Vigor Gaming is best known for custom gaming systems that provide a high degree of customer satisfaction along with a fairly reasonable price to performance ratio depending on the configuration layout. What most users might not know is that Vigor Gaming offers several component choices for separate purchase. Of these, the iSURF II Hard Drive Cooling System caught our attention when it arrived.
Not so much for the fact that it is a hard drive cooler, more so for the fact that it had a certain industrial art edge to it and it felt like a very solid piece of hardware. While the design was the most interesting aspect of the product, we wondered out loud if it really worked. As it turns out, it does work as we will see shortly.
In the meantime, let's take a quick look at the product design.
Actually this is bottom side of the iSURF II where the drive resides and is installed. The unit contains two 40mm fans rated at 20.7 dB(A), a blue LED, and separate power connectors for both, which is a nice touch as the LED tends to light up the room. In fact, between the face plate design and strength of the LED, our case resembled a Cylon in a dark room. The good news is that you can disable the power to the LED or move it vertically to block the output level.
Our noise measurements (room at 20dB(A)) revealed a measurement of 23.2 dB(A) in our test case enclosure. In other words, several other components in your system will probably generate more noise. Also, the fans can be reversed to blow hot air out the front of the unit instead of drawing cool air into it. In our test scenario we did not measure a difference in temperatures although your mileage might vary.
Unlike several of the hard drive coolers we have tested, the iSURF II does not utilize a solid plate to make contact with the drive. Instead, Vigor relies on a series of cooling fins and the solid side rails in order to dissipate the heat generated by the drive. While an unorthodox design, it does work provided the side rails are in complete contact with the drive.
Ah yes, the iSURF II with our test drive installed. Speaking of the side rails, it took a bit of effort to get the drive lined up properly so each of the rails made complete contact with the Raptor X. There is a fair amount of clearance on each side of the drive once installed. If you crank down the screws on one side without balancing the other side, there will be a 0.115" gap. This effectively increased our thermal results by 1C in testing. We ended up placing the drive in the cage, installed all six screws so the drive was centered between the rails, and then torqued the screws down in a criss-cross pattern until the drive was securely attached with both rails making full contact.
A view of the unit's topside reveals the curved design and additional cooling fins. The unit itself comes in any color as long as it's black, is designed completely of heavy gauge aluminum, measures 172 x 142 x 41.5 mm, and weight a hefty 586g. Current MSRP is $24.99 and we have seen street prices around $22.
Enough of the aesthetics, let's see how the iSURF II performs.
The "Scalable design" block we already know about, that's RV770 - we reviewed it last month. The 150W TDP $300 part is the Radeon HD 4870, and the 110W $200 part is the Radeon HD 4850, the two cards that have caused NVIDIA quite a bit of pain already. The smaller $100 part has a name, and a release date, neither of which we can talk about at this point, but it's coming.
Today however, is about the 250W, $500 multi-GPU solution - internally known as R700. Hot on the heels of the Radeon HD 4800 series launch, AMD shipped out ten R700 cards worldwide, attempting to capitalize on the success of the 4800 and showcase the strength of AMD's small-GPU strategy.
We're assuming that AMD will call the R700 based cards the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and based on the chart above we're expecting them to retail above $500 (possibly $549?). Today's article is merely a preview as R700s won't be officially launched for at least another month, but AMD wanted to unveil a bit of what it's cooking.
| | ATI R700 | ATI Radeon HD 4870 | ATI Radeon HD 4850 | ATI Radeon HD 3870 |
| Stream Processors | 800 x 2 | 800 | 800 | 320 |
| Texture Units | 40 x 2 | 40 | 40 | 16 |
| ROPs | 16 x 2 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Core Clock | 750MHz | 750MHz | 625MHz | 775MHz+ |
| Memory Clock | 900MHz (3600MHz data rate) GDDR5 | 900MHz (3600MHz data rate) GDDR5 | 993MHz (1986MHz data rate) GDDR3 | 1125MHz (2250MHz data rate) GDDR3 |
| Memory Bus Width | 256-bit x 2 | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Frame Buffer | 1GB x 2 | 512MB | 512MB | 512MB |
| Transistor Count | 956M x 2 | 956M | 956M | 666M |
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 55nm | TSMC 55nm | TSMC 55nm | TSMC 55nm |
| Price Point | > $500 | $299 | $199 | $199 |
The R700 board is literally made up of two RV770s with a PCI Express switch connecting the two. The clock speeds are identical to the Radeon HD 4870, and memory size per GPU has been doubled to 1GB, which could help in hi res cases with AA enabled. In other words, R700 should perform very much like a pair of 4870s in CrossFire. Or should it?
When AMD began talking about no longer building high end hardware using single monolithic GPUs a few weeks back, we let them know that improving CrossFire support would be incredibly important going forward. AMD told us that they are putting a lot into that but also that they have some exciting technology up their sleeves with R700 to help out as well. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten as much detailed information on how it works, but the new technology is GPU to GPU communication.
Until now, CrossFire has done zero GPU to GPU or framebuffer to framebuffer communication. As with the first iteration, each card fully renders the parts of the screen for which it is responsible (be it a whole frame in AFR, the top or bottom half of a screen, or alternating tiles). These results are sent to a combiner where the digital signals are merged and output to the screen. This is the only communication that takes place in CrossFire at the moment. R700 will change that by allowing GPUs to communicate.
RV770 has a CrossFire X Sideport...we assume that the two RV770s on a single R700 board somehow connect Sideports and make fast. AMD hasn't told us how yet.
It is not clear how extensive this communication will be, what information will be shared, or how much bandwidth requirements are increased because of this feature. And while it is a step in the right direction, the holy grail of single-card multi-GPU solutions will be a shared framebuffer. Currently both GPUs need a copy of all textures, geometry, etc., and this is a huge waste of resources. While the R700 has 2GB of RAM on board, it will still be limited in many of the same ways a 1GB RV770 would be as each GPU only has access to half the RAM on the card. Of course, since we don't have a 1GB RV770 yet, this card could show some advantages over the single 4870 regardless of CrossFire.
Gallery: AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 - R700 Preview
Regardless of where we want (and need) to see multi-GPU technology get to, R700 is the first part to follow AMD's official change in strategy, and as such it will be very important to establish their place in the market and will need to prove to gamers that they are taking the high end seriously. It's great that single-card multi-GPU solutions are capable of providing high end performance, but when spending the amount of money required to put a high end part in your system, people expect compatibility, reliability, and consistent performance. We can't really talk about how well they pull that off with prerelease hardware and prerelease drivers, but we can't emphasize the importance of this enough. We will certainly be putting the screws to it when the hardware does eventually make it out into the wild.
UPDATE: Our initial publication of this article indicated a 2x 512MB framebuffer for a total of 1GB on board. We have since learned that the R700 we tested has 2GB of RAM total for 2x 1GB framebuffers. This has affected some of our analysis and conclusion. We do apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
In fact, there are so many changes that we will be back tomorrow with a full review of this new SouthBridge, the technology behind it, and an in-depth look at AOD version 2.1.2. Also, we will provide performance results from a few different Phenom processors to indicate what works well and what does not when utilizing ACC. With that in mind, our sneak peak today will not fully dispel or verify the performance rumors. Instead, we think our initial test results should provide a clue as to the potential of this new technology. To be blunt, our initial results were not that impressive but after a BIOS update, a day of tweaking and some conversations with AMD, our opinion is starting to change quickly based on the following results.
This particular 9850BE required 1.425V to reach 3.1GHz with a NorthBridge clock of 2.2GHz. This was basically our limit on a variety of AM2+ boards and it did not matter whether we increased voltages, decreased NB clocks, or chose a 2GB memory configuration under Vista 32, the CPU just was not stable at most settings above 3.1GHz. As a side note, we are running 4GB of GSkill DDR2-1066 memory at 1.90V under Vista 64 for these tests. Now that we have our baseline, we turned ACC on in the AOD control panel using auto settings (also available in the BIOS) and rebooted.
After a few tweaks and reboots, we reduced our core voltage from 1.4250V to 1.3875V, increased our NB speed from 2.2GHz to 2.4GHz, and changed our clock multiplier from 15.5 to 16 giving us a 3.2GHz core clock speed. This is an instant 100MHz increase in core speed while decreasing core voltages by 3%, increasing NB clock speed by 9%, and improving memory latencies up to 6% (all important L3 cache). These results were completed with ACC on set and forget auto settings.
We have reached 3.3GHz on this CPU with further tuning of system settings including individual core tuning with ACC. While are initial 100MHz speed increase may not sound impressive, we must consider the fact that this CPU was right on the ragged edge of stability at 3.1GHz. We are now able to run higher NB clock speeds and higher core clock speeds at lower voltages while maintaining a fair amount of headroom for further performance improvements. Even more impressive (results tomorrow) is that fact that this CPU will now clock to 3GHz on stock voltages instead of 2.7GHz before tuning with ACC.
Our last screen shot shows what is possible with ACC and the new AOD improvements when focusing on improving memory performance with minimal core clock increases. Our goal was to find optimal system performance with the 9950BE while decreasing system voltages below normal standards to keep thermals in tact.
We will be back shortly with additional results and an overview of AMD's new SB750 SouthBridge and ACC technology, until then, start saving your pennies if you are an AMD enthusiast.
But there are problems here, and they all come down to the age of the program. For in spite of being originally released in 1999, Our Living Oceans - which unsurprisingly supports all versions of Windows from 98 upwards - is proudly on sale with Vista support listed on the box. Yet it's blatantly a product out of its time.
The installation, for instance, brings Quicktime 7 with it, and in that subtle way that software tends to do, a pop-up window immediately leaps up offering to upgrade you. Then the program itself completes its installation, and the old Quicktime-based educational software hallmarks kick in. There's video in a small square in the middle of the screen, which lacks the quality and definition that more modern video compression techniques afford us, and the computer-generated graphics are also showing their age.
Navigation is like stepping back in time, too. The product sub-divides its content into set areas, and you move between screens as if playing an old game of Myst, by clicking on arrows. Cutting edge this certainly isn't.
And yet, in spite of all of this, there's still some merit to Our Living Oceans, and it's where it ultimately counts: the content itself. For while the presentation is crying out for an overhaul, the material is at times fascinating and compelling, and at the worst is worthy of a browse.
The product covers the deep seas, life in open waters, the coast and the tides, and it mixes in video, voiceovers, text, hyperlinks and Web links to get its information across. Aimed at 12 year-olds and above, there's a lot on the disc to digest, even though it's unlikely to be a 100 percent match with the National Curriculum.
The problem is that to get to it, you need to do battle with an interface that does the program no favours, and you need to tolerate a drop in multimedia quality over what you'd get even on a half-decent Web site. Perhaps the fatal blow, though, is the £10 price tag: at half the price you could perhaps overlook many of the shortcomings, but £10 puts it against some far more impressive educational titles.
And that means that - in spite of the content hidden within - Our Living Oceans is best left on the shelf.
Good content, but the dated presentation and bulky price tag does Our Living Oceans no favours whatsoever.
Well, Samsung wants you to forget that lot. The F110 miCoach is an attempt by Samsung to make a sports specific mobile phone, and it can do the lot. It bears the Adidas brand, which must give it kudos for some athletically-minded types, and it comes with a heart rate monitor you strap around your chest, a stride sensor you strap to your shoe, and, of course, its own (huge) armband.
Data from the heart rate monitor and stride sensor are sent to the phone, which can deliver a running commentary on your performance; for example, telling you to run harder or let up. I'm not sure I want that in my ear, but if it helps you with motivation then fair enough.
There is a Web site to which you can send all your running data, and this will help you monitor progress towards whatever goals you set.
For all this cleverness the miCoach can't do some things that a runner-specific GPS-based system, like Garmin's Forerunner or Timex's Ironman setup, can. You don't get elevation measurements and have no way of setting timers for intervals training, for example. And there are lots of bits to strap onto yourself before you go running, which will be a pain for those who like to just slap on the shoes and go.
Music playback is, of course, possible and you can put songs into groups labelled ‘tempo', ‘stride', and ‘motivational' to help give you the lift you need on any particular run. There is an FM radio too, which might be suited to those long, slow runs that some people opt for. With 1GB of internal storage and no flash expansion, music storage capacity is a little limited, though.
The phone is designed to be easy to use on the move. It's a slider and the front fascia offers shortcut buttons for music management and a workout menu as well Call and End keys and softmenu buttons.
There is a 2-megapxiel camera, Web browser, calendar, alarms, voice recorder, memo maker, task manager, world clock, calculator, unit converter, timer and stopwatch, all of which mean the miCoach functions competently as a mobile phone when you are not running around with it strapped to your arm.
This is the most advanced runner's mobile I've seen, and it does a reasonably good job. In the end, though, if you really want to keep an eye on training and progress, it is worth checking out dedicated kit from specialists.
But this one's a tutorial product with a twist: because - and this is a bit of a flaw, all things considered - you do need some poker knowledge before you step up to the virtual table. The way the product goes about its business is very much learning by doing.
You play with a computerised game of cards, and the computer chips in with some advice. In fact, if you do choose to click (hidden in the help menu) the Texas Hold ‘Em tutorial, you'd better have a Web connection active, as you're whisked straight off to a Web page.
Surely this isn't the point? We could have Googled it ourselves if it was a Web tutorial we were looking for. You'd expect a little more when it comes packaged in a box with a ten quid price tag smacked on top.
Back to the in-game table, then. Here, the best help you're going to get is the hand evaluator, which gives you hints and statistical assistance. It doesn't tell you what to do with this information particularly well, but you can muddle through with it and start to pick the game up.
Perhaps the program's biggest contribution to the learning of poker is that it'll pop up with some advice if you're about to do something stupid. We put this to the test, by continually trying to bet when we clearly had the kind of hand that even the weakest poker player would sneer at. Sure enough, up came a standard pop-up window, which still gave us the choice to carry on should we so choose.
And yet it's all done so mechanically. Pop-up windows, fairly unimpressive presentation and a halfway decent game of poker aren't really what you expect to get for a product that's overtly called Learn To Win At Poker: Texas Hold ‘Em.
Granted, spread on the disc and over the Internet are the tools to make good on that promise, and the software does evolve slightly the more you get into it. But there's nothing here that you can't find done online easily enough, and there's a general feeling of not much effort having gone into the product itself. A pity.
An unimpressive way to get some extra poker assistance, and a product that assumes some knowledge anyway before you get going.