January 28 - 31, 1999
Archive

Just looking at the results obtained when the Victory II was tested with the Celeron 300A processor, we see that the Banshee stacks up very well against the TNT based Dynamite TNT. Even though the Victory II only has 1 texel unit in comparison to the 2 texel units of the TNT, the Banshee base Victory II is able to edge out the TNT in Quake II in the 640x480 mode. The reason is that, at lower resolutions, the fillrate demand intensity is much less. As the resolution is increased, we see the Banshee loses the performance advantage as it is not able to keep up with the raw fill-rate power of the TNT (100 MTexels of the Banshee vs. 180 Mtexels of the TNT).

 

In terms of performance, you're looking at one of the fastest drives on the market, period. Any Ultra2 drive on the market though will give you amazing performance, especially if you're used to ole' Ultra/ATA 33 drives or SCSI-2 drives, although if you go from Ultra Wide to Ultra2 SCSI, you won't see that big of a performance gap. The Viking II did test significantly higher in some tests than the almost exact same offering from IBM, the UltraStar 9ES 4.55GB Ultra2 (7,200 RPM, 7.0ms seek time), which performed slower than the Viking II in all tests, most noticeably in Adaptec's SCSIBench32 (conveniently bundled with the Adaptec 2940U2W Ultra2 SCSI Kit) in it's standard sequential input/output tests.

 

Then comes 3DMark, the new standard in testing for Direct3D. Here, we see the Terminator Beast consistently outperform the TNT in both 800x600 and 1024x768. Who would have thought? What was originally introduced as a modest low-budget 3D accelerator, the Savage3D shows some real muscle, and in some instances takes even the vaunted TNT for a ride.

 

This is about a 240% increase in performance over the single processor system. Why is the second processor 146% faster then the first? It all has to do with how NT handles threads and tasking for the OS. The 300 kkeys/sec loss is a result in OS overhead that is lost in every single CPU system.

 

Overall, the Tyan Thunder X does an excellent job as a dual Xeon board intended for a high-end server or workstation. Expansion is phenomenal with 6 PCI slots and dual channel Ultra 2 LVD SCSI. The stability could be a bit better, especially for a high-end board. Still, it's nearly impossible to fault Tyan as they have created one of the most powerful motherboards available on the market today

 

I can tell you to expect a .25micron TNT part sometime in the Spring. We don't have actuall dates of when it will be on retail shelves, but it will be ready in the next coming months.
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Even as it prepares for the high-profile launch of the Pentium III, Intel continues to fortify a position at the low end by accelerating price drops on existing Celerons and pushing up the launch of a 433-MHz Celeron to March, sources said.

Intel told computer manufacturers this week that the recently launched Celeron 400-MHz chip will drop to around $130 in quantities of 1,000 on Feb. 7. The new 366-MHz Celeron will drop to $90, while the 333-MHz Celeron will drop to $70 and the 300-MHz Celeron will drop to $60.

 

• Diamond Viper V330 PCI/AGP Driver (Win9X - version 0130 - 3.5 MB)

 

• StarFighter AGP Driver (Win9X - version 0322 - 1.3 MB)

 

The performance of this drive (thanks to its 10,000-rpm and 1 meg cache) is outstanding, but there is one thing you should look out for with SCSI drives in general. SCSI drives usually ship with write caching disabled. What this means is that the hard drive will cache information before it writes it to disk. This allows the OS to continue hard disk operations without any kind of performance penalty. When the system isn't busy using the drive, the drive will then write the information to disk. The problem with write caching is that if the drive loses power for whatever reason (power failure, etc) whatever was in the cache and not written to disk, is lost forever. So the choice is yours, but unless you experience a lot of power failures (or system lockups) I would recommend enabling Write caching for the improved speed of your system.

 

Do you feel the need..the need for speed? Do you want to be a low ping bastard? Not too long ago, the only option for a high speed Internet connection would be to have a T-1 line installed in your home. Now, there are cable modems, ADSL, and ISDN connections to satisfy your high-speed hunger. Living in Columbus, Ohio I’ve had the privilege..well maybe that’s not the right word. I’ve had the opportunity to utilize two forms of cable modems from two different providers. One was pretty much what I wanted in a high-speed connection while the other has been a frustrating experience which continues to give me more headaches as time progresses. Let’s take a look at both companies and see that speed is not all that’s needed in a cable modem service.

 

At the 1999 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference next month, Intel will discuss a 600-MHz version of the upcoming Pentium III chip, while IBM will disclose a new breed of PowerPC chip based on a cutting-edge production technique and a 600-MHz processor for server computers. The three-day conference in San Francisco and San Jose starts on February 15.

Advanced Micro Devices, meanwhile, will take the technical wraps off the K7, due in the second half. The chip is expected to best the Pentium III in a number of crucial respects and could give AMD the performance lead, according to, among others, Microprocessor Report editor Keith Diefendorff.

 

Zoran Corp. today announced that Toshiba Corp. has selected Zoran's Vaddis DVD decoder chip to power Toshiba's full line of 4th generation DVD players.

These new players boast an extensive set of features, geared towards future demand for advanced functionality and will be available during the first half of 1999. The DVD market has taken a major step during 1998, with more than one million players sold in the United States alone. Experts expect the market to further increase its pace in 1999 reflecting the broad acceptance and awareness of the DVD standard among consumers.

``The Vaddis decoder IC provides all the necessary features for our DVD player design,'' said Koji Hase, general manager of DVD Division, Toshiba.

``Due to the high flexibility and the rich feature set of the Vaddis, we were able to provide our customers advanced audio features like HD-CD (High Definition CD) audio that are a key component of our 1999 DVD product line. The work we have accomplished with Zoran's Vaddis support team was instrumental to the success of our fourth-generation players.''

 

If you're willing to attach a fan, buy a TennMax lasagna, or make your own cooling, this is the board of choice for an overclocker/tweaker. The memory performed well at speeds as high as 130 MHz (and may have been able to go even farther with cooling). It even reached 105 MHz core / 115 MHz memory and passed the required 5 timedemos in Quake II (Dan's rule of stability) with only the heatsink.

 

Steering wheel design is very important to the overall driving experience and a poor grip or uncomfortable feel isn't made up for with any added effects or features. Luckily, the MS Force Feedback Wheel has one of the more comfortable and functional wheels I've ever tried. Its wheel grip is made of a very comfortable and easy to grip rubber, and the actual wheel features finger notches to make the drive that much more comfortable. From a performance standpoint, Microsoft has topped even their own high standards with the Force Feedback Wheel's design.