Sept 1 - 8, 1999
Archive

Much better than their TNT2 box don't you think? :)

If you recall, the MVP3G-M from a few months ago was one of the first ideal Super7 motherboards to hit the market.  Prior to that release, very few Super7 motherboards were deserving of the processors which they ran, and the introduction of the MVP3G-M changed all that.   Now, back with a "new and improved" model, Epox is looking to extend the life of the Super7 platform even more with their MVP3G2, a more robust and tweaked version of the original MVP3G-M.  The basic board design is the same and the end product will be quite appetizing even to the most critical of Super7 users, however it isn't perfect.   Let's find out why...

Just got my Pentium !!! 450 SL35D. So, big deal right ? Its just a PIII 450 and it won't come close to the latest processors. Well, if you are thinking that way, you are wrong :) The PIII 450MHz SL35D is atcually a PIII 600 ! It has the same SEC 4ns L2 Cache onboard and it should be overclockable to nothing less than 600MHz (4.5 X 133). Can't wait to try out and push this cute little chip here in my hands. I need to go out shopping tomorrow for a heatsink...

The new version improves the overclockability of the G400 MAX by providing clock duty cycle correction control and the option to turn of auto duty cycle correction as used in previous version of MGATweak, at the expense of violating the chip specification PLL programming procedures. Duty cycle correction is further explained in the user guide.

• MGATweak (Win9X - v1.12 build 15 - 366 KB)
  
  
  

The choice between the Savage2000 and the GeForce 256 is much harder. Both support geometry acceleration but the GeForce should be way ahead on this judging by it's transistor count. This is quite a fair assumption unless S3 have come up with some very new and fundamentally more advanced logic for doing matrix maths, which I doubt. The Savage actually does load balancing between the CPU and itself on the geometry front. This means that it will give the offloading benefits of T&L in hardware up to a certain level of geometrical complexity. The GeForce will always leave the CPU more free to do AI and physics and whatnot. The Savage can do a lot more dual textured pixels than the GeForce. Thus it should be able to run duel textured games at higher resolutions.

Montreal, Quebec, Tuesday, September 7, 1999 -
Guillemot is excited to announce the 3D Prophet™, its highest-performing graphics solution, based on NVIDIA's revolutionary Graphics Processing Unit, GeForce 256™. Especially designed for hardcore gamers, 3D Prophet™ will give them the absolute graphics power for their PC and the ultimate gaming experience for only $269.99!

After a recent visit to Taiwan we've come back with tidings on AMD moving to socket-based Athlons and the state of the motherboard industry. We've also got dibs on Intel's latest roadmap and first mention of the "Tejema" 1.2Gigaherz processor and the Camino2 and ATI's secret Aurora project.

 Fresh from the successful hype of its K7 (Athlon) family, AMD is now gearing up for the K8, its 64-bit follow-up.

The company goes public on the K8 at, next month's Microprocessor Forum -- we understand. But the clone chip firm refuses to confirm or deny such a chip is on the cards.

AMD reckons it's piling the pressure on Intel with the K7. And a quick introduction of the K8 would certainly give something for Chipzilla to think about.

AMD aims turn up the heat by launching its next generation of (64-bit) processors within months -- and it has enlisted top chip engineer Jim Keller (a former Alpha male)to make it happen.

He worked on the Alpha 21264 - a seriously out of order chip. He is likely to make the K8 seriously out of order too, meaning Intel will feel seriously out of order.

The step up from 32-bit Athlon K7 to a 64-bit K8 (Octathlon?) chip is relatively trivial to achieve, we are led to understand, from sources close to the company's plans.

In today’s gaming world A3D 1.0/2.0 has been known as the hallmark of elite gamers. If you have an A3D 2.0 card, then you are experience the indisputable king of sound. What if you have not dumped your SB Pro, and want to buy a new Vortex 2 based card? This shootout features three of the most popular Vortex 2 based cards available. The Diamond Multimedia Monster MX300, Voyetra Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla, and Xitel Storm Platinum Gamer’s Pack are all battling for the title as the best A3D 2.0 card on the market. The AU8830 chipset is alive and kicking, so let the games begin!

1. Based on NVIDIA's display driver v2.25
2. Dual-view support, but the TV-out of dual view mode for 3D game is still under development.
3. Improve captured video quality for high-speed moving objects.
4. Fix capture driver bug under Adobe Premiere when the capture is completed.

• ASUS V3800 Driver (Win9X - 2.25 Beta 2 - 2 MB)
• ASUS V3800 Driver (WinNT4 - 2.25 Beta 2 - 614 KB)
  
  
  

If you have been into computers for the last 4 years or so, you will know that Matrox used to be the kings of 2D graphics in terms of both quality and speed. With the invention of 3D graphics cards Matrox, unfortunately lost a lot of ground to 3Dfx and NVidia. Since then Matrox has tried to get back into business with the release of the G200 (Which didn't have a OpenGL ICD on release) which wasn't a major performer. But now they are back with the G400, so how does their new card match up to the competition now?

Television tuners are a great toy to have for your computer. They are very easy to setup and require very little resources while running. There are a number of packages to choose from, however, only a handful of those offer the features found in Phoebe Micro's offering. Aside from the TV tuner, the TVMaster+FM features a FM tuner, video capture, and a remote control. The TVMaster+FM seamlessly duplicates all the functionality that is now standard in conventional television sets and FM tuners.

• BIOS Optimization for Overclocking
• Pentium III 550 at 682MHz using conventional cooling
  
  
  

• ICQ 99b (Win9X/NT -v3.19 build 2596 - 5 MB)
• WCPUID (Win9X/NT -v2.6 Final - 66 KB)
• WhatCpuIs (Win9X/NT - 1.0 Beta 1 - 496 KB)

• Download ASUS BIOS Updates
  
  
  

• Matrox G400 Driver (Win9X - v5.21 - 4.22MB)
  - Note you MUST use this utility to uninstall old drivers.
  
  
  

NVIDIA will be touting the GeForce 256 this week at Intel Developers Forum as a Graphics Processing Unit, or GPU for short. This is because of the addition of transformation and lighting 'on-chip', with the geometry calculation stage of the 3D pipeline to be off-loaded from the CPU. Concurrently, the CPU should have the added bonus of more bandwidth, which should allow game developers the ability to focus the CPU upon improving the level of physics and AI, should they choose to implement hardware T&L. In addition, NVIDIA's gem boasts 50 Gigaflops of floating-point calculation capability which is set to be dedicated to 3D. According to NVIDIA's statement, such performance rivals a Cray T3D 256-processor (Cray T3D is an MPP 'no shared memory' computer with a theoretical peak of 300 gigaflops with 2048 processors).