisition could go straight to the ARM share holders.

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