Video cards and related

I guess that's a pretty general topic, but what I want to touch on is the newest nVidia cards and some innovations in cooling, so maybe I should've called it "nVidia launches the 7900-series and Zalman brings out a new innovation in cooling," but I think that just wouldn't work for a subject. Anyways, here's the goods:

Last week, nVidia launched four new products and one new technology. As has been the case on and off, this was a very hard launch, atleast most of it. First on the block is the 7600GT. This is a killer little card for those of you who don't have a huge screen and don't care about AA or AF. It's a fully featured G7x core, which means all of the HDR advancements and Transparency AA are in there, whether you can use them or not. Also, this card will feature a dual-link DVI connection and the updated TV-Output connector that allows both superb component outputs and the convenience of a dongle-less S-Video connection. This card is a PCIe card that has no external power requirements, which means it uses less than 75 watts. Basically this card fits in very nicely with the HTPC crowd. Expect to see silent versions very soon for just that market.

Second is the 7900GT. This little baby is a very interesting piece since it can beat out a standard 7800GTX without much trouble. Overclocking is superb, and to be honest, with a little tweaking, it could be very close to 7900GTX speeds at a fraction of the cost. We've got the full complement of pixel shaders, a full 256-bit memory bus, and all packed on a slightly smaller PCB than it's big brother. It's also covered by probably the smallest heatsink I've ever seen on a card this powerful. What that means is simply swapping out the reference design for a Zalman VF-900 would improve things on the OC'ing side considerably. We will have to wait and see if there will be BIOS hacks to get the core up to full voltage and get the full 650-700mhz out of it. The memory will hold this one back a bit, but wow, what a nice card for the price.

 The last card that nVidia has shipped to us is the 7900GTX. This beast reminds me a lot of the 7800GTX 512mb, and it even comes with the same cooler. Seeing as this is the flagship of the series, I should comment a bit on the G71 core that sits under that giant HSF. The G71 core is little more than a die shrink of the G70. There is one other difference besides the drop to 90nm, and that is that we're missing about 30 million transistors on this version. nVidia claims to have shunk pipelines down and increased effiecency to pull that off, but until someone grabs the card and runs it at 7800GTX speeds, we won't know if there is any speed up. More importantly, the G71 clocks up very very nicely. In the GTX this little baby screams along at up to 700mhz with the right setup. NordicHardware recently spent some time with it, air-cooled, and was able to break the 700mhz barrier, and if memory serves right, 775mhz was pretty much the top out with some voltage modifications. That's quite impressive, to say the least, considering the stock heatsink was used (with a few extra fans). The only thing that I would have changed with this card is the memory chips used. Instead of using the 1.8ghz beasts found on the 7800GTX 512mb, nVidia chose to pull out the 1.6ghz chips that sit on the x1900. I personally think this proves out that supply issues with the memory are to blame for the issues nVidia had keeping the 7800GTX 512mb on the streets. Anyways, the 7900GTX is a fine replacement for that card, and it runs very nicely.

Now everyone wants to know who wins at the end of the day, and it's hard to say. I may be labeled a fanboi for the following statements, but honestly if ATI could get certain aspects of their act together, I'd be on a x1900 as soon as possible. The fact of the matter is that nVidia has better drivers, better Linux support, and better compatability across the board. SLI is a much more proven technology, and it is only getting better. In my book, the winner of the match is still nVidia, atleast until the next generation of ATI cards come through with integrated X-Fire bridges.

SLI advancements are the last part of the game for nVidia's announcements. First off, SLI in laptops was launched, and several partners have announced products based on a 19" chassis. No matter what Voodoo, Alienware or any of the other guys would have you believe, their products are all virtually identical to this point. A Turion sits under the hood with a nVidia NForce 4 SLI chipset. The sheer volume that a pair of mobile 7800GTX cards takes up is massive, which is why the laptops are shipping as 19" models. I have a feeling that there is some trouble getting the SLI chipset working with Pentium-M's or Core Duo's, otherwise we'd be seeing Core Duo laptops launching. Everyone knows that until socket S1 is released, Intel's got laptops nailed. I'm just being honest here, something I seem to have a bit of a problem with. Anyways, I doubt these things are flying off the shelves since most of us are expecting a little more out of a 19" laptop than a lowly Turion processor. I am excited to see what Core Duo would bring us though.

The last thing to talk about on the nVidia front is Quad-SLI. This has been paper launched in the form of the 7900GX2 cards, which are actually a pair of cards with some impressive interconnects. nVidia has created a bridge chip that allows each GPU 16 lanes of PCIe bandwidth, and then merges the two to a single 16 lane motherboard connection. It seems this is done simply to help with one of their new rendering modes, AFR+SFR. Basically it's like a 0+1 RAID array, where the screen is dynamically split between the two sockets, and each card takes a turn at rendering a frame. This will be the number one rendering mode, although there are two other modes. Quad-SLI can also use a AFR mode where each card renders every fourth frame, or a SFR mode where each card gets 1/4th of the screen. The demo screenshot of 3dMark '06 I've seen has the screen split in half, so AFR+SFR is used there. We'll see more about this as it develops. Keep in mind, this tech is only being released to the OEM's, and it kind of seems like nVidia is using it as a test bed to see how many setups they can sell. There's nothing to keep them from releasing a specialized Quad-SLI chipset that would eliminate the costly bridge on each pair, but there's no need to do so unless customers really want to occupy all of their slots with video cards.

OK, enough on nVidia. On to my favorite cooling company, Zalman. At CEBIT, Zalman released a new video card cooler called the VF-900. This bad boy has 2 heatpipes, all copper construction, and a 4-way mounting bracket. Very good stuff. Initial testing shows it beating the pants off anything to date. Let's just say one of these on a 7900GT would be a little slice of heaven, IMHO. As long as I can find a version of it with HDCP support, I'll be all over it. To be honest, I'm kind of sick of pulling a video card every time I want to try and mess around with Vista.

 Allrighty then. That about does it for me and this Video Card roundup. If you've made it all the way down here, I must congratulate you. Put your name in the comments and I'll send you a personal congratulatory email or something. I hope it's been informative, and I look forward to some comments.

C-YA!