Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Mobile Gaming






Bored using desktop ? Why dont try a mobile one ? Notebook is the best for mobile gaming right now. And forget about netbook for gaming, most of them only have GPU power just to do office work and browsing. But there is a downside using notebook for gaming, it is very expensive. Its only have about a third to half performance in the same price of desktop PC. So we say we have notebook at $1000, it only have performance of $400 to $500 desktop PC. But you have good time in your travel time.

Like we all know, there are only three big company that design GPU. Intel, NVIDIA and AMD. But forget about intel, its design only have power to do simple games. I can only recomending NVIDIA or AMD GPU for gaming in notebook, and desktop PC too. So with the high price if notebook, I can only divide into three level. Sub $1000, $1000 to $1500 and $1500+.

Let start with sub $1000 notebook. Like always, I just show my best option in my opinion. But still there are much expert out there, feel free to ask them too. Sadly I only found one notebook that really good. It has i7 processor and an HD 5730 from AMD.

ASUS N61 Series N61JQ-XV1 16" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit NoteBook


The next level is $1000-$1500 notebook. Its the best range since there are many good notebook in there. Hope you like my best recomended is the G73JH-X1 from ASUS. It has an i7 with HD 5870 from AMD and an Insane 8GB memory. While the second one with NVDIA GPU is TOSHIBA X505-Q984. It has an i7 core, 4GB of RAM, GTX 460M GPU and a big 18.4inch of screen.

ASUS G Series G73JH-X1 17.3" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit NoteBook

TOSHIBA Qosmio X505-Q894 18.4" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit NoteBook


Lastly is a $1500+ level. With label "$1500" doesnt mean a $4000 is best as gaming notebook. Its just a waste of money, there are ton and extremly high performance but has almost half the price. I got one winner here, it is from DELL with Alienware flavour M17x10-1847DSB. It has an i7 core with 6GB of memory and dual-GPU of AMD HD5870. Yess it has dual-GPU of HD 5870, not much desktop can beat this monster.

DELL Alienware M17x(m17x10-1847DSB) 17.0" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit NoteBook


Looks like the winner mostly from AMD. Well what should I do, what I choose is the best product right now. NVIDIA is in developing a 5xx series of GTX right now. There some rumors it will out at end of the year, maybe for christmas. Just wait a little longer if you want to see some NVIDIA strike back.

Genta3D.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Catalyst 10.10 With Its Fix 10.10a

aLooks like AMD is spoil its brand new HD 6800. Ever since the baby just born, AMD have two update catalyst the 10.10 and the 10.10a. And we are the winner, consumer. With this new catalyst, like always it have performance improvement and even some new features.

The performance improvement mostly are for games, like Metro 2033, World in Conflict, Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead and more. It was implemented for HD 6xxx and HD 5xxx. While the new hotfix catalyst 10.10a only affecting HD 6xxx, and the games are Star Craft 2, Aliens vs Predator, tesselation benchmark like Heaven 2.1 and some more.

For the new features, Catalyst 10.10, has APP a.k.a Accelerated Parallel Proccessing for windows. It has features like Blue-Ray 3D support, Video Acceleration for HD, and a nice Enhanced Dynamic Contrast for video control. While the hotfix, 10.10.a has a Morphological Anti Aliasing (MAA). MAA was a new technique to accelerate a post-process filtering, with help from Direct Compute offcourse. It use to give more performance with anti-aliasing up to DirectX 11.
Please keepin mind to always download the latest driver at official site here : 
            Catalyst 10.10a hotfix 


Genta3D

EDIT : There is another fix, please see below link :
Catalyst 10.10c hotfix

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Review HD 6850 and HD 6870

22 October 2010 is the AMD 6800 days. AMD has design the new GPU that have chip inherated from 5xxx series. It was a successor from AMD 57xx but it is almost double the power. It can play most of the games with smooth and playable gameplay. Furthermore it is very cheap.

The 6850 has a GPU with 775Mhz, 960 stream processors, a 4000Mhz memory and about 127 watt of power. While it big brother has a 900Mhz GPU, 1120 stream processors and 150 to 160 watt of power. Both of the cards have 256-bit memory bus, 1GB DDR5 and compatible with DirectX 11.

The 6800 are built for compete with their competitor from NVDIA, the 460GTX. With a very tight price, it try to steal some market. Let see the review below. All with 1920x1200 resolution. With a 950 i7, and 3x2GB DDR3 G.Skill @1333Mhz.


The lowest price is $160 for a GTX 460 768MB, $190 for a GTX 460 1GB, $180 for an HD 6850 and $240 for an HD 6870. They sure have a good line up there. For you that really need a sub $200 GPU, I recomended the HD 6850. It beat 460 most of the game, even the 1GB one. For the brand I recomended the first tier of AMD friend like HIS or Sapphire.

Genta3D 

Friday, October 22, 2010

Genta 3D normal VGA guide OCT 2010

Hello, this is my first guide. Hope you guys like it. Please remember on my guide, there are 4 option to choose. Entry level, daily, gamer, and hardcore. Entry level mostly use for office, and daily is for daily use. While gamer are for people who play game with nice resolution, lastly hardcore are for the one for extremly enthusiast for maxmimum resolution.

Entry Level.
Mostly entry level using onboard VGA. They use passive cooling, means they dong use any fan at all. At this level, ussually they using a one core processor like pentium 4. So just buy a mother board for pentium 4, it will have onboard VGA attached to it.

Daily
In this level, they will have two types VGA, onboard and PCI-E. PCI-E is a slot that we plug VGA card. ussually in this level they use their PC to browsing facebook, playing simple game or HTPC. HTPC is Home Theatre Personal Computer. For facebook or simple game, you can use an onboard VGA. I recommend a HD 4200 from AMD. Its very cool temperature and have good durabilty. Some internet cafe use it almost for 24 hours a day, and it can play good online games too like Lineage 2 with medium settings. For HTPC you can use HD 5450 from AMD for just $40. If you really need for playing game online you can use 5570 from AMD for just $70. They have directx 11 compatible.

Gamer
This is mostly reason people buy a VGA or two. I range this level with $100-$300. For the cheapest, I recomend  a HD 5770 from AMD for about $150 or a GTX 460 from Geforce for roughly $170. For better gameplay you can another good VGA with extra money. I recomend a Cyclone GTX 460 factory overcloced for $230. It is an upgraded for GTX 460 class. With this cards, most game can be played with 1920x1200 resolution. I cannt suggest more expensive card than this.

Hardcore
There are only have 2 option for Hardcore, a GTX 480 or HD 5970. If you just want to buy one, I sugest HD 5970 for $680. It has up to 50% better performance from GTX 480 for $450. But for the best result like using multiple card, I only sugest GTX 480. Because it can give better performance in multiple card mode known as SLI. Even some are using four card GTX 480 for maximum result.

So which one match for you ? Please give me some comment below.

Genta3D

Which VGA producer should I choose ?

Right now, we got three big enterprise who produce it. First is Intel, they ussually build a low end graphic card segment. They aiming for office needs, like displaying microsoft office or even just to browse internet. Ussually Intel's graphic cards are onboard to the mother board. It is very high efficient power and has good temperature.

The other two are NVDIA and AMD ATI. But rightnow ATI name was erased and they only has AMD graphic card as the name. NVDIA is a big enterprise who aiming for graphic profesional user. Like they have GF Quadro, it has thousands dollar to buy one. When Im post this article, NVIDIA has the fastest single core VGA in the world, the GTX 480.

The last one is the black horse AMD. Well at least it was called like that because they sales always a percent less than NVDIA. But right now AMD has manage tu surpase NVDIA sales. AMD always give their consumer best price/performance product. They are cheap, but still have power to match NVDIA. AMD also has a joker, the HD5970. It was surpase GTX480 mostly about 150% it power. But remember, 5970 is a dual core VGA.

Genta3D

What is VGA ?

VGA or Video Graphics Array was introduces for the first time by IBM. It is a standard that most computers are use. Component is referring to other types of video rules. VGA analog video videos, and was replaced by a component connection, but the most popular video and display method from the beginning in 1987 until the late nineties. VGA to Component refers to a cross between two video and data display. VGA to Component Video Adapter converts basically the VGA output from a personal computer for signal components are typically on high-end televisions found. Based on the VGA screen. Connection for 15-pin VGA connector is a module to get the in the back of the CPU. VGA-quality video in a fine. 
VGA to Component Video adapter sometimes called PC to TV converter. While the different is they using a green-red-blue jack to deliver the outputs. USB port was used to give power, but sometimes they use other port as USB doesnt give enough power.

As a video adapter, VGA has another features like composite video, s-video outputs and others. VGA are using a 15-ping receptacle (female) while the computer has male connector. But sometimes the genders are excanges each other.
  
Thanks to tehcnology right now, you can use the converter to connect your PC to any posible display like TV, LCD, projector and other. And the resolution now are very high, about 2560x1600 pixel. At least you need a 30 inch LCD to display that resolution.

Genta3D