Maximum PC - Videocards

Gigabyte GTX 580 Super Overclock Review

Loyd Case — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:32:46 +0000

Will three fans enable Gigabyte to capture the single-GPU performance crown?

We found the Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum that we reviewed in the November 2011 issue to be pretty badass: It’s a solid, factory-overclocked card that’s impressively easy to push even harder. But it’s also three slots wide and requires two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Gigabyte’s GTX 580 Super Overclock (model GV-N580SO-15L) takes Nvidia’s GPU even further, pumping the core from a stock 772MHz all the way to 855MHz, and the card’s 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory from a stock 1,002MHz to 1,025MHz (the Matrix GTX 580 comes out of the box with its GPU running at 816MHz and its memory at 1,002MHz). And the Gigabyte takes up only two slots and uses just a single 8-pin power connector.

Gigabyte, like Asus, provides software to help you overclock the card even more, but Gigabyte’s card lacks the other engineering amenities that Asus provides, including voltage control, insta-max fan speed, and reset-to-factory-settings buttons. This renders Gigabyte’s offering less forgiving when it comes to pushing the envelope. The Super OC ships with three cooling fans, which must be better than the two on the Matrix, right? Well, the card remained cool enough during our benchmarks, but we also found it to be noisier under load than the Matrix card.

Gigabyte's GTX 580 Super Overclock requires just two expansion slots and one 8-pin PCIe power connection.

With those thoughts in mind, let’s discuss performance: Gigabyte’s card edged out Asus’s, but it was by no means a clean sweep: the Asus Matrix card won several benchmark categories, with Unigine Heaven being the most notable. Several other results—including Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033—were essentially ties. So the Gigabyte’s performance is pretty good, but it’s not quite as over-the-top as we had expected. Also, take a look at the difference in power consumption. This is where Asus’s careful binning of GTX 580 GPUs comes in: The Matrix consumes much less juice than the Super Overclock, which likely will leave you more headroom for overclocking.

All these factors are reflected in the card’s street price, which is $10 less than the Asus (and Gigabyte was offering a $20 rebate at press time). So the Super Overclock delivers fewer features and a little less performance and headroom, but also a lower price tag. You’ll need to decide which factors are most important to you.

$520, www.gigabyte.com

XFX Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition Review

Loyd Case — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:20:03 +0000

XFX says "We don't need no stinkin' reference design!"

It’s not unusual to see factory-overclocked videocards ship with custom cooling solutions—a few months after the GPU launches. This time, XFX hits the ground running with their Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition. This is a factory-overclocked card with a custom cooling solution that aims to take the performance crown. Based on what we’ve seen to date, XFX has delivered the fastest single-GPU card on the planet.

The Radeon HD 7970 is AMD’s latest GPU, with support for DirectX 11.1 and OpenCL 1.2. It’s a brand-new new architecture—completely different from past AMD GPUs—built on TSMC’s 28nm manufacturing process and sporting a staggering 4.3 billion transistors. In AMD’s reference design, the 7970’s core runs at 925MHz and its GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,375MHz. XFX ups the ante significantly, pushing the core clock speed to a whopping 1GHz and running its 3GB of memory at 1,425MHz.

While it wouldn't be fair to call a reference-design Radeon HD 7970 a me-too product, XFX is to be congratulated for offering something special right out of the gate.

As you might imagine, the results are nothing short of amazing. We’re seeing genuine performance milestones here, including a 3DMark 2011 performance score higher than 8,000 (for a single GPU), Far Cry 2 hitting 100fps at 2560x1600 with 4x AA, and Batman: Arkham City heading north of 50fps at the same resolution and AA settings. On top of that, the system idle power is just 124 watts, and a dark idle (when Windows 7 blanks the screen) draw of 110 watts. Push the card and you’ll see system power consumption climb to 349 watts, but that merely puts its overall power draw into Fermi territory. XFX’s Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition is substantially faster than EVGA’s super-overclocked, 3GB GeForce GTX 580 Classified, and it’s outfitted with just two PCIe power connectors (one 8-pin and one 6-pin). EVGA’s card requires three power connectors.

XFX’s dual-fan custom cooler, housed within an attractive brushed-metal housing, looks much more elegant than most of the competition. Despite using two fans, this card was noticeably quieter at full load than XFX’s Radeon HD 6970, and it was almost inaudible at idle.

Aside from carving its logo into the bracket, XFX took no liberties with the outputs: The mounting bracket has two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, one HDMI 1.4a, and a dual-link DVI. Use a combination of DisplayPort and DVI-capable displays, and the card can support three-panel Eyefinity setups up to 2560 x 1600. Use one or more 1920 x 1200 (or lower res) monitors, and you can also tap the HDMI for a four-panel setup. And when DisplayPort 1.2 monitors and hubs ship, this card will be capable of supporting as many as six displays.

The XFX Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition has all the earmarks of a winner: superb performance, relatively low power consumption, and better than average noise levels. It’s pricey, at $599, but no more so than other cards in its class. If you crave the fastest single-GPU card in the world, it’s here—and it includes the twin bonuses of easy multi-monitor support and high efficiency.

$599, www.xfxforce.com

EVGA GTX 560 Ti 448 FTW Review

Loyd Case — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:37:00 +0000

The not-quite GTX 570

When is a GTX 560 Ti not really a GTX 560 Ti? When it’s almost a GTX 570.
Nvidia’s latest GPU, the GTX 560 Ti 448 is really a GTX 580 (originally dubbed the GF110) with two functional blocks disabled, reducing its CUDA Core count from 512 to 448. The GTX 570 is a GF110 with one functional block disabled, endowing it with 480 CUDA Cores. The original GTX 560 Ti is a completely different chip, with different power requirements, but all 384 of its cores are fully functional.

Priced at $290, The 560 Ti 448 fills a price gap between the $250 GTX 560 Ti and the $350 GTX 570. Given that yields for GF110 GPUs have improved, the Ti 448 is a limited-edition version, so it’s unclear how long it will remain on the market. And since we’re approaching the end of a GPU generation, it’s likely that many of the processors around today will soon ride off into the sunset. If you really want a GTX 570, but can’t swing the price, the 560 Ti 448 might fill the bill. Like most of the retail cards based on this chip, EVGA’s GTX 560 Ti 448 is factory overclocked, to 797MHz. Compare that to the typical GTX 570 design—Asus’s ENGTX570, for instance—in which the GPU runs at a stock clock of 742MHz. We also compared EVGA’s card to a couple of other factory-overclocked SKUs; namely, the Asus GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II, and the MSI Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr III.

The two-slot GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 FTW is outfitted with two dual-link DVIs and one each HDMI and DisplayPort on its mounting bracket.

Note: We’ve made some minor changes to both our test bed and our game benchmarks; so don’t compare these performance numbers to our earlier reviews. The GTX 570 pulls slightly ahead of the pack in apps that make heavy use of shader programs (that’s Just Cause 2 and the Unigine Heaven 2.5 synthetic benchmark in our suite). In most other benchmarks, it’s either a wash or the GTX 560 Ti 448 posts a slight lead. MSI’s implementation of AMD’s Radeon HD 6950 keeps up in some benchmarks (Shogun 2, STALKER: CoP, and Metro 2033), but it falls behind cards based on Nvidia’s GF110 in the other tests. On the other hand, the Asus GTX 560 Ti trails the field in nearly all the benchmarks, edging out the HD 6950 in just a couple (Just Cause 2 and HAWX 2).

So this card is cheaper than the GTX 570, but it still costs nearly $300. Note also that our GTX 570 isn’t a factory-overclocked version; most current versions shipping deliver higher clock speeds, so the performance gap between the EVGA GTX 560 Ti and those GTX 570 cards will likely be wider.
The GTX 560 Ti 448 is also about the same size as other GTX 560 Ti cards, which means it will fit in more compact cases. So if you’re looking for a little more performance juice in that small form factor gaming rig, EVGA’s Ti 448 FTW is definitely worth a look.

Asus Mars II Review

Loyd Case — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Two GTX 580s, one gargantuan videocard

Imagine a graphics card weighing 5.25 pounds with three (yes, three) 8-pin PCI Express power connectors. Now imagine this card taking up three PCI Express slots and almost sucking the life out of an 850W power supply.

That may be one reason Asus named this card after the Roman god of war. It’s probably the most powerful single graphics card we’ve tested, but that power comes at a substantial cost. You’ll need the right type of motherboard and case, too—one where you can install a three-slot-wide card that’s 12.25 inches long and 5 inches tall.

Did we mention that it also costs $1,400?

The gigantic Mars II packs two 12cm fans and set a new record in our Lab for power consumption.

Now that you’ve recovered from the heart palpitations induced by the price, let’s talk about the real meat of this card. What Asus engineers have done is build a full GTX 580 SLI combo on a single card. We’re not talking about a namby-pamby GTX 590, which sacrifices clock speed to get a reasonable-size card. The Mars II is a pull-out-the-stops, full-steam-ahead GTX 580 SLI on a stick. And the cores aren’t just any 580 cores, either; they’re top-binned GPU dies that run at 782MHz—faster than run-of-the-mill GTX 580 chips. The 3GB of GDDR5 ticks along at 1,002MHz.

Asus built the card using its DirectCU thermal system with a pair of 12cm fans. Despite the monster nature of the card, it was surprisingly quiet under load—somewhat noisier than the GTX 590, but notably less so than the Radeon HD 6990. The card uses 21-phase power. As with the Matrix GTX 580 we reviewed last month, the card ships with Asus’s GPU Tweak utility, one of the easiest tools we’ve used for GPU overclocking.

Double‑wide GPU? That’s for wimps. The Mars II will swallow three slots on your motherboard.

So if this monster can actually run, then it should run at full SLI speeds. (Asus claims that the binned GPU parts can run even higher—above 800MHz—but given that we nearly melted the PSU in our test system, we avoided pushing the card.) As is, it’s no slouch in performance, but we were anxious to put it against a GeForce GTX 590 and AMD Radeon HD 6990.

The mythical Radeon HD 6990 won in just two areas: power consumption and Just Cause 2. The GTX 590 eked out a single benchmark win in Battle Forge, which is likely CPU-bound, since the differences overall are small. The Mars II swept the field in everything else. So you really can get SLI on a single card, if you’re willing to pay a premium.

You'll need a PSU that can supply three 8-pin power plugs to run the Mars II. The little red button manually forces all fans to full throttle.

That premium, by the way, includes the right power supply and case. Our Corsair TX850W survived the experience, but the 785W that the Mars II consumed under load set a Lab record for a single graphics card.

Clearly this card isn’t for everyone. The massive size, power draw, and price will discourage all but the most fanatical gamers. But the Mars II will appeal to those with the moolah, the system to handle it, and the desire to have the shiniest toy. But get in line—Asus will only make about 2,000 of these behemoths.

$1,400, www.asus.com

Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum Review

Loyd Case — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:33:11 +0000

The ultimate GTX 580 is one big muthah

The Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum is quiet, fast, and really, really easy to overclock. It's also massive.

How massive? When we got the box, we thought Asus had shipped us a motherboard by mistake because the box was so large.

The size of the pacage is a clue to the size of the card itself. Asus builds a variant of its DirectCU II dual-fan technology onto the GTX 580, resulting in a card that's fully three expansion slots wide. If you ever plan on running two of these in SLI mode, you'll have to pick your motherboard carefully.

Asus's Republic of Gamers Matrix GTX 580 is three slots wide, takes dual 8-pin connectors, and overclocks like nobody's business.

It's not just about the cooling, though. To get chips that will clock up, Asus cherry-picks the GPUs that get built onto the Platinum version of the Matrix GTX 580 (the company also sells a lower-clocked version). This card also requires two PCIe 8-pin power connectors—one more than the standard GTX 580. However, it's worth nothing that at the card's 816MHz core clock—not quite 6 percent above the stock 772MHz—this is one quiet GTX 580. With the case cover on, we could barely hear the fans spin up under full load. Even when we overclocked the card to 906MHz (more on that in a bit), the fan noise was quite low.

The Matrix card offers some cool amenities. First, it's got manual transmission—there are buttons on the side of the card that allow you to manually adjust the voltage on the fly. There's another, larger button that runs the cooling fans at full speed when pressed. At full speed, the fans do get pretty loud, so use this sparingly, and only with extreme overclocks. One last button allows you to completely reset the card to its factory defaults (816MHz core, 1002MHz memory) if you've gone overboard with your overclocking attempts.

You can manually change voltage on the fly by pressing the + or - button. A pair of red/green LEDs adjacent to the PCIe power connectors warn you if you've forgotten to connect power (or if the power connectors are loose). Green means the card is gettign sufficient power.

As with most high-end GPUs, the Matrix GTX 580 Platinum ships with overclocking software. The Asus GPU Tweak is one of the easiest such tools we've used. In its default state, the voltage and clock speeds are locked, so if you increase GPU core clocks, the voltage increases to maintain proper current. You decouple these if you want maximum manual control.

As an experiment, we pumped up the core clock to 906MHz and memory clock to 1,015MHz. The core voltage went up from 1050mv to 1113mv. It doesn't seem like much, but it's worth noting that the system power draw under our full-load test increased from 369W to 420W. That's why Asus ships this puppy with two 8-pin power connectors. Asus claims that it's hit more than 1GHz on a GTX 580 just using the Matrix 580's air cooling. Note that you can actually burn the new settings into the BIOS, but the safe-mode button will rewrite them if you get into trouble.

The text on the top fin lights up and changes color depending on system load.

We tested performance at the default 816MHz core/1,002MHz memory and the 906MHz core/1,015 memory clock speed settings. The result was an eye opener.

Now, 906MHz is more than 17 percent higher than Nvidia's reference clock speed. The card was completely, utterly stable at those speeds—and pretty quiet, as well. And as the numbers show, we saw fairly substantial performance gains in many of our benchmarks.

The Matrix GTX 580 Platinum does cost more than your average GTX 580, coming in at roughly $530 versus about $480 for an EVGA GTX 580 SC. But for your $50, you get lower noise, great performance, and impressive overclockability—if you're willing to lose one more expansion slot in the process.

$535, www.asus.com

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition Review

Loyd Case — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:45:05 +0000

Just how far can you overclock the Radeon HD 6950?

The Radeon HD 6950 often gets overlooked, because it falls into an in-between netherworld of pricing. Typical cards cost anywhere from $240-$300, but most seem to hover around the $270 mark. This MSI overclocked card, built using the company's Twin Frozr III dual-fan cooler, sits at around $280. So high-end buyers overlook this price category and budget buyers feel like it's a little too much.

In doing so, they're overlooking a speedy card. MSI took the Radeon HD 6950 GPU from the relatively staid 800MHz and pushed it to 850MHz. It also added 50MHz to the GDDR5 clock, running the frame buffer at 1,300MHz (versus the 1,250MHz reference). The card's new cooling system offers a switch-based fan profile, which lets you set it to quiet or cooler mode. We ran the card in its quiet mode. The cooler is built using a pair of high-blade-count fans, which seem to be the "in" thing in GPU cooling systems these days. MSI also supplies its Afterburner software, which lets you overclock the card to even higher speesureds if you're inclined.

Frozr III's dual fans keep it cool and exceptionally quiet for its class.

We've always maintained that increasing only the GPU core clock nets you minimal gains. Boosting both memory and core clocks gives more of a performance lift. The Twin Frozr III dual-fan cooler likly pushes AMD's PowerTune technology limit just a little higher, as well, allowing the GPU to run just a little harder before throttling back.

Using our updated suite of benchmarks, we compared the performance of MSI's Twin Frozr III against the XFX Radeon HD 6950, running at clock speeds, and MSI's own GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II card, in our standard test system. Overall, MSI's souped-up HD 6950 presents very well, indeed, winning the majority of game tests. Noise and power levels were acceptable, too. In fact, the card is quieter at full load than the XFX HD 6950, which uses the reference single-fan cooling system.

Our main concern, though, is still price. The XFX card and MSI's own GTX 560 Ti tend to cost a little less—as much as $20-$30 less, depending on where you shop. And the kicker is that for $30-$40 more, you can score a very-much non-budget Radeon HD 6970 card. That leaves us torn on the R6950 Twin Frozr III. Still, we have to give the card some points for being quieter than a 6970 and within striking distance of that GPU in performance.

$280, www.msicomputer.com

Gigabyte GTX 560 Super Overclock Review

Loyd Case — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:00:06 +0000

Gigabyte pushes GTX 560 to Ti levels

How much overclocking head room is there in Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 560 part? Gigabyte decided to find out by taking the non-Ti budget part, adding a second fan, and flogging the hell out of it.

The result is the Gigabyte GTX 560 Super Overclock.

For those out of the loop, the GeForce GTX 560 is built on a core with only 336 shader cores versus the 384 in the Ti version, as well as 56 texture units versus 64 in the Ti part. Stock cards run at 810MHz but Gigabyte gets a solid 11 percent overclock to 900MHz. Unlike its predecessor, the GeForce GTX 460 768MB, the GTX 560 gets a full 1GB of GDDR5 and the same memory bus width as the GTX 560 Ti card.

A second fan lets Gigabyte massively overclock the GeForce GTX 560.

The result is near–GTX 560 Ti performance, which is great. Also great: a price point of roughly $200-$220. MSI’s Twin Frozr II GTX 560 Ti card can be found for less than $250, so the GTX 560 is still priced lower, even overclocked.

The Gigabyte card is built with two of the biggest cooling fans we’ve seen on small videocards. They also use the newly fashionable narrow-blade design. So even with the core clock pushed to 900MHz, the card’s noise level isn’t offensive.

Other features are pretty standard. The card offers two dual-link DVI connectors and a Mini HDMI port. Two PCIe 6-pin connectors are needed for power. The card itself has some nifty power-phase status LEDs, which look cool if you’re someone who fancies transparent side panels on your PC chassis. As with every other graphics card maker, Gigabyte ships software to tune clock speeds. Honestly, though, it’s really not worth it—you’re already hitting more than 10 percent above stock.

In the end, though, performance is what counts. So how does Gigabyte’s $200 marvel actually measure up? Not bad. Not bad at all. We compared it to the 2GB Palit GTX 560, which runs at reference clocks, Asus’s overclocked Radeon HD 6870, and the MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 560 Ti. (The GTX 560 Ti is just offered as comparison, since it’s a $250 card.)

The outcome is pretty impressive. The Gigabyte card falls just short of the theoretically more capable GTX 560 Ti and crushes the real competition. The Radeon HD 6870 only managed a couple of wins, and even fell behind in idle power usage. About the only time the 2GB Palit card outperformed the Gigabyte 1GB card was when running Metro 2033 at 2560x1600 with 4x AA—that’s a scenario when more video RAM helps.

So if your graphics card budget is in the $200 range, give this card a close look. It’s fast, quiet, and will fit in most cases.

$200-220, www.gigabyte.com

XFX Radeon HD 6990 Review

Loyd Case — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:37:22 +0000

Just how good is this rare beast of a card?

When we took a look at the reference version of AMD’s Radeon HD 6990, we found a board that was impressive on a number of fronts, though not all the impressions were positive. The HD 6990 builds in two full Radeon HD 6970 GPUs onto a single board, each with its own 2GB of frame buffer. In our initial testing, performance looked to be very fast, but the reference board was also pretty noisy under load.

So we waited to get a shipping board from one of AMD’s many board partners in order to formally review a real product. And we waited. And waited some more. (Bear in mind that availability of Nvidia’s GTX 590 isn’t much better.)

At last, XFX shipped us an actual retail Radeon HD 6990, so we’re finally able to render a verdict on AMD’s killer card. Before we dive into benchmarks and observations, it’s worth recapping the specs and features of the card, and its GPUs.

This card packs two HD 6970 GPUs, 4GB of fast GDDR5, and one noisy cooling fan.

The Radeon HD 6990 has five total display connectors, though it does cut back on the variety compared to the HD 6970, with four Mini DisplayPort connectors and a single dual-link DVI connector. XFX includes a pair of Mini DP–to–single-link DVI adapters (one passive, one active) plus one Mini DP–to-HDMI adapter in the box. With two GPUs and 4GB of GDDR5, this is a big card—over 12 inches long. It also requires two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

It’s also worth looking at core clock differentials. Nvidia reduces the core clock speed of its dual-GPU GTX 590 card by more than 20 percent, from 772MHz to 607MHz. By contrast, AMD lowers the core clock speed of the HD 6990’s GPUs by only about 6 percent. It could be that AMD’s GPUs are more power efficient, or simply that AMD is being more aggressive about its overall design. Given the HD 6990’s noise level under load, we suspect a little of both.

As with the reference card, the XFX card has that overclocking mini-DIP switch that allows you to push the clock speed up to 880MHz—the same core clock as a single-GPU HD 6970 card. However, XFX puts a giant yellow caution sticker over this switch. Given that rather dire warning, we tested the card at its default 830MHz clock speed.

Now that we understand a bit more about the key features, let’s look at performance.

AMD’s HD 6990 wins seven of our benchmarks, ties in one, and loses to Nvidia’s GTX 590 in the remaining three. The 6990’s maximum power draw is marginally lower. All of the games we tested support CrossFireX; if you’re running an older game that doesn’t support AMD’s dual-GPU technology, you’ll only see the performance of a single HD 6970. However, AMD’s done a ton of work with its drivers, and all the current-generation games we’ve tested get a solid performance boost.

On the other hand, the XFX HD 6990 is considerably louder at full throttle than the GTX 590. Clearly, AMD has some work to do with its cooling solution to reduce noise levels. Or maybe AMD is just pushing those 40nm-based 6970 chips a little too hard, even at the lower clock speeds. As you might suspect given the fan noise, the HD 6990 gets quite hot at full load, so you’ll definitely want a case with robust airflow.

The bottom line: XFX is shipping the fastest graphics card you can buy—that is, if you can find one. Availability is still very tight, and if you order one, expect it to be backordered for several weeks. It’s also quite hot and quite loud, so be aware of that before buying. And all that performance comes at a price—the HD 6990 is also the most expensive card you can get, with prices ranging from $700-$800 depending upon the seller.

Still, if you’re really looking for raw speed in a single graphics card—noise, heat, and price be damned—the HD 6990 is the frontrunner.

$700-800, www.xfxforce.com

Sapphire Radeon HD 6790 Review

Loyd Case — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:05:56 +0000

Remember the Radeon HD 5830? That videocard filled a certain price point, but it was actually the same GPU used in the high-end HD 5870, with a large chunk of the die disabled. The net result was a graphics card that was physically bigger than the intermediate HD 5850 and used more power. And although it cost less, performance really wasn’t up to snuff for the target price point.

Enter the Radeon HD 6790. At first blush, it’s similar in concept to the HD 5830. AMD took its Barts GPU (used in the Radeon HD 6870 and 6850) and disabled a big chunk of it. Voilà: the Radeon HD 6790. The card requires two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors, while the beefier HD 6850 only needs one. AMD told us this was necessary due to the HD 6790’s higher core clocks and voltages.

Sapphire’s Radeon HD 6790 is surprisingly capable, but still an oddball GPU.

We’re being a little unfair, though, because AMD (and Sapphire, which makes this particular model of the HD 6790) is setting a more appropriate price for the performance, particularly when compared to its direct competition, the Nvidia GTX 550 Ti.

The problem, however, isn’t how it fares against the 550 Ti. Rather, it’s the fact that for a few dollars more, you can get faster cards. On the one hand, you can find Radeon HD 6850 cards, which typically require only a single power connector, for about $20 to $25 more. On the other hand, you can still find 768MB Nvidia GTX 460 cards for around $160—just a $10 increase.

It’s worth noting that the Zotac GTX 550 Ti used in our comparison is factory overclocked to 1GHz—fully 100MHz higher than the factory default. (Does “factory default” even have a meaning anymore?) The Sapphire card is running at the stock 840MHz.

When you look at performance, the Sapphire looks like a pretty decent choice, particularly for single 1080p displays. At 1920x1200, with 4x AA enabled, it managed respectable frame rates in some games, and generally overpowered the overclocked Zotac. It does use a little more power at idle, but is more efficient at full throttle, which is pretty typical of AMD parts. The 6790 seems a bit bulky for its class, but should fit in most PC cases. The Sapphire HD 6790 ships with two DVI ports (one is single-link), one full-size DisplayPort 1.2 connector, and an HDMI 1.4a port. The card can fully support three displays, though if you want three 30-inch monsters, they’ll need DisplayPort 1.2 capability.

In the end, Sapphire’s Radeon HD 6790 offers decent enough performance in its class, but bear in mind, for just a few bucks more, you can pick up an HD 6850.

$150, www.sapphiretech.com

Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti AMP Edition Review

Loyd Case — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:57:39 +0000

The Zotac AMP edition of Nvidia’s new budget GPU, the GTX 550 Ti, pushes the clock speeds to a full 1GHz—more than 10 percent higher than the default 900MHz. It amounts to a $150 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory that performs moderately well in modern games, if you’re willing to dial down features like antialiasing. When you compare the performance to Sapphire’s Radeon HD 6790, the GTX 550 Ti falls a little short on the gaming side, despite the beefed-up clock speeds.

However, Zotac doesn’t seem to be aiming this card at gamers, but rather at digital media junkies and home theater PC enthusiasts. Inside the box, you’ll find software offers, including 30 percent off vReveal (a GPU-accelerated package for cleaning up shaky-cam video footage), 20 percent off Nero Vision, and promos for XBMC (the popular HTPC front end) and CoolIris (a 3D-accelerated media browser).

Zotac’s take on the GTX 550 Ti hits the sweet spot for HTPC systems, but gaming performance is lackluster.

The card itself is quite compact, at just 7.5 inches long, and only requires a single PCI-E power connector. It still takes up two PCI-E expansion slots, but at least the big fan keeping the overclocked GPU and memory cool is relatively quiet. Unlike a number of Nvidia-based cards, the Zotac ships with a native, full-size DisplayPort connector. Other attachments include a pair of dual-link DVI ports and an HDMI output with full support for HDMI audio.

Despite requiring only a single power connector, Zotac’s 550 Ti card consumes more power than the Radeon HD 6970 in our demanding full-throttle test, in which we run the Unigine Heaven benchmark at 2560x1600 with 4x AA and extreme tessellation settings. However, it also generated a higher score than the AMD part in that particular test. The GTX 550 Ti fared less well in other games compared to Sapphire’s $150 card.

If you’re looking for a relatively low- power, compact card for a home theater PC that can still handle games at HD resolution, the Zotac may be just what you want. It’s short, quiet, and has the chops for GPU-accelerated media transcoding. Gamers on a budget might look instead to Sapphire’s HD 6970.

$149, www.zotacusa.com