BlacX duel hot-swap drive bay Supports USB 2.0 and ESATA
Monday, December 26, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Dvico Fusion Dual HDTV DVB-T Tuner Review
This is a PCI card which I purchased from The Glow Lounge to complete my Windows Media Center PC (for which I shall be writing a 'how to' at a later date) to place in my living room to take over from my dvd player, VCR, standard definition freeview tuner and hi-fi. It cost around £105 which you may think is a bit expensive but I shall explain the reasons for my choice later.
What's In The Box?
PCI Card x1
Drivers CD x1
MCE Remote control x1
Infra Red Cable x1
Small Form Factor Bracket x1
Instructions x1
Analogue Input Cable x1
Video Studio 8 x1
USB Cable x1
Audio Cable x1
Installation
Installation, as with most PCI cards, is a relativley painless process providing you follow the instructions provided. One thing to consider in the placement of the card in your computer is that it can become quite hot, bearing this in mind I placed the card at the bottom of my system so that it was away form the graphics card because I didn't want the graphics card and tuner to mutually exchange heat and potentially damage each other.
One thing that I do, and it is only my preference, is ignore the driver CD that comes with any card such as this and download the latest drivers from the manufacturers website for 2 reasons; 1) sometimes the card or whatever has been sat on the shelf for months and in that time the manufacturer has already released several updates. 2) when downloading the software from the manufacturer's website you choose only the software you need as opposed to all the junk that is usually installed with the drivers CD, I'm talking about things like infuriating toolbars or adware that comes bundle with software that helps to slow down your PC. Like I said this is only my preference.
This is by no means the cheapest DVBT (Digital Video Broadcast Terrestrial) tuner card out there I but chose it because it had certain functions which I thought were essential to merit the move from a standalone digital terrestrial tuner to a Windows Media Center based television. The first requirement is that it had to be a dual tuner so that I could watch one program while recording another. The second requirement is that it had to be a HD (High Definition) card, so that it would still work when HD television starts to be broadcast in the UK, and of course when I upgrade to a huge HD television or projector!
One thing that surprised me about this card is the quality of the remote control that comes with it. Usually with things like this the design of the remote control seems to be an afterthought and is adequate at best, this is definitley not the case with the Dvico card. The remote control is chunky, well built, and actually feels like a proper remote! I have to confess I don't use the remote that comes with the card, I use the remote that comes with Logitech S510 Cordless Desktop purelybecause the scroll wheel on the remote makes it quicker to navigate menus. If I hadn't already bought this cordless desktop then I would definitley be happy with the remte that Dvico supplies.
I have used the TV software that came with the card briefly but did not find it as good or as intuitive to use as Windows Media Center 2005, whilst I think that in the absence of Windows Media center the supplied software would do the job. One thing I have yet to try out is the analogue capture functions of the card but if the performance of the other features of the card are anything to go by then i'm sure it'll do precisely as it says on the tin!
I've been using this card with Windows Media Center 2005 for about 3 months now and I can say that this card has performed without a hitch.
Key Features
Watch One Channel While Recording Another
Watch DVB-T Digital TV Programs on Your PC
Picture in Picture (PIP) & Multi-view Function
Record TV programs to hard drive as DVD/ MPEG2 format
Scheduled recording from Hibernation/Stand-by/PC-off mode
Pause and replay live TV shows (Time-shifting function)
Analog video capture and recording in digital
High-resolution still image capture
Compatible with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Low CPU consumption with DxVA SW decoder
EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
Supports digital Teletext & Subtitle (excluding U.K.)
Low profile form factor for slim PC
Supports HD-to-DVD or Divx format conversion
Supports power up as PME
Supports logical channel number
Full function infrared remote contro
l
Specifications
I/O Connections 1 x Antenna Input
1 x USB Port
1 x SVHS/ 1 x Composite Video Input
1 x Internal Stereo Sound Port
1 x IR Remote Control Port
Minimum System Requirements Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows 2000
1 x USB2.0 Port and 1 x PCI Slot
DxVA based VGA Cards
Pentium3 800MHz ( ATI Radeon Series )
Non-DxVA based VGA Cards
Pentium4 1.6GHz with 128M memory
Drivers Cypress FX2 drivers
Conexant CX2388x drivers
DViCO's own tuner/BDA driver
DViCO's own dual HDTV decoder( full s/w mode & DxVA mode)
Conclusion
Not the cheapest digital Tv tuner card on the market, but if you're serious about building a decent Home Theater PC (HTPC) with a lot of features, then this card is well worth the consideration. The only thing letting this card down is the bundled TV software, but if you're planning to use Windows Media Center 2005 then you won't have a problem.
I did have a slight problem installing the infrared cable that came with this card, this is due to the fact that the rear slot openings on my case (thermaltake armor) are slightly smaller than usual, meaning that installation of the infrared jack plug was rather tricky. Once installed the infrared function worked perfectly.
johnsreviews rating: 9/10
For more reviews or technical help go to www.johnsreviews.com
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Nvidia Gaphic Card Geforce 8800GTX Review
If you want the fastest graphic card on the planet then buy the Nvidia graphic card Geforce 8800 series, if you want the fastest gaming system on the plant then buy the two Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX graphic cards and put them together using the SLI.
The Geforce 8000 series has a new chip, 90 nanometre, with over 680 million transistors, it is considered to be the largest graphics chip ever built. The fastest 8000 version is clocked at 575 MHz while the GTX version clocks at 500 MHz.
The Geforce 8800 series graphic cards are the first to use the Direct 10 chip. "It is also the first to support the 'unified' marchitecture." It uses the same "pipeline calculates vertex, pixel and geometry Shader information".
"Geforce 8800 GTX has a core working at 575MHz. GDDR 3 memory works in a rather odd 384-bit mode and it has twelve chips, totally of 768MB of memory. While we all expected 1024 would be the next step, Nvidia decided to go for 768MB due its different memory controller. Nvidia clocked the memory at 1800MHz with a totally bandwidth of respectable 86.4 GB/s and a fill rate of 36.8 billion a second."
The Geforce 8000 series unified parallel Shader is designed to support 128 individual stream processors running at 1.35GHz in terms of speed. The speed numbers came from Nvidia. Because it support direct x 10 it will only work with Window Vista operating systems.
This card is hot, literally it has two power 6 pin connectors means that the card gets 2x75 watts from the cables plus an additional 75 watts from the PCIe bus. This brings total power consumption to an amazing 225 Watts.
The Nvidia graphic card Geforce 8800 GTX "has a dual slot cooler - massive and heavy but it does the job. The card always worked around 55Celsius in 2D mode and a bit higher in 3D."
The test of two cards
The first card tested was the EVGA Geforce 8800 GTX with a brand-new ACS3 Cooler.
"The ACS3 cooler is actually more efficient that Nvidia's reference cooler as the card works at 55C in 2D mode while the Nvidia reference cooler cools the card to 60 Celsius only. This is what makes the difference between EVGA card and the rest of the cards based on the reference cooler design." The box the card come in is super small.
Second card was a Leadtek Geforce 8800 GTX card with the SLI or Scalable Link Interface for linking two graphic cards together. The Leadtek card supports HDCP or High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection and the driver CD also includes Vista drivers.
The driver for both card has a couple of new features, One new featured includes support for 16X Anisotropic filtering. The big news is that Nvidia finally supports FSAA 8X and 16X. Nvidia's Luminex is a marketing name for incredible image quality that includes support for 16X Anti-alasing, 128-bit HDR (High Density Resolution) and support for 2560x1600 resolution with a high frame rate.
Bench marketing The cards where tested using the following:
"Foxconn C51XE M2aa Nforce 590 SLI motherboard
Sapphire AM2RD580 with SB600 board for Crossfire
Athlon FX 62 2800 MHz 90 nanometre Windsor core
2x1024 MB DDR2 Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Thermaltake Mini Typhoon Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's
OCZ 700W GameXstream power supply"
The two nvidia graphic card where test on the 3Dmark03 a "single EVGA G80 card, EVGA eGeforce 8800GTX ACS3 575/1800MHz scores 30485. it is just slightly faster than the 7950 GX2 card, 2500 slower than Crossfire and more than 10000 faster than a single fastest X1950XTX card."
When the EVGA-Leadtek 8800GTX SLI 2x 575/1800MHz combo scores 49390, almost 50K a perfect score for the 3Dmark03. With the SLI it is sixty two percent faster than a single card. A single Geforce 8000 graphic card is fifty four percent faster than an X1950XTX. With the Vertex Shader test the Geforce 8000 graphic card is twice as fast as the ATI's faster card.
"Nvidia Graphic card EVGA eGeforce 8800GTX ACS3 575/1800MHz scores is eighty four percent faster than the ATI's X1950XTX in Shader model 2.0 test and seventy one in Shader model 3.0 / HDR testing."
List of computer video games used in the test
"Doom 3 scores around 135 FPS at first three resolutions and drop to 125 at the 20x15, SLI even then scores 135 so this is clearly CPU limited. EVGA eGeforce 8800GTX ACS3 575 / 1800 MHz is almost 80 percent faster at 2048x1536. Doom 3 with effects on scores 130 FPS at first two resolutions and later starts to drop but is still faster than 7950 GX2 cards all the time. SLI doesn't drop at all at first three resolutions only slightly drops at 20x15.
FEAR scores are up to sky with the weakest score of 95 FPS at 20x15, faster than Crossfire in the last two resolutions and from GX2 and X1950XTX at all times. It is up to 66 percent faster than X1950XTX and 68 percent from the Gainward 7950 GX2 card. SLI is again 68 percent faster than Crossfire a massive difference.
Quake 4 runs up to forty seven frames faster on G80 and SLI gets the score better but not much. G80 is always faster than GX2 and Crossfire. Quake 4 with FSAA and Aniso runs some forty percent faster than ATI's fastest card and 30 per cent in Crossfire versus SLI G80.
Far Cry with effects on performance is matched with both G80 and X1950XTX while the SLI can outperform both in 20x15.
Serious Sam 2 is faster on ATI in first two resolutins by three frames while EVGA eGeforce 8800GTX ACS3 575 / 1800 MHz wins by eight, or fifteen frames at higher resolutions. SLI is 23 per cent faster than a single G80 and 43 percent faster than X1950xTX.
Serious Sam 2 with FSAA and Aniso on always scores faster at EVGA eGeforce 8800GTX ACS3 575 / 1800 MHz card but not that much, some nine to ten percent while the SLI is 54 per cent faster than a single card and sixty eight percent than ATI's card."
In Short
The Nvidia Geforce 8000 series graphic cards are amazing beating out the latest ATI card in virtually every test. The card is pricey, expect to pay around 0 or more for one of them. It is a very long card and it does get hot but the card can be consider the fastest graphics card on the market right now, it is also very stable as well.
Stating from the beginning if you want the fastest graphic card on the planet then buy the Nvidia graphic card Geforce 8800 series, if you want the fastest gaming system on the plant then buy the two Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX graphic cards and put them together using the SLI.
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