Home TR awards 2005
Reviews

TR awards 2005

Geoff Gasior
Disclosure
Disclosure
In our content, we occasionally include affiliate links. Should you click on these links, we may earn a commission, though this incurs no additional cost to you. Your use of this website signifies your acceptance of our terms and conditions as well as our privacy policy.

2005 HAS COME AND GONE, and before the year fades from memory, we’d like to take a moment to recognize some of the best hardware and most memorable events of the year. There was much to get excited about in 2005, including dual-core processors, next-gen graphics cards, new audio products, and bigger hard drives. In addition to a slew of new product introductions, 2005 was also filled with stunning events, questionable marketing tactics, disappointing no-shows, and disturbing trends.

Today we’ll be handing out our Best Hardware of 2005 awards to the most compelling enthusiast-oriented products of the year. We’ve also come up with a series of unique awards to highlight some of the year’s biggest events and trends, and we haven’t pulled any punches. Read on for the best and worst of the past year.

Best hardware awards
Although 2005 was filled with new product releases, not every new product was a gem. Even fewer had real appeal for PC enthusiasts, who crave a perfect blend of cutting-edge features, heart-fluttering performance, rock-solid reliability, and budget-friendly affordability. We’ve singled out a number of the best enthusiast-oriented products of the past year, recognizing the top processor, graphics chip, chipset, hard drive, and sound card. Our picks are by no means a definitive guide to the best components for an enthusiast’s PC. For that, we suggest you check out our system guide, which makes component recommendations for enthusiast-oriented PCs and workstations at various price points.

Manufacturer AMD
Model Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Price (street)

Best processor
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
This one’s a no-brainer. 2005 was the year dual-core processors hit the mainstream, and none was more attractive to enthusiasts than AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 3800+. AMD actually launched its dual-core architecture with Opteron processors for servers and workstations, but SMP’s creamy smoothness soon made its way to desktops in the Athlon 64 X2. The 3800+ wasn’t a part of the initial salvo of Athlon 64 X2 processors, but this 2.0GHz chip with 512KB of L2 cache per core wasn’t far behind. It wasn’t terribly expensive, either. AMD launched the X2 3800+ at $354, and today, you can find it for sale for just over $300 online. Considering the X2 3800+’s impressive performance and overclocking potential, that’s one heck of a deal.

To Intel’s credit, the Pentium D 820 was actually the most affordable dual-core processor of 2005. It was also the first budget dual-core chip to hit the market. However, the X2’s superior architecture, significant performance advantage, more effective clock-throttling, and lower power consumption and heat output easily outclassed any of Intel’s dual-core chips. For enthusiasts, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ offered an untouchable blend of price and performance. Its appeal hasn’t been limited to hardware geeks, either. The chip has become so popular that AMD is having problems keeping up with demand.

Another candidate for best processor is AMD’s recently released Opteron 165. The chip plugs into a standard 939-pin socket and, unlike 940-pin Opterons, doesn’t require registered DIMMs. The Opteron 165 also packs 1MB of L2 cache per core and runs at lower default voltages than Athlon 64 X2 processors—an important consideration for overclockers. The chip quickly became a favorite among enthusiasts and overclockers, but not all Socket 939 motherboards support the new Opterons. AMD is also juggling shipments to ensure that workstation and server builders get first dibs on the chips. It’s an understandable move considering that AMD brought the Opteron 100-series to Socket 939 in an attempt to lower platform costs for server and workstation builders, but it may ultimately limit the number of processors that are made available to enthusiasts. Either way, the impact of 939-pin Opterons hasn’t been nearly as profound as that of the X2 3800+.


The Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor
Manufacturer NVIDIA
Model GeForce 7800 GT
Price (street)

Graphics card
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
Unlike last year, we’re not splitting our best graphics award between low-end, mid-range, and high-end cards. Our system guide already highlights our favorites at a variety of different price points. More importantly, however, one graphics card clearly stood out above the rest in 2005, regardless of price points and market segments. For enthusiasts looking for next-gen features and spectacular performance at an affordable price, nothing was better than NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GT. The card was the second GeForce 7-series product to hit the market in 2005, and it still landed months before ATI’s Radeon X1000 series debuted. Early availability allowed NVIDIA’s graphics card partners to get the jump on the red team, and these days, you can find 7800 GTs for sale for as little as $300. That’s a great deal considering the GT’s phenomenal performance, and the fact that some of those $300 cards come with a lifetime warranty and a bundled copy of Call of Duty 2 only sweetens the deal.

From a features and performance standpoint, this graphics award could have just as easily gone to the GeForce 7800 GTX. However, the price difference between the GT and the GTX is much greater than the performance delta between the two cards. The GT is in exactly the sweet spot enthusiasts should seek out, regardless of their fanboy affiliations.

Speaking of fanboys, we should probably address why a Radeon didn’t rise to the top of our best graphics list. Simply put, none were better suited to enthusiasts than the GeForce 7800 GT. ATI’s next-gen Radeons were delayed by several months, and a late-year debut ultimately muted their impact on the market. Some models didn’t even become available until the final month of the year, and the list of ATI partners with next-gen products available for sale is still rather short. That’s really a shame, since the Radeon X1000 series offers a number of useful features and interesting architectural characteristics. It takes more than potential to get to the top, though. Better luck next year, ATI.


XFX’s GeForce 7800 GT graphics card
 

Chipset
No one
No one gets the chipset award this year because, well, all of the chipsets released in 2005 presented problems for enthusiasts. The closest we have to a winner is NVIDIA’s nForce4 series. The nForce4 was definitely the most popular enthusiast-oriented chipset of the year, but it was plagued by intermittent issues with ActiveArmor Gigabit Ethernet acceleration. Much of the nForce4 line also lacked support for anything other than basic AC’97 audio, and many users still complain about NVIDIA’s IDE drivers. Otherwise, the nForce4 was great, but it’s hard to dole out a best chipset award when major problems persisted through much of the year.

Of course, NVIDIA wasn’t the only game in town when it came to enthusiast-oriented chipsets. ATI made a big core-logic play in 2005 with its Radeon Xpress 200 series chipsets. Unfortunately, they relied largely on ATI’s SB450 south bridge, a chip that lacks key features like Native Command Queuing, 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates, and support for RAID 0+1/10 arrays. The SB450 also has some serious I/O performance problems that we’ve seen limit USB transfer rates, and the performance of PCI-based Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA, and even Firewire peripherals. These problems are too serious and persistent to ignore, effectively knocking ATI out of contention.

Much of ATI’s chipset woes stemmed from problems with the SB450 south bridge, but the Radeon Xpress 200 has long been capable of working with south bridge chips from ULi. We’ve been impressed with ULi south bridge implementations in the past, and the ones we saw paired with ATI north bridge chips offered up-to-date features and competitive performance. Availability was an issue throughout the year, though. Only a handful of motherboard manufacturers elected to use ULi’s south bridge offerings over the SB450, and there weren’t many Radeon Xpress boards in the first place.

A lack of widespread availability in enthusiast-oriented products also takes ULi’s complete chipset offerings out of the running for best chipset. That’s really a shame, since ULi did some interesting things in 2005. Most notably, the company’s M1695/M1567 chipset hung a real AGP 8X interface off the south bridge. That allowed motherboards to be built with full-bandwidth AGP 8X and PCI Express x16 slots, providing plenty of flexibility to upgraders. Unfortunately, the chipset was only available on bargain-basement boards that lacked many of the features and BIOS options that enthusiasts have come to expect as standard.

The availability issue also keeps any of SiS’s numerous chipsets taking the best chipset of 2005 award. Many of the company’s chipsets offered competitive performance and up-to-date features, but to actually get one on a motherboard, you had to go with budget brands like ASRock and ECS. Not that there’s anything wrong with budget boards, but they hardly offer the features, tweaking options, fan speed control, and overclocking potential that enthusiasts desire.

VIA’s chipset problems in 2005 are well-documented enough that it should be clear why none of the company’s chipsets even crossed our mind when considering the best core logic of 2005. In terms of real, honest-to-goodness products, the only thing VIA had for enthusiasts was the K8T890, a chipset that relied on the antiquated VT8237 south bridge. VIA did demo a number of chipsets that never made it to market, but we’ll tackle that in a moment.

With chipsets from ATI, NVIDIA, SiS, ULi, and VIA all disqualified for various reasons, we’re left with Intel. Intel was hardly a minor player in the core logic market in 2005, and its chipset sales dwarfed those of the competition. In fact, were it not for the comparatively poor performance of Pentium processors, Intel would have this award locked up. Over the course of the year, the company released several second-gen PCI Express chipsets, none of which suffered from the issues that plagued other vendors. Intel also debuted the ICH7R south bridge, which features a robust Serial ATA RAID controller, impressive peripheral performance, and HD audio. Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that the CPU interface is a key component of any core logic chipset. The CPU interface on Intel’s chipsets only works with Pentium and Celeron processors, and since neither were attractive options for PC enthusiasts, Intel’s chipsets suffered the same fate.

If we named a best chipset of 2005, we’d really just be naming the least unattractive chipset. That won’t do, so we’ll hold the chipset award for safe keeping until next year. By then, NVIDIA’s acquisition of ULi will be complete, ATI will have a new south bridge, and Conroe should give Intel a more competitive desktop processor. Let’s hope that somewhere along the way, a high-performance, feature-rich, problem-free chipset emerges on enthusiast-oriented motherboards.

BIOS
Abit uGuru
We haven’t picked a best motherboard of 2005 because our system guide makes our favorites pretty clear. However, we would be remiss not to highlight some of the more unique BIOS features offered by mobo makers in 2005. Abit’s uGuru stands out as the winner here, with far more extensive hardware monitoring and fan speed control than any other BIOS. It was the only BIOS that offered fine-grained temperature, voltage, and fan speed monitoring with alarm and shutdown conditions for each. Couple that Abit’s FanEQ fan speed control, which allows users to set individual fan voltages, high/low temperature thresholds, and reference temperatures for all onboard fan headers, and you’ve got a fantastic BIOS for enthusiasts looking to lower noise levels and keep and eye on their hardware. uGuru isn’t exactly lacking when it comes to performance tweaking and overclocking options, either.


Abit’s uGuru fan speed control BIOS menu

Although Abit takes home the hardware this year, DFI’s BIOS innovations come a very close second. The LANParty line made big strides in 2005, and DFI’s motherboard BIOSes offered a couple of great features we couldn’t find anywhere else. The first of these was the integration of Memtest86+ right into the BIOS of the LANParty NF4 series. Memtest is one of the best ways tools for testing memory stability, and having it right there in the BIOS is incredibly useful for overclockers seeking the highest stable clock speed their hardware could sustain. Speaking of overclocking, DFI’s Max Hammer FID BIOS setting also allows users to run processors faster than stock under load while still benefiting from Cool’n’Quiet. This marriage of speed and clock throttling is great for enthusiasts who want a little extra horsepower under load without sacrificing lower power consumption at idle.

If we had our way, a BIOS that offered the best of Abit and DFI’s innovations would have been available in 2005. No such luck, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed for 2006.

 
Audio

Manufacturer Creative
Model X-Fi XtremeMusic
Price (street)

Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
PC audio has been pretty stagnant over the past few years, but 2005 saw a handful of interesting developments. High-definition audio finally gained widespread support in Athlon 64 chipsets. BlueGears also released the X Mystique, finally giving real-time Dolby Digital Live fanboys an alternative to SoundStorm. However, both of those developments pale in comparison to the introduction of Creative’s X-Fi, the first fundamentally different audio architecture we’ve seen in some time. The X-Fi’s unique audio ring architecture makes a staggering amount of processing power available to a variety of audio tasks, such as positional 3D audio, sample rate conversions, and speaker virtualization schemes. On paper, it was easily the most impressive audio offering in 2005.

Of course, unique architectural configurations and theoretical peak processing power aren’t terribly convincing on their own. Fortunately, Creative backed up the X-Fi’s academic credentials with useful real world features, such as support for high-definition audio, DVD-Audio playback, and true hardware acceleration for positional 3D audio. In 2005, it was tough to find a PC audio implementation that supported two of those features, let alone all three. Creative’s own Audigy2 series does, and that’s why it took home one of our Best of 2004 awards.

At only $70 online, the Audigy2 ZS remained an attractive option for PC enthusiasts throughout the year. However, the X-Fi XtremeMusic did its predecessor better on a number of fronts. For one, the X-Fi offers support EAX Advanced HD 5.0, which accelerates up to 128 simultaneous voices in hardware—twice as many as the Audigy2. More importantly, though, the X-Fi offers more balanced music playback than the Audigy2. The Audigy2 tends to favor foreground vocals at the expense of background instrumentals, but the X-Fi XtremeMusic’s playback is solid across the spectrum. The X-Fi’s 24-bit Crystalizer and extensive CMSS-3D options also allow users to fine tune their listening experiences to suit individual tastes, room dimensions, and speaker configurations.

Considering its wealth of features, exceptional 3D audio performance, clean and balanced music playback, and relatively affordable $100 street price, the X-Fi XtremeMusic is a clear choice for best sound card of 2005.


Creative’s X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card
Manufacturer Western Digital
Model Caviar RE2
Price (street)

Storage
Western Digital Caviar RE2
Western Digital won the best hard drive award last year for the Raptor WD740GD, and it’s tempting to give the drive another nod this year. Thanks to its unmatched 10K-RPM spindle speed, the Raptor is still the fastest Serial ATA hard drive on the market. However, Western Digital hasn’t updated the drive since it was launched nearly two years ago, and the dinosaur is starting to resemble one. The Raptor is missing key features like Native Command Queuing and support for 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates, and the drive’s 8MB cache looks a little anemic.

Although Western Digital didn’t update the Raptor in 2005, it did add the Caviar RE2 to its quiver. The RE2 may not sport a 10K-RPM spindle speed, but it does boast a 16MB cache and 400GB of storage capacity. The RE2 supports Native Command Queuing, as well, though not 300MB/s SATA transfer rates. Still, a 150MB/s Serial ATA interface didn’t appear to slow the RE2 down. On the whole, the drive is faster than any other 7,200-RPM SATA drive released in 2005, and its performance is particularly impressive under multi-user and multitasking loads. That, combined with Western Digital’s five-year enterprise hard drive warranty and a lower price tag than other 400GB SATA drives, is enough to earn the Caviar RE2 distinction as the best hard drive of 2005. Don’t let the Caviar RE2’s marketing as an “enterprise-class” product throw you off; enthusiasts have never been shy about using enterprise-class hardware in desktop systems. The RE2 may have been intended for corporate RAID arrays, but there’s no reason you can’t pop one into a pimped-out gaming rig.

While the Caviar RE2 gets the glory this year, we would be remiss not to praise Seagate for offering an industry-best five-year warranty for all its internal hard drive products. Unfortunately, the company’s Barracuda hard drives weren’t quite as fast as the RE2. Hitachi also deserves props for hitting the half-terabyte mark first, although the price premium on high-capacity drives didn’t sit well with enthusiasts seeking the best value for their money. Finally, we should note that if capacity and command queuing aren’t a concern, the Raptor can still be frighteningly fast. Overall, though, no one matched the Caviar RE2’s combination of capacity, features, performance, warranty coverage, and price in 2005. And we couldn’t resist giving the RE2 a couple of bonus points for trading in standard hard drive attire for an all-black outfit.


Western Digital’s Caviar RE2 hard drive
 

The other awards
While our hardware awards cover the best PC components of the year, we’re also handing out another other set of awards. These awards were created out of sympathy, frustration, and even disbelief, and we’ve tried to ensure that everyone got what was coming to them.

Can’t get no respect
Creative Labs
With a nod to Rodney Dangerfield, we can’t help but sympathize with Creative. Despite easily having the best line of consumer-level sound cards in the business, the company can’t get no respect. Not from the enthusiast community, at least. The acquisition of enthusiast darling Aureal soured the community on the peripheral giant, and we weren’t shy about slamming the company for its deceptive Audigy marketing. Years of driver bloat, compatibility problems with some VIA south bridge chips and barely incremental innovation didn’t help, either.

For a while, bitter enthusiasts had every reason to hold a grudge. However, Creative started to get its act together with the Audigy2. The card offered hardware acceleration for 3D audio, legitimate support for high definition audio, DVD-Audio playback, and generally good audio quality. The driver CDs still came loaded with all sorts of unnecessary bloatware, but it was all optional, and streamlined driver-only installs were a snap. Creative also started innovating again with the X-Fi, a chip whose architecture is a radical departure from not only the company’s own offerings, but everything else on the market. Still, many in the enthusiast community insist on holding a grudge, unwilling or unable to see beyond their own fanboy biases and nostalgic attachments to now-irrelevant hardware. That’s really a shame, because the stubborn are missing out on the best enthusiast-oriented sound cards around. It’s doubtful they’ll see the light anytime soon, either.


X-Fi innovation and Creative still gets slagged

Shrewdest move of 2005
NVIDIA buys ULi
ATI’s bid for the enthusiast chipset market has been blunted by the numerous problems that plague the company’s SB450 south bridge chip. The red team has had an ace up its sleeve, though. By making its Radeon Xpress north bridge chips compatible with ULi’s south bridge offerings, ATI gave motherboard partners an alternative to the SB450—a superior alternative, at that. ULi’s south bridge chips have had more up-to-date features and better performance than ATI’s own, and for a while there, it was rumored that ATI was looking to buy ULi. However, NVIDIA beat ATI to the punch, announcing that it would be the one to acquire ULi.

Acquiring ULi was an exceptionally shrewd move on NVIDIA’s part, and no doubt one that was announced with a wry smile, if not a smirk. What better way to score points against a competitor than taking away one of its most valuable allies?

In all fairness, NVIDIA says that current ULi products will continue to be available to existing partners for the near future. Radeon Xpress and CrossFire boards that already use ULi south bridge chips should be unaffected, for now, but there’s no telling when NVIDIA will cut off the supply. That uncertainty may discourage mobo manufacturers from designing new CrossFire products using ULi south bridge chips, leaving them with the problematic SB450. That may ultimately affect the number and quality of CrossFire boards available on the market until ATI gets its south bridge in order. Oh, and the green team also gets ULi’s assets and a chipset design team that clearly knows what it’s doing. Well played, NVIDIA.

Why not?
Motherboard Wi-Fi
Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are all the rage on high-end and enthusiast-oriented motherboard these days, but I can’t figure out why. Seriously, who needs dual GigE ports? Multiple GigE ports are useful for servers, of course, but that doesn’t explain why the latest Xtreme Overclocking Gamer Edition motherboard needs two Gigabit jacks. Wouldn’t it be better to replace one of those GigE ports with a Wi-Fi connection?

Wi-Fi motherboard bundles with PCI or proprietary riser cards aren’t anything new, but as far as I can tell, no one’s integrating wireless networking directly onto enthusiast-oriented motherboards. What gives? Integrated Wi-Fi, or even Bluetooth, would give mobo makers one more way to differentiate their products from the mass of copycat designs that currently dot the landscape. Everyone and his mother offers a similar mix of Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA RAID, and Firewire peripherals, but no one seems to want to dabble in Wi-Fi. I’d even wager that the majority of users would find an integrated Wi-Fi connection more useful than a second GigE port, either for primary connectivity or as an access point for other wireless devices. How ’bout it, motherboard manufacturers?


Couldn’t they replace one of those GigE ports with Wi-Fi?
 

Biggest sign of the coming apocalypse
Apple goes for Intel inside
On June 6 of 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the company would pull a switch of its own and start using Intel processors. If you listened closely, you could hear a low, quiet whimper as droves of Mac fanboys died a little inside.

For years, Apple had claimed that its system’s processors were far superior to Intel’s chips. However, the G5 hasn’t exactly lived up to expectations. The 3GHz clock speeds Jobs promised years ago still haven’t materialized, and even 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz flavors require exotic water cooling. To Apple’s credit, the company managed to squeeze the G5 into an iMac, but laptops and Mac Minis have been stuck with the dated G4. No wonder Intel’s roadmap looked so good.

Apparently, the performance per watt potential of Intel’s processor roadmap was particularly appealing to Apple, and that’s why they made the switch. The move still looks a little odd considering that AMD’s processors have had a huge performance per watt lead over Intel for some time. Then again, Apple has rarely acknowledged AMD’s existence. Why start now?

Beyond the initial shock, much of the impact of Apple’s impending switch will be felt when the company actually starts transitioning products to Intel processors. That should happen this year, likely starting with Intel’s Yonah mobile processor. The Reality Distortion Field will have to accommodate Yonah’s lack of 64-bitness, though. Mac software developers will also have to adjust, porting applications or resorting to emulation to run on systems with Intel processors. Most importantly, though, enthusiasts will no longer have to listen to Macolytes rant about how Apple processors are so superior to what’s available on the PC. Mac fanboys will continue to sing the praises of OS X, of course, but at least there they have a point.

Are you kidding me?
Intel’s Extreme Edition gaming processor
According to Intel’s own marketing materials, those using Pentium Extreme Edition processors should be careful:

But be warned—these processors are not for the timid. Be prepared to experience the extreme realism, responsiveness, and intensity you can only get from next-generation Intel processors.

Let’s be clear; Intel isn’t talking about next-gen Yonah or Conroe processors. The “next-generation” chips in question are the company’s Pentium Extreme Edition CPUs, the same ones that are embarrassingly outclassed by AMD’s Athlon 64 family. Even AMD’s mid-range Athlon 64 processors have little problem blowing the Extreme Edition chips out of the water in games, and they do so at a fraction of the cost. Yet despite the Extreme Edition’s comparably dismal gaming performance, Intel continues to stubbornly push its $1000 albatross as a high-end solution for gamers. That’s some good Kool Aid. This is enough to make us ask: are you kidding me?


The Pentium Extreme Edition 840’s CPU die

Where are they now?
VIA’s new products
Someone needs to go behind the music and find out what happened to VIA. Remember them? They used to make actual products, but in 2005, they mostly just put out press releases and previewed hardware that never made it to retail.

The most obvious and disappointing VIA no-show was the VT8251 south bridge. VIA started talking about the chip at the time of the Intel 915 chipset’s debut in 2004, promising support for HD audio, 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates, RAID 5, and PCI Express. At Computex in 2004, they said the VT8251 would start sampling in July of that year. We then previewed the south bridge chip in January of 2005 alongside the PT880 and PT894 north bridge, but didn’t get our hands on a sample. At Computex 2005, VIA claimed that the VT8251’s arrival on the market was imminent. We finally got our hands on a sample in November of 2005 alongside the K8T900 north bridge, but VIA couldn’t produce even working beta drivers for the VT8251 with support for HD Audio or Native Command Queuing. We’re still waiting to see a production mobo with a VT8251 onboard. Perhaps 2006 will be the year.

According to VIA, the VT8251 will finally emerge on the market as a part of the company’s K8T900 chipset for Athlon 64 processors. VIA could have used that chipset in 2005, though. Instead, it was stuck peddling a K8T890 chipset with questionable support for dual-core processors and a dated VT8237 south bridge. Just like that, VIA dropped off the enthusiast radar.

The company’s woes weren’t limited to Athlon 64 chipsets. Other products suffered in 2005, arriving well after expected or not at all. Nano ITX, the PT880 chipset, and multiple EPIA boards were tardy in 2005, and we’re still waiting for products based on the PT894 chipset that VIA introduced a year ago. VIA’s new C7 processor is nowhere to be found, either, despite the fact that it was launched at Computex nearly seven months ago. You can read all about the chip on VIA’s web site, but good luck finding one for sale in North America.

VIA will have to execute better—or at all—in 2006 if it hopes to rebuild its relevance among PC enthusiasts. Here’s hoping. The Athlon 64 chipset market sorely needs another competent player.


VIA’s VT8251 south bridge
 

An update on the meaty middle digit
ATI and NVIDIA vaporware
Last year, we extended a meaty middle digit towards ATI and NVIDIA for their respective paper launches and vaporware. Both companies improved in 2005, with NVIDIA notably having plenty of GeForce 7800 GT and GTX graphics cards available at launch. In fact, some of those cards were selling for less than their suggested retail prices. Bravo.

Unfortunately, our praise for NVIDIA’s 2005 product launches was tempered with the release of the GeForce 7800 GTX 512. The ultra high-end card was launched in November with a suggested retail price of $649. It was supposed to be available at launch, too, but the cards are still nowhere to be found. Online retailers do list GeForce 7800 GTX 512 cards from several manufacturers, but none have stock, and prices have climbed to $750 or more—just when NVIDIA was doing so well. I guess old habits die hard.

Even with the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 blemishing NVIDIA’s launch record, the company still spewed fewer vapors than ATI. The red team’s CrossFire launch was a mess, with neither motherboards nor master cards available on the market when ATI suggested they would be. Even months after CrossFire made its debut, only a couple of boards are available in North America. Much of the Radeon X1000 series wasn’t available at launch, either. To be fair, ATI made it clear that cards would be released on a staggered schedule after the launch, but they still didn’t arrive on time.

ATI and NVIDIA still have work to do to ensure that new graphics products are widely available when they’re launched. However, NVIDIA needs only to replicate its successful GeForce 7800 GT and GTX launches across the board.


Radeon X1800 CrossFire: Better late than never

Alphabet soup award
ATI and NVIDIA’s GT/GS/GTX/PE/SE/XL/XT
Last year’s middle finger towards ATI and NVIDIA has morphed into muddled confusion. Both companies have expanded their graphics lines with a slew of GT, GS, GTX, PE, SE, XL, and XT versions of various products. Graphics card partners have added to the mess, as well, tagging on their own Turbo, Overclocked, Xtreme, Performance, and Golden Sample monikers. Each flavor can feature a different pipeline configuration, memory bus width, and core and memory clock speed, all of which impact overall performance. To add to the confusion, some configurations are OEM-only, while others are widely available in retail.

This tangled web of graphics products is enough to make even a seasoned enthusiast’s head spin, and if we have a hard time keeping all the versions and derivatives straight, Joe Sixpack doesn’t stand a chance. It would be much easier if GPU makers limited their product lines to a manageable number of derivatives or if manufacturers settled on a standard way to present each card’s vital specs, but neither thing seems likely to happen. Prepare for even more confusion in 2006.

 

Biggest disappointment
Windows XP x64 Edition
After much waiting, the final version of Windows XP x64 Edition finally arrived in April of 2005, and there was much rejoicing. Finally, enthusiasts would be able to fully exploit the 64-bit capabilities of the Athlon 64. The OS’s improved scheduler also promised performance improvements for dual-processor and dual-core systems, making SMP smoothness just a little silkier. There were just a couple of problems, though. First, 64-bit apps were few and far between in 2005. That muted x64’s impact a little, though since the OS is perfectly capable of running 32-bit code, the dearth of 64-bit apps was hardly a show-stopper. Windows XP x64’s lack of drivers was a more serious issue. While manufacturers like ATI and NVIDIA did an excellent job of supporting Windows XP x64 with regular 64-bit driver releases, others didn’t offer 64-bit drivers at all.

Missing 64-bit drivers generally didn’t affect core PC components, but many printers, scanners, and the like were left out in the cold. You can’t use 32-bit drivers in 64-bit Windows, either, forcing those with unsupported peripherals to dual-boot or replace their hardware. AWOL printer drivers stopped one TR editor from taking the x64 plunge with his new workstation, and our readers have hardly flocked to the 64-bit OS.

One of Windows’ key strengths is the fact that it works with damn near ever piece of hardware on the planet. Windows XP x64 Edition will have to duplicate that level of support if it’s to gain widespread acceptance, even among normally adventurous enthusiasts. The prospect of that happening may be slim with Windows Vista looming.

Worst trend: Low-end graphics cards loaded with memory
Equipping low-end graphics cards with obscene amounts of memory is hardly a new trend. Graphics card manufacturers have been doing it for years to play into Joe Sixpack’s naive assumption that more is always better. Sadly, low-end cards rarely have the pixel pushing horsepower necessary to run at the high resolutions and detail levels necessary to exploit the extra RAM—it’s like putting a spoiler on a Pinto.

Previously, we’ve seen low-end cards inappropriately equipped with 128 and 256MB of memory. In 2005, however, graphics card manufacturers did the ridiculous and started slapping 512MB of memory onto low-end cards. Chaintech and XFX both offer 512MB versions of the budget GeForce 6200, and Albatron has a couple of GeForce 6600 and 6600 LE graphics cards sporting 512MB. There are offenders in the Radeon camp, too. Sapphire currently offers a 512MB flavor of the Radeon X1300, and a little browsing of online retailers also reveals 512MB versions of the Radeon X700 and X1600. These are all budget cards targeted at users who probably don’t have more than 512MB of total system memory.

Since graphics card manufacturers have been pimping out low-end cards with far too much memory for years, it’s unlikely that this trend will end in 2006. In fact, we may see even more absurd overindulgence in 2006 as marketing types decide to up the ante to one gigabyte. Something tells me we’ll be breaking out this award again next year. 

Latest News

IPTV
Streaming News & Events

Operator of Illegal IPTV Streams Sentenced to Five Years in Jail

White House Announces New Set of Rules for Federal Agencies Using AI
News

White House Announces New Set of Rules for Federal Agencies Using AI

The US government has announced that federal agencies using AI tools will be required to follow new safeguards by December 1. The announcement comes from the Office of Management and...

4 Canadian School Boards Sue Three Social Media Giants
News

Four Canadian School Boards Have Sued Social Media Giants for Sabotaging Young Minds

Four of the largest school boards in Canada have filed a lawsuit against social media giants for being addictive, disrupting student learning, and harming their mental health. The lawsuit seeks...

Slothana goes parabolic
Crypto News

Traders Transfer $2.2 Million in Solana to Emerging Meme Cryptocurrency Slothana

Reddit Shares Fall 16% In A Day After Promoters Sell
News

Reddit Shares Fall 16% in a Day after Promoters Sell One Million Shares

Gold Miner Nilam Resources Shares Surge 22x Amidst Bitcoin Buying Announcement
Crypto News

Gold Miner Nilam Resources Shares Surge 22x Amidst Bitcoin Buying Announcement

BlackRock CEO Goes Bullish on BTC as Spot Bitcoin ETF Crosses $17 Billion
Crypto News

BlackRock CEO Goes Bullish on BTC as Spot Bitcoin ETF Crosses $17 Billion