As technology improves, more and more people are opting to purchase laptops for all their gaming needs. Having a laptop means you can game anywhere so it's ideal for people on the move, and it also saves a lot of space in your home. It can be somewhat confusing, game review, when selecting a laptop though, there are so many different features to consider, how do you know what model suits you best?
The first thing you should do is select a price range, game, game review, review, to suit your budget, this will help in narrowing down the options.
You can expect to get a decent gaming laptop for in the region of one thousand dollars. To get a really hi spec laptop, expect to pay closer to two or three thousand dollars. If you are unable to afford anything over eight hundred dollars, then you will struggle to find something capable of playing today's technology hungry games.
The most important thing to consider when choosing a gaming laptop, is the graphics card. Ideally you want something that is at least 512mb, it has to be a dedicated graphics card.
Under no circumstances should you purchase a laptop, game review, with an integrated graphics chip, as this will be no good for gaming.
Second, game review, is the processor, ideally you want a 2ghz or faster dual core, game review, processor. This will govern the performance and speed of your laptop, the higher the ghz the better. You will normally have to choose between intel and athlon, game review, . Both are very similar to don't worry about one being better than the other, just ensure the speed is good.
You should also consider how much ram the laptop has, aim for at least three gigs of ram. This will determine how smoothly the game runs along with the graphics card.
Other considerations should be the size of the hard disk, quality of screen, and the sound card. Aim for at least 300gb in the hard drive, as games take up a lot of space. The screen should ideally be a high def lcd screen, the higher the definition, game review, the better. Most laptops now will have adequate screens so if you are on a budget don't worry too much about this.
One more thing to consider when buying the laptop is the weight and heat. If you are going to, game review, carry it around a lot, you will want something less than 3kg, some gaming laptops can be up,, game review, game review, to 5kg in, game review, weight. They can also produce a lot of heat, so you should read user reviews online to see what the heat production is like, particularly after a session of gaming.
If you follow these basic outlines,, game review, you should find purchasing a gaming laptop a lot simpler.
Showing posts with label graphics card. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graphics card. Show all posts
2010/03/25
2010/02/02
Review of AMD ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB Graphics Card
INTRODUCTION
The first member of the Evergreen family hit the market back in September, game review, (2009). AMD has since then not said much about what would follow.
AMD chose, game review, to release the 5670 card at last week's CES 2010 event. The 5600 series chip is called Redwood and currently only includes the Radeon HD 5650 and 5670 chips. The 5600 series is clearly directed to the mid range segment of the market as illustrated in AMD's release strategy below. AMD has release two versions of the HD 5670 card, one with 1GB GDDR5 and another with 512MB GDDR5.
This review covers the latter one.
The 5600 series adopts the technologies of its big brothers, game review, like ATI Stream and, game review, ATI Eyefinity. Here are AMD's own words about their new, game review, "ATI, game review, Stream" technology:
ATI Stream technology, game review, is a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPUs), working in concert with the system's central processors (CPUs), to accelerate enabled applications beyond traditional graphics and video processing.
This enables balanced platforms to run computationally-intensive, game review, tasks more efficiently, providing a better application experience to the end user. The 5600 series also has full support for Microsoft's DirectX11 API. I guess most people, game review, buying a graphics card in the middle range segment don't really know what the big deal is but anyone interested in the GPU industry knows that if you want to see the latest innovations in gaming you want to be on the latest DirectX train.
ENGINEERING SPECIFICATIONS
The test sample I will be reviewing today is a generic AMD ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5. It is a pre production unit which AMD sends out to selected publications before other outfitters' versions hit the store shelves. I am actually a bit late out with my review, but hey, what's the hurry anyway?
Here are the specifications for the HD5670 512MB GDDR5:
AMD, game review, ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB GDDR5 GPU Redwood (Radeon HD 5670) Transistors 627 Ms, game review, GPU Speed 775 MHz Stream processors 400 Performance calculation 620GFLOPS Texture units 20 Texture fill rate 25.
2 GTexels/s ROPs 16 Pixel fill rate 6.2 Gpixel/s Z/Stencil 24.8 GSamples/s Type of memory GDDR5 Speed of memory 1000 MHZ Amount of memory 515MB Bandwidth of memory 64 GB/s Bus width 128-bit Consumption Normal (61W)/IDLE (14W)
IN DETAIL:
I'm not going to spend too much time rambling about what the card looks like since most outfitters will be mounting their own cooling solutions. In, game review, short however, the card has a one slot cooler which is great and expected with a middle range card.
The card is manufactured with a 40nm technology which is great since it will increase its, game review, energy efficiency and decrease the generated heat in relation to performance.
A good thing about the fact that this card is fairly small and thin is that it fits in smaller cases suitable for HTPC and media PC projects. The length of the Radeon HD 5670 is 170mm.
The card has no PCI- Express power connector which should be considered as something positive I guess. It means that the card will never draw more power than what the PCI-Express bus can handle, game review, .
The 5670 generic card has 3 connectors; a Display Port; a HDMI and a, game review, DVI, game review, connector. It supports the "ATI Eyefinity" technology which means you can use monitors on each connector, game review, simultaneously. The HMDI connector support s HDMI 1.3a which means, game review, full support for Dolby True, game review, HD and DTS Audio Masters, game review, .
TEST SYSTEM I used my normal test system for this review, here are the specs:
Test equipment Processor Intel Core i7 920 Fan Prolimatech Mega Shadow Motherboard Asus Rampage II Gene Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 Soundcard Integrated Memory 3, game review, x2 GB GSkill Trident 1600 MHZ (6-7-6-18) Hard disk Intel X25-M G2 Postville 80 GB Power supply Corsair HX850W
Operating system and software Operating system Windows 7 64bits System dirvers Controller 8.
69_RC3 (BETA) DirectX August 2009 Benchmarking software 3D Mark 06 3D Mark Vantage Furmark 1.7 Unigyne Heaven Benchmark Games The Last Remnant Street Fighter IV Resident Evil 5 Weak May Cry 4 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Prypiat DIRT 2 Far Cry 2 Crysis Warhead Other software CPU-Z 1.49 GPU-Z 0.3.7 OCCT 3.1
During my test I set the in-game graphics settings to the highest quality. I set the filter settings to "medium" because of the fact that this card is not intended for people who "must" have the filter settings to max.
For those of you who are not too familiar of how to measure the performance of a graphics card, here's a table with frame rate numbers, game review, and what they actually mean in real life gaming experience:
FPS (Frames per second) FPS lower than 30 Not a good gaming experience 30 - 40 FPS OK but not good gaming experience 40 - 60 FPS Good gaming experience Higher than 60 FPS Excellent gaming experience
I always do the tests with the benchmarking software first because it often gives a glint of the overall performance of the card.
In this case the results tell me that the performance of this card is a bit above, game review, what I had expected from a medium range card in the new AMD generation.
As a comparison a Nvidia GT 240 GDDR5, game review, card I have tested in the same system obtained around 7000 points in 3DMark, game review, 2006 and in my last, game review, review of a GT220 card (a card more towards the lower end segment) it achieved 6700 points. The Radeon HD5670 card came in at 11700 points which exceeds the NVIDIA cards by quite a lot.
As I have experienced with all the DirectX11 compatible cards I have reviewed, the performance diminishes with the jump from DirectX10 to DirectX11. This is strange because "higher performance" is one of the major selling points with the new API, game review, from Microsoft.
The Radeon HD 5670 actually turns out to be even more powerful in the first batch of games that I had expected based on the results achieved in the benchmarking tests. I was actually somewhat surprised that this medium range card, at a price level below $100, could move these games with great fluidity.
Games like The Last Remnant, Street Fighter IV and Devil May Cry 4 actually ran really, game review, well no matter what level of graphics quality setting, resolution or filter I set. Even Resident Evil 5 ran OK
A strange thing about the results above is the case of the games STALKER:, game review, Clear Sky and STALKER: Call of Prypiat. The first one uses DirectX10 and the second DirectX11. STALKER Clear Sky (DX10) offers a very limited, game review, gaming experience while STALKER: Call of Prypiat (DX11) has much better results.
I mean, those games are part, game review, of the same series. It raises questions like: is DirectX11 more efficient than DirectX10 after all? Or; do these two games have different 3D motors? I am afraid I cannot answer those questions for you, just thought that I'd bring it to your awareness.
There are however clearly two games, game review, in this batch which this card cannot handle; Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead. The performance, game review, of the Radeon HD 5670 in Far Cry 2 at a resolution of 1680
The first member of the Evergreen family hit the market back in September, game review, (2009). AMD has since then not said much about what would follow.
AMD chose, game review, to release the 5670 card at last week's CES 2010 event. The 5600 series chip is called Redwood and currently only includes the Radeon HD 5650 and 5670 chips. The 5600 series is clearly directed to the mid range segment of the market as illustrated in AMD's release strategy below. AMD has release two versions of the HD 5670 card, one with 1GB GDDR5 and another with 512MB GDDR5.
This review covers the latter one.
The 5600 series adopts the technologies of its big brothers, game review, like ATI Stream and, game review, ATI Eyefinity. Here are AMD's own words about their new, game review, "ATI, game review, Stream" technology:
ATI Stream technology, game review, is a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPUs), working in concert with the system's central processors (CPUs), to accelerate enabled applications beyond traditional graphics and video processing.
This enables balanced platforms to run computationally-intensive, game review, tasks more efficiently, providing a better application experience to the end user. The 5600 series also has full support for Microsoft's DirectX11 API. I guess most people, game review, buying a graphics card in the middle range segment don't really know what the big deal is but anyone interested in the GPU industry knows that if you want to see the latest innovations in gaming you want to be on the latest DirectX train.
ENGINEERING SPECIFICATIONS
The test sample I will be reviewing today is a generic AMD ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5. It is a pre production unit which AMD sends out to selected publications before other outfitters' versions hit the store shelves. I am actually a bit late out with my review, but hey, what's the hurry anyway?
Here are the specifications for the HD5670 512MB GDDR5:
AMD, game review, ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB GDDR5 GPU Redwood (Radeon HD 5670) Transistors 627 Ms, game review, GPU Speed 775 MHz Stream processors 400 Performance calculation 620GFLOPS Texture units 20 Texture fill rate 25.
2 GTexels/s ROPs 16 Pixel fill rate 6.2 Gpixel/s Z/Stencil 24.8 GSamples/s Type of memory GDDR5 Speed of memory 1000 MHZ Amount of memory 515MB Bandwidth of memory 64 GB/s Bus width 128-bit Consumption Normal (61W)/IDLE (14W)
IN DETAIL:
I'm not going to spend too much time rambling about what the card looks like since most outfitters will be mounting their own cooling solutions. In, game review, short however, the card has a one slot cooler which is great and expected with a middle range card.
The card is manufactured with a 40nm technology which is great since it will increase its, game review, energy efficiency and decrease the generated heat in relation to performance.
A good thing about the fact that this card is fairly small and thin is that it fits in smaller cases suitable for HTPC and media PC projects. The length of the Radeon HD 5670 is 170mm.
The card has no PCI- Express power connector which should be considered as something positive I guess. It means that the card will never draw more power than what the PCI-Express bus can handle, game review, .
The 5670 generic card has 3 connectors; a Display Port; a HDMI and a, game review, DVI, game review, connector. It supports the "ATI Eyefinity" technology which means you can use monitors on each connector, game review, simultaneously. The HMDI connector support s HDMI 1.3a which means, game review, full support for Dolby True, game review, HD and DTS Audio Masters, game review, .
TEST SYSTEM I used my normal test system for this review, here are the specs:
Test equipment Processor Intel Core i7 920 Fan Prolimatech Mega Shadow Motherboard Asus Rampage II Gene Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 Soundcard Integrated Memory 3, game review, x2 GB GSkill Trident 1600 MHZ (6-7-6-18) Hard disk Intel X25-M G2 Postville 80 GB Power supply Corsair HX850W
Operating system and software Operating system Windows 7 64bits System dirvers Controller 8.
69_RC3 (BETA) DirectX August 2009 Benchmarking software 3D Mark 06 3D Mark Vantage Furmark 1.7 Unigyne Heaven Benchmark Games The Last Remnant Street Fighter IV Resident Evil 5 Weak May Cry 4 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Prypiat DIRT 2 Far Cry 2 Crysis Warhead Other software CPU-Z 1.49 GPU-Z 0.3.7 OCCT 3.1
During my test I set the in-game graphics settings to the highest quality. I set the filter settings to "medium" because of the fact that this card is not intended for people who "must" have the filter settings to max.
For those of you who are not too familiar of how to measure the performance of a graphics card, here's a table with frame rate numbers, game review, and what they actually mean in real life gaming experience:
FPS (Frames per second) FPS lower than 30 Not a good gaming experience 30 - 40 FPS OK but not good gaming experience 40 - 60 FPS Good gaming experience Higher than 60 FPS Excellent gaming experience
I always do the tests with the benchmarking software first because it often gives a glint of the overall performance of the card.
In this case the results tell me that the performance of this card is a bit above, game review, what I had expected from a medium range card in the new AMD generation.
As a comparison a Nvidia GT 240 GDDR5, game review, card I have tested in the same system obtained around 7000 points in 3DMark, game review, 2006 and in my last, game review, review of a GT220 card (a card more towards the lower end segment) it achieved 6700 points. The Radeon HD5670 card came in at 11700 points which exceeds the NVIDIA cards by quite a lot.
As I have experienced with all the DirectX11 compatible cards I have reviewed, the performance diminishes with the jump from DirectX10 to DirectX11. This is strange because "higher performance" is one of the major selling points with the new API, game review, from Microsoft.
The Radeon HD 5670 actually turns out to be even more powerful in the first batch of games that I had expected based on the results achieved in the benchmarking tests. I was actually somewhat surprised that this medium range card, at a price level below $100, could move these games with great fluidity.
Games like The Last Remnant, Street Fighter IV and Devil May Cry 4 actually ran really, game review, well no matter what level of graphics quality setting, resolution or filter I set. Even Resident Evil 5 ran OK
A strange thing about the results above is the case of the games STALKER:, game review, Clear Sky and STALKER: Call of Prypiat. The first one uses DirectX10 and the second DirectX11. STALKER Clear Sky (DX10) offers a very limited, game review, gaming experience while STALKER: Call of Prypiat (DX11) has much better results.
I mean, those games are part, game review, of the same series. It raises questions like: is DirectX11 more efficient than DirectX10 after all? Or; do these two games have different 3D motors? I am afraid I cannot answer those questions for you, just thought that I'd bring it to your awareness.
There are however clearly two games, game review, in this batch which this card cannot handle; Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead. The performance, game review, of the Radeon HD 5670 in Far Cry 2 at a resolution of 1680
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
