One of key issues with multi-GPU configurations is the lack of dual-monitor capability. Now, this is not a new issue – ever since SLI and CrossFire came out in 2004/5, we were promised earth-shaking gaming experience omitting the fact that more users have two monitors than they have two graphics cards. So, if you were a high-end user and had for instance, GeForce 6800 Ultra or GTX 280 in SLI, result was unchanged – second monitor would remain blank. Same thing was the case with ATI’s CrossFire. All in all, “user-unfriendly” solutions. A while ago, I reported about Nvidia making Big Bang II drivers, drivers
How to name a SVGA projector today? It’s a Wii projector!
Going through dozens of e-mails can only lead to depression… or revelation. I’ve encountered a press release stating that BenQ is releasing two short throw DLP projectors: MP512ST and MP522ST. The former is targeting gaming market with quotes such as “ideal for playing the Wii”, while the latter should excel in business and education. Or so the press release goes. The fact of the matter is that MP512ST is geared towards the Wii because it sports a resolution of 800×600 pixels (SVGA), and if it stayed there, we would be happy. But the release continued quoting that an 800×600 projector is ideal for “PlayStation 3
nForce is dead: Zotac releases its GeForce 9300 motherboard
I saw first motherboards based on MCP7-series chipset back on Computex 2007. Yup, after a year and half nVIDIA is finally releasing MCP7 series to market, featuring GeForce 8-class GPU for Intel processors. It is hard to understand what kind of problems delayed this part for over a year, but one of theories could be that nVIDIA didn’t want to cannibalize the sales of GeForce 8400 and 8500 series, which is give-or-take the performance that you’re going to get with GeForce 9300/9400 chipset. Zotac is well known manufacturer of nVIDIA graphics cards, and also known as the company that produced highest clocked 8800Ultra, 8800GT and
Looking forward to Left 4 Dead
I just got news from Doug Lombardi that Left 4 Dead is available for pre-purchase. All that I can say is – YES!!! It’s been a while since we saw a good co-op game that will shake up small LAN parties (such as office brawls), and this game has everything that’s needed. I had the opportunity to play the game at this years’ E3 Summit in Los Angeles, and honestly – I was delighted. The game has everything that’s needed to be great: it is fun, fast-paced, survival horror themed game. Of course, Left 4 Dead has single player and multiplayer modes, but the real
Adobe ships GPU-accelerated Creative Studio 4, Flash Player 10
After reading countless previews and hearing the marketing buzz about some GPU-accelerated aspects of Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects and others, Adobe Systems announced immediate availability of whole CS4 package (Amazon.com still thinks these versions will be available in November). CS4 is divided into six new versions, as well as stand-alone versions. Adobe divided the packages to suit different content creators, thus package is divided into following: CS4 Design Premium CS4 Design Standard CS4 Design Web Premium CS4 Design Web Standard CS4 Design Production Premium CS4 Design Master Collection As you can imagine, these packages somewhat nothing else but “Premiere-in, Premiere-out” and so on. Professionals will
EVGA completely moving to custom board design
One of largest Nvidia partners out there decided the time has come to turn the screw back on engineering, and reduce its dependency on current parts that are mostly built by Flextronics and similar ODM giants. The company acquired engineers from now-defunct EPoX and started working hard on creating products that are not of now typical “sticker stamper” kind. After introducing the 790i Ultra SLI FTW motherboard with own layout and features (digital power regulation, to name a few), EVGA is now coming to market with a series of own-designed graphics cards. Under a current plan, every product is slowly being upgraded to an own
Sparkle’s excellent idea: Cheap PCI Express x1 cards
One of more interesting niche markets is the one named “how to fix the computer crippled with integrated graphics?”, and the solutions that are being sold in that area. We saw interesting products coming from Albatron, Sparkle, MSI and others, but it is a rare occasion to see a card in sub-$50 range that offers DX10 support. The company released a series of PCIe x1 cards for those unlucky owners of motherboards without PCI Express x16 slot. Sparkle released no less than eight models based on GeForce 8400GS graphics chip. Sadly, memory controller is limited to 64-bit, but this was Nvidia’s doing. Memory is either
Congrats to Jadranko Jelavic
It’s been a while since we last met, but it is always to hear good news when friends earn respect in their businesses. It is my great pleasure to announce that Jadranko Jelavic became General Director of Sales for the entire distribution team at takeMS International AG. Prior to this role, Jadranko was responsible for Eastern and South East Europe. Thanks to his team effort, the company expanded to 25 countries in the afore mentioned regions, and the logical step for the takeMS management was to promote Jadranko to the role of General Director of Sales for the whole company. “We enjoy having won Jadranko
Free speedup for owners of Seagate SATA drives…
“There is no such thing as free lunch”, as the old saying goes. Thus, there should be no doubt that there is no way that you can achieve substantial performance boost for free. Or is there? One of my friends works in largest Croatian assembly of computers. In our conversation couple of days ago, he said that worst nag in assembly of computers is removing the jumpers from Seagate hard drives in order to enable SATA-II (aka SATA 3.0 Gbps) support. If you don’t remove the jumper, the drive will stay in SATA-I (1.5 Gbps) mode. Intrigued by this one, we’ve called our friends and
Single slot cooling is a dream…or a nightmare?
In the world of graphics cards, one of most debated arguments is just how the fat cooler is. In almost every debate I saw, single-slot was touted as “the” cooling to go for. In arguments between X800 and 6800, X1800/1900 vs. 7800/7900, 3870 vs. 8800GT – every time I saw discussions about how great the single-slot cooling is, how that means that the chip is cooler etc. However, there is also a question of maintenance. Single slot boards are more prone to accidental deaths (overheating “accidents”), thus those boards have to be kept clean, or spew or RMAs is ahead (GeForce 7800GTX, 8800GT). Fast forward
