The computing relics unearthed in the PC Pro Labs

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

The PC Pro Lab is a dark, dingy place full of cardboard boxes, benchmarks and more motherboards, processors and PCs than we care to count, but it’s also home to a variety of kit that’s slipped through the net –  some of it even dating back to before PC Pro launched in 1994.

From iconic machines like the IBM PC to the silliness of Sony’s £1,190 netbook, we’ve scoured the darkest corners and blown dust off some of the oldest, oddest and rarest kit we can find – starting with a true icon of the industry. (more…)

Nvidia and AMD might not release new cards until 2012 — who cares?

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

I’ve become used to Nvidia and AMD rocking up with new graphics cards on a consistently quick schedule: since 2008 and beginning with the GeForce 9000-series, Nvidia has released six generations of GPUs, and AMD has replied with three of its own, starting with the Radeon HD 4000-series.

Both firms put the finishing touches on their current ranges in the spring, and the trail’s gone quiet since. Nvidia has confirmed that it won’t release any new cards before 2012, and AMD hasn’t mentioned any potential release dates for its new Radeon HD 7000-series — presumably taking extra time to further tweak and perfect the new chips. (more…)

Shuttle SX58H7 Pro review: first look

Friday, May 6th, 2011

What do you reckon you’d need to cool a PC powered by one of Intel’s most powerful enthusiast processors and a £200 graphics card? A chunky heatsink? A pair of 120mm fans at the front, another at the back and maybe a fourth at the top to ensure maximum airflow?

Ordinarily, yes – but Shuttle doesn’t like to use the big tower cases that have room for all that. Instead, the SX58H7 Pro has a specification we never thought we’d see in a small-form-factor chassis.

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AMD Radeon HD 6990 review: first look

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

We’ve seen some big graphics cards in our time but AMD’s new Radeon HD 6990, which has just been hauled into the Labs by a team of four burly couriers, takes the cake. You’ll have to take our word for it, as AMD is only allowing us to show you these pictures at this time, but we’ve just tried to cram the new card into our test rig — which uses not-inconsiderable Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced chassis — and it wouldn’t fit, blocked off by the hard disk cages before getting anywhere near the motherboard. (more…)

Is Nvidia losing its grip?

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Today sees a very telling announcement in the graphics world. Gainward, for years an exclusive producer of mainstream and overclocked GeForce cards, has launched its first Radeons to market – the HD 4850 and HD 4870.

You could look at it one of two ways. The simplest reason could be that Gainward (owned by non-exclusive card maker, Palit) simply wants to boost its profits by reaching a larger audience than it previously sold to. The other is that AMD’s current resurgence has Gainward looking upon Nvidia as less of a sure thing than before.

After all, each of Nvidia’s last few launches has seen the GeForces getting faster, but also bigger and hotter than ever before, while AMD is managing to keep up in the speed race while keeping its Radeons much more manageable, and vastly less expensive.

It’ll be interesting to see if any other manufacturers follow suit.

Just in: ATI Radeon HD 4870

Friday, June 27th, 2008

This is the ATI Radeon HD 4870, rumoured before its release to be one of the fastest cards around, and it has just landed in our labs, only one week after it was announced.

It’s benchmarking downstairs in our labs as we speak – hence the odd angle in the image above – but we can already tell you that it looks to be incredible value for money.

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The calm before the Brawl

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

The likes of David Bayon and Mike Jennings can keep their PS3s and their GTA IVs. Me, I’m much more excited about tomorrow’s UK release of Super Smash Bros Brawl (SSBB to its friends).

Excited — but also apprehensive, because, let’s face it, Nintendo doesn’t exactly have a great record on stock availability. My experience of actually using the Wii has been entirely positive; but buying it, and then buying games and accessories for it, has involved a surprising amount of anxiously standing in queues at stupid times of the morning. Because if you miss the first shipment of games/controllers/consoles, you may not have another chance to buy the thing you want for weeks or even months.

(Yes, I know I should pre-order. I tried that with the Wii console itself and all I got was an email the day before launch saying they didn’t have enough stock. Shut up.) (more…)

Three: Definitely a Crowd.

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

You may have seen a while ago that we examined a new chunk of hardware that – and this may be something of a blessing – will never make it to retail: the Asus EAH3850 X3 Trinity.

We were surprised and, dare we say it, a little impressed: Asus packed three 3850 chipsets onto one PCB and, remarkably, made it work. With water cooling and enough electricity to power Bill Gates’ cash machine – almost 300W for the card on its own, in fact. It didn’t really increase frame-rates much when compared to a single 512MB HD 3850 – adding 3fps to our high benchmark in Crysis – but it was certainly an interesting experiment.

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