This is the midagedgamerreport for August 17, 2012...
This week...
The 660Ti is out, a new boost for AMD's 7950 could be a bust
for current owners. Is OnLive dead? and
co-op on the rise!
The cat's out of the proverbial bag and Nvidia's 660Ti has
launched. Depending on who's review you
read it's either a 7950 killer or a midrange also-ran assuming you stay at
resolutions below 2560x1600 that
is. Sharing the important bits with its big
brother the GTX 670 the 660Ti specs show just how close the family resemblance
is.
As you can see from the chart, the big differences are the
number of ROP's down to 24 from 32 on the 670 as well as the 192bit instead of
256 Bit memory bus which drops the memory bandwidth from the 670's 192.2 GB/sec
to 144.2 GB/sec.
GeForce GTX 670
|
GeForce GTX 660 Ti
|
||
Shaders
|
1344
|
1344
|
|
Texture Units
|
112
|
112
|
|
Full Color ROPs
|
32
|
24
|
|
Graphics Clock (Base)
|
915 MHz
|
915 MHz
|
|
Texture Fillrate
|
102.5 Gtex/s
|
102.5 Gtex/s
|
|
Memory Clock
|
1502 MHz
|
1502 MHz
|
|
Memory Bus
|
256-bit
|
192-bit
|
|
Memory Bandwidth
|
192.2 GB/s
|
144.2 GB/s
|
|
Graphics RAM
|
2 GB GDDR5
|
2 GB GDDR5
|
|
Die Size
|
294 mm2
|
294 mm2
|
|
Transistors (Billion)
|
3.54
|
3.54
|
|
Process Technology
|
28 nm
|
28 nm
|
|
Power Connectors
|
2 x 6-pin
|
2 x 6-pin
|
|
Maximum Power
|
170 W
|
150 W
|
|
Price
|
$400
|
$300
|
According to one review the 660Ti can best a high end ATI 7950 at HD resolutions
and below even with a bit of boost ( more about that in a minute) but loses at
higher resolutions. Considering this
card is meant to go against a 7870 and trounces it completely when it does it's
unlikely that was ever the real target.
At $299 with the same feature set as it's bigger brothers, speculation
is another round of price cuts from AMD is likely.
Speaking of ATI and the 7950, apparently a lot of 7950
owners and a few reviewers are upset about a recent firmware release that
unlocks higher clocks for the HD 7950.
AMD released the update to reviewers who then had the choice to offer it
to their readers.
The update is not being offered directly through AMD, however.
Board vendors have also vowed to void the warranty of existing 7950's
that apply the firmware. AMD is not
changing the SKU for the 7950 but does plan to provide the firmware update to
new 7950's.
Some reviewers and end users feel slighted by having bought
a more expensive and less capable card due
to the restrictions on applying the new update.
Most manufacturers have been showing new box art with some derivation of
"Boost" in the name.
That should address any perceived confusion between the new
versus old firmware cards. Still, there's
nothing to suggest any difference in the hardware between this next batch of
7950's aside from possible binning to
ensure compatibility. Arguments aside,
ATI would have been better off just introducing a new SKU to avoid all the
whining.
Half Life 3 rumors?
Probably not...
At Gamescon this week the Half Life 3 rumor mill got revved
up again when the game showed up on the event's website in a PDF file. Valve did have private meetings but denied
any software announcements. Here's a tip
folks, find better sources for your rumors.
That includes you gamescon.
The latest installment in the gaming portal wars...
Origin is expanding to other platforms including Mac. Another Gamescon announcement has Sim City 3
coming out around the same time EA plans the launch on the MAC platform. Looks like another example of imitation being
not so flattering as Valve's Steam has supported MAC's for over 2 years. Other platforms planned are android, facebook
and smart tvs. No word on Linux yet,
Guess Gabe beat 'em to the punch...
Crysis 3 dev team "promise to melt down PC's"
So said Crytek CEO Cevat Verli
This time around Crytek plans to concentrate on pushing the limits
of PC hardware again. The excuse for the
last go-around was compromises made for consoles. Acknowledging that consoles are generations
behind PC's in terms of graphics capability they say they won't compromise this
time but will push the limits of consoles.
I still question whether Crytek was actually pushing the
envelope the first time around. Was it
really that advanced or just less than
optimal coding? How can you develop for
next gen hardware when it doesn't exist?
How can you judge how it will react?
My guess is that we won't see Crysis 3 until the next generation of
consoles appear with hardware much closer to a PC.
A New AMD Catalyst 12.8 driver has been released. Aside from performance improvements the
biggest news is certification for Win 8. There's also Support for Ubuntu Linux 12.04
in this iteration of the AMD video drivers.
Highlights...
Performance highlights
of AMD Catalyst 12.8 (versus AMD Catalyst 12.6)
- Up to 25% in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
- Up to 3% in Battlefield 3
- Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham City
- Up to 3% in Dues Ex: Human Revolution
- Up to 6% in Crysis 2 Up to 15% in Total War: Shogun
- Up to 8% in Crysis Warhead
- Up to 5% in Just Cause 2
- Up to 10% in Dirt 3
I'd like to say I was surprised but I'm not...
Cloud gaming service OnLive has reportedly laid everyone off
and is filing for bankruptcy... or have they? In a story first released on
Kotaku then picked up by Joystiq and CVG there was apparently a meeting this
morning where OnLive CEO Steve Perlman apparently
called a meeting with the company staff and told them,
"no one would be employed by the current OnLive
going forward." That was followed up by a denial from
OnLive's director of corporate communications, Brian Jaquet saying, ""We don't respond to rumors, but of course
not." Which seemed to be supported by an announcement about their built in
app arriving in customer homes via Vizio's Co-Star players. This is either a case of rumor run amok or
the first indications of the company's imminent failure. Pick one guys...
Finally,
With the growing anticipation toward Borderlands 2 and the
recent release of Orcs Must Die 2 it seems there's a resurgence of the
cooperative video game. Not so long ago
developers thought adding an online lobby to their multiplayer games
constituted co-op. The few remaining
titles either had bad AI or were so neglected that a minor update to the
operating system could break them.
When Battlefield 3 was released last October with co-op mode
it sent a signal. No Battlefield game
since 1942 had that option. The
competition did, however. Most major
releases of Call of Duty had a cooperative play mode that still remains among
the best in the genre even if the story wasn't
always stellar.
Now comes the latest shock.
As of August 15th, Team Fortress 2 has a new cooperative play mode
called Man Vs. Machine. The object of
which is to defeat legions of robots resembling the normal TF2 players. Team fortress 2 has been exclusively online
multiplayer sine its inception and the fact that a cooperative play mode has
been added is significant.
Seems co-op may be
making a comeback
No comments:
Post a Comment