The Breakdown:

This will be a straight comparison between these two above cards. It is unbiased with no agenda or “BS” whatsoever! There are people out there who believe that some sites get paid off by big companies to present their product in a good light, well not us. We will bring you honest results which we stand behind and would not be ashamed to show anyone at anytime. You will be able to find correct figures for the system and settings we used. All systems will be a little different, so keep this in mind.  Don’t go off on a tangent because a game is a few FPS different than yours.

Test System:

Overclocked:

*Red = ATI, Green =Nvidia*

3dMark:

Bad Company 2:

World in Conflict:

Synthetic Benchmarks:

3dMark:

FurMark:

Unigine – Heaven v2.1

Unigine – Tropics v1.3

Unigine – Sanctuary v2.3

Game Benchmarks:

*All tests ran at the applications highest allowable detailed settings*

Battlefield – Bad Company 2:

Call of Juarez:

Champions Online:

Company of Heroes:

Warhammer – Dawn of War II:

Dirt 2:

Far Cry 2:

Final Fantasy XIV:

Fuel:

Tom Clancy’s – Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter:

Just Cause 2:

Mass Effect 2:

Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2:

Operation Flashpoint 2 – Dragon Rising:

Risen:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:

1920×1200

1920×1080:

1680×1050:

1600×1200:

Street Fighter IV:

Team Fortress 2:

Wings of Prey:

World in Conflict:

Temperatures:

Computer Case

Tech Station

Temperatures were pretty even until we moved into the overclocked settings. Running at stock speeds, the two cards run at about the same temperature, with Nvidia taking the slight lead in load temperature. However, the 5870 does have a commanding lead in the idle/web surfing tasks with a 14-16C difference. I think this probably comes as a shock to most people, seeing everyone talks about how hot the Nvidia cards are in every aspect. The GTX480 was very respectable at stock speeds, but where the 5870 shines is in the overclocking. You can run this card fully overclocked and not turn your room into a sauna, the same cannot be said for the 480, with it hitting 99-100C during testing!

Power Consumption:

Notice in the test below that this is total system power consumption. We tried our best to push the load as much as possible on the video card and nothing else. We ran FurMark at the highest settings our system would allow and we feel this gives the most reliable readings on GPU load and on how much wattage the cards put out without stressing other components in the system too much. (Total consumption measured at outlet.)

As you can see from the chart above, the 5870 wins the power consumption tests hands down. With the 5870 overclocked, it is still under max load wattage of the stock GTX480. With the 480 overclocked, it raises some eyebrows with the amount of watts that the card eats up. This could be a problem for someone who is not expecting that much load and does not have an adequate power supply. Just be aware of this before buying.

Fan Noise:

We would have to say this is pretty much a tie between the two cards. They are both quiet during basic use, and then, they both get extremely annoying once the fan kicks in and you hit a higher percentage of fan use. So knowing how both fans sound, we could not give the edge to either of the cards. You could always water cool both cards and then you would no longer have to worry!

Conclusion:

As you saw from all of the gaming and synthetic benchmark tests we ran on the two cards, the GTX480 seemed to be in the lead for the majority of them. We thought the HD5870 would put up more of a fight than it did and we were wrong! The 5870 got “beaten up” for the most part and we almost felt bad. It was like putting a college freshman up against a well-seasoned senior in football. With that said, though, the 5870 is still an fantastic card. Yes, it did get beat, but if you look at the numbers it was cranking out, they were still very impressive, and it will easily run any game on the market without a problem. For the most part, the 480 will be able to boast of a few extra FPS while running the same games. We are guessing that the extra boost in performance is why the GTX480 costs $499, while the HD5870 is a little cheaper at $429 (these are MSRP prices of course).

There were a few bright spots for the HD5870, such as when we ran the power consumption and temperature tests. The 5870 was definitely the big winner in both of these tests. The idle power consumption of the overclocked GTX480 is actually superior to the overclocked 5870. This was a big surprise to us once we saw the final numbers on power usage. Just keep in mind how much power the GTX480 uses while overclocked under load as this could cause a potential system failure if your PSU is not up to snuff. Temperatures were also a big plus for the 5870. The stock idle temperatures were very low, but where it really shines is once we overclocked it. The max temperature we saw was only 84C, however, when we overclocked the GTX480 we saw a massive jump in temperatures with a max temperature of 100C! That is just a bit too high for us to feel comfortable while gaming for extended periods of time.

Overall, both cards were extremely impressive! You cannot go wrong with either choice, however, there are a few give-and-takes with both cards when considering the temperatures, power consumption, and price versus the game performance. It may also depend on how you feel about the cards and your brand loyalty, which personally we feel shouldn’t come in to play, but some can be more passionate in this regard. We can safely say that both cards will have no problem playing any game on the market. We are hoping this review will help you in your decision on which card or brand may be best for you. The results above were 100% legitimate and without biased opinions or personal agendas presented in the article. Take it for what it is; the truth between the two graphics cards.

Packaging:

The ASUS EAH5870:

Specifications and Features:

Specifications:

• Bus Standard: PCI Express 2.1
• Video Memory: GDDR5 1G
• Engine Clock: 850 MHz
• Memory Clock: 4.8 GHz ( 1.2 GHz DDR5 )
• Memory Interface: 256-bit
• D-Sub Max Resolution: 2048 x 1536
• DVI Max Resolution: 2560 x 1600
• D-Sub Output: Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adaptor x 1 )
• DVI Output: Yes x 2 (via HDMI to DVI adaptor x 1 )
• HDMI Output: Yes x 1
• DisplayPort: Yes
• HDCP Support: Yes
• Adapter/Cable Bundled: 1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
• 1 x CrossFire cable
• 2 x Power cable
• 1 x HDMI to DVI adaptor
• Software Bundled ASUS Utilities & Driver
• Note the Card Size is 10.25 inches x 5 inches.

Features:

Overclocking Software and Results:

ASUS SmartDoctor is included as one of the utilities on your ASUS driver CD. Once installed and running, you will be greeted with the above screen. This is where you can tweak the voltage on the card. You will also be able to change your core speed and memory from this area as well. Our one complaint with the software, as mentioned in our ENGTX480 review, is the GUI. It looks so 90’s compared to other software on the market that does the same thing. We think the GUI could use a nice revamping to give it a better and more up-to-date look.

In the ‘Settings’ area of SmartDoctor, you can see two different sections, one for fan control and another for temperature alarm. The Fan Control section is very easy to customize and will let you set how fast you want your fan running at specific temperatures. This is a very simple way to tweak the fan settings in order to get the most out of your card. The other screen shot (right) let’s you put alarm settings on your video card’s temperatures. This may help keep your mind at ease during long gaming sessions.

Overclocking Results:

We started overclocking with no voltage tweak, just to see what we could get out of the card, for people who do not like to mess with voltages. We finally ended up with an overclock of 950/1335, a 9.4% gain on core speeds and 11.2% increase on memory speeds. Next, we upped the voltage to 1.39 on the 5870 and ended up with a nice overclock of 1008/1351, a 16.1% increase on core speeds and 12.5% increase on memory speeds. Overall, these are very nice overclocks, as no overclocking is guaranteed by manufacturers.

Overclocked Benchmarks:

All Settings At Stock:

CPU stock GPU OC @ 950/1335

CPU stock GPU OC @ 1008/1351 @ 1.39v

CPU @ 4GHz GPU OC @ 1008/1351 @ 1.39v

3dMark – All Settings

We will not add much to the charts above as they do a great job of speaking for themselves. You can clearly see what each setting used on the video card will get you in terms of gaming performance. Now you can make a more informed decision on what settings you will need to run your game of choice, whether it is overclocked or not.

Synthetic Benchmarks:

3dMark:

FurMark v1.7:

Unigine – Heaven v2.1

Unigine – Tropics v1.3

Unigine: Sanctuary v2.3

Game Benchmarks:

*All tests ran at the applications highest allowable detailed settings*

Alien Breed Evolution:

Battlefield – Bad Company 2:

Call of Juarez:

Champions Online:

Company of Heroes:

Warhammer – Dawn of War II:

Devil May Cry 4:

Dirt 2:

Far Cry 2:

Final Fantasy XIV:

Fuel:

Tom Clancy’s – Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter:

Just Cause 2:

Mass Effect 2:

Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2:

Risen:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:

1920×1200

1920×1080:

1680×1050:

1600×1200:

Street Fighter IV:

Team Fortress 2:

Wings of Prey:

World in Conflict:

Temperatures:

Computer Case

Tech Station

With the temperature chart above, you can see how good the temperatures really are with this card. Idle temperatures, under all three clock settings, are very low and acceptable for any air-cooled card. The ASUS EAH5870 does a great job at keeping load temperatures in check, even when we raised the voltage on the card, the load temperature only reached 84C with FurMark running. This is a great accomplishment to have a card with this much horsepower not melt everything in sight while running Furmark on the stock cooler. We were quite impressed with just how well the ASUS EAH5870 did in our temperature test.

Power Consumption:

Notice in the test below that this is total system power consumption. We tried our best to push the load as much as possible on the video card and nothing else. We ran FurMark at the highest settings our system would allow. We feel FurMark gives the most reliable readings on GPU load and on how much wattage it puts out without stressing other components in the system too much. (Total consumption measured at outlet.)

With the tests above, you can see just how much wattage you can expect to use during gaming/benchmarking. This should assist you with your PSU shopping and the uncertainties that it always brings. You can now refer to the chart above, and make a better decision on how many watts your PSU will need to be able to deliver. The chart will also give you an idea of what to expect from the much loved energy bill you will get every month. The power consumption of this card is definitely not as much as we were thinking it would be. The 5870 had a very friendly 419w usage, fully loaded and overclocked, with extra voltage added to it. Idle wattage is also quite low, which is nice because we can’t always be gaming, as unfortunate as that may be. Overall, very respective numbers in terms of power consumption for such a powerful card. ATI worked hard on this aspect and it shows.

Fan Noise:

We did not have a decibel meter handy at the time of testing. However, you really don’t need one because there is a definite point where you will start to notice the fan. We have found this line to be at just about the 55% mark.  You will notice, without a doubt, that the fan is working when you crank up the fan to 100%.  There is no way a normal person can sit in the same room for an extended period of time at this speed. It drove us crazy while we ran it for a few tests, and that was only for about 10 minutes. Maybe some people like the sound of a jet engine coming from their case, however, we could certainly do without it. Suffice it to say that you will not want to leave the fan running at 100% for extended periods of time, but for short benching runs it should be tolerable. The good thing about this card is that with the overall cool temperatures that the card produces, you will rarely, if ever, have to hear the fan noise much over 60%. For this, we are grateful to ASUS/ATI and the cooling solution they have provided.

Conclusion:

Overall, the ASUS EAH5870 did a great job with everything we tested it with. It took graphically demanding games and pulled up a lawn chair, sat back, laughed at them, and asked for more. The 5870 kept all the minimum FPS at a playable level at all times. We feel the minimum FPS is one statistic overlooked in gaming and other benchmarks and this is why we provide minimum, maximum, and average FPS for all to see. Average FPS alone can be very misleading, so we make the extra effort to show you everything we can. Overclocking the card was easy, as we have come to expect from ASUS and their great bundled tweaking software. Once they update the interface of the software, we will be sure to shut up about the Windows 95 look of it.

Temperatures of the 5870 were better than expected. We were thinking a card with this much power/performance would crank out a lot of heat. The 82C max temperature we saw with Furmark was a pleasant surprise. As most people will not ever see this temperature, unless possibly while benchmarking, this is great news. The fan, however, is still loud once the card gets hot and the fan gets above 60% speed. This is not a big concern, as explained above, as it would only get to that point during benching.

Our final thought? We would not think twice about recommending this card to any of our friends. The ASUS EAH5870 is a great performing card! For the price, you cannot go wrong and we would be hard pressed to find any competition for it in this range. ASUS has a winner on their hands with the EAH5870, and it will definitely be a card to reckon with for a long time to come.

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 has earned the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!







You can find the ASUS EAH5870 V2 currently on sale at NewEgg for $389.99 (after MIR).

Thank you to ASUS for the review sample.

ATI 5870+5850 CrossFireX

I’ve been playing around with two mismatched GPU’s in CrossFireX. Namely a reference model HD5870 from Asus and a custom PCB HD5850 from XFX. Perhaps not the most common setup, as most would much rather go for two identical cards. But if you happen to stumble upon the odd card, then why not give it a try, right?

Hardware & Software

Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T BE
Kingston HyperX LoVo 1866 MHz 2×2Gb
Asus ATI Radeon HD5870 1Gb and XFX ATI Radeon HD5850 1Gb
Chieftec 1200G-DF

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
Catalyst 10.6 + 10.6 CFX profiles

System settings remained the same for all runs.

Asus HD5870 to the left and XFX HD5850 to the right.

Below you’ll find a few game runs together with 3DM06 and Heaven Benchmark. For the game benchmarks I used Fraps to record 30 seconds worth of data (MIN, MAX and AVG FPS) while navigating a set route in-game. The average values where then calculated from multiple runs, which is shown in the charts. I included the results from a single HD5870 as well, for reference.

Battlefield Bad Company 2
Single player level Upriver
1920×1200 / DX11 / Max quality / 4x MSAA / 16x AF / HBAO

Half Life 2
Single player level Water Hazard
1920×1200 / DX9 / Max quality / 8x MSAA / 16x AF

Left 4 Dead 2
Single player campaign The Passing, chapter 3: Port
1920×1200 / DX9 / Max quality / 8x MSAA / 16x AF

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Single player campaign, indoor and outdoor environments in Pripyat.
1920×1200 / DX11 / Max quality / 4x MSAA / 16x AF

3D Mark 06
Default settings
ATI HD5870

ATI HD5870 + HD5850 CrossFireX

Heaven Benchmark 2.0
1920×1200 / DX11 / High Shaders / Normal Tessellation / 4x AF
ATI HD5870

ATI HD5870 + HD5850 CrossFireX

Final Thoughts?

Visible gains in all tested games and benchmarks, so no doubt its a viable option running mixed cards. But would have been interesting to see how this setup would stack up against two 5850’s. I’d still recommend running matched cards where possible. But as mentioned at the top, if you happen to have an extra card just lying there collecting dust or get the chance to get one real cheap, then go for it!

Packaging:

The ASUS ENGTX 480:

Specifications and Features:

Specifications:

• Graphics Engine NVIDIA GeForce GTX480
• Bus Standard PCI Express 2.0
• Video Memory GDDR5 1536MB
• Engine Clock 700 MHz
• Shader Clock 1401 MHz
• Memory Clock 3696 MHz ( 924 MHz DDR5 )
• RAMDAC 400MHz
• Memory Interface 384-bit
• D-Sub Max Resolution 2048 x 1536
• DVI Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
• D-Sub Output Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adaptor x 1 )
• DVI Output Yes x 2 (DVI-I)
• HDMI Output Yes x 1
• HDCP Support Yes
• Adapter/Cable Bundled 1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
• Software Bundled ASUS Utilities & Driver
• Design Garage&Supersonic Sled
• Note The card size is 11” x 5.5” inch

Features:

• NVIDIA PhysX™ ready
• Microsoft® DirectX® 11 Support - Bring new levels of visual realism to gaming on the PC and get top-notch performance
• Microsoft® Windows® 7 Ready - Enable PC users to enjoy an advanced computing experience and to do more with their PC
• SLI Support - Multi-GPU technology for extreme performance ode
• Take Your Game Beyond HD -Dual-link DVI able to drive the industry’s largest & highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560×1600

Test system:

Overclocking Software and Results:

ASUS SmartDoctor Overclocking Software:

ASUS SmartDoctor is included as one of the utilities on your ASUS driver CD. Once installed and running, you will be greeted with the above screen. This is where you can tweak the voltage on the card. You will also be able to change your core speed and memory from this area as well. Our one complaint with the software is the GUI. It looks so 90’s compared to other software on the market that does the same thing. We think the GUI could use a nice revamping to give it a better and more up to date look.

In the ‘Settings’ area of SmartDoctor you can see two different sections. The Fan Control section is very easy to customize and will let you set how fast your want your fan running at certain specific temperatures. This is a very simple way to tweak the fan settings to get the most out of your card. The other screenshot (right) let’s you put alarm settings on your video card’s temperatures. This may help keep your mind at ease during long gaming sessions.

Overclocking:

Overclocking the ASUS GTX480 was actually very simple. After a few minutes of tinkering with the card, we finally got our max overclock of 852MHz core and 3696MHz memory (stock) with 1.138v. We are pretty sure the card has a lot more to give. However, without being able to get the temperatures under control on air, we could not go any further. With a 859MHz core clock we saw artifacts and reached a whopping 102C. If we were able to put the card under water, we are pretty sure we could squeeze a little more out of it. One thing we did notice, in the picture (below), every time we tried to overclock the memory, even the slightest bit, we would get this error. With this error message, it made the memory impossible to push any further than it already was. This is a little disappointing, but what can you do?

Overclocked Game Benchmarks:

3dMark:

Battlefield – Bad Company 2:

Stock

CPU @ 4GHz // GPU @ 852/3696

World In Conflict:

Stock

CPU @ 4GHz // GPU @ 852/3696

We will let our charts do most of the talking, however we would like to point out one thing from the charts above. As you can see in the Bad Company 2 comparison, it increased minimum FPS from as little as 4 to as high as 21 FPS. These are huge gains, we feel, as minimum FPS is where you will see all of your lag and stuttering. If these numbers are high, like they are in Bad Company 2, it will severely limit the lag/stuttering in your game play which will make your gaming a much more enjoyable experience.

Synthetic Benchmarks:

3dMark:

FurMark:

Unigine – Heaven V2.1

Unigine – Tropics V1.3

Unigine – Sanctuary V2.3

Game Benchmarks:

*All tests ran at the applications highest allowable detailed settings*

Alien Breed – Evolution

Battlefield – Bad Company 2

Call of Juarez:

Champions Online

Company of Heroes:

Warhammer 40K – Dawn of War II:

Devil May Cry 4:

Dirt 2:

Far Cry 2:

Final Fantasy XIV:

Fuel:

Global Agenda:

Tom Clancy’s – Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter:

Grid:

Just Cause 2:

Mass Effect 2:

Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2:

Operation Flashpoint 2 – Dragon Rising:

Risen:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:

1920x1200

1920x1080

1680x1050

1600x1200

Street Fight IV:

Team Fortress 2:

Wings of Prey:

World In Conflict:

Temperatures:

The testing conditions were as follows.

• Ambient Room Temp: 27-28C
• Ambient checked before and after tests.
• Card left idle at test settings for 20 minutes to get back to idle temperature.
• Tested on both our tech station and inside a computer case.
• Load temperatures checked with FurMark and Bad Comapny 2

Tech Station

Computer Case

With the charts above, you should notice two things right away. The temperatures from the tech station to the computer case were almost exactly the same. Once extra volts are applied to achieve a higher overclock, the card starts producing unbearable heat. It heated up our lab noticeably in about 15 minutes of just running the overclocked tests that you saw above. With the card reaching 99-100C fully overclocked, it can be safely said that it is the hottest card we have ever tested! Playing a game with this card is not too bad, however if you play games for extended periods of time while overclocked, it will most likely become unbearably hot in the room. Trust us! We would highly recommend water cooling or other high-end aftermarket cooling for this card if you plan to overclock it. With that said, as long as you run it at stock settings, the card seems to keep the temperature at a very respectable level.

Power Consumption:

Notice in the test below that this is total power consumption. We tried our best to push the load as much as possible on the video card and nothing else. We ran FurMark at the highest settings our system would allow. We feel FurMark gives the most reliable readings on GPU load and on how much wattage it puts out without stressing other components in the system too much. (Total consumption measured at outlet.)

With the tests above, you can see just how much wattage you can expect to use during gaming/benchmarking. This should assist you with your PSU shopping and the uncertainties that it always brings. You can now refer to the chart above and make a better decision on how many watts your PSU needs to be able to deliver. The chart will also give you an idea of what to expect from the much loved energy bill you get every month. As you may have noticed with stock settings, the load is not too high at 442w. The shocker here is what we ran into when we had the card fully overclocked and fully loaded.  This beast eats through 682w of raw power!  You should have seen our jaws drop when we saw it hit 682w! Such a leap in power consumption was not expected, but that appears to be the nature of the Fermi architecture.

Fan Noise:

One of the main areas in which high performance GPU’s have issues is the noise created from the fans trying to keep the GPU cool. Once again, this is sadly the case for the GTX 480.  However, a bright spot in this negative aspect is that the fan does not create a high pitch squeal/scream like some of the other cards we have tested. Though it is loud and rather obnoxious when it hits high speeds. We will stick with our opinion, previously stated in other reviews, that a single fan cannot adequately cool a monster card like the GTX 480, nor will it ever be quiet at high speeds. Multi-fan solutions seem to be the best way to go from what we have seen/tested. We will say that the fan does a great job of cooling and keeping the noise level under control the majority of the time and especially when at stock speeds. A gaming session, unfortunately, will bring out the sometimes obnoxious noise that the single fan creates. You can get around this to a certain extent by running the card at stock settings.

Conclusion:

Overall, the ASUS ENGTX 480 did an amazing job! It took everything we threw at it, chewed it up and gave us an outstanding performance in the games that we tested it with. We are keen on minimum FPS, as we feel this is one of the most important parts of gaming. The GTX 480 kept the minimum FPS levels at a very respectable and playable level in all of the games tested. This is a big plus because while others may be hitting a lag spike here and there, you are not! We figured there might be a game or two that would give this card some problems, but frankly we were wrong. Even when we tested every game under maximum allowable settings, the GTX 480 kept on kickin’!

We will have to dock the card some points however, for the extreme fan noise and high temperatures. The fan noise is not too bad and as we said earlier, you can tweak the settings and run the card at stock speeds which should be perfectly fine in regards to the noise levels. We just cannot say the same if you begin to overclock the card, and you will definitely need a water cooling setup to keep your sanity. Really though, the major concern we have with the card is the outrageous overclocked temperatures (100C… really?). These cards have not been on the market long enough to find out just how such heat will effect the card over the long term. So, if they can handle the heat and last for years and years, then more power to them, but only time will tell on that. We would also like to point out that when the card runs at stock settings, we have no gripe with the temperatures and this is how the consumer should look at the card.

Having said all this, we would not hesitate to recommend this beast to our friends. The voltage tweak is a great tool and comes in very handy to get the most out of this card that you can. The temperature issues when overclocking can be easily solved by using aftermarket cooling, which most enthusiasts purchasing this card will want to do anyway. The performance of the ASUS ENGTX480 is impressive! It can take on any game on the market and asks for more! This is huge for us because there are some amazing games out there now and after this year’s E3, we know they are many many more to come. This is one card you can’t go wrong with from a performance standpoint.

The ASUS GeForce ENGTX480 receives the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!

Thank you to ASUS for the review sample! You can find this card at most any online retailer, including NewEgg!

So what is really needed for minor work such as converting your video collection to digital format?

A computer meeting the minimum standards of your capture device, the capture device, DVD+/-RW and an external HDD (if you want to carry your movies with you).

The components used for this article were the ASUS N270 NetBook, ADS DVD-ExpressDX2, a Lite-On external DVD-RW and a WD 500GB External HDD. This setup is affordable, extremely portable and flexible.

Working with home videos may necessitate a higher end device and better than bundled software, this example is great for the basics only.

Capturing movies will take some time. The included software may not have a timer option and therefore it may be necessary to be present to stop the video and recording manually.

Below are pictures of the setup and the  process of simple video capture and DVD creation with the included Cap Wiz utility.

First, all hardware needs to be brought together and hooked up.

Decide what unit will be used for working with the capture and begin hooking everything up to it.

Hook up the capture device.

Probably most important, hook up the output device. Here a PSP UMD disk is being converted to DVD format. This is also great for putting downloaded digital content on to DVD.

This NetBook has no DVD drive, necessitating the use for an external unit. An external HDD is also a great addition for moving media to your HTPC or other media device.

Next, go with the flow. The process is fairly simple and all of the tasks are pretty straight forward as far as getting content on the disk.

The initial screen allows setting of the regional video standard.

Next indicate what type of input will be used.

Choosing the destination for the capture is next. You will need to name the file and, if not burning direct to disk, you will need to choose a location for the file.

Probably one of the better features of these types of devices is the ability to save to various formats.

After the initial setup, power up the device that will be outputting original content. You do not begin to play the content, though the directions for the unit say otherwise.

This is the capture screen for the software. From this screen, access to captured videos is available and burning them to disc is also an option. Here the preview is used to access the device output and then one can start to play and record content.

One of the tools of this software is a brightness control that can be very helpful with older videos.

With the direct to disk pop-up, first choose the format and then the location for the file to be burned.

On the final Direct to Disk screen, the name of the movie and chapter length are set, as well as an option for recording time if the exact length of the video is known.

That is about it. Though hardware and the bundled software vary, most stick to basics in line with what is above. If you want to get your movies off of the VHS and more… then this is the only way to do it without breaking the bank. Just remember, if you are a novice you should read plenty of reviews and tailor your purchase to your needs. Many retailers have user reviews of the products that can be very helpful. Just remember, even when a product gets some bad reviews, that does not necessarily indicate that there is something wrong with the product. It is usually a user error…like the user not reading the manual. I always read the manuals as a last resort.

The features of the DX2 capture device are:

Effortlessly Save & Share Memories on DVD or CD
Transfer video from VHS tapes, digital or analog camcorders directly
to DVD or CD*
Real-Time hardware conversion produces the best DVD quality results
Make Movies for your Sony PSP, Apple iPod or Zen Vision!

Features
Capture audio and video via the USB port to your computer hard drive or “Direct to Disc” (C6666D or DVD disc)
Capture video directly to popular video formats; DVD (MPEG-2), SVCD, VCD (MPEG-1), MPEG-4.
Capture directly to Sony PSP video and Apple iPod video formats
Use the Included CapWiz application for easy video capture direct to your desired video compression format
Record to your computer hard drive or “Direct to Disc”
Exclusive Hardware Encoding chip inside DVD Xpress creates the highest quality video without putting extra strain on your PC

The DX2 is available here.

Some of the features of the bundled software (Ulead VideoStudio™ 9 SE DVD) are:
Features and Benefits
• Movie Wizard is ideal for users new to video editing. Select from 30+ theme styles to get started then let auto-editing make the first edits. Have complete movies with only three steps. Use the new auto pan & zoom to help create entertaining photo slideshows.
• VideoStudio Editor is complete with all the powerful tools needed to produce great-looking home movies while using an intuitive, step-by-step workflow. Spend time being creative rather than learning the program.

Full product description: http://www.ulead.com/events/ati/UVS9_FB_SE_DVD_062405.pdf

This is an older version and newer versions usually have more features. I wont complain as it was a bundle.

Do realize that this is a low end model and it is all that I needed. The prices and features are varied as is the bundled software. I would advise reading reviews and comparing features so that you get the device that best meets your needs.

Just as a little side note: Why do I use a NetBook? Portability! I have kids and when we travel, movies keep them happy. With a 160GB HDD, that is a lot of content to keep them happy. Sure you can buy one of those All-in-one 10 inch portable DVD players for $179, but compared to $249 for the netbook (that will allow you to watch streaming content in the hotel, check your e-mail, update your social networking site and the like, in addition to watching stored movies); I just see the DVD player as a waste of money.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/26/guide-converting-your-vhs-collection-to-digital-and-a-little-more/feed/ 0 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/20/ddr3-2022mhz-pfft-cas-6-wow-amd-no-way/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ddr3-2022mhz-pfft-cas-6-wow-amd-no-way http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/20/ddr3-2022mhz-pfft-cas-6-wow-amd-no-way/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 21:33:09 +0000 EnJoY http://www.techreaction.net/?p=6684 Chew* does it again!  There I am, waiting for my eyes to bleed as I sit in my cubicle, and suddenly my old pal Chew* delivers this little gem.  Apparently Brian has been very busy tweaking his Corsair GTX2’s on Asus’s new Crosshair IV Formula.  While playing around with timings and ganged mode, Chew* was able to get his Corsair GTX2 2250MHz C8 sticks all the way to 2022MHz at CAS 6 with just 1.725v!

Additional important specs include an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, air cooling on everything and a controlled room temp of 22c (72F).  The full timings were a tight 6-7-6-18-11 1T – Ganged.

These new AMD Phenom II x6 processors arrived with an improved Integrated Memory Controller which has allowed Brian and other top overclockers to really crank up the speeds on their memory over previous AMD platforms.

So you may be wondering, were these speeds at all stable with these timings and voltages?  The answer is, good enough for 32m. 

It’s always exciting seeing what the pros can do with new silicon and right now you don’t see too many people doing these speeds at these timings on AMD, even in ganged mode.  As usual, I’m sure there will be more where this came from.

The difference between the bottom two models in the 890 FX line up is the missing support for USB 3.0. The chipsets and all the other features remain the same. The board comes with a brown PCB with the various ports on the board being a mixture of black, dark blue and light blue. While the overall look is fine, the brown PCB kind of kills it for me.

The board has a pretty good layout with dual 16x PCIE slots in addition to four other expansion slots. The space between the two PCIE slots is more than enough to handle dual slot cards and will run them both with 16 lanes each. Now for most of us, two slots is more than enough, and three or more slots will normally be used only when benching. The memory slots are now alternating, which means that memory with larger heat sinks will fit comfortably, but it also means that one of the memory sticks is going to sit beneath most of the larger CPU heat sinks. There are three buttons on board for the Core Unlocker, Mem Ok and the Turbo Key, but the quality and finish of these switches leave a lot to be desired. I would rather have push button switches than these. The board boasts of a 6+2 phase design, and from our initial testing, the design seems to be doing a great job.

The various chipsets and VRM’s are cooled by aluminum heat sinks and Asus has done away with the heat pipe for this version. They have also followed MSI’s design idea of keeping the 890 chipset and the power phases under a single heat sink on the left of the CPU area. This allows them more space for expansion slots.

Coming to the bottom of the board, we see the IDE ports, which really don’t make sense any more unless you’re doing some hard core benching and still use an IDE hard drive, as well as 6 SATA III 6 Gbps ports. My only grouse with this is the upturned SATA ports, which tend to interfere with the second GPU slot when it is populated. A 90 degree port setup would be more convenient.

Overall, there are a few things that tend to be out of place on an 890FX board and I have listed them above.
Other than that, I am quite happy with the board on the whole, taking into consideration that this is the budget board of the line up and therefore some of the fancy specifications must take a back seat.

I will be testing the board with the following setup:

AMD 965 BE C3
Memory: Team Xtreem LV 2000 Mhz CL9 @ 1846 CL 8-8-7 1T
Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
Motherboard: Asus M4A89TD PRO
Thermalright Venomous X
Coolermaster Storm Sniper Case
Coolermaster Silent Power 700W

We will run through a couple of tests in this blog and I will add a few more if required or requested in the next part.

So let’s start off with some Super Pi runs, just to see the performance of the memory. None of these clocks are at the absolute limit of the board or the chip, but more of an indication on the memory being used and the potential of this board. I must add that the bios seems to be working well with my 965 BE and I did not have a single issue on this front after the initial tuning. Unlike the MSI that I use everyday, the Asus board also has a much better recovery feature that does not need the constant use of a clear CMOS button every time we load a rather heavy overclock. Much appreciated Asus.

Please keep in mind that all of these benches are on air, on a normal install of Windows 7 32bit, without any tweaks.

Super Pi 1 M:

Super Pi 32 M:

As you can see, the memory timings and speed is not bad for the money. The G.Skill’s can barely reach this speed and timing with their 1600 CL7 kit and the same board. For anyone looking for budget ram with decent clocks this is it. I was not able to go above 1800 with slightly lower timings on my MSI GD70, so this shows that the 890FX chipset does add a bit to the memory speeds and timings. With an X6, the speeds and timings could improve even further with their improved IMC.

Wprime:

Cinebench:

The Cinebench score is no surprise here and of course would improve under a 64 bit operating system.

Let’s move on to the max HTT clocks that we can get with this board. I started with 300 HTT, so let’s take it from there:

300 HTT:

330HTT:

340HTT:

Well, that was the maximum I could reach for now, but I will continue testing to see if there is a hole in the HTT clocking. I’ve been seeing people hitting speeds higher than these, so as I said I will continue to push the board and report back. This is it for now and please do let me know if you would like to see some more benches and of what type.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

Welcome to the performance review of the new 890FX chipset and more specifically, the Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard.

We have already done an extensive pictorial preview of the board and today we are going to concentrate more on the performance of this board. We are going to compare the board to the MSI GD 70 790FX board. As many of you know, the MSI GD70 was one of the best 790FX based boards and was regularly considered amongst the big boys.

The main focus of this review is to take both of these boards and put them through a series of tests to figure out whether or not the 890FX offers any measurable performance advantages over the 790FX.

The tests that we will be reviewing with today are as follows:

1. 3D Mark 06
2. 3D Mark Vantage
3. PC Mark Vantage
4. Crystal Mark
5. Everest Memory Tests

Apart from this we will also take a look at the overclocking potential of this board.

The test bench for this review will be:

AMD 965 BE @ 3.4Ghz (1.25V) and 4.0Ghz (1.525V)]
Memory: OCZ 1600Mhz Platinum @ 1333Mhz 1.65V
Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
Motherboards: Asys Crosshair IV Formula 890FX, MSI GD70 790FX
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Venomous X

So without ado, let’s head in to the first of our tests.

3DMark 06

We’ll kick things off with 3D Mark 06. 3D Mark 06 is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX9 performance of your graphics card.

A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system’s 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers, you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.

Let’s first take a look at the benchmark at stock settings and then move on to the overclocked settings.

As we can see from the chart above, both of the boards are fairly similar in performance and none of them beats the other by a large margin in any of the three tests. Let’s take a look at the overclocked settings.

With the overclocks in place, the Asus Crosshair IV beats the MSI by around 4% in the final score, taking a huge advantage in the graphics tests.

Moving on to the next set of tests…

3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. 3DMark is widely used by the PC industry, press and media as well as individual users and gamers, for comparing performance levels between whole systems or even specific components.

Lets start off with the stock settings again.

The difference between the two boards is again negligible. This is to be expected as the CPU and GPU are a constant in these tests and we are only trying to see if the implementation is better in any one of these boards. Moving on to the overclocked settings, we can see that the Asus again has the upper hand, but by a margin of around 2%.

Lets now move on to the third of our tests, PC Mark Vantage.

PC Mark Vantage

PC Mark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts. A PC Mark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.

From desktops and laptops, to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PC Mark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.

For the tests going ahead, we took only the stock settings into account, as we did not find a significant difference between the two boards with overclocked settings.

Again the Asus is just a small step ahead of the MSI and the difference can actually be put down to changes in the setup environment. There is practically no difference in scores between the two boards. The Asus takes the lead in the gaming, music and productivity suits, while the MSI manages to win on the other four.

Moving on we come to our second to last test for the day, Everest Ultimate Edition.

Everest Memory Benchmarks

EVEREST Ultimate Edition is a complete PC diagnostics software utility that assists you while installing, optimizing or troubleshooting your computer by providing all of the information you can think of about your system – from hardware devices and installed drivers, to operating system security and stability metrics.

More than just system information, EVEREST also offers comprehensive benchmarking and hardware monitoring capabilities with real-time reporting.

Let’s take a quick look at the results.

Again, the difference between the two boards is minimal. The Asus takes the read and copy rounds, while the MSI makes up by getting slightly better scores in the latency and write tests.

So for the first time I am at the last test of the session, with absolutely no clear winner in sight.

CrystalMark 2004 R3

CrystalMark is a benchmarking suite that tests each and every component of the system. The benchmark works to give a comprehensive view of the system performance on every front. Let’s take a quick look at the scores here.

The Asus Crosshair IV manages to narrowly beat the GD 70, but the difference again is around 2.4%.

Taking into account all the testing we have done at various levels, the stock or overclocked performance does not differ between the two boards. This was to be expected, taking into account that other than the board, the rest of the core components remained the same. Over a period of time, better BIOS’s may help to improve the overall performance of the chipset, but as of now, the difference is negligible.

Overclocking

At the end of all that testing, it was time to take the gloves off and work on some overclocking. We started off with the best boot into windows that we could achieve, while concentrating only on the CPU clocks. What we managed to achieve was a boot of 4.2 Ghz. This was pretty much the limit that we got from here on and it was very stable. We managed to run a couple of benchmarks and also play a half hour of games before we had to give up due to the CPU heating up. You must remember that we are currently at around 30C ambient temperatures and to keep the CPU cool at those voltages and clocks on air cooling is next to impossible.

We then started off with bus clocking. Now a lot of you may wonder why we looked at this aspect, especially since a lot of the AMD line up is made up of BE processors with unlocked multipliers. The reason we did this test was to see if we could overclock a processor like the 1050T (which by the way costs somewhere in the region of $200) significantly, only using the HT bus. Overclocking the HTT is also a good way to see how good the implementation of software and hardware is on a board. I could not go above 285MHz with my MSI GD70 and the same setup, so I started off with an HTT frequency of 286MHz on the Crosshair to kick things off. To test stability, we ran IBT for ten runs with each jump in HTT speed.

Moving on to 300.

Going for more at 325.

At this point I tried for 350, but unfortunately that was a no go. I hope bios improvements will help this board to reach even better HTT clocks. The best that we could get with stability was an HTT speed of 335MHz. Impressive!

I would also like to add that this board was a breeze to overclock with and it comes with a lot of features to help. The clear CMOS button on the rear panel really helps closed-case overclockers like myself. The motherboard itself managed to keep temperatures in check and I did not have any trouble with the NB and PWM area.

The one aspect that really troubled me was the constant shifting of the HTT frequency within the OS, as well as a slight movement in CPU voltages under load. I don’t know if this was because of load line calibration, but I would think that there needs to be some bios updates to keep this in check. The hardware should be more than capable of keeping voltages stable. This also may have just been a glitch in the software that I was reading from.

Photo Gallery

I thought that since this was more of a performance review I would leave the pictures out, but what review is really complete without a lot of pictures? So in the interest of all fellow AMD overclockers, here is a small set of pictures for your enjoyment.

Conclusion

Well, what can I say that we have not already covered in the review? Performance wise, under similar clocks, the 890FX chipset is not going to give you anything extra over the older 790 FX boards. Every single test that we did gave us equal or similar performance results. There was practically no difference between the two boards.

Taking that into account, Crosshair IV does manage to bring a lot to the table. To start with, the package and accessories as a whole is a lot more than we have seen from most high-end performance boards. There is absolutely nothing that has been left out, save the really handy LCD poster. Secondly, the Crosshair IV has the capability to really help with overclocking and that’s exactly why people would want to buy this board. Thirdly and most importantly, the board just looks sexy. I mean, who doesn’t love red and black?

Finally, looking at the pros and cons:

Pros:

• Great bundle as a whole
• Build Quality
• Well laid out BIOS and options
• Overclocking software works well
• Lot’s of new features like the “GO” button and the ROG connect
• Superb looks! (can’t be said enough)
• Lot’s of PWM fan connectors
• Great overclocker!

Cons:

• Does not have any additional performance over the 790FX chipset
• Missing LCD poster
• Voltage and HTT fluctuations

To sum it up, if you are looking for a new AM3 board and like to overclock, then this board has it all. But if you are planning to move up from an existing 790FX board, depending on the current board that you have, you may want to hold off as your upgrade cash may be better spent elsewhere. No question about it though, if you’re in need of a quality board for some extreme overclocking, Asus has it here in spades.

The Asus Crosshair IV Formula 890FX achieves the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!

We will look at retesting this board with a hexacore processor in the near future, and we may see some differences between the two contestants at that time. Thank you for reading!

Asus launched the first of the Republic of Gamers (ROG) series for the AMD platform way back in 2007, calling it the Asus Crosshair for the AM2 platform, which was based on the Nvidia nForce 590 chipset. The second in the series was the Asus Crosshair II Formula, which was based on the Nvidia 780a chipset. The third in the series is the Crosshair III Formula and this time Asus did the smart thing and ditched the Nvidia chipsets. They went ahead with the brand new 790FX chipset and made one of the best overclocking and feature rich boards for the AM3 platform.

The ROG series has always been the top end of the Asus line up of motherboards and the Crosshair III lived up to it’s pedigree. Today, we have the opportunity to take a quick look at Asus Crosshair IV Formula, which is the latest iteration in the legendary series of AMD based ROG boards.

The Crosshair IV is now based on the latest high end 890FX chipset from AMD along with an 850 series southbridge, allowing a total of 32 usable PCI-E lanes, 6 Gbp/s SATA III and USB 3.0 support. Let’s take a quick look at the specifications before going ahead:

Model Name

• ROG Crosshair IV Formula

CPU

• AMD socket AM3 Phenom™ II /Athlon™ X4 /Athlon™ X3 /Athlon™ X2 processors

Chipset

• AMD 890FX/SB850

System bus

• Up to 5200 MT/s HyperTransport™ 3.0

Memory

• 4 x DIMM, dual channel, up to 16GB, DDR3 1866 (OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066MHz
  

Expansion

• 3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (@ dual x16, triple @ x16, x8, x8) with ATI CrossFireX™ technology
• 1 x PCIe 2.0 x4
• 2 x PCI 2.2

Storage

• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10
• 1 x SATA 3Gb/s
• 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s

LAN

• Marvell Gigabit LAN

Audio

• SupremeFX X-Fi 8-channel audio built-in with EAX 4.0 support

USB/ IEEE1394a

• 2 x USB 3.0, 12 x USB 2.0 (7 at back I/O, 5 onboard)
• 2 x 1394a ports (1 at back I/O, 1 onboard)

Software

• Kaspersky antivirus 1 year license

Features

• ROG Connect
• GameFirst
• Core Unlocker
• Turbo Key II
• MemOK!
• CPU Level Up
• SupremeFX X-Fi built-in
• Extreme Tweaker
• iROG
• Loadline Calibration
• Voltiminder LED

Form Factor

• ATX, 12” x 9.6” (30.5cm x 24.4cm)

As you can see, this board comes with all the features that were available on the previous Crosshair series, with a few differences. We will get into that in the next part of our review.

Unboxing

The Asus Crosshair IV Formula comes in a box very similar to almost all the ROG series motherboards. The only difference is the AMD/ATI badges at the bottom.

The rear of the box has a whole list of specifications, along with pictures of the more innovative features of this board.

Once we open the box, we are greeted by two small black boxes, stacked one on top of the other. The first one contains all of the accessories and the second, the board itself. Let’s first take a look at the accessories.

The list of accessories is quite large and consists of everything that you could ever want or need with a new motherboard. They have even included stickers for your SATA drive cables, a large ROG sticker for your cabinet, and a smaller ROG sticker for your case or what have you. They have also included six SATA III cables and they are thankfully black in color. The only thing missing from this accessory list is the LCD screen, which I did miss during my OC session. There is also a white USB connector, which is used for the ROG connect feature.

Now let’s move on to the highlight of this preview and that’s the board itself.

Beautiful right? Asus has changed the colors on this board from Blue/Black to Red/Black and this in my opinion only goes better for all of the AMD/ATI fans around. On to a closer look at some of the features of this board.

A Closer Look

Lets start with the rear connectors first and contrary to expectations, there are a few things worth checking out here.

To start with, we have the usual sets of USB, LAN, 1394 and Audio connectors. What I would like to draw your attention to are the USB 3.0 connectors, marked in blue, the clear CMOS button (it’s extremely helpful in a closed case) and the ROG connect button. The ROG button is a new feature on an AMD board, which basically helps you to monitor and overclock the system using another computer. Now this is quite an interesting idea and Asus did demonstrate this earlier this year, using an Asus Eee PC to overclock an i7 system. The system uses a special USB connector, which is a part of the accessories list.

Moving on to the board, let’s look at the CPU area.

The board uses a single 8 Pin E-ATX connector for power. The PWM area has a beefy heatsink which keeps the 10+2 phase VRM’s cool. You also have the Game First chip, which helps to give priority to your online gaming sessions and maintain a low ping time, even as you use the internet for other tasks.

Moving on, the CPU area remains the same as previous generations, with AMD stubbornly holding on to the same bracket type, which in a way is great news for those who want to carry over their existing cooling setups. The things to look out for are the alternate slot arrangement for memory. AMD boards have had adjacent slots running dual channel for a while now on most boards, but in this board it’s the alternate slots which provide the same feature. Asus has also made it so that the ram slots need only one side to be closed now which makes it a bit easier to install ram.

The second important feature is the “Probe It” points, which will give you accurate and real time information on all the major voltages using a multimeter. The CPU area does look a little cluttered, but I did use a Noctua NH D14 on the board and it cleared everything fine. Ram using tall heatsinks will probably cause a problem however. If you look carefully, you will also notice that Asus has done away with the IDE/Floppy drive connectors and that in my mind is not a bad idea at all.

We can see the NB heatsink in the picture above with the three heatsinks on this board being connected by a heatpipe. This should help to dissipate the heat better than individual heatsinks can, but mostly it’s just for flash. The heatsink does look a bit close to the first PCI-E slot, but it does not interfere with the 5850 that I installed there.

I would have loved to take the heatsinks off to show you the new chips, but that’s not possible at this point in time.

As we get closer to the bottom of the board, we can see the southbridge heatsink as well as the six sata ports. The SB heatsink covers the new 850 series SB chip. There is also a small red “GO” button, which will help to configure your ram for optimal performance settings automatically. Moving along to the bottom, we can see the ROG chips, as well as a bunch of headers for various front panel connectors.

And finally we come to one of the last parts of this preview, the on board buttons area.

The board comes with a total of five on board buttons or switches. We have already seen the first, which is the “GO” switch. The other four are at the bottom of the board and consist of the start, reset, core unlocker and the turbo key. The first two are pretty straight forward. The third switch, which is the core unlocker, is used to unlock hidden cores on AMD chips. Theoretically AMD had disabled the ACC unlocking functionality on the 890 series chipsets, but Asus was able to re-implement this feature on their own.

The last switch is the Turbo Key, which is also a pretty nifty feature to have. The Turbo key helps to overclock the computer while in the OS. You have to set a predefined OC, which is then activated at the press of a button.

A little higher up we see a VIA chip, which is part of the Supreme X-Fi chipset for the audio. This should provide a superior audio solution to what most boards offer with Realtek HD Audio solutions.

Conclusion

This is one good looking board which also brings a lot of the features from the high-end Intel line up to AMD. In the final review we will take a look at various benchmarks as compared to the MSI GD70, which has been one of the top selling, high performing 790FX boards on the market. As of now we have the following list of benchmarks that we will be working on:

1. 3D Mark ‘06
2. 3D Mark Vantage
3. PC Mark Vantage
4. HD Tune Pro
5. Crystalmark
6. Everest Memory and System Benchmarks

And of course we will also be trying to OC the hell out of it.

Overall, this looks and feels like a really solid board, which should work well for both beginners as well as advanced users. There are a lot of features built in and we will be spending a lot of time on benchmarking this board, so do come back for the final review.

Thanks for reading!

The most attractive thing was the Bluetooth IRog module

The I/O section and the bundle are pretty stuffed

The power sections for CPU and RAM are fully enforced

Firstable started some test  on air-cooling to check the capability of Bclock and Ram frequency ( different sets of timing)

let’s see how far is possible to push the RAM

230 bclock and 2300 RAM 3D benchable on air …..not bad right ?