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I'm glad that I didn't splurge on the Creative Zen Stone I was looking at this past couple of weeks. Sony has just come out with a Zen Stone Plus that has twice as much storage and a little screen to display track info. Plus other minor additions like FM Radio, Karaoke Mode and Stopwatch. ;) The only downside is that the new one is going to be 20 dollars more which kind of strays into iPod shuffle territory... pricewise.
A company has come out with cheapish video cards in of the GeForce 8 variety but since they are saddled with slower VRAM than typical cards of that series they might not be able to handle the stuff they should be able to.. as in that DirectX10 stuff.... and it probably runs games\Vista slower as well.
A company has come out with cheapish video cards in of the GeForce 8 variety but since they are saddled with slower VRAM than typical cards of that series they might not be able to handle the stuff they should be able to.. as in that DirectX10 stuff.... and it probably runs games\Vista slower as well.
I'm glad that I didn't splurge on the Creative Zen Stone I was looking at this past couple of weeks. Sony has just come out with a Zen Stone Plus that has twice as much storage and a little screen to display track info. Plus other minor additions like FM Radio, Karaoke Mode and Stopwatch. ;) The only downside is that the new one is going to be 20 dollars more which kind of strays into iPod shuffle territory... pricewise.
A company has come out with cheapish video cards in of the GeForce 8 variety but since they are saddled with slower VRAM than typical cards of that series they might not be able to handle the stuff they should be able to.. as in that DirectX10 stuff.... and it probably runs games\Vista slower as well.
A company has come out with cheapish video cards in of the GeForce 8 variety but since they are saddled with slower VRAM than typical cards of that series they might not be able to handle the stuff they should be able to.. as in that DirectX10 stuff.... and it probably runs games\Vista slower as well.
I'm glad that I didn't splurge on the Creative Zen Stone I was looking at this past couple of weeks. Sony has just come out with a Zen Stone Plus that has twice as much storage and a little screen to display track info. Plus other minor additions like FM Radio, Karaoke Mode and Stopwatch. ;) The only downside is that the new one is going to be 20 dollars more which kind of strays into iPod shuffle territory... pricewise.
A company has come out with cheapish video cards in of the GeForce 8 variety but since they are saddled with slower VRAM than typical cards of that series they might not be able to handle the stuff they should be able to.. as in that DirectX10 stuff.... and it probably runs games\Vista slower as well.
A company has come out with cheapish video cards in of the GeForce 8 variety but since they are saddled with slower VRAM than typical cards of that series they might not be able to handle the stuff they should be able to.. as in that DirectX10 stuff.... and it probably runs games\Vista slower as well.
Recently I have tried the Halo demo on my Dell Laptop and I noticed something interesting. It looks better on there than on my Mac with ATI Radeon 9200. The deal with that is that back in the day ATI didn't support shaders the same way as nvidia did and the game was tailored for nvidia because it was made for the XBox which essentially had a GeForce 3 and 1/2. So when they ported it to the PC\Mac it became biased towards the pixel shader version used in the nvidia GeForce 3 and above. Obviously the intel integrated graphics I have in my laptop is able to run that somehow. This causes the effect that the game looks better on my PC than on my Mac which it should be the other way around because my Mac has a dedicated GPU. Kind of makes me wish Apple had gone with the GeForce 3\4 instead.
Recently I have tried the Halo demo on my Dell Laptop and I noticed something interesting. It looks better on there than on my Mac with ATI Radeon 9200. The deal with that is that back in the day ATI didn't support shaders the same way as nvidia did and the game was tailored for nvidia because it was made for the XBox which essentially had a GeForce 3 and 1/2. So when they ported it to the PC\Mac it became biased towards the pixel shader version used in the nvidia GeForce 3 and above. Obviously the intel integrated graphics I have in my laptop is able to run that somehow. This causes the effect that the game looks better on my PC than on my Mac which it should be the other way around because my Mac has a dedicated GPU. Kind of makes me wish Apple had gone with the GeForce 3\4 instead.
Recently I have tried the Halo demo on my Dell Laptop and I noticed something interesting. It looks better on there than on my Mac with ATI Radeon 9200. The deal with that is that back in the day ATI didn't support shaders the same way as nvidia did and the game was tailored for nvidia because it was made for the XBox which essentially had a GeForce 3 and 1/2. So when they ported it to the PC\Mac it became biased towards the pixel shader version used in the nvidia GeForce 3 and above. Obviously the intel integrated graphics I have in my laptop is able to run that somehow. This causes the effect that the game looks better on my PC than on my Mac which it should be the other way around because my Mac has a dedicated GPU. Kind of makes me wish Apple had gone with the GeForce 3\4 instead.
If you thought 8 Cores where a lot...
Apr. 14th, 2007 09:38 pmTry 128 cores in the newest pro graphics card from nvidia. This card definitely belongs in a Mac Pro. However they should also offer an 8800 for those who don't want to spend more ~1 to 3+ grand on the video card alone. And most people, including myself would think even 600 dollars is a lot to spend on a video card!
Actually it's not 128 cores per say. It's 128 "stream processors" which are mini processors that do a specific job.. not a bunch of full general purpose cores. It's sort of like how the cell in the PS3 has 8 SPUs which is similar to this but to most people that doesn't matter... and marketing isn't above spinning it to make it sound cooler. But it still is cool in its own way. I almost consider it like SPUs are like a pack of sled dogs and full general purpose cores are like horses. You can hook either 2 horses or 8 sled dogs to your sled. For some jobs the dogs may be better but for others the horses are better.
Actually it's not 128 cores per say. It's 128 "stream processors" which are mini processors that do a specific job.. not a bunch of full general purpose cores. It's sort of like how the cell in the PS3 has 8 SPUs which is similar to this but to most people that doesn't matter... and marketing isn't above spinning it to make it sound cooler. But it still is cool in its own way. I almost consider it like SPUs are like a pack of sled dogs and full general purpose cores are like horses. You can hook either 2 horses or 8 sled dogs to your sled. For some jobs the dogs may be better but for others the horses are better.
If you thought 8 Cores where a lot...
Apr. 14th, 2007 09:38 pmTry 128 cores in the newest pro graphics card from nvidia. This card definitely belongs in a Mac Pro. However they should also offer an 8800 for those who don't want to spend more ~1 to 3+ grand on the video card alone. And most people, including myself would think even 600 dollars is a lot to spend on a video card!
Actually it's not 128 cores per say. It's 128 "stream processors" which are mini processors that do a specific job.. not a bunch of full general purpose cores. It's sort of like how the cell in the PS3 has 8 SPUs which is similar to this but to most people that doesn't matter... and marketing isn't above spinning it to make it sound cooler. But it still is cool in its own way. I almost consider it like SPUs are like a pack of sled dogs and full general purpose cores are like horses. You can hook either 2 horses or 8 sled dogs to your sled. For some jobs the dogs may be better but for others the horses are better.
Actually it's not 128 cores per say. It's 128 "stream processors" which are mini processors that do a specific job.. not a bunch of full general purpose cores. It's sort of like how the cell in the PS3 has 8 SPUs which is similar to this but to most people that doesn't matter... and marketing isn't above spinning it to make it sound cooler. But it still is cool in its own way. I almost consider it like SPUs are like a pack of sled dogs and full general purpose cores are like horses. You can hook either 2 horses or 8 sled dogs to your sled. For some jobs the dogs may be better but for others the horses are better.
GeForce 8000 series...
Apr. 8th, 2007 09:44 pmI saw this at neowin just now and wanted to pass it on. Nvidia has just announced the prices for their upcoming GeForce cards that are DirectX10 capable. The first card of that series was the 8800.. now the rest of the line is coming out including a budget version.
• GeForce 8600 GTS ($199 to $229) – 256 MB GDDR3, 675 MHz core clock, 1000 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8600 GT ($149 to $159) – 256 MB GDDR3, 540 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8500 GT ($89 to $129) – 128 to 256 MB DDR2 or GDDR3, 450 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
I would suggest getting one with 256MB having seen the requirements for Blu-ray\HD-DVD the other day. I know some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it but there are benefits to having 256MB+ of Video Ram and not just for gamers.
They need to come out with versions that have firmware for the Mac Pro too. =P
• GeForce 8600 GTS ($199 to $229) – 256 MB GDDR3, 675 MHz core clock, 1000 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8600 GT ($149 to $159) – 256 MB GDDR3, 540 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8500 GT ($89 to $129) – 128 to 256 MB DDR2 or GDDR3, 450 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
I would suggest getting one with 256MB having seen the requirements for Blu-ray\HD-DVD the other day. I know some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it but there are benefits to having 256MB+ of Video Ram and not just for gamers.
They need to come out with versions that have firmware for the Mac Pro too. =P
GeForce 8000 series...
Apr. 8th, 2007 09:44 pmI saw this at neowin just now and wanted to pass it on. Nvidia has just announced the prices for their upcoming GeForce cards that are DirectX10 capable. The first card of that series was the 8800.. now the rest of the line is coming out including a budget version.
• GeForce 8600 GTS ($199 to $229) – 256 MB GDDR3, 675 MHz core clock, 1000 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8600 GT ($149 to $159) – 256 MB GDDR3, 540 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8500 GT ($89 to $129) – 128 to 256 MB DDR2 or GDDR3, 450 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
I would suggest getting one with 256MB having seen the requirements for Blu-ray\HD-DVD the other day. I know some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it but there are benefits to having 256MB+ of Video Ram and not just for gamers.
They need to come out with versions that have firmware for the Mac Pro too. =P
• GeForce 8600 GTS ($199 to $229) – 256 MB GDDR3, 675 MHz core clock, 1000 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8600 GT ($149 to $159) – 256 MB GDDR3, 540 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
• GeForce 8500 GT ($89 to $129) – 128 to 256 MB DDR2 or GDDR3, 450 MHz core clock, 700 MHz memory clock
I would suggest getting one with 256MB having seen the requirements for Blu-ray\HD-DVD the other day. I know some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it but there are benefits to having 256MB+ of Video Ram and not just for gamers.
They need to come out with versions that have firmware for the Mac Pro too. =P
