Atom N450 32-bit vs 64-bit WinSAT comparison

Does Intel’s new Pineview range of Atom processors benefit from the 64-bit instruction set? This is what Windows 7’s WinSAT has to say about the N450 and its integrated GMA 3150 graphics with 1GB of single-channel DDR2 667MHz RAM: (bolded values indicate better performance)

	32-bit	64-bit
CPU LZW Compression	35.23 MB/s	39.84 MB/s
CPU AES256 Compression	11.18 MB/s	13.20 MB/s
CPU Vista Compression	124.36 MB/s	90.14 MB/s
CPU SHA1 Hash	109.41 MB/s	135.45 MB/s
Uniproc CPU LZW Compression	25.47 MB/s	29.01 MB/s
Uniproc CPU AES256 Encryption	7.50 MB/s	9.31 MB/s
Uniproc CPU Vista Compression	87.29 MB/s	57.88 MB/s
Unipro CPU SHA1 Hash	84.03 MB/s	103.43 MB/s
Memory Performance	3379.41 MB/s	3371.62 MB/s
Direct3D Batch Performance	16.24 F/s	18.38 F/s
Direct3D Alpha Blend Performance	18.26 F/s	18.68 F/s
Direct3D ALU Performance	6.84 F/s	7.20 F/s
Direct3D Texture Load Performance	5.42 F/s	5.41 F/s
Direct3D Batch Performance	0.00	0.00
Direct3D Alpha Blend Performance	0.00	0.00
Direct3D ALU Performance	0.00	0.00
Direct3D Texture Load Performance	0.00	0.00
Direct3D Geometry Performance	0.00	0.00
Direct3D Geometry Performance	0.00	0.00
Direct3D Constant Buffer Performance	0.00	0.00
Video Memory Throughput	1622.76 MB/s	1597.23 MB/s
Dshow Video Encode Time	24.10569 s	25.14829 s
Media Foundation Decode Time	4.20016 s	3.41832 s

Except for the Vista Compression item, N450 runs faster in 64-bit mode than 32-bit. The GMA 3150 also performs faster in Direct3D and Media Foundation decoding but is slower in DirectShow encoding. The CPU, memory and gaming graphics Windows Experience Indices (WEI) are the same for both 32 and 64-bit at 2.4 for CPU, 4.5 for memory and 3.0 for gaming graphics. The WEI for (desktop) graphics however is 3.0 for 32-bit and 2.9 for 64-bit due to the video memory throughput difference.

In practice though, I haven’t noticed much difference between the two modes. So if you need compatibility with older programs then you don’t lose much from not going 64-bit.

Creative Inspire T6160 review

With Logitech appearing to be shifting its focus to 2.1 computer speaker systems comes the latest incarnation of Creative’s 5.1 surround sound system for the computer – the Inspire T6160. It features five equally powered satellites rated at 6W RMS (meaning the center channel is not additionally amplified), and one 20W RMS subwoofer. Creative also rates a frequency response of 40Hz – 20kHz and 75db of signal-to-noise ratio. The subwoofer enclosure appears to be constructed from wood and the satellites are encased in plastic material.

The magnetically-shielded satellite speakers each contain a single 2-inch driver with a cone designed to separate mid-tones from the treble. The 5.25-inch subwoofer is of a downward-firing design. The front speaker cables are 1.7 meters long, and the rear speakers cables are 4 meters long. The front cables are long enough but the rear speaker cables require extension cables to be hanged on ceiling corners or on walls.

The speakers come with a volume controller which also acts as an on/off switch. Bass level is located on the back of the subwoofer. The speakers are connected to the computer through three 3.5mm audio connectors. The Now it’s time to put the speakers through its paces.

Sound quality test

Testing was done with the speakers arranged according to the ITU 775 standard (the standard 5.1 speaker arrangement) in a 75cm radius, which is about the typical distance for desktop computer use.

Movies: the T6160 performed exceptionally well in Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima which makes excellent use of surround sound effects to recreate the battlefield atmosphere (no wonder the movie earned the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing). Bass response was very good and detailed at approximately 70% volume level (very ear-deafening), with no noticeable distortion – creating very believable cannon blast sounds. Only when going over this volume level would the bass start to become muffled, but you would need to wear ear protection to listen to this. Particularly impressive are the satellites, with very sharp, rich and clear delineation between mid-tone and treble effects – you can clearly differentiate the multilayered sound effects in the crossfire scenes which was only enhanced by impressive surround effects from the hovering aircraft which were accurately recreated by the rear channel speakers.

When playing Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the T6160 was able to retain the clarity of the background soundtrack even during heavy action scenes, and Nazgûl screeches were very well defined by the satellite speakers – very impressive when you consider the fact that the satellite speakers do not feature a dedicated tweeter. To test channel separation performance, I used George Lucas’ Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace’s podracing scene. Even with the volume turned to a very loud 70%, there was very little channel crosstalk detected, and the T6160 delivered some impressive rear surround effects. The transition between the two rear speakers was very smooth, so was the transition from front speakers to the back. There was very little to fault here.

The only real-world problem observed when testing the T6160 is that since the center channel is equally powered as the rest (which is actually ideal), movies with a very large dynamic range will require volume calibration (a boost in volume) to the center channel on the T6160, or a reduction in dynamic range to compensate. Otherwise, dialog from the center channel would often be overwhelmed by sound effects from the left and right speakers. But this is a problem of the sound material, not the speakers.

Distortion: hissing noise from the satellites was detected at all volume levels, although they only become a problem when the volume is set near the maximum. Subwoofer humming noise was low but could be heard with the bass level knob turned up to its maximum. While the subwoofer would distort above 70% volume, it was very hard to make the satellites to clip. In fact, the satellites only clipped when playing synthetic sounds, such as the startup sound of Windows 7’s Minesweeper game, clipping occurred at the 70% volume and above, which should be repeat again is very ear-deafening. Overall, the distortion characteristics were very good in the normal volume levels.

On another note, the subwoofer had no trouble reproducing 20Hz with a volume of approximately 33%.

Summary

The T6160 exhibits very good sound quality. At a retail price of AUD $118.14/USD $79.99 (at the time of writing you can get them for AUD $79 at MSY), it is a great choice for those who are just starting out with surround sound for the computer. If you have RCA extension cables, it would make for an inexpensive small home theatre sound system too – the speakers have enough power and clarity for a sound space radius of up to 3 meters.

Update: added subwoofer image

Gigabyte Radeon HD 4770 review

Following my previous benchmark of the Radeon HD 4770 1GB, this time I will look at other aspects of this card.

Compared to the XFX’s 4770, Gigabyte’s bundle omits the CrossFire bridge cable, making the product slightly less attractive for those who want to scale up performance with two 1GB cards. Thankfully the 6-pin to PCIE connector to Molex adapter is still included in the box. The other item supplied is the driver disc. Overall the package is quite basic, but enough to get the card to get working.

Looking at the card itself, you will immediately see the large 80mm fan cooler and a large heatsink covering the whole GPU and memory modules. The cooler takes up two slots and the fan’s height is only slightly shorter than the XFX blower fan. Another thing that is immediately obvious is the blue PCB board which Gigabyte claims to have been manufactured with 2 ounces of copper for lower GPU temperatures and you will see later that it does.

This Ultra-Durable model is packed with the most capacitors and MOSFETs of all the 4770 models. However, the point of insertion for the 6-pin power connector is angled upwards instead of backwards sideways. For smaller computer cases this means that the card may not fit with the protruding power cable. Interestingly the card is stocked with Qimonda IDGV16-05A1F1C-40X memory modules (the same ones used in Radeon HD 4890) even though the Gigabyte website states that Hynix/Samsung memory chips would be used instead.

Looking at the other end, you can see that the card takes up one slot on the back of your computer case. Gigabyte’s choice of (from left to right) HDMI, VGA, and DVI is quite nice as it avoids unnecessary adapters for connecting to a home TV. For those wishing to use two DVI outputs, an HDMI to DVI adapter (not supplied) converts the card back to the standard dual DVI configuratio0n of the reference 4770.

All benchmarks done at 1920 x 1080 resolution with all custom graphics settings set to highest possible. Game results below are in average frames per second.

	512MB	1GB
Futuremark 3DMark Vantage GPU Score Performance Preset	6818	6612
Unigine Heaven (DirectX 11, no tessellation)  0x AA	24.1	23.6
Unigine Heaven (DirectX 11, no tessellation) 4x AA	13.4	16.4
Unigine Heaven (DirectX 11, no tessellation) 8x AA	2.3	12.7
DiRT 2 Demo (DirectX 9 8x AA)	31	30
Need for Speed: Shift Demo 0x AA	42.66	43.41
Need for Speed: Shift Demo 4x AA	36.22	34.43
Need for Speed: Shift Demo 8x AA	11.86	26.32
Crysis Demo GPU Test (DirectX 10) 0x AA	15.82	15.62
Crysis Demo GPU Test (DirectX 10) 4x AA	10.29	12.07
Crysis Demo GPU Test (DirectX 10) 8x AA	3.62	11.17
Crysis Demo GPU Test (DirectX 9) 0x AA	20.72	20.57
Crysis Demo GPU Test (DirectX 9) 4x AA	8.18	14.60
Crysis Demo GPU Test (DirectX 9) 8x AA	3.46	13.31
BattleForge Benchmark (DX 11 FeatureLevel 10.1) 0x AA	21.5	21.4
BattleForge Benchmark (DX 11 FeatureLevel 10.1) 0x AA	16.3	16.0
BattleForge Benchmark (DX 11 FeatureLevel 10.1) 0x AA	12.3	13.6
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 9)  0x AA	77	75
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 9) 4x AA	72	71
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 9) 8x AA	70	67
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 10) 0x AA	40	40
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 10) 4x AA	31	31
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 10) 8x AA	12	29
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 10.1) 0x AA	45	45
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 10.1) 4x AA	38	38
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Demo Benchmark (DirectX 10.1) 8x AA	15	35
Resident Evil 5 Demo Variable Benchmark (DirectX 10) 0x AA	53.37	53.72
Resident Evil 5 Demo Variable Benchmark (DirectX 10) 4x AA	42.8	41.87
Resident Evil 5 Demo Variable Benchmark (DirectX 10) 8x AA	37.22	34.95
Resident Evil 5 Demo Variable Benchmark (DirectX 9) 0x AA	56.02	57.45
Resident Evil 5 Demo Variable Benchmark (DirectX 9) 4x AA	45.02	44.57
Resident Evil 5 Demo Variable Benchmark (DirectX 9) 8x AA	42.82	41.87
World in Conflict Demo (DirectX 10) 0x AA	28	28
World in Conflict Demo (DirectX 10) 4x AA	21	21
World in Conflict Demo (DirectX 9) 0x AA	33	33
World in Conflict Demo (DirectX 9) 4x AA	28	27
Street Fighter IV Benchmark 0x AA	93.01	91.02
Street Fighter IV Benchmark 4x AA	57.18	56.30
Street Fighter IV Benchmark 8x AA	56.09	55.45

Although one can assume that the 1GB version should outperform the 512MB version, what is really interesting is that the 1GB 4770 was consistently slower (although mostly negligible) than the 512MB 4770 when the memory is not needed, but outperforms the latter significantly when it is. Both cards clock speeds were at stock and are identical (750MHz core and 800MHz memory), I am guessing the timings of the memory modules are different. From the results above you can see that DirectX 9 is consistently faster than DirectX 10 and although DirectX 10.1 does close the gap somewhat nicely, there is still a significant drop in performance. But that has been true for DirectX 7, 8 and 9, although this time the improvement in image quality from 9 to 10 is not as dramatic as 8 to 9 or 7 to 8.

Games that benefit most from the 1GB of frame buffer are Crysis, Need for Speed: Shift, and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X., the rest are quite optimized for 512MB video cards. Something to note about the Need for Speed: Shift results is that the game was unplayable with antialiasing (AA) with the 512MB 4770 due to stuttering issues, the 1GB version remedied this.

What these benchmarks tell is that the conventional wisdom that anything less than a Radeon HD 4870 does not benefit from 1GB of VRAM is partially true, but when it does benefit it does so immensely. A pair of 512MB 4770s already outperform a 4890, a pair of 1GB of 4770s would definitely achieve much greater results, especially in 2560 x 1600.

	XFX	Gigabyte
Load Temperature	83	62
15 seconds after load	67	54
30 seconds after load	65	52
45 seconds after load	63	51
60 seconds after load	63	50
Idle Temperature	58	44

Looking at temperature improvements, the Gigabyte model is around 12 degrees cooler in idle and 20 degrees cooler on load compared to the XFX model, in no small part due to the large heatsink and fan. From the graph, temperatures were measured with FurMark running and after it was closed for up to 60 seconds to test heat dissipation performance. It took more than 60 seconds to cool down to a stable idle temperature of 44 Celcius for the Gigabyte model compared to 58 degrees for the XFX.

Last but not least, the 4770 was able to score D111589 in NGOHQ’s DirectCompute GPU test. The exact same score was achieved in both DirectCompute 10 and 10.1 modes.

XFX Radeon HD 4770 review

The XFX Radeon HD 4770 is a noteworthy video card to review for several reasons. First, it has the first consumer GPU to be manufactured on a 40nm process, smaller than even the latest 45nm CPUs on the consumer market today. Second, it is the first consumer GPU in the USD100 range to use GDDR5 memory. And third, it is the only Radeon HD 4770 to use a dual-slot cooler similar to ATI’s reference design.

Radeon HD 4770 is built on the RV740 architecture, which was introduced first with the Mobility Radeon HD 4830 and 4860. This is interesting as this appears to be the only desktop GPU in the Radeon HD 4000 series to be released after, not before, its laptop counterparts. It wouldn’t be a surprise to know that the RV740 was developed as a laptop GPU first, and then scaled up in performance to be used on a desktop video card, which would explain why Radeon HD 4770 uses an astonishingly low 50W on load as measured by X-bit labs.

Specifications

Radeon HD	4770	4830	4850	4870
Codename	RV740	RV770 LE	RV770 PRO	RV770 XT
Fabrication	40nm	55nm	55nm	55nm
Processors	640	640	800	800
Core Clock	750 MHz	575 MHz	625 MHz	750 MHz
Pixel Fillrate	12 GP/s	9.2 GP/s	10 GP/s	12 GP/s
Texture Units	32	32	40	40
Texture Fillrate	24 GT/s	18.4 GT/s	25 GT/s	30 GT/s
Mem Technology	GDDR5	GDDR3	GDDR3	GDDR5
Mem Width	128-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Mem Clock	800 MHz	900 MHz	993 MHz	900 MHz
Mem Bandwidth	51.2 GB/s	57.6 GB/s	63.55 GB/s	115.2 GB/s
Render back-ends	16	16	16	16
Raw Performance	960 GFLOPS	736 GFLOPS	1000 GFLOPS	1200 GFLOPS
Power Usage	50 watts	85 watts	110 watts	145 watts

On paper, Radeon HD 4770 shares some of the characteristics of its bigger brothers – the GDDR5 and pixel fillrate of the 4870, the number of stream processors and texture units of the 4830, and the texture fillrate of 4850 (nearly). It is not surprising then that the performance of Radeon HD 4770 is very competitive with the more expensive videos cards such as the Radeon HD 4850 and GeForce GTS 250, especially with 4x and 8x MSAA at 1920 x 1200 resolution. What sets this GPU apart is its significantly lower power consumption, 50W on load for 4770 vs 85W for 4830 and 110W for 4850. This is more important that the 35W or 55W figures may suggest as some of the power supply units bundled with computer cases sold today do not have sufficient amperage to power the higher end models. In those situations the Radeon HD 4770 may just fit the bill. Having said that, this card still requires a 6-pin PCIe supplementary power connection.

As you probably know, RV740’s architecture is derived from RV770’s. All of the hardware rendering and output features of the RV770 are present in RV740 including support for DirectX 10.1, improved tessellator unit, UVD 2, PowerPlay, CrossFireX, as well as the full set of 16 greatly enhanced ROPS (render back-ends), which can theoretically deliver “free” 4x MSAA (multisample antialiasing). While the 128-bit memory interface in RV740 is often regarded as middle-class by today’s standards, by using it ATI was able to achieve several things at once:

• Reduce transistor count and hence manufacturing cost and price, which is important for the mainstream market
• Reduce power consumption, heat, and cooling, important for HTPCs (home theater computers)
• Comparable bandwidth with 256-bit interface by using GDDR5, which doubles the effective data rate of GDDR3

DirectX 10.1 is a superset of DirectX 10, which you may consider it as a refined version of DirectX 10. DirectX 10.1 is shown to greatly accelerate AA performance (which complements well with the already fast AA performance of RV740/RV770). DirectX 10.1 support makes this video card compatible with DirectX 11’s Compute Shader 4.1, allowing it to perform physics calculations, video transcoding, and other highly parallel tasks in the future. Windows 7’s Aero user interface also takes advantage of the performance advantage provided by DirectX 10.1.

Unboxing

The presentation of the video card packaging is nicely done by XFX. In the sleek black box it houses the quick installation guide (and the signature XFX door hanger) for installing the video card, and a small section neatly storing the following accessories:

• CrossFire bridge connector
• 6-pin PCIe to 4-pin Molex adapter
• DVI to HDMI adapter
• DVI to VGA adapter
• S-Video to component adapter
• Catalyst driver CD

Take off the top layer of the box and you’re presented with the XFX Radeon 4770. It is a standard-length video card, which makes it fit into most computer cases. It does effectively use up the double height with a dual slot cooler which exhausts heat at the back of the case unlike other Radeon HD 4770 models. It should be noted that the cooler is not sealed at the base, so some heat do escape into the case. The signature red DVI ports look sharp in person and the GDDR5 memory modules are manufactured by Qimonda.

First thing you will notice at the back of the card is how small the GPU die size is – 136mm² to be exact, which is about half the size of RV770 at 260mm² and even smaller compared to the GeForce 250 at 300mm². Produced by TSMC‘s 40nm manufacturing technology the smaller die size reduces heat and power consumption, as well as providing more headroom for overclocking. AtomicPC has reported that the GPU can run stably at 934MHz for core and 839MHz for memory without changing the voltage and fan speed, about a 25% increase.

Now onto some benchmarks. All games are demo versions and were tested at the highest possible settings (including MSAA and AF) in the games. This means that custom settings were used in place of high/very high presets if needed to reach maximum settings. AA was not applied to Crysis as framerates became unplayable. All tests were done in 1920 x 1080 resolution and had v-sync turned off, running on Catalyst 9.6 drivers. All games were run under the WOW64 translation layer except for Crysis where the 64-bit version of the game was used. The test computer had the following specifications:

• Asus P5KPL-AM/PS PCIe 1.1 x16
• Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache 800MHz FSB
• G.Skill-NT 2GB DDR2-800 CL 5-5-5-15 Single Channel
• XFX Radeon HD 4770 750MHz Core 800MHz Memory 512MB GDDR5
• Western Digital Caviar Blue 160GB SATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 DirectX 9.0c

Gameplay benchmarks (1920 x 1080 Max Quality + MSAA + AF)

	Average	Minimum
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 8x AA	77.743	62
Half-Life 2 8x AA	168.147	56
Unreal Tournament 3 0x AA	53.98	34
Universe at War: EA 8x AA	70.135	37
C&C Red Alert 3 8x AA	28.387	23
NFS: ProStreet 8x AA	41.573	31
Call of Duty 4: MW 4x AA	67.188	37
Race Driver: GRID 8x AA	46.23	37
Crysis 0x AA	18.454	13
Burnout Paradise 8x AA	59.089	24
Bioshock 0x AA	59.021	32

Results: high playability across the board, which is impressive when you consider the fact that maximum quality, AA and AF settings are applied and that the test system is relatively modest in specs. You can expect even better results with more RAM and CPU and hard disk cache. Crysis scored 18.454fps (frames per second) on average and 24fps maximum with 16x AF and no AA. Sure it’s not silky smooth, but it was smooth enough to enjoy the game. Running two of these cards in CrossFire was shown to match the performance of a GeForce GTX 280 at a lower total price and power consumption.

Next we will test one of the strongest features of the RV770 and RV740 architectures which is antialising (AA) performance. Using timed benchmarking scenes in demos we can accurately measure the performance impact of antialising.

Antialiasing benchmarks (1920 x 1080 Max Quality + AF)

	0x AA	4x AA	8x AA
Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.	79.482	78.472	77.743
Street Fighter 4	96.63	58.65	57.36
Resident Evil 5 Variable	52.9	42.5	40.3
Resident Evil 5 Fixed	38.3	37.9	37.4
Devil May Cry 4	88.35	74.58	69.93
Call of Duty 4: MW	81.618	67.188	NA
Race Driver: GRID	53.36	46.878	46.23
Crysis GPU	20.65	13.34	10.75
Crysis CPU	18.97	12.01	6.67

As you can see, the Radeon HD 4770 delivers almost free 8x MSAA over 4x MSAA in Capcom’s MT Framework titles. Crysis on the other hand scaled almost linearly with each increasing setting. Radeon HD 4770 did best on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Race Driver: GRID, and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X., where it ran the latter two at 8x MSAA for essentially “free” over no MSAA.

Temperatures measured for the GPU were 65°C on load and 45°C on idle. Noise is well controlled, with the fan running at about 1800RPM on load and is very quiet in use. The fan does speed up occasionally for two to three seconds to release buildup heat which then can become a bit loud. It should be repeated that the spin up noise is sporadic and seems to be activated whenever a new scene is rendered. A BIOS update has fixed this issue.

Conclusion: it’s hard not to be impressed with what ATI has created. It brought cutting-edge technologies like GDDR5 and 40nm fabrication process along with the performance rivaling the high end Radeon HD 4850 and GTS 250 down to record low prices and energy consumption. Budget-conscious gamers can now enjoy fluid and playable 8x MSAA graphics on the latest games at full high definition resolutions for around USD100, which is unimaginable even just a year ago. XFX made a great GPU even better by brining the full-fledged reference cooler to the market. The performance characteristics of the video card makes it a great choice for gamers and HTPC users who are looking for great performance on a budget or within the power limits of their power supply units.