The newly released GeForce GTX 560 Ti – NVIDIA’s new GF114-based $250 video card. Much as was the case with the launch of AMD’s Radeon HD 6800 series however, AMD is itching to spoil NVIDIA’s launch with their own push. Furthermore they intend to do so on two fronts: directly above the GTX 560 Ti at $259 is the Radeon HD 6950 1GB, and below it one of many factory overclocked Radeon HD 6870 cards.

As a result today we’re looking at not only the GTX 560 Ti, but also AMD’s counter-offensive. Amidst the backdrop of a product launch brought in by nearly a month, we’ll see how AMD’s counters stand up to NVIDIA’s latest, and why for many situations a 2GB Radeon HD 6950 is no better than a 1GB Radeon HD 6950.

FEATURES

• 3rd Generation TeraScale Graphics Engine
• 40nm Process Technology
• GDDR5 Memory
• AMD Eyefinity Technology
• AMD Advanced Parallel Processing Technology (APP)
• AMD CrossFireX™ Technology
• AMD HD3D Technology
• Accelerated Video Transcoding
• AMD PowerPlay Technology
• Built-in DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a Outputs
• Microsoft Windows 7® Support
• Microsoft DirectX 11 Support
• OpenGL 3.2 Support
• Enhanced Internet Browser Applications

Radeon HD 6870 Test Setup

Intel Core i7 Test System

* Intel Core i7-965 processor (3.2GHz: 133MHz x 24)
* Asus P6T V2 motherboard (Intel X58 Express with three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots)
* 3x 2GB Corsair TR3X6G1333C9 memory modules (operating in dual channel at DDR3 1,600MHz 9-9-9-24-1T)
* Corsair X128 120GB SSD running v1 firmware
* Corsair HX1000W PSU
* Windows 7 Home Premium x64
* Antec Twelve Hundred Chassis

ATI graphics cards

* AMD ATI Radeon HD 6870 1GB (900MHz GPU, 4.2GHz memory) using Catalyst 10.9 WHQL
* AMD ATI Radeon HD 6850 1GB (725MHz GPU, 4GHz memory) using Catalyst 10.9 WHQL
* AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB (850MHz GPU, 4.8GHz memory) using Catalyst 10.9 WHQL
* AMD ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB (725MHz GPU, 4.0GHz memory) using Catalyst 10.9 WHQL
* AMD ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB (850MHz GPU, 4.8GHz memory) using Catalyst 10.9 WHQL

Nvidia graphics cards

* Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (756MHz core, 1,512MHz stream processors, 3.8GHz Memory) using ForceWare 260.89 WHQL
* Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 1.2GB (607MHz core, 1,215MHz stream processors, 3.3GHz memory) using ForceWare 260.89 WHQL
* Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1GB (675MHz core, 1,350MHz stream processors, 3.6GHz memory) using ForceWare 260.89 WHQL
* Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 768MB (675MHz core, 1,350MHz stream processors, 3.6GHz memory) using ForceWare 260.89 WHQL

Games Tested

* Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (DX11)
* Arma II: Operation Arrowhead(DX11)
* Just Cause 2 (DX11)
* Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DX11)

Power supply Requirements:

• 500 Watt or greater power supply with one 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for AMD CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)
• Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products

Specification Table

While CPU’s are getting faster other components of the overall computing infrastructure also needs an upgrade to provide better speeds, taking the lead Korea based electronics major Samsung has announced it’s DDR4 RAM Module capable of achieving data transfer rates of 2.133 gigabits/second (Gbps) at 1.2V – the good part is it consumes upto 40% less electricity in comparison to predecessor DDR3 technology which uses 1.35V and 1.5V supplying speeds of up to 1.6 Gbps.

The module makes use of Pseudo Open Drain (POD) technology, which allows DDR4 DRAM to consume just half the electric current of DDR3 when reading and writing data. By employing new circuit architecture, Samsung’s DDR4 will be able to run at up to 3.2Gbps, compared to today’s typical speeds of 1.6Gbps for DDR3 and 800Mbps for DDR2.

The new DDR4 DRAM module can achieve data transfer rates of 2.133 gigabits per second (Gbps) at 1.2V, compared to 1.35V and 1.5V DDR3 DRAM at an equivalent 30nm-class* process technology, with speeds of up to 1.6Gbps. When applied to a notebook, it reduces power consumption by 40 percent compared to a 1.5V DDR3 module.

The module makes use of Pseudo Open Drain (POD), a new technology that has been adapted to high-performance graphic DRAM to allow DDR4 DRAM to consume just half the electric current of DDR3 when reading and writing data.

Seagate apparently went ahead of its planned CES announcement and today officially unveiled the world’s thinnest 2.5-inch hard disk drive. Measuring just 7mm tall rather than the usual 9.5mm, the Momentus Thin drive is aimed at the increasingly popular ultra-thin notebooks and will come in 160GB and 250GB capacities.

While some laptop manufacturers have opted for 1.8-inch drives to help shave a few millimeters off their products, these new storage devices from Seagate are supposedly far cheaper to produce and should enable a new breed of entry-level thin notebooks
and netbooks. Besides offering a slimmer profile, the 2.5-inch disks still perform at typical notebook speeds with a SATA II interface, 5,400RPM spindle speeds and an 8MB cache.
No prices were disclosed. The company is first offering the drive to OEMs and expects to ship them in January.

• Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 6 Gbit/s Hard Drive Performance Review

Our drive was so new that it arrived in a less than OEM style box, it wasn’t even wrapped in an antistatic bag but we aren’t complaining about getting a drive right from the factory. Like nearly all of Seagate’s hard drives the label on the front shows the model name and serial number.

Introduction

Third generation Serial ATA technology is finally here. Today we are going to take a look at the new Seagate Barracuda XT, the first SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive to hit the TweakTown Test Lab.

A few weeks ago LSI sent over their first next generation SAS / SATA controller to review with a set of Seagate 15K.7 SAS drives that were also the first SAS 6 Gb/s products to hit the market. I think it is fair to say that Seagate is leading the charge when it comes to these next generation products that will improve the productivity of our daily computing experience for years to come.

When SATA was first introduced most SATA hard drives were ported from PATA with a bridge chip and the technology was little more than an improvement in the size of the cable used for connectivity. It wasn’t long before the four groups who are responsible for the standard realized the error in their ways and announced SATA 3 Gb/s, the second generation standard that brought us AHCI, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), staggered spin-up and hot swapping. Clearly SATA 3Gb/s was a significant update.

In July 2008 SATA-IO, one of four groups that work on the SATA standards introduced the latest standard, SATA 6Gb/s. This updated version allows for the following changes (via Wiki):

• A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable Isochronous data transfers for bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications.
• An NCQ Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands.
• Improved power management capabilities.
• A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices.
• A connector designed to accommodate 7 mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks.
• Alignment with the INCITS ATA8-ACS standard.

The enhancements are generally aimed at improving quality of service for video streaming and high priority interrupts. In addition, the standard continues to support distances up to a meter. The new speeds may require higher power consumption for supporting chips, factors that new process technologies and power management techniques are expected to mitigate. The new specification can use existing SATA cables and connectors, although some OEMs are expected to upgrade host connectors for the higher speeds. Also, the new standard is backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gbit/s.

In order to avoid parallels to the common SATA II misnomer, the SATA-IO has compiled a set of marketing guidelines for the new specification. The specification should be called Serial ATA International Organization: Serial ATA Revision 3.0, and the technology itself is to be referred to as SATA 6 Gbit/s. A product using this standard should be called the SATA 6 Gbit/s [product name]. The terms SATA III or SATA 3.0, which are considered to cause confusion among consumers, must not be used.

Now that we have the standards down, let’s move on and focus on the Seagate Barracuda XT.

• Lenovo’s all-business ThinkPad SL510 gets reviewed

Lenovo’s ThinkPad SL510 is just one of many new lappies hitting the market with Windows 7 in tow, but unlike most of the consumer-oriented machines, this pup is aimed squarely at that fellow over there looking mighty uncomfortable in the suit. Their test version, which included a 2.53GHz CPU, 3GB of RAM, a 320GB HDD and a $1,024 price tag, was found to be a real champion in terms of performance. The machine itself starts at just $520, and while the upgrades here definitely had an impact, they were also pleased with the multitouch trackpad, overall typing experience and bundled business tools. The only knocks? The “bulky, staid design” and low screen resolution, but something tells us a few of you won’t see the former as a negative. Hit the read link for the full skinny.

CPU: 2.53-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8700
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional
RAM/Expandable to: 3GB/8GB
Hard Drive Size/Speed: 320GB/7,200 rpm
Optical Drive: 8X DVD+RW
Display Size/Resolution: 15.6 inches/1366 x 768

The SL510 comes with a standard array of ports, including VGA, HDMI, audio in/out, Ethernet, ExpressCard/34, and four USB ports, one of which that doubles as an eSATA connection. A 7-in-1 memory card reader also allows you to get data from cameras and other devices.

Price as Reviewed: $1024

• Logitech G500 gaming mouse

Short version: A nearly faultless wired mouse, more than suitable for everyday tasks or gaming. Fans of the distinctive MX series shape won’t be disappointed.

Although I’ve been taking my time getting used to this mouse, this is a pretty straightforward review. Reason being that Logitech is an established and reliable brand for mice so we can skip the foreplay. You know as well as I do that this mouse is well-built and has excellent support. The shape of the mouse, while it’s been smoothed out over the years, is similar to my old wireless MX700 and several other popular mice in the Logitech line; if you haven’t held one in your hand, you’ve missed out on one of the better mouse form factors out there.

The changes in the G500 aren’t really breathtaking: new style, updated sensor… that’s pretty much it. To be honest, there wasn’t too much to improve on, but they did what they could and this is an extremely polished piece of hardware. As you no doubt have heard, it goes up to 5700DPI, DPI being the yardstick for measuring mouse performance these days. Really, that’s not as important in a mouse as the feel of the unit, and Logitech nails that as well.

Layout and feel:
It boasts 10 programmable buttons, but like most mice you’ll have a few of those tied up right away in your usual mouse functions and sensitivity control. The three thumb buttons are placed somewhat questionably — I mean, they’re under your thumb, but your thumb moves naturally up and down along the mouse, not back and forth, so I’m always confused when mouse makers put the buttons in a from from back to front. The Microsoft Sidewinder series got this right but few others do.

The scroll wheel, as I’ve often said in the case of other Logitech mice, is excellent. The scrolling is nearly frictionless and can be lightning quick — if the program or game can handle it. There are a few quirks to learn, like how you have to configure things differently if you’re using the “notched” wheel setting or the “free” one — and also, you will forget that it’s spinning occasionally and move your mouse to something else, causing that window or dial to rocket in whatever direction you were scrolling. It rocks right and left, which gives it a wobbly feel I don’t like, however; I much prefer the extremely solid feel of the wheel on Razer mice.

The sensitivity up and down buttons looked to me like they’d get in the way, but I’ve never hit either on accident. Switching mouse sensitivities is easy and instantaneous.

The mouse itself is attractive and of course the shape is beyond reproach, having been pretty much perfected over the years. It now has a pleasantly rough surface where you grip it, which also seems to resist the grime and sweat that inevitably end up there. Or maybe I’ve just been washing my hands more, I don’t know. Whether I actually prefer it over the also-proven Mamba/Death Adder shape is hard to say. These are the premier mice in the world, and it’s really not an easy call — so I’m just not going to make it. It comes down to personal preference.
It also has weight cartridges, which seem to be all the rage these days. I don’t find much utility in changing the drag coefficient on my mice, but if you like changing out weights, it’s very easy on the G500.

Performance

The mouse performs wonderfully. After my Mamba got its issues settled I thought I’d find other mice less comfortable, but the G500 has been surprisingly easy to get used to. I actually like the placement of the sensor better; Razer tends to put theirs dead center on the mouse, but the G500 has it directly underneath the scroll wheel, producing more natural movement in my opinion.
While having five sensitivity states is nice, it’s still not quite the level of customization made available by Razer’s on-the-fly sensitivity, which essentially has 20 states within easy reach. You can work that issue out with game profiles and stuff, but I try to keep it simple. The config utility gets the job done, though it’s not much for looks:

I never had any trouble with the cursor skipping, though it would occasionally pick up table and floor vibrations as jitter when the mouse was stationary, resulting in *gasp* the controls coming on screen during a movie. Not really a big deal.

This is a bit of a nitpick, but the “double-click” you can assign to a button is pretty sluggish. What’s the point of assigning double-click to a button if I can double-click faster than the macro? It’s led to quite a few accidental moving of files and that sort of confusion.

Conclusion

What we’ve got here is an absolutely excellent mouse. If you want a wireless mouse, I still recommend the Mamba, but the G500 can stand up to Razer’s flagship any day. It’s comfortable, feels like it’ll last for a long time, and it works like a charm. What more do you want? If you’re not sure whether it’s the right shape, I recommend as always going to your local Best Buy and giving the mice there a feel.

You can find a G500 for under $70, which I think is a great deal. If you were thinking of coming back to the Logitech stable from Sidewinder or Razer, this is a good time.

• Intel designs a new heatsink for Core i9

Intel has finally decided to use something other than the flimsy push-pin vertical heatsink that is available on Intel’s entire CPU line currently. The extreme high end “Gulftown” Core i9 will sport a vertical heatsink design with threaded anchors, similar to many third-party aftermarket cooler. It is particularly reminiscent of Thermalright’s popular Ultima 90i.

One of the only criticisms with the fantastic Lynnfield CPUs were the pathetic heatsinks – which weren’t any bigger than the ones sold with <$100 Pentium Dual-Cores. Intel has finally done away with the push-pin horizontal design - but it had to - considering the price Intel will charge for Gulftown. Rumoured to be priced between $999 and $1499 releasing Q1 2010, Gulftown will monopolize the extreme enthusiast segment, with no real challenge from AMD till 2011, when Bulldozer rolls along. Gulftown will be branded Core i9, and will sport six Nehalem cores / twelve threads and 12 MB L3 cache, fitting into the same LGA 1366 socket as the Core i7 9xx series. It is unknown as to how the new Intel heatsink will compete with aftermarket coolers, as most enthusiasts paying four figures for a CPU will surely want the best cooling possible.

• Lenovo ThinkStation S20 Workstation Review

To that end, we have a Lenovo workstation – the ThinkStation S20 – on our bench for some testing. Some of you may be wondering what a “workstation” really is. Well, it’s a term more commonly used in a business environment, especially one in which CAD/CAM design, 3D rendering or high performance computing occurs, and it basically just refers to a higher-end desktop or laptop. In the environments we’ve worked in, we’ve heard workstations referred as high-end desktops or laptops, tech PCs, and technical workstations. In this context, workstations (at least the desktop variety) are frequently comprised of components you typically see in servers. In particular, the motherboards, memory and processors are often server class. It is also not uncommon to find workstations sporting high-end storage controllers and hard drives. The ThinkStation S20 we are evaluating today sports a 2.93GHz Intel Xeon W3540 processor, 4GB ECC DDR3 memory, a 500GB SATA hard drive, and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 video card. This Lenovo workstation is definitely packing some serious horsepower. Keep reading to see just how well this powerhouse performs.

Lenovo ThinkStation S20 Specifications and Features

Processor
Intel Xeon W3540 Processor (2.93GHz 1066MHz 8MB L2) – 130W
Nehalem-EN Architecture

Operating System
Windows Vista Business 64-bit

Memory
4GB ECC DDR3 PC3-10600 SDRAM (2GBx2 uDIMMS)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 192-core (1.5GB DVI + DP + ST)

Motherboard / Chipset
Intel 36S Motherboard / X58 – ICH10R

Communications
Integrated Gigabit Ethernet LAN

Audio
Integrated Audio

Hard Drive
500GB 7,200RPM SATA Hard Drive

Optical Drive
Lenovo 16x DVD +/- RW Dual Layer

Expansion Slots
2 x PCIe x16 slot
1 x PCIe x4 slot
1 x PCIe x1 slot
1 x PCI slot

Rear Panel I/O
1 eSATA port
8 USB 2.0
1 serial port
1 optical S/PDIF-out port
1 optical S/PDIF-in port
1 RJ45 LAN port
Center/subwoofer, rear R/L and side R/L jacks
Line-in, line-out (front R/L) and mic-in jacks
Chassis
3 x 3.5″ Internal Bays
2 x 5.25″ External Bays
1 x 3.5″ External Bay

Power Supply
625W Power Supply

Features
# Ergonomic removable top handle
# Front-access media ports with illuminated icons and a recessed power button
# Superior cable management
# Premium side cover latch for easy access to internal components
# Innovative thermal design with optimized fan placement, for a cooler, quieter, more reliable PC
# All ThinkStation models are rack-mountable
# ISV certified
# More environmentally friendly: now EPEAT Gold qualified, with up to 26% post-consumer recycled plastics
# GREENGUARD certified

Included Accessories and Extras
Driver CD
Power cord
ThinkStation Safety and Warranty Guide
Quick Setup Guide
Lenovo Preferred Pro USB Full Size Keyboard
Lenovo Optical Wheel Mouse – USB Primax 400 DPI

Warranty And Support
3 Year Limited Onsite Warranty

Price: $3,645 USD (as configured here)
———————————————————————————————-
If you took the time to scan through the specs and features above, you may have noticed that hefty $3,645 price tag on our test S20. First off, it’s important to realize that the S20 workstation starts at around $1,000, which means our evaluation unit has some big-time upgrades. And secondly, workstations typically carry higher price tags when compared to standard business desktops. Just looking at a couple of the individual components will shed some light on the matter. The Intel Xeon W3540 CPU (Intel Xeon Nehalem-EN “Bloomfield” core) carries a $550 street price, while the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 video card costs about $1500. Whether or not components like these are worth their premium prices will have to be something you determine for yourself and will no doubt be dependent upon your budget, scope of work you do and your overall usage model.

Intel Nehalem-base Xeon W3540 Quad-Core Processor
The heart of the Lenovo ThinkStation S20

Another fact we want you to be aware of is that Lenovo also sells two-socket workstations under the D20 name (the “S” in S20 is for single, and the “D” in D20 is for dual, as in dual socket). If you are making use of applications that can take advantage of multiple cores, then it may be worth stepping up to a D20. Keep in mind, though, that the Xeon W3540 in our evaluation S20 is a quad-core CPU with Hyper-Threading, which means it has 8 effective cores. Xeon 5500 series chips support multi-socket installations and as such can scale to an even higher number of physical and logical cores for intensively multithreaded applications.

• AMD Athlon II X4 Affordable Quad-core Processors

AMD always come late to the show but when they arrive, they astonish others with their ultimate low price offerings compared to that of Intel. Their latest Athlon II X4 is the world’s first quad core CPU to be priced at less than $100. Their earlier quad core processors called Phenom II X4 processors were priced above $200. On the Intel’s part their Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme processors are always on the higher side of price range. This means that if you want the cheapest quad core processor you have to go with the AMD Athlon II X4 processors.

The new Athlon II X4 is, I believe, the smallest quad core X86 processor around. At 169 mm squared it is smaller than even the Core 2 Quad (2 x 107 mm square). This means that AMD can pack a lot more dies on a wafer with the Athlon II X4, and they can sell it at a far lower price than the 264 mm squared Phenom II. Excising the L3 cache also allows AMD a lot more leeway in the TDPs of these processors, and bins are likely not nearly as tight as what we may have seen with the Phenom II when it was originally released. The L3 cache eats a lot of power, and is a significant source of heat for these modern processors.

The new quad-core AMD Athlon II X4 processors performed very well, especially given their relatively low price points. Despite its lack of L3 cache, the new Propus core used in the Athlon II X4s perform extremely well compared to their full-fledged Deneb-based siblings. Comparatively, the new Athlon II X4 processors are also very competitive with Intel’s low-end quad-core offerings. However, gaming performance suffered due to the lack of L3 cache. Overall though, the Athlon II X4 processors are surprisingly good performers.