For months, you've had either an Nvidia or an ATI multi-GPU setup. You made the final migration to the new OS from Microsoft. You were ready to play with one of the (few) recently released DX10 games... but something was wrong. Performance wasn't up to your expectations, in fact, it looked as if there was no improvement at all. Because there was none.

Most performance issues are usually driver related, but in this case, Nvidia/ATi were not the guilty ones, but Microsoft. Windows Vista, from time to time, would not pass instructions for the 2nd GPU to the driver,  leaving SLI/CrossFire configurations to work as a single chip card. Last Wednesday, a hotfix was posted for both 32 and 64-bit versions of the OS.

PCPerspective is one of the sites that has considered these products from a price / efficiency point of view, and their conclusions don't bode well for AMD.

The 2600 XT, that was supossed to be direct competition of nVidia's 8600 GT, is in fact around the price of an 8600 GTS (when, in most cases, the 8600 GT is already able to outperform it). The Radeon HD 2600 Pro was pitted, in theory, against the 8500 GT. You can find 8600 GT cards for about $100 though. The 2600 Pro doesn't stand much of a chance against the 8600 GT, in the same way that the 2600 XT couldn't beat the 8600 GTS. The Radeon HD 2400 XT is a budget card, and as such it will have to go head to head with the 8400 (once it's available for review).

If we consider the "power" factor, things look more or less the same. The numbers you will see around the web are very much like the ones from the 8600 cards, and those weren't exactly "power efficient". Maybe I overestimated what the 65nm parts (2600 and 2400 cards) would be able to do, maybe it's a yields problem that will get sorted out as the manufacturing process matures...

Until now, I would have recommended you to wait if you were into DX10 gaming, but as soon as "real" DX10 titles start to hit the shelves, the waiting will get anxious.

According to Digitimes: "Intel's IGP (integrated graphics processor) chipset G35, which is scheduled to launch in third quarter this year will not support DirectX 10 until 2008".

Does it ring any bell? It should, because not long ago (when Intel stated their intent on entering the GPU market) we pointed out the difficulties of the software associated with that kind of product.

"Intel's G35 chipset was originally planned to support DirectX 10 at launch time, but due to the delay of a DirectX 10 driver, Intel currently schedules to launch the alpha version DirectX 10 driver in fourth quarter of 2007 and will launch the final version in first quarter of 2008 if the process goes well, noted the sources.

In addition to desktop chipsets, Intel's Centrino notebook platform (Santa Rosa) chipsets, GM965 and GL960 (scheduled to launch in third quarter) will both delay their support of DirectX 10 until first quarter of 2008 too".

They better get their act together, or their first discrete solution could be plaged with performance and compatibility issues. Graphics driver development will play a key role in their furture if they are to share the market with nVidia and AMD. Will the team that's taken care of it until now be up to the task? Is there help they can hire?

Computex still floods the internet with news of future products, this one comes from a back room MSI filled with new technology. The people at HotHardware entered, saw and reported.
"The idea behind Luxium is pretty simple, it is essentially an enclosure that houses an external PCI Express x16 slot and is connected to your PC through an external PCI Express interface (ExpressCard in case of notebooks). As you may have guessed, Luxium�s value proposition is to bring high end desktop graphics capabilities to computers without [it]."

There is a couple of things MSI must be cautious about for this to be a good solution:
1- It's cost must be acceptable when compared to how many upgrades the user will be able to perform. Of course, it's not up to MSI to decide when PCI Express is replaced or if it will be backwards compatible trough all of it's revisions. What they can do is adjust the price according to the length of it's usefulness.

2- They ought to give the card enough bandwidth. The company has already had trouble getting the GeForce 8800GTX to work. Even if they solve that, what kind of guarantee is there that the next generation of PCI Express cards won't have that same problem?

Actually, both points have to do with the added cost of this box to the graphics card itself. True, if nothing else, it's a way of getting the ultimate 3D performance out of a laptop, disregarding price, but those that don't care about anything else will still buy the desktop PC and (if) the mobile one.

Later this year, when it's released, you will have the opportunity to merge the mobile and the desktop worlds. Hopefully.

Changing CPU, HDD or memory may not be that much of an improvement, but what if we add the GPU into the mix? Now we're talking.

In the past, and a recent past at that, having the option to upgrade the graphics processing unit of your laptop asked from you much more money than it was worth. Not only because of the price of the GPU itself, but of the laptop you wanted to upgrade. Asus notebooks aren't cheap, but there's reason to believe that if they don't want to lose this market they will behave themselves.
Thanks to the MXM Type II module it houses, the CS90S will accept a variety of nVidia (ATI will have to wait) GPUs, up to the GeForce Go8600 that was on display at Computex.

MXM modules are installed similar to a SO-DIMM, and there are four types that correspond to differents sizes and/or GPU support. The version here is an updated MXM which includes a heat-spreader in the design. This will allow the use of standardized heatpipes and will leave thermal as your only worry when purchasing a new module down the road. Current MXM (Mobile PCI Express Module) Type II reach 25 watts, that's your limit with this notebook. And when we say "PCI Express", we mean "16 lane PCI Express".

The problem with MXMs is that you don't find them easily. And lack of competition is also bad news if we talk about price. Again, if this market is to exist, it needs affordable parts.

According to digitimes AMD would currently be shipping its ATI Radeon HD 2400 and ATI Radeon HD 2600 series GPUs to Asus, Club 3D, Diamond, Gecube, Gigabyte, HIS, MSI, Palit, PowerColor, Sapphire and VisionTek. Graphics cards based on these processors are expected to be available at online retailers within a few weeks.

The ATI Radeon HD 2000 series was partially launched on May 14, with only the 2900 XT being immediately available. The other two members of the family were temporaly delayed, which raised fears that past paper-launches could be revived. If we are to trust AMD on this information, the schedule for a summer launch date for the parts that missed the party will be met.

What we need now is a good DX10 game to test those cards and see if they really are better than "old" hardware. Under DX9, at least, it looks doubtful.

Five and seven months after the release of Windows Vista and the first DX10-capable graphics card (respectively), we star to see some action in the form of games and demos. First, the demo for "Lost Planet: Extreme Condition" was made available for download. Soon followed "Call of Juarez", another demo. And a few weeks later, "Company of Heroes" became the first game that will really take advantage of your DX10 graphics card. ExtremeTech uses its built-in performance test to review it.

Compared to the DX9 version, the patched one falls into the single digits at times (around a third of DX9). Average frame rates are still quite playable for a strategy game, but minimum frame rates are the ones that should stay above 20 fps not to get noticed, much more above 10 fps.

High-end cards still deliver enough performance to make the game playable, but don't expect midrange or budget DX10 cards to be able to play it, except at very low resolutions.

Perhaps, because "Company of Heroes" was developed for DX9, the DX10 patch is inefficient. Still, a trade-off of a huge drop in performance for a small visual enhancement it's hardly what you all were hoping for.

CoH gives no reason to upgrade, neither

Using a decent computer (E6600, 2GB PC6400, 975X, GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit), those elite bastards put nVidia's latest drivers to the test. The reference point here is ForceWare 158.18 WHQL.

The applications used for benchmarking were all DirectX 10:

- Company of Heroes (Version 1.70).
- Lost Planet: Extreme Condition demo.
- Call of Juarez demo.

The last one gets almost no performance increase, which comes as no surprise because Call of Juarez is an ATI biased game. The other two seem to have received a little more attention. Lost Planet sees a large improvement with a performance boost between 15% and 20% depending on settings. Company of Heroes gets the most from this driver update. Being the first game that you can buy which is prepeared for DirectX 10 (even if it's via a patch) and the main target for driver developement right now. At 2048x1536 with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled, we find ourselves with a raise in framerate up to 100% using ForceWare 158.45.

Keep in mind that DirectX 10 supporting titles are just starting to appear. There's still a lot left to do with regard to performance improvements through driver tweaking and optimisation. Once final code from games made from scratch for the new API begin to arrive, we should see the real benefits of NVIDIA's x10 cards.

AGP, there you have a market segment that just refuses to disappear. With every new generation of graphics cards we are told that support for that interface is lost, and yet products are released. HIS tought AGP deserved DirectX 10 too, so they are preparing an HD 2600 XT, which is based on AMD’s upcoming RV630 graphics processing unit (the one that has been delayed because of it being 65nm).

As with any GPU that natively supports PCI-Express, a bridge chip is needed. In this case, HIS will use ATI's RIALTO to get the card working on AGP. Bridge chips are usually a nightmare for retailers and distributors, due to higher failiure rates, but you as a consumer should not be worried about that. Warranties are there for something, are they not?

The card is polished with an HIS IceQ cooling solution, which promises to be “faster, cooler & quieter". Compared to what? I prefer when manufacturers resort to trusted desings.

Link: Bit-tech.

Digitimes reports what most of us were expecting since AMD bought ATI: they are going to enter in the discrete graphics card market next year.

"At this stage all plans are still rather vague, according to the sources, with Intel scheduled to deliver a more complete roadmap and specifications in the fourth quarter of this year. However, according to most of the sources, Intel will aim for the mid-range market in the initial stages with pricing targeted around US$300."

If they can deliver a competitive part, consumers should benefit from lower prices and better performance in the mid-range and entry-level segments. This won't be something easy, because a powerfull graphics card needs good drivers to work efficiently; and you can ask ATI how difficult a task that is. Intel has the means to produce solid hardware, but they lack the experience needed to develope corresponding software.

Other benefits from them entering in the graphics sector would be the real possibility of power savings in the GPU world. The ideas of partial shutdown, dinamic reduction of voltages and frequencies, or superior manufacturing capabilities are just mouth-watering.