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23 October 2009

AMD's 785G Chipset with IGP Radeon HD 4200 Graphics

AMD 785G Chipset


While not as sexy as writing GPU at the high end with hundreds of stream processors, a billion transistors or more, and the GDDR5 memory last Blazing fast integrated graphics solutions are what the power of the majority of PCs in use today. According to the latest figures from industry research firm Jon Peddie Research, Intel compared to controls by 50% of the market for graphics cards together in spite of the absence of a discrete graphics card of their own to sell public instead of by all the graphics has come from programming of integrated graphics chipsets.



Each month, Intel usually tens of millions of G45, G43, G41, GMA X4500 and GMA X3100 integrated graphics chipsets to customers around the world. The IGP (integrated graphics processors) are then sold at $ 300 and $ 400 desktops and laptops found from computer manufacturers like HP and Dell.

AMD wants the most from this action. Seeing the huge volumes of IGP Intel moves each month, who can blame them? When they bought ATI back in 2006, they cited the fusion of CPU and GPU as a key to the purchase, but in the short term, they also expressed the hope that ATI chipsets and the PGI would score new design wins with OEMs wary of buying processors from one source and PGI another (usually NVIDIA), and possibly help to take some share from Intel.

Unfortunately for AMD, despite a good range of products, things have not quite panned as originally planned.

Intel has actually been first to market with an IGP that supported DirectX 10 graphics. Their series of chipsets Bearlake G3X beat AMD to the punch by several months, scoring design wins AMD had hoped, despite the fact that DX10 offers first AMD 780G chipset, delivered the best 3D graphics performance than that of Intel G35.

780G chipset is remarkable for its time. Thank you to a die shrink, ATI was essentially able to integrate their existing RV620 GPU found in their Radeon 3450/3470 value and put it in the 780G chipset itself. ATI has had to strike the clock speeds up a bit to fit within their power / thermal balance, but otherwise, it is basically the same GPU.

Hybrid Graphics has been the factor that has really put on the map 780G though. Like ATI's CrossFire technology, Hybrid Graphics, you could pair a discrete graphics card Radeon 3450 integrated graphics with heart in the IGP to increase by nearly 2X performance in games. It was the first mutli-GPU technology has been found in an IGP of any manufacturer (NVIDIA followed with their own solutions later).

Now ATI and AMD are back with a successor to 780g. Internally known as 785G, the world outside AMD will market it as the Radeon HD 4200 and 785G chipset with Radeon HD 4200 graphics. The Radeon HD 4200 suggests that this classification is a new game based on a derivative RV7xx heart Radeon 4000, but this designation implies 785G chipset is improving gradually over the platform 780g. Which one is it? Let's find out!

785G Chipset Features

This is latest chipset ATI Radeon 3000 is a serial product, as the name implies 785G or is it part of the series Radeon 4000? It's a bit of both, but we would certainly call it an extension of the architecture 780G instead of a part RV7xx news.

Basically the graphics architecture of the heart itself is quite similar to the Radeon GPU found in graphics 780G 3200. You have the same 40 stream processors with 4 texture units and 4 ROPs as the 780G, the same ability to send up to 512 MB of system RAM, and the same clock speed of 500 MHz core.



This is probably a disappointment for those of you who expected a real successor next-generation architecture based RV7xx success of ATI. The Radeon HD 4350 to sport eg twice the stream processors - 80 - with eight texture units and 4 ROPs. With the 785G chipset based on the same manufacturing process 55 nm as 780G, ATI could not put a price affordable the 4350's 242 million transistors within their transistor budget for 785G.

As such, 785G Hybrid Graphics support is limited to the Radeon 3400 Series, like its predecessor, the 780G.

Hybrid Graphics will not be a selling point this time though. Found Radeon 3400 is increasingly difficult. Newegg for example, that three lists Radeon 3450 boards in stock right now, and two of them are more expensive than the Radeon 4350. Not that it would still matter, as a Radeon HD 4350 graphics card will run faster than the 780G + Radeon 3450 Graphics hybrid combination. Radeon 4350 cards start for only $ 3 more than the cheapest 3450 card on Newegg.

We ran with the banks of the 785G integrated graphics and discrete Radeon 4350 graphics card marks for this product so you can see how the two graphics solutions Fare against each other.

ATI has added some new ingredients to the 785G IGP that are not found in 780G though. For starters, the chip now fully supports DirectX 10.1, while the 780G is limited to supporting DirectX 10.0. DirectX 10.1 is a very gradual improvement over DirectX 10 though, and considering that the income-generating projects are not graphics processing power to run DX10 titles anyway it is probably more a function of Control for OEM brand than anything else.



More notable additions ATI integrated chipset 785G HDMI 1.3 Support (780G was limited to HDMI 1.2) and RV7xx features like support for hardware video transcoding on the GPU rather than CPU Stream uses ATI and ATI Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2), these two features were introduced with the 4000 series GPU Radeon last year. 785G can also multi-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI as well.

AMD has confirmed that the multi-channel LPCM audio over HDMI is not supported by 785G, 780G, 785G chipset, as is limited to 2 channels only.

If you remember, UVD 2 includes support for hardware accelerated image in the image to watch Blu-ray and video enhancement features such as dynamic contrast, HD Color Enhancer (including flesh and the brilliance of tone colors) and post-processing effects such as noise reduction, deinterlacing and HD with the HD, which is only supported when dynamic contrast is turned off.

So essentially with 785G could say that the merger with ATI's graphics power of RV620 with the video capabilities of the RV730. This description is not entirely true, but it gives you a quick overview of the performance of the IGP differs from previous issues ATI. The Southern Bridge again unchanged, with series SB7xx AMD chips supported. This is the same chip already used on current platforms 7-series.

15 October 2009

PC Buyer’s Guide - Intel Entry level for Gaming $500

Our entry level PC is designed for the gamer on a tight budget. This system will play most modern games on high settings with 2xAA/8xAF and some at up to 4xAA/16xAF.

Intel Entry-level Gaming PC
$500
GPU:
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850
$99.99
CPU:
Intel Pentium E6300
$87.99
Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L
$79.99
RAM:
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2-800
$46.99
Hard Drive:
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB
$49.99
Optical Drive:
Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA
$24.99
Case:
NZXT Beta Series CS-NT-BETA-B
$49.99
Power Supply:
hec Orion XPOWER585 585W
$34.99
CPU Cooler:
Masscool 8WA741
$22.99
Grand Total:
$497.91
Prices Sourced from Newegg


We’re sticking with the Radeon 4850 for our Intel budget setup for all the reasons outlined on the previous page. Intel CPUs are a little pricier than AMD’s though, so we had to step down from a Core 2 Duo processor to Intel’s Pentium E6300 CPU.

The E6300 is based on Intel’s dual-core 45-nm Wolfdale core and runs at 2.8GHz with 2MB of L3 cache and 1066MHz FSB. Like all Core 2 processors, the chip OCs like mad, but as we observed in our recent Phenom II/Athlon II article, performance takes a hit in comparison to the Core 2 Duo E7000 series due to the small L2 cache.

While we linked to the fully boxed Intel processor with heatsink/fan, the stock cooler Intel provides is junk. Throw it away and replace it with a nice cooler like the unit we mentioned from Masscool. Your processor will thank you.

For the motherboard we opted for Gigabyte’s GA-EP43-UD3L. We actually debated between this board and ASUS’ P5QL, but opted for the Gigabyte board due to its larger North Bridge cooling and Ultra Durable 3 features. The ASUS board is priced identically with somewhat similar features, so this was a close decision. The power supply is a tough call. We decided to highlight a different PSU than the Cooler Master used in the AMD build, honestly we trust the Cooler Master brand more, but if you’re willing to try an unknown brand, the hec PSU would be an interesting choice. Based on the user reviews, it’s biggest issue seems to be units that arrive DOA. Here we should also mention that name brand companies like OCZ offer 600W and 700W PSUs that sell for $50 after mail-in rebate. Honestly this is the route we would go if it were our money, but we also needed to stick to our $500 budget as closely as possible and we aren’t factoring mail-in rebates as some users just don’t like them.

Alternatives



Besides the aforementioned alternatives on the motherboard and power supply, if you’re willing to splurge the Core 2 Duo E7400 delivers better performance than the Pentium E6300, only it will set you back about $120.

PC Buyer’s Guide - AMD Entry level for Gaming $500

Our entry level PC is designed for the gamer on a tight budget. This system will play most modern games on high settings with 2xAA/8xAF and some at up to 4xAA/16xAF.

AMD Entry-level for Gaming PC
$500
GPU:
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850
$99.99
CPU:
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition
$99.99
Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
$79.99
RAM:
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit
$64.99
Hard Drive:
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB
$49.99
Optical Drive:
Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA
$24.99
Case:
NZXT Beta Series CS-NT-BETA-B
$49.99
Power Supply:
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-460-PMSR-A3
$34.99
Grand Total:
$504.92
Prices Sourced from Newegg



As always when spec’ing out our upgrade builds, we start with the GPU we want to go with followed closely by the CPU, and then build the rest of the system around those two core components until everything works within the intended budget.

Right from the get go we knew we wanted to opt for ATI’s Radeon 4850 GPU. Launched over a year ago, the Radeon 4850 is a tremendous performer that can handle most games at high quality settings, even with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. We prefer the Radeon 4850 over the GeForce GTS 250 at this time due to its lower price tag and better performance under 8xAA. Yes, in older games you can crank the AA all the way up to 8xMSAA and the 4850 still delivers very playable performance. This is particularly feasible at the 1600x1200 (or 1680x1050) resolution our entry level PC would be gaming at. We chose the ASUS card in particular because of its low price, dual DVIs, and dual-slot cooler. If you’re willing to deal with mail-in rebates, MSI’s R4850-2D512-OC would be our top choice. It’s factory OC’ed, and has beefier 4+1 phase power, along with MSI’s seaweed blade fan.

As an added bonus, it’s actually slightly cheaper than the ASUS card after rebate: $89.99.

The next component, AMD’s Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition was another no-brainer. As its name implies, the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition is based on the exact same 45-nm Deneb core AMD uses in their latest Phenom II processors. The only difference is AMD activates two processing cores, leaving two cores disabled. Because it’s based on the same core as AMD’s other Phenom II parts, the same key architecture features carry over unchanged. The chip features 64KB of L1 cache per core for data and instructions (256KB L1 total) and 512KB of L2 cache per core for a grand total of 1MB of L2 cache active on the processor. The L3 cache carries over unchanged, with the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition sporting 6MB of L3 cache shared amongst the processors two cores.

AMD clocks the chip at 3.1GHz, with the chip featuring a 15.5x multiplier. Keep in mind that as a Black Edition CPU, the multiplier is unlocked and can be adjusted to whatever setting you wish when OC’ing.

For the motherboard, we chose the Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P. We reviewed this motherboard a few weeks ago and found it delivered solid performance with a robust BIOS and good feature set.

G.SKILL’s DDR3-1333 memory kit is the cheapest available on Newegg right now. G.SKILL also offers DDR3-1600 memory modules that are priced similarly, but we opted for the 1333MHz modules due to their lower latency.

NZXT’s Beta case is pretty popular among enthusiasts on a budget right now. The case boasts a perfect score on Newegg and has room for up to four 120mm case fans. It’s also offered with a $10 mail-in rebate right now, bringing the total price down to $39.99 if you don’t mind waiting for your rebate check to arrive.

To go alongside the Beta case, we chose a slightly less powerful PSU from Cooler Master due to its better power ratings on the 3.3V and 5V rails. Note that ATI officially recommends a minimum of a 450W PSU for the 4850, so we’re just getting by in this regard, but again, the 460W Cooler Master actually has better specs than comparably-priced 500W PSUs. We acknowledge that this is one of the key weaknesses of our system, so if you can afford to spend a little more on this component, we’d highly recommend it. A 600W PSU would be a good starting point.

Alternatives

In terms of the CPU and GPU, we wouldn’t recommend any other alternatives at this price point. However, as we mentioned you could save a little money by opting for the MSI 4850 card if you’re willing to deal with rebates.

Another big area you could save a little money on is switching from the AM3 platform we used, and reverting down to AM2+. Gigabyte’ GA-MA770-UD3 is actually $5 cheaper than the GA-MA770T. You’d also be able to save on the DDR2 memory. G.SKILL offers 4GB DDR2-800 kits for as low as $46.99.

In exchange, you could then opt for a more powerful PSU or get a good CPU cooler.

We actually debated long and hard about making this AM2+ setup the primary $500 AMD build, but ultimately opted for the newer AM3 platform. As DDR3 prices continue to fall, the AM2+ platform will be phased out. We figured we may as well go ahead and get on the boat.

2009 PC Buyer’s Guide for Better Solution

Both AMD and Intel have introduced a slew of new processors, while the GPU wars between ATI and NVIDIA intensified with the introduction of the Radeon 4890 and NVIDIA's counter: the GeForce GTX 275 GPU.

In more recent weeks, ATI has also cut prices on their Radeon 4800 line of GPUs in an effort to take share away from NVIDIA. The move also helps them unload old inventory ahead of the introduction of the first DirectX 11 GPUs in the next 2-3 months. Unwilling to concede anything to the competition, NVIDIA countered ATI with price reductions of their own shortly thereafter. The tit-for-tat battle between both IHVs shows no signs of slowing even as we head into the summer doldrums.

As a result of these developments, the insanely low prices hardware enthusiasts have enjoyed as a result of the economic downturn have only gotten lower. Remember the days when gamers longed for the return of the $300 high-end graphics card? Today you can find Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275 boards selling for less than $200 after mail-in rebate.

On the CPU side, prices on Intel’s Core 2 Duo E8600 have remained flat, but the introduction of the Core 2 Quad Q8400 and Core 2 Duo E7400 have made things interesting for the Intel enthusiast on a budget. And AMD’s Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition is the best CPU on the market right now if you’ve only got $100 to spend on a new processor.

Things are going to get even more interesting when Intel rolls out their new Lynnfield processors, which will reportedly take place in early September.

Not everyone can wait for Lynnfield and the arrival of the first DirectX 11 GPUs however. Some of you have to make a decision before the middle of August, when it’s time to go back to campus for school. With this in mind, we’ve prepared a fresh new summer upgrade guide for you. This new guide also includes some of the feedback we received from Yoshi, and as a result, we’ll now be including AMD and Intel builds.

Before we get started though, a few quick pointers. As always when building a new computer, the first question you have to ask yourself (besides price) is what you intend to do with the computer. A gaming PC has very different needs than a home theater PC, or a PC that will primarily be used for surfing the web.

Since we’re a gaming-oriented site, our focus will obviously be on gaming PCs. Every gaming PC needs a good graphics card. It’s also important that you pair it with a competent CPU. You don’t want to blow too much of your budget on any one component; especially when it comes to components that won’t affect your frame rate or compromise the stability/reliability of the system. Therefore if you’re on a tight budget, you may have to skimp a little on parts like the case, or settle for a smaller hard drive capacity.

An even better solution would be to recycle as many parts as you can from your current system so that you can splurge on better components for your upgrade: if forgoing a new case gives you the money to step up to a Radeon 4890 or GeForce GTX 275, by all means do it.

As always with these upgrade guides, our prices are coming from Newegg, which is one of the most popular etailers online among enthusiasts right now. To keep things simple, we’re also going to be taking prices before mail-in rebate.

07 October 2009

Lexmark First Touchscreen Laser Printer


Lexmark on Tuesday introduced what it's calling the industry's first monochrome laser printer equipped with a touchscreen, the T656dne. Thanks to the 7-inch color LCD, users can access applications such as forms and favorites or eco-settings to save energy. The interface also provides a variety of settings, such as languages, along with controls for changing the background into, for example, a company logo. The printer has a built-in 80GB hard drive that is able to support preloaded software applications.

Print speed is rated at up to 55 letter-sized pages per minute. It also has the ability for duplex printing (both sides of a page), with speeds at this setting dropping to 37ppm. Maximum print resolution is specified as 1200dpi. The printer is compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems. The T656dne has an internal card slot, USB 2.0 connection and a gigabit Ethernet port. A front- and rear-mounted USB port lets users hook up accessories.

The T656dne should be available shortly, priced at $1,999.

03 October 2009

Farnell - Compact lightweight low-power GSM/GPRS module


Mipot's MTM-120 is a small lightweight and low power consumption GSM/GPRS module - now available from Farnell. It enables digital communications services on GSM/GPRS networks for machine-to-machine or user to machine wireless applications.

The kit contains the MTM-120 GSM/GPRS data module, mother board, power supply, external antenna with MMCX antenna cable adapter, earpiece with microphone, USB serial adapter and a 9-pin serial cable.

LPRS - New low-power wireless module offers long-range capability


LPRS, one of Europe's leading suppliers of short-range wireless solutions has announced availability of the latest series of wireless modules from Circuit Design. The MU-2-R is an embedded low-power radio modem for transmission of serial data and operates at 434MHz. The new MU-2-R is just 36mm x 26mm x 8mm making it almost half the size of the existing MU-1-R

The MU-2-R wireless module is controlled by simple dedicated commands leaving the user free to concentrate on developing the transmitting and receiving programs for their system. For communication protocols the MU-2-R has a standard protocol and an error correction protocol, which performs error correction on the receiver side. The error correction protocol uses Reed-Solomon code that has strong error correction ability even in environments prone to burst errors. This ensures the user can configure highly reliable systems compared to conventional radio modems.

Transmitting and receiving data and issuing commands employ a UART interface with a single-chip CPU. In addition the module may be controlled via the COM port (RS232C format) of a computer, minimising development times. The MU-2-R is designed to reduce design difficulties involving high frequency components, allowing the user to embed it in their system with peace of mind.

A battery-operated 10mW MU-2-R covers a range of 600 metres or more. If the application requires greater range, the MU-2-R can be used as a relay station without any additional components. For long range applications up to 10 relay stations may be used, making it possible to gather data from and control equipment in remote locations.

Peter Cubbage, sales director, LPRS, said: "The new Circuit Design MU-2-R wireless modules are a welcome addition to our product range and will be particularly useful for security and control systems where low power consumption is required and long data transmission distances are involved. We have a great deal of experience with Circuit Design products and can offer application advice and design support to any of our customers who wish to use this advanced wireless module."

The Reed-Solomon code (RS code) is one of several FEC block codes; it has strong error correction ability and the characteristic of correcting data errors caused by burst noise. Reed-Solomon codes are used in compact disks, satellite communications, and digital TV broadcasting. The MU-2 uses Reed-Solomon code for FEC, which reduces errors occurring due to burst noise and/or noise at low received signal level, and it improves the receive sensitivity of the equipment by more than 5dB

Standard features of the new Circuit Design MU-2-R include R&TTE compliance, low voltage and low consumption current (ideal for battery operated applications), 1:1, 1:N, and N:N systems can be built by flexibly setting link parameters, local access to the status of radio waves and field noise at the target station and source station, standby mode to save the power of systems, field status can be checked in real time using RSSI information in the packet data, a function to lower the output power (antenna power) from 10mW to 1mW is provided for effective use of radio waves. Selectable RF power between 1mW and 10mW allows the user to limit the communication area so that several networks do not interfere with each other.

Typical applications for the new Circuit Design MU-2-R include, serial data transmission, energy monitoring, data monitoring devices, hand-held terminals, barcode reader, housing equipment control, telecontrol, warning systems, remote control for construction machinery, display devices, motor control, lifters, remote control of fire alarm equipment, telemetry, security systems, water level monitors for rivers etc., says the company.