Half Life 2 Benchmarks ASUS nForce4 & K8T890 released in December? Samsung 913N, next Intel releases the BTX Zalman CNPS7700-Cu & AlCu The Seagate 400 GB is available

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Half Life 2 Benchmarks   Posted on 17/11/2004 at 14:51 by Marc

	HardOCP is the first one to release Half Life 2 benchmarks. Tests were made mainly with high end products like the X800 Pro, XT PE, 6800 GT and Ultra. We only regret that tests were made with graphic cards manufactured by BFG. They are most of the time characterized by slight Overclocking. The 6800GT has a GPU clocked at 370 MHz instead of 350 MHz, and 425 MHz instead of 400 MHz for the Ultra version. Here are results obtained with two timedemo in 1600*1200 anti aliasing 4x and anisotropic filtering 8x : X800 XT PE : 93.89 fps / 95.45 fps X800 Pro : 79.52 fps / 73.04 fps 6800 Ultra : 91.55 fps / 83.06 fps 6800 GT : 81.96 fps / 74.98 fps The first important information to notice is that despite higher frequencies the 6800 Ultra isn’t able to reach the X800 XT PE level, even if the performance gap is quite small in the first demo. The 6800GT provides slightly better results than the X800 Pro in the two demos but with standard frequencies we feel that they would provide similar results. Finally performances with Half Life 2 look like performances obtained with Far Cry. In the battle of almost unobtainable graphic cards, the X800 XT PE dominates the 6800 Ultra and in the battle of more available graphic cards the X800 Pro and the 6800 GT provide almost equivalent performances. We have also noticed that Half Life 2 isn’t apparently a graphic card killer. It is possible to play in 1024*7687 with AA 4x and anisotropic filtering 8x (or AA 2x if you want a higher fps) with a 9800 Pro graphic card. High end graphic cards are able to reach with the same parameters 1280*1024 or even 1600*1200.

ASUS nForce4 & K8T890 released in December?   Posted on 17/11/2004 at 12:26 by Marc

	Even though Intel's PCI Express chipsets have been available for months now, we are still waiting for retail availability of motherboards based on the VIA K8T890 announced in September and the nForce4 announced in October. According to ASUSTeK France, such products are about to be released and should be available before Christmas. The first motherboard shipments based on the nForce4 (SLI or not SLI) and the VIA K8T890 are expected end of November. Products should be available in shops end of November. A8V-E : Socket 939, VIA K8T890 A8N SLI : Socket 939, nForce4 SLI A8N-E : Socket 939, nForce4 Ultra ASUSTeK is also planning to release a Socket 754 motherboard based on the standard nForce4 (without SATA 3 Gbits /s and Security Network Engine), the K8N4-E.

Samsung 913N, next   Posted on 17/11/2004 at 12:05 by Vincent

	Samsung France has denied Samsung Germany press announcement (cf. precedent news): the 913N, the LCD 19" LCD screen will only be available inlarge quantity in January in France and in Germany. In December only a few products (less than 300 in France) will be available, so this operation shouldn’t be considered as the real product release.

Intel releases the BTX   Posted on 17/11/2004 at 11:49 by Marc

	Intel has officially released the Balanced Technology Extended format, also known as BTX. Developed by the Santa Clara giant, the BTX will replace the ATX and should principally optimize airflow path for efficient power dissipation. The BTX reorganizes motherboard components to optimize the airflow and allow developers to eliminate one or more fans from the system. This airflow is generated by the « Thermal Module ». The Thermal Module combines the processor radiator, processor fan and a plastic duct. Several motherboard formats are expected, picoBTX, microBTX and BTX respectively 203.2, 264.16 and 325.12mm wide max (1, 4 or 7 additional cards max). For power supply, the only input required is located on the main power supply connector and has a 24-pin format. This format started with the Intel Socket 775 & PCI Express motherboards (but isn’t required with these motherboards). We feel that the picoBTX and microBTX format (and towers compatible) rather than the BTX should really improve the power dissipation. It is however also important to notice that Mini computer manufacturers like Shuttle have already designed new formats and obtain great results with small computer and reduced numbers of fans. The BTX format will need some time to become the standard. Also, the BTX might not work for Athlon 64. With a MicroBTX motherboard, the CPU is located in the lower part of the motherboard. The chipsets is above the CPU and faces the DIMM slots. This is ideal if the chipset manages memory, but when the CPU does (like with the Athlon 64) it is much more difficult. Distances and lanes connecting the processor and memory may vary considerably.

Zalman CNPS7700-Cu & AlCu   Posted on 17/11/2004 at 11:23 by Marc

	Zalman has announced the release of the CNPS7700-Cu and AlCu. Compatible with the Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 (Socket 478 / 775 / 754 / 939 / 940), these cooling systems are bigger than the famous CNPS7000 (120 mm instead of 92 mm). Thanks to the fan size, and according to the manufacturer, it dissipates the CPU heat, but also create an airflow between adjacent components such as the back of the graphic card, the motherboard chipset, the memory or even the motherboard MOFSETs. The CU version is 100% made of copper and the AlCu is made of aluminium and copper. The CNPS7700 dimensions are 136x136x67 mm and the Cu weight is 918g instead of 600g for the AlCu. With the Cu the “silent” mode (1000 to 1400 Rpm) is recommended for all processors whereas with the AlCu version it is recommended to use the “low noise” mode (1400 – 2000 Rpm) for the P4 560 and 570 clocked at 3.4 and 3.6 GHz.

The Seagate 400 GB is available   Posted on 17/11/2004 at 10:36 by Marc

	So you thought that only NVIDIA and ATI announced products months before their release, well Seagate proved you wrong. Seagate announced today that they have started shipments of the Barracuda 7200.8 400 GB Serial ATA announced more than five months ago, last June 14. Unlike the Hitachi 7K400, this hard drive isn’t equipped with five 80 GB platters but with three record breaking 133 GB platters. Access time is announced at 8 ms and transfer rate in the beginning of the disk at 65 MB/s. Equipped with 8 Mb of cache, the hard drive noise level is, according to Seagate, 28 dBA in rotation, 32 dBA in slow access and 37 dBA in fast access. In comparison the 7K400 has a transfer rate of 61.4 MB/s in the beginning of the disk, an access time of 8.5ms and reach 31 dBA in rotation. Like all Seagate hard drives, the 7200.8 400 Go has a 5 year warranty.