[OCN] My Thoughts on Core i7
February 7, 2009 § 3 Comments
Everybody knows that we, members of OCN, have a serious problem. Look at it from an average Joe perspective: we spend thousands on high end computers, and at every single occasion we go out and browse Newegg on a quest to find an upgrade for our systems, which according to us are quickly becoming obsolete. We then proceed to sell our memory, processors, graphic cards and all our other barely used gear, things which are sometimes only a couple of weeks old, in order to purchase the latest and greatest. While the common mortals still call a Pentium 4 HT/P965/7900GX2 system a top gaming machine, we constantly crave for more, more performance, more 3dMarks, smaller SuperPI times, and bigger e-peens. And after spending 50$ on Crysis:Warhead in order to be able to run the benchmark tool, we sit our asses on the chairs and play CS:S at framerates exceeding by 6 times our monitor’s refresh rates. We are hardware junkies, hung on PCB like a druggy is on PCP.
Probably my best piece of to now. I spill my guts on what I think of the new Intel platform that features the new Core i7 processors and x58 motherboards. Read the entire article with feedback from the Overclock.net community here.
[OCN] Less is The Future of Computing?
February 2, 2009 § 1 Comment
If you’ve been following hardware news for the last 2 years, you may have notice some of the many trends that are becoming the new hotness in computing. As always the race for price/performance between Intel and AMD is on, the two giants along with Nvidia are releasing new flagship products, core shrink remixes almost every month. That’s nothing new… But other hot topics are also shaking up the hardware world, namely more and more parallelized computing via multi-core CPUs, GP-GPUs and GPU acceleration, the growing presence of DDR3 in high performance systems, and something which I think is really special, the hype over smaller, cheaper, more power efficient computers, the topic of this article.
If you look around, you’ll realized pretty much everybody is trying to get a stab at the new nettop/netdesk market: Via has been in the game for years of course, but both Intel and AMD are churning out more and more interesting products. The long awaited Atom is pretty much leading the ball, but the Athlon 2000+, and the upcoming Bobcat are also very promising alternatives. As for the actual manufacturers of such integrated systems, it’s pretty much a free for all. Asus, MSI, Acer, HTC, HP, Fujitsu, everybody wants a piece of the pie. Since I find that releasing old revamped technology is almost an insult to the thousands of engineers who have been working their asses off to make better, more powerful chips, allow me to question this new hype: tiny computing has already caught on, but is it going to live on? Will people really continue buying underpowered hardware just because it costs peanuts?
I can see valid arguments on both side of the scale. I know that this isn’t necessarily the right place to inquire about this, but if you think about it, what applications apart from games do you use? Chances are that unless you’re doing some hardcore 3d modeling with SolidWorks or touching up video in Premiere, all you’re doing is either surfing the net, writing up documents, and chatting on AIM or MSN. Do you really need an e8600 with 8 gigs of RAM to do that? Absolutely not, and chances are that most people currently can’t afford a computer won’t be doing much more than that either, so all these mini laptops are ideal for them.
I can also see those new chips working wonders in carputers, boatputers(?), and computer aided navigation/entertainment devices of all sorts. Carputers have been around for a while, but most will agree that the Atom is pretty much the beefiest chip available in an integrated nano-ITX form factor which can fit pretty much anywhere. With the rising popularity of home servers, the integrated Atom board is also a great choice which has a smaller physical footprint, lower price and lower power consumption then the AMD Sempron powered prebuilts I keep seeing in retail stores.
On the other hand, I’m questioning the longevity of the current low-power, low-cost chips. After all, what’s the point in giving lower income families computers if they are rendered obsolete only a few months after they are bought? The Atom 230 has been called inapt at handling day to day computing by Tom’s, which right off that bat is a pretty bad indication of how long the chip will survive, and even if it were to be good for another year or two for browsing and typing, the roadmap for the Intel Atom kind of makes me want to wait. Dual core Diamondvilles should be landing in nettops and integrated ITX devices near you any time soon, and next gen Atoms code name “Pineview” featuring a core shrink to 32nm are just around the bend, ETA 2009. Normally, I’m not the type to wait for a newer, better component because in the end you can just end up waiting eternally, but in this case, buying an Atom 230 right now is pretty much stupid.
Cost effectiveness is also an issue. Because of the almost disposable nature of the new nettops, my guess is that people will most likely want to get rid of their nettops after only a year of use (some EEE701′s are already going on sale for cheap on the net), which has me questioning if it’s better to buy a 450$ MID and having a so-so user experience for a year or shelling out under 900$ up front on a REAL laptop but enjoy it’s full sized keyboard, screen, and greater performance for 2+ years until it becomes sluggish.
Part of me just wants to empty my secondary savings account and buy a Dell Mini 9 to run OS X on, but the other part tells me that it’s a pretty stupid investment.
So, is minimal computing really the new hotness, or is it just a passing fad? I guess that only time will tell, but in any case, I’m just happy that finally computers are becoming something that everybody can afford.
Check out the original article with replies from the Overclock.net community on my OCN blog.
[OCN] Nvidia Turning Friends Into Enemies?
May 25, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Everybody’s in the fight for GP-GPUs… and it makes me question Nvidia’s ability to survive in such a market, specially when all it’s CPU producing friends are openly declaring war.
Nvidia is acting weird lately. Apart from keeping the bar high in the GPU sector, Nvidia seems to be wanting to take over something else, the CPU sector. I’m a bit confused as if they want to do so using CUDA and GPU-powered applications to entirely eradicate the need for a powerful CPU and build crappy replacements of their own, or just trying to beat Intel at their own game, plain and simple, by producing super high end chips.
I might be totally wrong, but in the case that this “can of whoop ass” turns out to be a flop, this may very well be the end of Nvidia as we know it……
ThermalTake V1 CPU Cooler Review
November 16, 2007 § Leave a Comment
If your looking for a high end air cooler that performs abnormally well, even when compared to some of the lower end liquid cooling systems, look no further. I bought this mostly for the looks, and because I absolutely wanted something from Thermaltake, but I got way more than what I expected. The all copper V shapped heatpipe design, coupled with a stylish yet efficient fan that can push up to 86 CFM is the way to go for Thermaltake: the result is a silent and powerful cooler.
Packaging
Considering the fragility of the heat sink fins which are very thin for greater surface area, Thermaltake did a nice job of packing this cooler. Inside the cardboard box, the plastic clamshell holds the V1 and it’s accessories very well, maybe even a little too well: I had to tug at the base of the cooler to get it out, and seeing the fragility of the fins, I had to be very careful. The contents of the box were the following:
- 1 cooler
- 1 set of LGA775 mount fixtures
- 1 set of socket AM2, 939 and 754 mounts
- 4 ever so tiny mount screws. They should have included more, those things can be lots too easily.
- Bag ‘o’ thermal compound, the crappy kind. Through it to the bin or feed it to your dogs or something.
Product Quality
Although at first glance the V1 looks perfect, a few minor defects, most of them having little to no impact on product performance. The biggest one is the use of something that looks like thermal adhesive to join the heapipes and the fins instead of soldering the two together. This sounds like a horrible ripoff when you first hear it, but just thinking about it a bit more will clarify things: soldering the 4 heatpipes to all 110 + fins would have skyrocketed the production prices, and resulted in a cooler than nobody can afford. In my opinion, we really can’t blame Thermaltake for letting go on something like this. The second little fault is the quality of the base’s contact surface. Us overclockers, when shopping for a cooler, look mainly for a quality base, dense and machine to perfection. Although Thermaltake’s product page says the V1 has a “mirror coating base”, what I got wasn’t exactly that: the surface was a tad unequal, and milling marks were pretty clear. Still, considering that I have not yet to this day seen a cooler with a perfect base out of the box, it isn’t bad. If you want a perfect base, grab a 5$ sanding kit and lap it yourself.
Installation
Installation was quick and painless. The LGA775 push-pin mounts that I have used fit just like the Intel stock cooler on my motherboard, contact between base and CPU is superb. Although I can’t recall the amount of sleepless nights I’ve spent wondering if the V1 would fit my case, I can now confirm that this cooler does fit the EVGA 680i SE SLI in a Thermaltake Armor Jr. with no interference from either the power supply up above of the abnormally high northbridge cooler right below. This cooler is a big one, so don’t be thinking that you could be stuffing this in a Micro-ATX case. I would say that 85 % of mid tower can potentially house this cooler, the other deterministic factor being the position of the CPU on your motherboard, which shouldn’t a problem in most cases, and even less if you have one of those almost center-mounted CPU DFI boards. I’ve seen some people run out of space in smaller cases and mount it so that the air is shot up, but I think that it just defeats the purpose of having a flow-through cooler.
Performance
During all the tests, the conditions were the following: 20 C ambient temperature, in my basement. I define Idle as 0% CPU usage with the only thing running being the OS desktop. Full load is 100% CPU usage, attained with the Gromacs test of Orthos dual core edition. The test rig is my Thermaltake Armor Jr, with EVGA 680i SE SLI, Core 2 Duo e6750 G0 stepping, 2 gigs of Corsair XMS2-PC2-6400C4, and an EVGA 8800 GTS SC 320 mb.
First, the stock Intel cooler. I installed the cooler with it’s stock thermal wax (?), and all temperatures were taken with 100 % fan speed.
Stock clocks, idle: 40 C
Stock clocks, load: 67 C
3.2 ghz @ 1.4 Vcore, idle: 43 C
3.2 ghz @ 1.4 Vcore, load: 69 C
Now, the same rig, but outfitted with the V1 and a super slick application of Arctic Silver 5. All temperatures were recored with the cooler at minimum speed. I would have love to try it out at higher speeds, but unfortunately due to a bad fan configuration (high pressure between V1 and extract fan caused by insufficient extraction fan), I only got higher temperatures from increasing the fan speed. Remember, the V1 pushes some 90 CFM at top speed, so a 50 CFM fan just can’t hold up.
Stock clocks, idle: 28 C
Stock clocks, load: 52 C
3.2 ghz @ 1.4 Vcore, idle: 30 C
3.2 ghz @ 1.4 Vcore, load: 56 C
Considering the less than perfect case fan setup, the 13 degrees drop at full load is something that I think is very good, specially at minimum speed.
My tips
- Check your airflow before buying this. You should have more CFM going out than in, and if you current setup doesn’t, you should be considering the purchase of high speed case fans, with high CFM output. This will avoid creating that same situation that I am in, with the high pressure between V1 and case fan. Good case fans include Thermaltake Smart Case Fan (~100 CFM at full speed), Yate Loons, and Panaflows.
- Always manipulate the cooler by holding the heatpipes or the base. Even a slight pressure from the fingers is enough to ben the fins near the top.
- Always use a high quality thermal compound. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and don’t let your TIC be that link. Artic Silver 5 is the most popular choice, at 10$ per tube of 3.5 grams. If you’re feeling rich, you might want to check out Shin-Etsu, the ultra thick, high performance compound, which sells for about 10$ also, but for a 1 gram tube: almost 3 times as expensive. Apparently, from the dudes back OCN, it’s worth it.
- Thespeed controller that comes with the cooler is too small, not mountable in any kind of way, and just generally bad. How do you want to control your cooler speed when you case is closed? It’s just impractical. To be able to control the V1 on a closed case, I paid a visit to a local electronics store and showed the guy the stock speed controller, which can be removed from the cooler without cutting anything up anything. The dude gave me a pot which could do the same thing, and most importantly that could be mounted on my case. 2$ for the pot and a knob, then 5 minutes of drilling, soldering and mounting, and I had a practical way to control the V1′s speed. Pictures here!
What more is there to be said? Sure, if you want to save a couple of additional degrees, you might want to go with the super coolers like the Tuniq Tower, or also from Thermaltake the Big Typhoon, but if you want a nice balance of style and performance, the V1 is for you. At 70$, it isn’t cheap, but compare it to the lower end water cooling systems, both price wise and performance wise and it becomes much appealing.
