Technodog...

July's Best Graphics Card for the Cash!(Malaysian Version)

2008-07-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

Well, what a month June was!
First, there were the release of the GTX series by nVidia, produced another line of the fastest cards in the world, yet with a incredibly hefty price tag.
Then, comes the 4800 series by AMD/ATI, which totally rocked, and with a price that's so cheap, that caused a serious price drop on almost all cards of the previous generations.
Again, if you're a smart buyer, be sure to use this guide.

Best card for the price:
RM100-300
AMD/ATI HD 3650
Nothing to say, just, if you can save more money you shouldn't at all buy at this range.

RM300-500
nVidia Geforce 9600GSO
Just a renamed 8800GS, yet performs good at low resolutions, trails behind it's bigger brother, the 8800GT by just a little, again, at low resolutions(1680x1200 and below)
There are some of them which is sold below RM400, which is a superb deal.
If you want to save money or you play at low resolutions, this is definitely for you.

RM500-RM700
AMD/ATI HD4850
The new AMD/ATI card released just a few weeks ago, and it performed even better than the previously famed 9800GTX(RM1000^) at most games, most selling at RM700 and below, makes it the best pick this month, not only for this range, but it also gets the best price performance ratio of all cards here.
There is NO doubt the card is the best buy for this range.
Even the 8800GT sells at 650 in Malaysia now, but the 4850 just bashes all other nVidia cards at this price range(in Malaysia).

RM700-RM1000
AMD/ATI HD4870
Big brother of the 4850, this card performs like 80 percent of the fastest card GTX280, yet just 40 percent of it's price.
What more can I say? Superb deal.

Higer than RM1000? I would never recommend, it's just a waste of money, since the 4850 and the 4870's there.

Intel wants other GPU dead!

2008-05-04T03:38:00.000-07:00

There were guns, and bombs, and better guns and bombs.
Then it came. The nuclear bomb.
Is Intel going to release the nuclear bomb, to just kill off all other GPUs?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Int [...] 2565.shtml

"According to Fosner, multi-core processors could handle life-like animations, such as weather or effects better than dedicated GPUs. For instance, multi-core processors can handle the graphics tasks in a better manner than a high-end graphics board could ever do."

Imagine CPU technology can run games well. Yes, Intel's going to add something new to the GPU war, thanks to their CPU experiences.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Int [...] 1081.shtml

16 Graphics cores!
nVidia and ATI are sweating buckets!
Join Tom'sForum discussions here.

SLI gets no love from Intel!

2008-05-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

Of the horrors of GPU and CPU, Intel's future processor, Nahelem, doesn't provide support for SLI!
Holy pancakes!
This is tragedy!
Not really, it's just a dangerous way of teaching nVidia a lesson.
nVidia, was once company of the year, once declined Intel to support SLI in Intel's X38/X48 boards, so that the nVidia's inferior boards would be the hot cakes.
Man, nVidia was showing their "PRIDE", and showed how many balls they had.
Boy oh boy, Intel has balls too.
And Intel's cutting nVidia's balls!
Who wins in this case? AMD/ATI!
Intel's Nahelem supports ATI's crossfireX, and nVidia will be looking at AMD to pour out their SLI boards.
Haha, nVidia's left alone...

OR NOT.
Just get a single powerful GPU. Problem solved.

So who's the winner? WE! THE CONSUMERS!
Join the discussion in Tom's forums here.

After being in Tom’s Forums for awhile…

2008-04-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve been in Tom’s forums for like 2 months now. I really like it. The hospitality these dudes offer, how we talk about cards…
I love Tom’s forums. Especially the Graphics section.

I tried Lowyat forums, just to feel, more Malaysian.
I really hated there, where a you can’t repost a topic that has died a month ago…(Asus trinity 3850! I’ll remember this!)
The hardware section is so infested by nerds who so needed manner lessons…
In fact, I was seriously troubled by them, what the f*ck useless info the gave, and shitty language, and moderators who loves Hentai…
Shit, within 3 days I went back Tom’s forums and really loved it again till now.

From newbie, to journeyman, to a member now.
This was my first thread I started. In fact I started a similar thread at Lowyat forums, only to find unfriendly people hitting at me that this is a repost and later the moderator locked the thread and tells me to continue the argument in the old thread, which have died a few weeks earlier…
WTF…

Anyway, in Tom’s forums, there are some dudes that’ll be hard to forget.
-Marvelous211- with a red hair dude as his avatar, he loves the 8800GS. I remember him making reviews and benchmarks of the 8800GS. I’ll remember the red hair.
-DarthPiggie- We strongly agree that hamburgers are tasty and we love Rome Total War and Star Wars. He’s a good American patriot and could be the future president too. And I f*cking am envious of your space-tech liposuction machine! Yeah, keep eating hamburgers!
-L1qu1d- His desktop picture is so, him. And his 9800GX2. Whenever I see the word liquid, be it on the net or in the books, I’ll just get a desktop image in my head. Yeah, that’s L1qu1d from Tom’s forums…
-Mactronix- I like you signing off with your name, Mactronix… Cool dude…
-EXT64- Kinda reminds myself of my processor (AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+). And that tree…
-dagger- the guy who loves en.expreview.com and love benchmarks more than anyone else. Good dude too.
-crusoe74- The catfish picture!
-pauldh- I so remember the truck photo from Cars…
-randomizer- the smiling cat…
-TheGreatGrapeApe- coolest moderator!
-Maziar- Good Iranian patriot. Countries need patriots like him.

-annisman- He got a 9800GX2, and let his picture do the talking...

avatar of annisman...

Well, thank you all for being such good forum dudes.
I love Tom’s forums!

4800s!

2008-04-24T01:01:00.000-07:00

Leak: ATI Radeon 4800 Gets 480 Stream Processors!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ati-radeon-4800,5223.html
Check it out dudes!
2 more months and everything's gonna change.
Don't forget the prices too!

What can you expect...

2008-04-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

OKay, Im not free right now, but here's what you can expect.
I'm gonna make a post about the battle between the 3870 vs 9600gt.
Not the same as what other websites have made.
The post will examine whose more futureproof.
Have a nice day guys...

PC Fair!

2008-04-13T00:15:00.001-07:00

PC Fair!
Things are going to be cheap!

However, not all PC fairs are good.
Like Ipoh, you got nothing there.
KL's the best place for PC fair...

Anyway, Happy Shopping!

Three in one? No, this is no coffee with tongkat ali...

2008-04-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

One chip in front, 2 chips behind.
Its the new Asus 3850 trinity!!!!....???

Specifications

Model	EAH3850 TRINITY/3DHTI/1.5G
Graphics Engine	Radeon HD 3850
Video Memory	1.5G DDR3
Engine Clock	660MHz
Memory Clock	850MHz (1.7GHz DDR3)
Memory Interface	256-bit + 256-bit + 256-bit
DVI Max. Resolution	2560*1600
Bus Standard	PCI Express
DVI Output	DVI *4
HDCP Compliant	Yes
HDMI Output	Yes, via DVI to HDMI adaptor
D-Sub Output	Yes, via DVI to D-Sub adaptor
HDTV Output	Yes, via HDTV Out cable
TV Output	Yes, via S-Video to Composite
Thermal Solution	Water Cooling System
Adaptor/Cable Bundled	DVI-to-D-Sub adaptor DVI-to-HDMI adaptor HDTV-out cable Power Cable
Software Bundled	ASUS Utilities & Driver

320 stream processors X3!!!!
Some benchmark was released and it got 139% improvement over a single 3850!
But imagine if the 3850 gets outdated quickly, and this card...
Rot and RIP..

I don't have high expectations for this card, but its something new to watch out at least.

Read more

Best Graphics card for April!

2008-04-08T03:30:00.001-07:00

Great year to buy GPUs dude!(unlike the sucky 2007, yucks...)
This is a guide that will, I hope, help you guys choose GPU.
Do remind yourself this guide is best used for Malaysians, for it uses the prices in Malaysia.
Let's begin.

Below RM500.
Surprisingly, I have found an 'Okay' card under this range!
Its the AMD/ATI 3650.
You can find it around RM300, sometimes less.
You won't play Crysis with this card, nor get very good performances with it, but decent gamers will get a good bang with their buck with this card.
Besides gamers, multimedia dudes can get HDMI out of this card!
Yeah, good buy for RM300.

RM500-RM700.
Don't argue with me on this, it MUST be the nVidia 9600gt.
With prices dropping below RM600, you don't find reasons to buy the 8800gs, or the insanely expensive AMD/ATI 3870, or the 3850s.
With this card, and the price(you can find one at RM550, or more if you decide to be an OC one), you get an insane price/performance ratio.
Yeah, this card deals good with all those recent games, even offering playable frame rates at 1920x1200 for most games.
Great offer.

RM700-RM1000.
King of this price range.
nVidia 8800gt.
Offering solid performances, the 8800gt is definitely a great card, and it's under RM1000.
If you're wondering whether you want this or safe some bucks on the 9600gt, do remind yourself that this card has more stream processors, which grants the 8800gt better frame rates especially higher resolutions, and, a longer life.
Just don't buy the 256mb version of this card.

RM1000-RM1500
If you want a powerful single GPU, get the nVidia 8800gts 512MB.
You can find it below RM1300, which is a good buy.
Get great performance.
Don't get the 9800GTX(Buoycott it!), it's just an overclocked 8800gts 512.
If you're the show-off type who wants 2 cards(I don't know why some people SLI.), get 2 9600gt, offers great performance too!(an overall 80percent more performance compared to one 9600gt.)

Above RM1500?
I don't see a reason getting more than RM1500.

Wait!
Before leaving let me just remind you, SLI or CrossfireX more than 2 cards is a new thing.
And please go to this website and see for yourself! It's not worth it to get 3 or 4 cards!(for this time at least.)
Not only you don't get the performance your paying for, you're wasting a lot of energy(hug a tree dudes!)
So, my advice is get a single powerful card, or 2 powerful cards, don't fancy yourself with 3 or 4 cards at this time, multi-GPU technology above 2 cards is not solid yet.
Yeah.

If you're not Malaysian, go here.

8800gs changes its name?

2008-04-08T02:39:00.000-07:00

It was december when AMD/ATI released their 3800s. nVidia then released the 8800gs to counter that, beside closing the gap between the 8600gts and 8800gt.
Due to certain reasons like not enough propaganda, the sales of the 8800gs didn't go well, and the 3800s won, for a few months at least.
Now, with the release of the 9600gt, the 8800gs is almost totally forgotten.

Now, nVidia decides to change the 8800gs into 9600gso.
Reason? to just sell all those 8800gs perhaps.
Don't get too excited. It's just a name change.
NOT A FACE LIFT.
You don't get anything more than an 8800gs.
Its still an 8800gs.
What else?
This reminds me of the nForce4(nVidia changed its name to nForce500, remember?)

No matter what, 8800gs or 9600gso, the 9600GSO(the 8800gs, ar, i am getting confused...) is quite a good card and deserves more respect.(Max-it April gave one of these cards a 3.7/5.0, and the 9600gt a 4.7/5.0. What the gap?)
It can actually play Crysis better than the 9600gt.

I hope nVidia just stop confusing us with it's naming scheme.
Read more.

DirectX10 rocks!

2008-03-29T09:07:00.001-07:00

Best graphics card for the mainstreamers - March

2008-03-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm gonna start something new. One of my hobby is to just go through price lists of shops through-out Malaysia. And now I wanna just start this.
Notes:
1. This post may not be 100percent accurate
2. This post is mainly aimed at mainstreamers
3. This post is most workable for Malaysians.
4. Best card based on the best price/performance value

News! nVidia released their first 9series card, the 9600gt weeks ago, and is really a great card for a mainstream card. So are the 3870 and the 3850 from AMD/ATI. 9600gt performs a little below the 3870 without Anti-Aliasing, but when AA is activated, 9600gt performs better. AMD eventually pulled down prices of the 3800s, and is really a headache when choosing between these cards.

However, in Malaysia, for reasons that I don't know, the prices of the 3800s are still quite the same when compared to December, and the newer 9600gt is cheaper than even a 3850 512mb!

Now let us get back to the topic, pull out our scope, and find the best price/performance card for gaming! And the winner isn't the above cards, funny eh? Not really, but this underdog, at mid resolutions, can perform on-par or close to the cards above, and it is selling at a way lower price than the above cards.
SO! the winner for the best card for mainstreamers for March is...

XFX Alpha Dog 8800GS

With a crippled G92 core,this card can be found less than RM550. Performance is under the 9600, yet take price over performance, and this is the winner.

Specification

Mfr Part Number: PV-T88S-FDF4
Chipset: GeForce 8800 GS
Engine Clock: 580 MHz
Video Memory: 384MB DDR3
Memory Clock: 1.4 GHz
Memory Interface: 192-bit
Bus: PCI-Express x16 (Support PCI-Express 2.0)
RAMDAC: 400 MHz
Max. Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Connectors: Dual DVI (Support Dual VGA), TV-out (HDTV ready)
Thermal: Fansink
Support nVidia SLI Technology
Support HDCP - High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection
Support Microsoft DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.0
Built for Microsoft Windows Vista
Package: Retail
RoHS Compliant

Some people are asking about the DirectX 10.1 thing, where AMD supports it but nVidia 9 series still only supports DirectX10. My opinion? It's not real a great deal, it is not like DirectX 9 card not supporting DirectX10 games, no, so what if it's 10.1 or 10? This card is a DirectX 10 card, no need to worry much guys.
However, if you want HDMI or you can pay more, the 9600gt is the better buy.
You can't adjust the fan speed of the clock too, it runs at 100percent speed all the time, meaning this Alpha Dog will bark. But once you get into gaming and the speakers start to shout, you won't hear a thing from this card.
But if you wanna buy yourself a RM150+ dinner, or you are tight on budget, this card is the best choice for you.
This card is becoming rare, so if you want to buy it buy it quick, or if want to wait, it's good too to wait for the 9800gx2 and 9800gtx to come out, then see how the prices will become. Who knows? Maybe suddenly nVidia decides to drop 9600gt prices, then 9600gt will just destroy its opponents and become the "bestest" buy.

Geforce 9 - nVidia new greatness?

2008-02-25T02:23:00.000-08:00

The first Geforce 9 - The Geforce 9600gt hit the shelves last week, and showed how serious nVidia was in edging AMD.
The 9600gt is overall impressive.
It is the first nVidia x600gt that has performance equaling ATI/AMD x800.
Let us refresh ourselves for a while.

This is a MAINSTREAM CARD.

Let us compare the 9600gt to the ATI's HD3650 card.
It edges the latter by at least 200 percent.
And the 9600gt was on par with HD3870 on most benchmarks.
If you SLI a pair of 9600gt, you will get up to 80 percent performance more than a single 9600gt.
WOW! No SLI or Crossfire before this had such a performance!

NVidia Geforce 9 set a new bar for graphics card performance level.
Unlike the previous Geforce 8 generation, the Geforce 9 really is promising.
Just imagine the performance of 9600gt, with 64 unified shaders, can be just 15 percent under the 112 unified shaders 8800gt.
And the 9800gt has an expected 128 shaders.
Same count with the precious 8800GTX/Ultra, but with 9600gt's performance, you should reconsider how the 9800gt will perform.
Not forgetting entry level, the 9500gt will be either present with 32 or 48 shaders.
Hmm, nVidia again shows how serious they are on edging their opponents and also setting new heights.
I mean, no previous generations really offered something as good as this.
9500gt is an entry-level card, but with so many shaders...

HOWEVER, there is no need to call the 9600 9600 because technology-wise, there is nothing really new.
Major no-changes, still DirectX 10, rather than a newer 10.1, Shader-Model 4.0, rather than 4.1.
Maybe it should be named 8700GTX rather than 9600gt.
But it's up to nVidia, I am nothing to say this.

Meantime, Let us just wait for March 11 when nVidia realeases their 9800gt(hmm... delay probably?).
Then let us see how nVidia crushes their opponents flat.
Also expect to see the 9800GX2, or even the 9800GT destroying the HD3870X2.
Let us hope tri-SLI will be a true breakthrough with the Geforce 9800s.

Best Graphics card to buy for January.

2008-01-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

Hello guys,
This blog are for tech-kys and gamers like me!
This post will be about which graphics card you should buy for different price ranges.
NOTE:
1.Only workable for Malaysians.
2. These card are for PCI-E X16 adapters. AGP ones post comment.
3. These cards are DirectX 10 cards.

Buy a graphics card that's at least RM250.
And all prices below will be based on ALL-IT Hypermarket price list.

RM200-RM300:
Sapphire HD2600Pro 256MB DDR2 (128bit)

At RM270, this is a really nice piece of meat.
It's better than others at this price range.
Example of loser/s here: Asus 8500GT, 8400GS, 2400XT.

RM300-RM400:
Sapphire HD2600XT 256MB DDR3 (128bit)

RM350, real good, although DDR3 will not be as good as DDR4 versions.
Other graphics card at this same price just sucks like 1.9 times.
Example of loser/s here: Gigabyte 8500GT, Asus 8500 GT silent.

RM400-RM500:
Asus EN8600GT 512MB DDR3 (128 Bit)

2600XT DDR4 is more expensive, and this card is the winner here.
RM470, really worth it.
Example of loser/s:Sapphire HD2600XT 256MB DDR4, that loss because it was priced RM30 more expensive, but parallel in performance. Use the RM30 for a nice lunch dude.

RM500-RM600:
Sapphire HD2900GT 256MB DDR3 (256bit)

Let me tell you this, ALL the cards in RM500-RM800 will lose to this card.
Because this card is just priced at RM530.
And although 8800GT can get 20 percent better performance,
The ratio is just too far apart.
Even the 3870 loses to this old card.
Take this equation:
Performance(based on total frame rate by Tomshardware) / Price = value ratio.
Value ratios:
Sapphire HD2900GT 256MB DDR3 = 3.3
Asus EN8800GT 256MB DDR3 = 2.8
Sapphire HD3870 512MB DDR4 = 2.3

Sapphire HD2900GT 256MB DDR3 certainly will be the card to buy for a price so low, but performance parallel(or close) to cards 200/300 ringgit more expensive.

I will not go higher this time.
If you want more, post a comment, I'll help you figure the best card for you.
If you want RM1100, put 2900XT in Crossfire. Will be better than 8800GTS

Conclusion:
Sapphire REALLY offers great ATI cards at REALLY low prices.
Gigabyte's cards are really not recommended, they're real expensive.
Maybe it's just new, 8800GT is really rare and facing inflation at everywhere.
Not suitable time to buy it yet.
if you spot 2600 or 8600 beyond RM500, just ignore it, it's not worth the price.
If you want a card below rm200, just save more money and wait till it gets RM300.
Buy cards that's ready for DirectX 10.
These card will make you ready for Vista.
Save the following chart to make you understand which graphics card's worth to buy.
Use this formula once again:
Performance / price = value ratio

HELLO

2008-01-05T22:50:00.001-08:00

Will blog about tech-ky stuffs soon.
Have a nice day.