Memtest86+ 1.70

Use Memtest to test or burn your ram. It is usually use to check whether an overclocked RAM is stable or not at certain speeds or timings. However, although it is Memtest stable, it doesn’t always mean that it will be Windows stable too.
The file is in .iso format (image file). Burn it and make a bootable CD to use it.

Download

Thaiphoon Burner 3.2.0.4

Thaiphoon Burner is a powerful tool to flash your Memory Modules.

You can also use it to set a custom SPD your RAM is capable of. It sports DDR and DDR2.

WARNING! At your own risk!

Download

ATI HD 2900XT Review: Best Bang for Gaming and Workstation?

Daily Tech has just recently announced some benchmarks of the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 2900XT ($449 approx). Equipped with the new R600 core, 320 Stream Processors, 512MB GDDR3 memory at 1.65GHz, an amazing 512-bit eight-channel memory interface, and of course DirectX 10 compatible. This card is expected to take on NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800GTS which ‘only’ features 96 Stream Processors and a 320-bit memory interface. This 11.5″ beast also comes with a red dual-slot cooling which fits nicely within the 9.5″ PCB.

 

Now let us see how well this card performs:

Setup:

- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700

- Intel D975XBX2 BadAxe2

- 2×1GB DDR2-800 MHz

- Fresh installed Windows XP

- 8.361 Catalyst RC4 driver for ATI card

- ForceWare 158.19 driver for NVIDIA card

 

Results:

Gaming Performance:

*Half Life 2: Episode 1 showed an abnormal framerate for the NVIDIA 8800 GTS card that scaled with lower resolutions.

Workstation Performance:

As you can see the results are quite amazing. In fact the driver being used for the test is still under testing (Beta), which supposedly should perform better if the final version arrives.

This beta testing even outperforms NVIDIA’s 8800GTS on every benchmark. And the most interesting part—at least from my point of view—is that this $449 Gaming card can surprisingly outperforms the ridiculously expensive NVIDIA’s workstation card (Quadro FX5500). Meaning that it will be a great card for 3D Designers who also have interest in playing some heavy games. It also means that this baby is optimized for both Direct3D and OpenGL based applications. So, the great news is: Those designers don’t have to waste a ridiculous $2,500 for a workstation card.

However, the results above are not yet final until the retail version and final driver arrive. The real results might just be different—faster/slower—from this beta testing. In fact it might also be different in the real world applications. Well let us just wait and see…and try

Hopefully the war between these two ‘giants’ will again continue and we—as a customer—should be prepared to get the best bang for our needs. Be wise, if ain’t for benching, don’t get confused only by numbers

Regards
Ascetic

Source

 

Super pi mod 1.5 Tweaks

Here are some tweaks I found from readings and friends. Im not listing all of them. Just some which I think really improve the scores especially for todays’ hardwares. Some old tweaks had been previously done by D_o_S @XS couple of years ago.
Follow this link to read it:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=49345&page=1

Now lets start tweakings!

1. If you are using Intel Core 2 Duo processor, make sure you enable “Execute Disable Bit (XDB)” feature from BIOS. Usually on the “CPU Features” MENU. I have no idea what is this feature intended for, but hey, at least it works great for me. It improves my scores 2-5s on 4M.

2. Go to Task Manager-> Processes. Find Explorer.exe and press ‘End Task’. Run SuperPi from File-> New Task-> the directory where you put Super_pi_mod-1.5. But before you make some calculations, remember to also close the task manager. It gives me 1-3s on 4M.

3. Running ORTHOS before making calculation. This tweak sometimes works. Run ORTHOS, remember to also open superpi but dont make any calculation yet. Press Calculate-> 4M(or whichever)-> OK. Wait until ORTHOS runs for one to two minutes before you start it. Without any delay, exit ORTHOS and the same time press OK to start running the calculation.

4. Running superpi on realtime priority. Open Task Manager-> Processes-> right click super_pi_mod.exe-> Set Priority-> Realtime-> OK. Manage to give me another 2-3s.

5. For Multi(dual/quad) Core processors. As you know, SuperPI doesn’t sport multithreaded apps yet. So, the idea is to run it under one core only. Open Task Manager-> Processes-> right click super_pi_mod.exe-> Set Affinity-> Choose only one core you prefer. In my case with my E4300, using cpu 1 gives slighly better results than cpu 0.

6. Copy 1-2 gigs of files (in my case I use the Program Files folder) to your SuperPi folder. With almost the same method as number 3, except this time you have to wait until windows finish copying the files and without any delay press OK to start the calculation.

7. Disable Other unimportant Services. If you don’t know which ones to disable, google it

8. Using all the methods above at the same time, should give you 5-10s depending on your hardware and a bit of luck :p

Happy Benching

Regards
Ascetic

8600GT Results from Xsreviews

Xsreviews has just benching this new mainstream card. And the results are quite amazing for a 128bit-card. It almost stand side-by-side with 1950pro which has twice memory bandwith (256bit). Of course such comparison is not appropriate because this is a brand new technology with new architecture and dx10. Below is some 3dmark results from xsreview. Nonetheless, what a shame its only 128bit.

Read More