Are Intel chipsets really capable of running DirectX 10 games?

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: May 1, 2008 - 10:52 AM That is the question nVidia is asking around. They just sent us some information about DirectX 10 support on Intel chipsets with integrated video. The conclusion is simple: DirectX 10 support isn't relevant as on-board video doesn't have enough performance to run today's games anyway! See below the full e-mail we've got from nVidia. If you are interested in learning more about integrated (a.k.a. on-board) video from Intel it is an interesting read. --- Received from nVidia May 1st, 2008 --- Intel integrated claims DirectX 10...try it out... Intel promised to have a DirectX 10 driver by yesterday, so keep your eyes peeled. Last week a new Intel motherboard came out and along with it Intel claimed that their GMA X3500 was DX10 capable. "The DG35EC Classic series board is built with integrated graphics based on GMA X3500 integrated graphics. It includes HD video playback for movie clips and media streams without the need for an add-in video card and is the first to have integrated Microsoft DirectX 10 capability with OpenGL 2.0 support." Even though you can see Intel claiming DirectX 10 support as far back as June 2006 for their 965 chipset (NOTE: wouldn't that make those motherboards the first ones to support DirectX 10?) they still have not released the long, long, long delayed driver, only offering a driver with no DirectX 10 support on their website. The good news for anyone who may have mistakenly believed they could actually use DirectX10 on all the Intel products they claim it for is that a driver leaked on the web. Since Intel states it is DirectX 10 capable, we decided to try it out on the available DirectX 10 titles that are shipping today, as a preview to the official release of their driver: Call of Juarez @ 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF -- 1.8 fps Crysis @ 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF -- 4.4 fps World in Conflict @ 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF -- 5 fps BioShock @ 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF -- 3.7 fps Company of Heroes @ 1280 x 1024, no AA/AF -- 3.6 fps 5 fps or less on the DirectX 10 titles available today at the meager setting of 1280 x 1024 with no AA/AF. Sounds fun. GMA X3500 does not seem very "capable" to me, in fact it seems downright incapable of being used with actual DirectX 10 applications. Now consider that DirectX 10 titles will only get more stressful on the graphic subsystem as the API matures and game developers continue to add more impressive visuals. Saying GMA 3500 is DirectX 10 capable is kind of like saying Styrofoam is "nutrition capable". I guess Intel's definition of capable is a lot different than our definition... a lot. Intel DirectX 10, FTL. System info: ASUS P5E-VM HDMI Intel G35 chipset 7.14.10.1451 video driver Intel Core2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2337.6 MHz (7.0 x 333.9 MHz) - Conroe 2x1024 MBytes (2048 MBytes) Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

New Layout on Hardware Secrets

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: April 24, 2008 - 6:14 PM Hi folks! Today I changed Hardware Secrets layout a little bit, adding an icon to represent each article, on each section and on the main page. Since the number of articles grew a lot in the past months, I think this will facilitate finding articles on our website. Also, in order to the category pages not be very long, I also added a navigation system, i.e. if the category has too many articles, it will be broken down into several pages. Please let me know what you think about this modification. Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (2) top

Huntkey Green Star 450 W Re-tested!

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: March 24, 2008 - 4:07 PM As I promised I bought another Huntkey Green Star 450 W power supply to redo the 450 W load test using another load pattern. The result? Absolutely the same. Huntkey Green Star 450 W is in fact a 360 W power supply that explodes if you try to pull 450 W from it. This time we taped the test in order to prove our claims. Click here to read the updated review, including the video. Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

BFG 800 W Power Supply Review Updated

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: March 18, 2008 - 4:54 PM BFG has released a new "Limited Edition" version of their 800 W power supply correcting the video card power cables issues, which were too short, adding two longer video card power cables. So this new version has a total of four video power cables instead of "just" two. Because of the release of this new version, we updated the text from our review. Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

Gold-Plated DeLorean and Batmobile

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: February 10, 2008 - 8:15 PM K.I.T.T., DeLorean, Batmobile and Mach 5 (from Speed Racer cartoons) are emblematic cars for nerds  above 30 years old like me. And this weekend I was able to see in person a 24-karat gold-plated De Lorean and the original Batmobile from the Pow! Smack! Wham! 1960’s Batman TV series. These two classic cars are just two of the over 200 cars exposed in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, NV. The amount of interesting cars there is amazing, and you should visit this museum during your next skiing/snowboarding trip to Tahoe – it is within walking distance from the main street (Virginia Street), where the main casinos are located. The 1981 24-karat gold-plated De Loren was one of the two manufactured to promote American Express Gold card. click to enlarge click to enlarge click to enlarge click to enlarge click to enlarge The Batmobile is an all-time icon, making success even with kids from the Pokémon generation: buttons, buttons and more buttons! For me what is really worth dying for is the radar (a.k.a. “Detect-a-scope”) on the dash board on the passenger’s side. click to enlarge click to enlarge click to enlarge The museum is great, but it would be far better if they had K.I.T.T. on display (click here for my coverage on K.I.T.T.)! Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

Load Tester in Action

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: February 7, 2008 - 8:11 PM I am very happy today. I finally put together our methodology for testing power supplies, using our new SunMoon SM-268 load tester, of course. By the way, it seems that only a half-dozen websites use a load tester to make their reviews, what makes our new reviews even more valuable (let me know if you know about a website that uses such equipment and that I haven't listed on the last page of our methodology). In the next few days I'll be "upgrading" as many "First Look" articles on power supplies as we can, adding our load tests to them. And I've just "upgraded" our first review, PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V, which, by the way, can really deliver its rated 610 W at 45º C. The next few days should be pretty busy around here... ;-) Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

CES 2008

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: January 7, 2008 - 7:23 PM I am right now attending CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, NV. Since Comdex no longer exists this is the big computing show in the USA right now but, as the name implies, it is not only about computers, but about all sorts of electronic devices. This is my first CES and everything people always told me about it is true: it is huge, there is a lot of interesting things to see and you have to walk a lot as things are very far away, transit around the conventions center gets chaotic (a 10-minute drive turns easily into a 45-minute stop-and-go) and by the end of the day you are really exhausted. Even with the massive 14-hour jet-leg I didn’t feel so tired during Computex in Taipei – even though Computex is huge you don’t need to walk too far for the off-site meetings and parties. In Vegas moving from the main convention center to any of the nearby hotels takes at least a good half an hour. Several websites are covering CES 2008 and to be honest it is hard to compete with websites that have three or more guys covering the show at the same time. I am all by myself here and it is simply humanly impossible to cover the entire show. So instead of posting a long “CES 2008 Coverage” article I will focus on posting separated “First Look” articles from relevant products that I really find worth talking about. Due to the massive amount of stuff going on here probably several articles will be posted after the show is over. So, stay tuned! click to enlarge Figure 1: CES 2008. Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

Shock-Proof LCD Monitor from ASUS

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: January 4, 2008 - 7:22 PM People say that an image is worth a thousand words. Specially when I don't understand a word of Russian. But the video is really cool, the guy hammers a monitor and much more and it doesn't even get scratched: http://www.abum.com/61948/New-flat-panel-monitor-can-take-a-crossbow-shot-and-survive.html Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-Ray Player Review Corrected and Expanded

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: December 20, 2007 - 8:56 PM I found some flaws on my review of Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-Ray player, so I have just posted a re-written version of it. Unfortunately this kind of problem always happen when we are talking about a new product category where we are still in the middle of the learning process. The basic flaw was trying to include our iScan VP20 scaler on the review. I said that the player was recognizing it as a 1080i device, what was wrong. In fact, our scaler only accepts up to 1080i resolutions on its input. The ability to handle 1080p inputs is available only on the high-end model VP50. I should have read the manual more carefully. Shame on me. Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (0) top

PSU Load Tester Arrived!

Author: Gabriel Torres Date: December 14, 2007 - 5:20 PM I am very happy today; my SunMoon SM-268 has just arrived. This equipment is a power supply active load tester, which will enable us to perform true power supply reviews. As we have already explained, 99% of power supply reviews posted on the web are wrong. I will be playing with this machine during the next days in order to master it. After that all our power supply reviews will have both the model we are currently using – i.e. completely disassembling the units to see the design and components used – and load testing to see if the power supply is really capable of delivering its labeled power. We still need to buy other stuff, like a thermometer to measure both the room temperature and the PSU internal temperature, a wattage meter to measure efficiency and an oscilloscope to see how much noise and ripple there are on the power supply outputs, if we want to cover these tests as well. This is a hell of an investment but I think that it will be worthwhile, especially when we think that are only a very few people doing this kind of in-depth power supply reviews today. I plan to re-test all as much as power supplies we’ve covered in the past in order to update all our articles. The good thing about power supplies is that their life-span are far longer than other hardware parts, so what we could consider an “old” PSU review can help a lot of people, as the products are still available on the market. Also, I plan to create a table listing all power supplies we reviewed with the load tester showing the ones that were capable of delivering their rated power and the ones that weren’t. This table should be very handy for all users. On the pictures below you have an overall look of my new load tester. click to enlarge click to enlarge click to enlarge Print Version | Send to Friend | Bookmark This Entry | Permalink | Comments (8) top