Remember AMD Barcelona? Delayed and disappointing, the architecture behind AMD’s first Phenom chips finally turned up in November 2007, six months behind schedule, with performance that left us “a little underwhelmed” after months of anticipation – and that’s before it was compared against its Intel equivalents.

At the same time, Intel was preparing to release its Wolfdale-based Core 2 Duo processors, which appeared in January 2008 using the more efficient 45nm architecture – a key improvement over AMD’s 65nm chips. The result? Our review concluded that the new Core 2 Duo E8000-series “wipes the floor with the [older] E6000 series” and that Intel’s new processors were an “unqualified success”.

Fast forward three years, and the similarities are startling.

The chips are down

Intel has recently unleashed its stunning Sandy Bridge architecture, which combines improved efficiency with markedly improved performance over its predecessors. The launch might have been marred by the firm’s well-publicised SATA problems, but they’ve now been fixed.

AMD, in the meantime, is floundering: its latest processors are retooled versions of old hardware, and forthcoming Bulldozer chips look like they’ll have an uphill battle, too. AMD is in second place when it comes to implementing 32nm manufacturing, with Bulldozer-based desktop processors not due until later this year and laptop parts only slated to arrive in 2012.

And then there are Bulldozer’s headline features, many of which sound awfully familiar. The chips will be built around individual modules that contain two processing cores with Multi-Threading and Turbo Core technologies, so they’ll be able to address two tasks independently and overclock at will, too – so the firm’s top-end consumer chips will include four modules with eight cores.

Bulldozer might not be as efficient as Intel’s chips, either. AMD’s new chips will have a maximum TDP of 125W, with Intel’s most powerful Sandy Bridge chips coming in with a top TDP of only 95W. That suggests great power efficiency, less heat, and more overclocking headroom.

By the time AMD releases its first Bulldozer-powered processors – rumoured to be in the summer – Intel’s latest Core i7 Extreme chips will also be on the horizon with eight cores and, consequently, 16-thread support as standard, and using a more efficient manufacturing process. They’ll likely be more expensive than AMD’s priciest Bulldozers but, if recent form is to be believed, they’ll also be far quicker, further establishing Intel as the chip of choice for the enthusiast.

The picture isn’t much rosier in AMD’s previous stronghold at the budget end of the market. Fusion is taking aim at Atom but, even though we’ve found it to be a better performer than its rival, we’re not exactly enthused about its prospects. Our review described it as “a year too late” to make a real impact. The desktop chips still aren’t due for several months, and the sheen that surrounded netbooks back in 2007 has faded as CULV laptops, smartphones and tablets – all of which are powered by non-AMD technology – have gained in prominence.

Nvidia fights back

At least AMD has spent the past couple of years delivering market-leading graphics cards, with the firm often finding the perfect balance between price and performance. The tide’s starting to turn here, though, with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460 and its successor, the GTX 560 Ti, proving to be better prospects than AMD’s own HD 6950, HD 6970 and HD 6870.

The firms are now trading blows in the high-end space, too, although Nvidia’s likely got the edge here, with its GTX 570 offering the “best compromise between cost and power”. And, while AMD currently holds performance records thanks to the new HD 6990, Nvidia is rumoured to be releasing its own dual-GPU card in the next few weeks – so you’d be wise to hold off if you’re thinking about dropping such a vast sum of cash on a graphics card.

There’s turmoil at the top, too. January saw the departure of CEO Dirk Meyer, allegedly because of the firm’s failure to capitalise on the growth of mobile devices, and other key staff left not long after, with COO Bob Rivet and senior vice president of corporate strategy Marty Seyer both announcing their resignations at the start of February.

In the meantime, AMD has appointed a couple of new faces to its board of directors. Henry Chow and Nicholas M. Donofrio, both veterans of IBM, bring plenty of chip-designing experience to the table – but, crucially, Meyer hasn’t been replaced, with Thomas Seifert manning the fort until a permanent CEO is appointed. That can’t come soon enough – while Meyer has an engineering background and personally led the team that developed the Athlon processor, Seifert is a manager with less technical expertise.

It’s a bleak picture. AMD doesn’t lead the way in any area at the moment, and few signs point to this situation improving. Beating rivals such as Intel and Nvidia might be one step too far for the Californian company right now – by the looks of things, it’ll have a hard enough time trying to keep up.

The leaked information concerns the Radeon HD 6750 and HD 6770 which, if the past two generations are to be believed, will sit in the middle of the upcoming range. There’s evidence to suggest that the new series is more evolution than revolution, with both cards still using the 40nm fabrication process that was introduced way back with the HD 4770 and the GDDR5 memory that’s been commonplace for the past year.

Nevertheless, the list of specifications hints at the increased power that AMD has been able to eke out of its new Northern Islands family, of which the Barts XT core is the first representative. The HD 6750 will allegedly have a 725MHz core accompanied by 1,120 stream processors, and its compute performance of 1.624TFlops sits between the HD 5770 and HD 5850 in the pecking order.

The HD 6770 is, potentially, more interesting. Its alleged compute performance of 2.304TFlops is higher than the 2.088TFlops performance of the HD 5850 and, with 1,280 stream processors on board, it’s sure to pack some serious muscle.

The HD 6770 even manages to beat the HD 5870 in a couple of areas, with a higher clock speed – 900MHz to 850MHz – and a higher pixel fillrate, with the HD 6770 managing 28.8GPixel/sec to the 27.2GPixel/sec of the older card. Its GDDR5 memory is even clocked 50MHz higher than the HD 5870.

So, on paper – and assuming this leak is accurate – the HD 6770 is likely to outpace the HD 5850, which is already faster than anything Nvidia can offer at that price, and could even serve up performance that approaches the HD 5870. And, if AMD’s prices will remain in the same ballpark, the HD 6770 will cost around £110 exc VAT; the HD 5850, meanwhile, cost around £170 exc VAT on release, with the HD 5870 north of £200 exc VAT.

Of course, this is pure speculation, but there’s no reason to doubt that AMD’s recent form will carry over into its new generation of cards, even if there’s little revolutionary about the architecture behind these parts. Nvidia, meanwhile, is still filling out the bottom end of its GTX 400-series of GeForce products with cards like the GTS 450, and looks to have little in the way of an answer, with rumoured price cuts the only feasible short-term option.

Nvidia has recently lost its majority share in the desktop graphics market to AMD, and it looks like this gap is set to widen. No wonder Nvidia’s concentrating on Tegra and mobile these days.

If you were expecting a ground-up overhaul of the range, then the Timeline X series might prove just a little underwhelming. There wasn’t a great deal wrong with the original models, however, so the emphasis has been placed solidly on evolution, with the laptops benefiting from a host of aesthetic changes. The silver brushed aluminium lids of the previous range have been replaced by a stylish black brushed finish, and interiors which tread a fine line between subtle understatement and alluringly slick design.

It’s not until you cast an eye over the previous Timeline range that you realise quite how much impact the minor tweaks have had. While the older models were attractive compared to many of the CULV laptops on the market, the grey, inoffensive physique was hardly eye-catching. Now the brushed black aluminium makes a bold statement on the outside, and the once-featureless interior is shod with a brushed silver aluminium finish and a glossy black keyboard surround.

Even the trackpad’s had some attention: its smooth, slightly concave figure is complemented with a single rocker button beneath. That scrabble-tile keyboard doesn’t look to have changed much, but that’s no bad thing. The spacious layout proved perfectly comfortable in use – although the wide channels between each key still look like a haven for crumbs, dust and accidental coffee spills – but we hope the half-height enter key will make way for a full-height one when UK models finally hit our shores.

Build quality seems to have taken a step forwards, too, with the slim 25.4mm thick chassis of the 13.3in model feeling noticeably sturdier than its predecessor, and the rest of the range giving off an air of toughness that belies their relatively diminutive stature. The same screen sizes were in evidence – Acer had the 13.3in, 14in and 15.6in models on show – and all of them seemed to have benefited greatly from the brief return to the drawing board.

Scratch beneath the surface and a host of technological advances also rear into view. Intel’s Core i3 and i5 processors take pride of place, while the larger two models in the range employ ATI’s HD 5000 series graphics chipsets. Acer was particularly keen to stress the stamina of the new range, claiming a minimum of eight hours of battery life, and as much as 12 hours with its PowerSmart software working to keep power consumption as low as possible.  The new range also features other power-saving measures such as low-power cooling fans and LED-backlit displays which, in tandem with Intel’s DPST (Display Power Saving Technology), help to eke out the maximum amount of battery life.

Those hoping for USB 3, DisplayPort and other exciting new additions will be a mite disappointed, with just the usual array of USB 2, HDMI and VGA ports partnered with memory card readers for good measure.

Quoted prices give us hope that Acer’s Aspire Timeline X series will be just as affordable as its predecessors, with Acer suggesting that the 14in model (the 4820) will be available for £599 inc VAT sporting an Intel Core i3 330m processor, 3GB of memory, a 250GB hard disk, an ATI HD 5650 graphics chipset and Windows 7 Home Premium.

(The picture, in case you’re wondering, is a strange engine-type affair that’s been set up at the entrance to the delegates’ hotel, apparently to welcome us as we arrive. I guess that’s how they communicate with one another down here in the Valley.)

Under pressure

Yet despite the company’s outward confidence, you have to wonder whether the green team really enjoys its 72 hours under the spotlight. Last year the recurrent themes of the event were faulty notebook GPUs and Larrabee – hardly the issues Nvidia will have wanted to focus on.

This year the notebook GPU issue seems to have died away, and it’s become clear that Larrabee is no threat for the immediate future. Yet Nvidia is still on the back foot in several fights. In the desktop market, it’s been playing catch-up with ATI for over a year: it’s rumoured that a new generation of GeForce cards may be unveiled in the coming days, but they’ll have to be very impressive to compete with the ATI Radeon HD 5870.

Challenged by new technology

In the mobile and lightweight markets, meanwhile, the company’s Tegra and Ion platforms have attracted praise, but will soon be challenged by Intel’s two new Atom architectures – Moorestown for handhelds and the CE4100 for media devices. Nvidia did well to get to these markets first, but can it really cling onto the territory now Intel’s tanks are rolling into town?

And lastly there’s CUDA. This time last year, Nvidia was touting the flexibility of CUDA as a unique benefit of Nvidia hardware, and since then the technology has shown its potential in some real-world applications – notably the built-in CUDA acceleration for Premiere Pro CS4. But now that DirectX 11 is here, its extensive platform-agnostic GPGPU functions make CUDA’s exclusivity look like a liability.

With all this in mind, I think it will be very interesting to see what the company has to say for itself over the coming days. Stay tuned and I’ll report back with all the news and nuggets that emerge…

But, while I hate to be a Negative Nancy, I think that excitement needs to be cooled down with a few caveats.

The most obvious one is that multi-display systems are nothing new. Back at the Spider launch in 2007, ATI demonstrated an eight-monitor gaming setup which made everyone go “ooh” — and which was then never heard of again. Admittedly, that system required four graphics cards, but the enthusiast gaming market isn’t known for penny-pinching. If people genuinely wanted to play games on six monitors, they’d be doing so already.

And ATI clearly realises this, as the six-monitor capability is to be reserved for specialist models (of which, we may safely assume, not many will be made). Mainstream cards will be limited to three displays.

The rule of three

But then three is an awkward number. You can’t make three screens into a grid, obviously. If you line them up in a row you get a screen that’s five times as wide as it is high, which is frankly weird. Stack them vertically (with a special stand) and it’s like using a widescreen monitor on its side. Your best bet is probably to rotate three monitors into portrait mode and push them together, for a viewport that’s similar in shape to a normal desktop monitor but with three times the pixels.

Even then, though, your huge multi-monitor display will have two big, dark bezels cutting right across the picture.

That’s not just a superficial complaint. Yes, the overall graphical effect is cheapened by the intrusion of thick plastic bars across the playfield. But bezels also introduce very particular problems when game elements stray across them. A perfect illustration was provided by the flight simulator that ATI used to demonstrate its six-monitor setup, in which the speedometer and altimeter, in the middle of the display, ended up split across two screens, leaving them basically illegible:

(Let’s not get into the problems you’d hit if you tried to use an Eyefinity monitor group to run a productivity application like Word or Excel.)

Lethal bezel

Bezels can cause more general gameplay problems too, as objects moving at regular speeds suddenly leap forward by an inch or more as they pass from screen to screen. That certainly doesn’t help the player to track opponents with the precision required to target / overtake / frag them.

A workaround in some cases could be for the software to insert virtual gaps between screens corresponding to the bezel width, to produce an effect like looking through a window frame. This would bring its own problems, though: it would make it fully impossible to read the flight simulator instruments, for example, and would open up the possibility of bullets and enemies hiding in the “dark” area between screens.

Basically, there’s no proper solution with current hardware —— and I suspect that means that multi-monitor gaming isn’t going to catch on with real people any time soon. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching the Eyefinity demos as much as anyone, and the idea of a huge display certainly does appeal. But, sad to say, I think it’s going to take a slightly more creative development than this to make it a reality.

Certainly, the list of games using PhysX looks healthy enough. Already out are Bionic Commando, Army of Two, City of Villains, Empire: Total War, Gears of War 2, Haze, Mass Effect and Mirror’s Edge. Other promising titles, such as APB and Borderlands, both of which garnered plenty of attention at E3, are in the pipeline.

At a recent briefing, Nvidia unveiled another recent game to make heavy use of PhysX: Terminator Salvation. Unfortunately, though, it’s a typical movie tie-in, averaging scores of just above 50% since its release. And, while the demo (which showed the game running with and without PhysX looked impressive, we didn’t see any effects that couldn’t be achieved with systems other than PhysX. We’ve also struggled to think of many games where the presence of physics is genuinely game-changing rather than just an aesthetic enhancement.

There’s also a formidable list of games that don’t use Nvidia’s technology: BioShock, Company of Heroes, MotorStorm, Spore, Fallout 3, Fable 2, Halo 3, Killzone 2 and Half-Life 2 all use Havok, which was purchased by Intel in 2007 but, at the moment at least, is available for use on any hardware including PC and the big three consoles.

Nevertheless, the fragmented nature of the gaming physics market means that the Irish firm’s technology faces many of the same problems as PhysX even without being tied down to one hardware manufacturer.

Other gaming firms, including Crytek, are often happier to use their own physics engines instead of third-party technology. “Crytek has its own in-house physics system”, says Mark Atkinson, Crytek’s director of technology, which gives them “a single solution which can be optimised for all target platforms” at the same time – and, since Crysis 2 has been confirmed as a PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 release, this is obviously the easiest solution.

When developing Far Cry 2, Ubisoft eschewed PhysX and instead used Havok, a competing physics engine that was bought by Intel in 2007. Vincent Greco, a technical co-ordinator with Ubisoft, explained that “different games have different needs” and that, while Havok was the system of choice for Far Cry 2, PhysX “is a great technology” that Ubisoft has used to good effect in other big titles, such as Rainbow Six Vegas and EndWar.

So, why are some big publishers reluctant to use PhysX in their big games? Perhaps it’s a question of hardware.

The activation of PhysX on all GeForce 8000-series and newer cards in August 2008 brought to an end the days of having to buy a discrete card to handle physics calculations, instead moving these procedures onto the GPU.

In theory, that meant that the majority of gamers using Nvidia cards were able to unlock the hidden power of physics and suddenly populate their games with realistic sparks, gently swelling water and other impressive effects, increasing realism ten-fold. It also meant that using PhysX had never been cheaper or easier.

In practise, though, Nvidia needs a near-monopoly on hardware to make PhysX worthwhile – and its position in the discrete GPU market is looking more precarious now that it has done over the past couple of years. Various reports from the end of 2008 cite the release of ATI’s Radeon HD 4000-series as the major reason why ATI’s market share had grown from 35% to 40% in three months, forcing Nvidia to cut the prices of some of its flagship products in the meantime. In the same period, overall sales of desktop GPUs fell, shrinking the potential market for PhysX (and any other competing physics system) further.

With ATI coming up with superb GPUs and gaining market share, it’s become even less tempting for developers to spend hundreds of hours incorporating PhysX into their games while knowing that a large proportion of players won’t be able to see those effects in action.

The picture is no rosier on consoles, either. Both systems use older hardware and, while Nvidia makes its PhysX middleware engine available to developers on all three consoles, we’ve seen that plenty of developers would rather use their own engines or other third party tools instead of Nvidia’s technology.

In this sort of market – with ATI closing the gap and Intel’s Larrabee apparently on the horizon – it’s going to become more difficult for Nvidia to cram PhysX into enough games to make its purchase of Ageia a worthwhile venture.

At the moment, there’s little chance of most of the big developers and publishers using PhysX but, without widespread support, there’s no chance of Nvidia being able to grow PhysX into the dominant physics system that it surely hopes for. It’s a double-edged sword and, without a drastic shift, it’s difficult to see Nvidia making any sort of genuine progress in the physics market.

]]> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/06/30/will-nvidia-physx-ever-be-worthwhile/feed/ 3 http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/03/03/the-fastest-laptop-on-earth/ http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/03/03/the-fastest-laptop-on-earth/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:57:51 +0000 Sasha Muller http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/?p=5236

UPDATE: Read the full review of the Asus W90.

Asus might be most famous for its low-cost netbooks, but its latest multimedia powerhouse is the kind of laptop that’ll give your average desktop PC an inferiority complex.

Let me whet your appetite with some tasty morsels from the W90’s specifications – for starters there’s a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 garnished with 6GB of RAM and two 320GB hard disks and, for the main course, not one but two ATI Mobility Radeon HD4870 graphics chipsets with 512MB memory apiece. If you’ve still not had your fill, there’s a tasty 18.4in Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 LED-backlist display for dessert. Asus also assure us that the DVD writer in our pre-production model will make way for a BluRay drive in production models.

And, in a refreshing departure from the gaming laptop norm, it doesn’t light up like a neon pound-shop Xmas tree every time you turn it on. Instead, the W90 finds itself finished in altogether more stylish, sombre tones. Brushed aluminium spans its giant-sized lid and its interior glimmers with gloss black and touch sensitive controls which light up with a subtle blue glow.

The 18.4in display is crisp and bright, and the full-sized keyboard below it is fantastically comfortable, too. As a desktop replacement, the W90 has much to recommend it, but as a laptop, well not so much. Indeed, unless your lap is the size of Manuel Uribe’s, the average person will want to keep the W90s 6.1kg bulk firmly desk-bound. Factor in the 1.34kg power brick and this is one laptop you don’t want to carry around. Ever.

The W90 more than makes up for its considerable bulk with world-class gaming performance, though. Crysis’ graphical splendour is enough to turn even the most able of gaming laptops into jibbering, flaccid wrecks, but not so the W90. With its two HD4870’s in Crossfire, the W90 careered through our most demanding Crysis benchmark with ease, managing 35 frames per second at 1,600 x 1,200 resolution and High detail. Cranking up the difficulty, we reran our benchmark at 1,920 x 1,080, and the W90 responded with an impressive 32 frames per second. Even upping the stakes with detail set to Very High only saw the average framerate drop to an almost playable 26 frames per second.

Asus suggested that the W90 will eventually retail just shy of the £2000 pound mark, but with this kind of performance wrapped up in such a gorgeous, understated figure, it almost begins to look like reasonably good value for money.

Put simply, Nvidia’s desktop department is having a torrid time of it right now: when its own chipsets aren’t faulty they’re generally slower than ATI’s; and when they’re not faulty or slower than ATI’s, they are dearer, which negates any advantage they might have had.

It’s a cyclical thing. ATI had its troubled times before the HD 3000 cards arrived, and when new technology arrives the situation may well reverse again. But for evidence of where the strength lies you should alway look to the board partners – and it’s a one-way surge right now.

Today sees the news that XFX, as green as they come, has signed a deal to also ship ATI cards. And the gushing comments we’ve read accompanying the news leave us in no doubt as to who the partners are currently cosying up to. XFX’s defection follows Nvidia stalwarts eVGA and Gainward, and leaves the two graphics card manufacturers about level for exclusive partners, with a mere handful each.

In these credit-crunched times it may also be simply a case of getting cards to as many consumers as possible, so it won’t be entirely down to Nvidia’s current predicament, but the rave reviews on the red side surely can’t have helped.

And Nvidia almost seems resigned to its current fate, diverting most of its recent energies into promoting the excellent integrated graphics chipset in the last MacBooks, as well as its Ion platform to bring that chip into netbooks.

But it’s graphics cards the company is best known for, and so much now rests on the next major progression in the GeForce range. Whether Nvidia actually has something close to completion, and whether it’ll be enough to fight back, remain to be seen.

Laptop frenzy

We were intrigued by the Packard Bell EasyNote BG45-U-300, a portable laptop to take on the netbooks at less than £300 exc VAT – just £50 more than our A-Listed Samsung NC10. Matt reckons it’s perfect “if you’re after a little more oomph and a higher-resolution screen” than a netbook.

If your budget is significantly higher the UK’s first review of Toshiba’s brand new Portégé R600 ultraportable may be more your bag. Tim reckons it can trounce the Macbook Air on most specs – and he’s the editor so we can’t argue. It’s not the prettiest but “its price, integrated 3G modem and low weight all work in its favour.”

Completing our portable trio is the big, shiny and bold Pavilion dv5-1000ea, HP’s latest budget entertainment laptop. “While the HP is more gaudy haute-couture than timeless style,” mused Matt on its ergonomics, “it’s certainly a refreshing change.” Not quite refreshing enough for an award, but a “perfectly viable alternative” to our A List incumbents nonetheless.

Hard as nails

Ruggedised phones are always great to chuck around the office, and Getac’s PS535E didn’t disappoint. Dave Mitchell stopped playing MacGuyver just long enough to tell us about its “bulletproof feel” – so tough that he reckons it will even “work happily in our delightful British weather”.

He also tested the LaCie 4big quaddra, a huge 4TB DAS appliance with exemplary build quality, silent running, “a classy design and a good range of fault-tolerant features”. Which all adds up to another award-winning business product.

Two for the money

If one GPU isn’t enough, trust ATI to cater for your needs. This time the Radeon HD 4850 X2 isn’t the top-end part, but one which still offers hefty performance at a hefty price. “Is this high-end improvement worth two-and-a-half times the cost of the HD 4850, and just £50 less than a HD 4870 X2?” we asked? Short answer… no.

The Slingbox was a great device for watching your TV over the internet, but the SlingCatcher takes it a step further by allowing you to watch the streamed content on another TV, rather than just a computer screen. It’s a great idea, but the ever-skeptical Jon had his reservations.

Cowon’s O2 is the latest media player to take on Apple, and Jon was impressed by its broad file format support, memory expandability and built in speaker and TV output. Not a luxurious device, by any stretch, but one that’s well worth considering.

Last but not least, Iiyama – recently excelling at offering decent quality TFTs for ever lower prices – released its first 1080p 22in monitor. Whether we really need 1080p on desktop monitors is debatable, but if it appeals to your inner entertainment junkie you may be a little disappointed by the ProLite PLE2208HDS.

It seems that, at the moment, ATI is releasing fantastic graphics cards on a month-by-month basis. Now, it’s the turn of a part that’s been designed to sit between the Radeon HD 4670 and HD 4850 in ATI’s comprehensive line-up: the HD 4830.

The specifications reveal that, while the 4830 isn’t as powerful on paper as the 4850, it’s still a powerful GPU in its own right. A core clock speed of 575MHz is only 50MHz lower than the 4850, and 512MB of 900MHz GDDR3 memory certainly hints at the new card’s potential.

Our gaming benchmarks proved that, while this may be the least powerful 4800 series card available, the 4830 is still no slouch. Our medium-quality Crysis benchmark was despatched at 59fps, with the game only becoming unplayable at high settings, with the 4830 struggling to 22fps. Still, it’s an encouraging result – the 4850 could only manage 10fps more in the same test, and the Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT could only manage 23fps.

Further tests revealed that the 4830 is capable with a wide range of titles. A score of 60fps in our high-quality Call of Duty 4 benchmark and 34fps in the demanding, medium-quality DirectX 10 Call of Juarez test prove that, despite its budget-ish positioning, the 4830 is no mere media card.

Aside from excellent performance, the best thing about the new 4830 is the price. It can be had for £76 exc. VAT from microdirect.co.uk – an astonishing price, especially considering that this is a card that can handle, well, any modern titles with little compromise on quality. Prices may change – especially given the current economic climate – but we can’t see them fluctuating too far, and at least not far enough to make this suddenly become a bad purchase.

Our only concern is that, with Radeon HD 4850 prices falling below £100, it may be worth cutting your losses, spending £20 more and investing in that card instead, as there’s a significant performance boost to be had. If you don’t want to splash that much cash, though, this is a fantastic compromise – and another solid GPU from ATI.