Guru3D Rig of the month

We just adore hardware. And sometimes some you guys really make a PC that really stands out. In the past we had the readers rigs, yet we've decided to expand that a monthly Guru3D Rig of the Month.

We ask you to answer a few simple questions and send in photo's of your rig. Each month we'll have a look at the entries and perhaps pick you and post your PC with photo's and everything here at Guru3D.com

What do you need to do ? Simply answer a few question plus send in some photo's.

You can read all about it here:
http://www.guru3d.com/category/rigs/

AMD's ATI  'RV730' and 'RV710' are codenames of low- and mid-end Radeon HD 4000 products which are pending a launch. Some information on their specifications have been leaked onto the web. The acquired information tells us more about memory configurations of cards based on these GPUs. The new data partially confirms and specifies the previous information.

The RV710-based Radeon HD 4450 and 4470 cards will be available with GDDR3 memory operating at 800 MHz. The first will feature 512 MB by Hynix, the second - 1 GB by Samsung. GPU clock rates of HD 4450 and HD 4470 will differ as well. No 256 MB cards based on RV710 GPU will be released, the source claims.

The RV730 GPU will be featured in more graphics cards, with three different memory clock rates and two memory volumes:

• 700 MHz, 512 MB,
• 900 MHz, 512 MB by Hynix,
• 900 MHz, 1 GB MB by Samsung,
• 1,000 MHz, 512 MB by Hynix.

Supposedly, Radeon HD 4650 will have 700 MHz memory, while the remaining three will be modifications of Radeon HD 4670.

As you guys know AMD is preparing a dual-chip version of its Radeon HD 4870 card yet it'll be released within a matter of weeks and not somewhere late August, say board designers.

The 4870 X2 would be a direct sequel to the 3870 X2 and would once again graft two high-end graphics processors on to one card with a similarly doubled amount of memory; the 4870 edition would be the first home card to carry 2GB of total memory. Past cards have also been underclocked slightly from the single-chip version to avoid overheating.

The company itself also plans a relatively quick turnaround and will ship a reference version of the 4870 X2 under its ATI label in late July, or just a month after the 4870's debut; third-party manufacturers like ASUS and Sapphire will have access to the design in mid-August. AMD is believed to be setting the official price at $499 and will likely market it directly against the GeForce GTX 280, which will cost $499 next week as well, and is likely to be outperformed by the X2 card.

Radeon 4870 X2 PCB

A little while ago the GeForce (CUDA) series Folding@Home client was released. We yield some good really results as a team in total. The new GPU folding clients runs in the background over your graphics card / GPU, you can use your PC completely normal and once a 3D application kicks in, the folding client jumps into the background.

The last time I checked we literally jumped from an average of 44.000 points per day towards 118.000 points. This now is an average of 160.000 points per day, unfortunately that is still not enough folks, we need more of you helping out.

So if you have a GeForce series 8 or newer graphics card and like to help fighting diseases, please join our team, we have ID number 69411.

CPU Clients (Processors):

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista Graphical client - download (recommended)
• Windows 98/ME Graphical client -download
• Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32 & 64 Bit supported) SMP client 5.91 beta6 console version - download
• Windows 2000/XP/Vista (Only 32Bit supported) 5.92 beta upgrade from 5.91 console version - download
• Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista "No-nonsense" text-only console (with built-in Windows-service-install option) - download

GPU Clients:
Both ATI and nVidia are supported on select cards (2xxx/3xxx ATI Video Card, and newer) (G80 and higher are generally supported, but must support CUDA. For the nVidia client)*

• Windows XP/Vista GPU2 client GUI** version - download

ATI GPU2 FAQ & nVidia GPU2 FAQ

* - Cards supporting CUDA technology (click here)
** - No 'non-GUI'/Text based client available, as of yet.

Should you need help / want info check out our Folding support forums here where anyone will help you with any questions you might have. Come on people, team 69411 ! Thanks to all who are participating in this project, and a special thank you to our top 20 donators:

Yesterday we reported that NVIDIA would very likely drop it's prices for the GeForce GTX 260 and 280 to bee able to compete with AMD's offering better. As it seems, that price drop is already in effect.

Newegg shows an offering on a GeForce GTX 280 graphics card for $459.99 after a $40 mail-in-rebate and cards from other brands like Asus and Palit are also available for around $499. It seems NVIDIA is cutting the price extremely hard. A couple of days ago you had to shelve out $649 for a GTX 280 but now you can get it for almost $200 less.

Furthermore, the GeForce GTX 260 is now available for $299.99 and ZipZoomfly even has one with a $40 mail-in-rebate so the card costs only $259.

We'll keep an eye on the new price developments closely. The fun thing here is, if you pick up such a card at that price, you'll just have to say thanks to AMD for it.

Related articles:

• GeForce GTX 260 review
• BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC edition review
• GeForce GTX 280 SLI Dual | Triple review test
• GeForce GTX 280 review

Solid-state disks may be eating into the territory of traditional hard drives, particularly in laptops, but that doesn't mean spinning platters are on their last legs

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky introduces a new video trailer showing a side by side look at how real the surroundings and people look in the game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, is the stand-alone prequel for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World. During E3, it was reported that the game will consist of a 50/50 mix of old remade/altered levels and totally new areas to explore. It will be released August 29, 2008. Also the game engine is being updated to v1.5 and will include DirectX 10 support. The AI is to receive an overhaul to accommodate the new "faction wars" feature; which will give players the opportunity to lead one of the eight factions to become rich and dominant.

The current tagline appears to be, as of writing, "What awaits you, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, in the Zone that changed?" On Thursday, March 27, 2008, GSC Game World announced the release date is currently set for August 29, 2008.
 

It seems that a Chinese website called vga.zol.conm.cn posted a photo of what appears to be the GeForce 9800 GT. The card obviously originates from XFX and uses the same layout as the 8800 GT.

This would be the first 9800 series product with a single slot design. Other than that there not much to show or tell. I'm just really curious to see it can beat the Radeon 4850 in performance. It won't be very long before we know I guess.

Matuus, our in-house Guru3D NVHardpage programmer stumbled into the same issue I had as well. The NVIDIA PhysX driver once install will activate itself on the GPU, and can not be disabled.

This little NV PhysX Tweaker tool will allow you to actually choose to enable or disable the PhysX driver over the GPU and if preferred, the CPU. Very simple, yet very handy.

Download - click here

Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 CrossfireX performance test

Guru3D posted a Radeon 4850 and 4870 Crossfire review. Since Radeon series 4800 cards offer so much value, it might even be interesting to pair them in CrossfireX mode.

Much like NVIDIA's SLI offerings, AMD's ATI solution can be paired and matched as well. So pretty much today we'll place several cards together in CrossfireX mode, first the cards paired (two) and then we'll for the sake of it see if we can pair three cards CrossfireX mixed, meaning 2x 4870 and one 4850. When you compare the results to NVIDIA's latest high-end single card offerings, the results are a little shocking.

You can read the article at this URL:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-4850-and--4870-crossfirex-performance/

Arctic Cooling has announced the new Accelero TWIN TURBO which is a Superior Cooling Solution for High Performance Graphics Cards. It is compatible with ATI Radeon HD 4870, 4850 and nVIDIA GeForce 9600GT, 8800GT series. It's a new dual-fan VGA cooler Accelero TWIN TURBO, adding a multi-compatible high performance merchandise into their reputable VGA cooler product line.

With 26

According to rumors on the web NVIDIA will cut the price of its GeForce GTX 280 and 260 graphics cards by $90 and $30, respectively according to fudzilla.

Nvidia will cut $90 of the Geforce GTX 280 price-tag, but this is Nvidia's price to partners and we are not sure just how much will this affect the suggested etail price. We are sure that end user prices will also drop but probably a bit less than $90.

The Geforce GTX 260 will be $30 cheaper to partners and Nvidia will only offer limited price protection which means that some partners / distributors and stores might end up with some overpriced cards at their warehouses.

OCZ announced the expansion of its Intel Extreme Memory modules lineup, the latest memory solution that implements a high-performance specification optimized and predefined for the Intel X38 and X48 chipsets. The new modules are rated at DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1600 and feature the all-new Intel branded black XTC heatspreader. With a long history of providing the most innovative products to the enthusiast community, OCZ is excited to take advantage of Intel

Santa Clara based NVIDIA confirmed that second quarter of fiscal year 2009 will not be as good as initially estimated and desired.

The company is saying that its Q2 revenue will be under $1 billion and hover around $875 million to $950 million due to worldwide end-market weakness, the delays of several chipsets and the competition from AMD which forced it to lower the prices of some of its GPUs.

Since problems seem to come at least in pairs Nvidia has also announced its plan to "take a one-time charge from $150 million to $200 million against cost of revenue for the second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems." CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has stated that the company has learned from these higher than expected failure rates and that it will work more closely with OEMs to address such issues. The results for Q2 of the financial year 2009 will be revealed on August 12.