Posts tagged with 3dMark
Codename Tigris, Surprises Found Test Driving the New AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 10:45 PM
(18 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5)
Loading ...
Ultrathin laptops have been the talk of the press for about 6 months now, but the reality is that many laptops that will ship in 2009 will likely have 14″ or larger displays and not be ultrathin. Why? Many consumers prefer the full-featured nature of those notebooks with their larger displays, integrated optical drives, larger keyboards, expandability and for the most part, the ability to crank more quickly through software. That’s where AMD’s newest full-featured platform comes in with all its entertainment goodies with VISION. I got the chance to take a drive in a new MSI C-Series notebook based on the 2009 AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform (codename “Tigris”), and it had a few tricks in store I MUST share.
Tigris-based MSI Notebook Specs
- CPU: AMD TurionTM II X2 Dual Core Mobile Processor M640 at 2.6 Ghz.
- GPU: ATI RadeonTM HD 4200 Graphics
- Display: 16″ 16:9 at 1366×768 resolution
- Video out: HDMI and VGA port
- Keyboard: Full-size with full number pad
- RAM/HDD/Optical: 4GB/300GB/DVD-RW
- Memory Slot: SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro
- Networking: Bluetooth, Gig-E, and B/G/N wireless
- 1 E-SATA port/USB combo port
- 2 USB ports (3 if you count combo)
- ExpressCard 34 slot
- Webcam (1.3 MP) and microphone
Video Encoding- A Giant Leap
The most amazing and new feature of this Tigris-based notebook for me was the GPU-assisted video transcoding. Quite simply, video transcoding is changing the format of a video to be played on another device. One example is taking a family video on an HD camera and encoding it to play on an iPod or iPhone.
Of the 15 videos I tested, when I was using the GPU, I got nearly twice the performance or the time was nearly cut in HALF! Your mileage will vary with video type of course and I have seen published numbers of even higher scores converting to a PSP. You can see a video of this in action here.
This is accomplished through the graphics card’s ATI Stream Technology and using the ATI Stream-enabled Cyberlink Espresso software application.
Video Playback- Reality is King
The “Tigris” platform has taken the video playback capabilities of its predecessor and placed it on steroids. Not only do you get the HD video offload capabilities, which means lower CPU utilization and heat, but now the visual quality is greatly enhanced. The features are described in super-geek terms like “dynamic contrast”, “flesh tone enhancement”, “HD color vibrance”, but it basically means that whites are brighter, blacks are richer, skin tones look more realistic, and the colors look better. I noticed the differences when I connected the Tigris-based MSI notebook to my 1080P flat screen TV.
A couple of other cool video features that I thought were useful were video upscaling and Blu-ray PIP acceleration. Video upscaling takes lower resolution videos like 400×240 and converts them to look better when shown on a larger screen (e.g. 1920×1080). Here is a nice example here. Blu-ray PIP acceleration allows you to watch a Blu-ray enabled movie (with PIP) with much lower CPU utilization, which results in less heat and noise.
AMD’s Ian McNaughton has done a fine job in his blog drilling down on key video features.
Games- Plow through Mainstream
Like video, the “Tigris” platform has taken the gaming capabilities of its predecessor to the next level. While we would recommend to those who would consider themselves “gamers” a full discrete card, the ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics didn’t disappoint. In fact it impressed me more than I thought it would.
I started off with a simple 3DMark 06 test and was surprised at the 1,800 base score I achieved, particularly with last year’s 2008 AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform (codename “Puma”) coming in at around 1,500. Why? The ATI Radeon HD 4200graphics are based on the RV620 core, a step ahead of the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics based on the RV610 core.
Forget benchies a second, I wanted to try out a few games that a user would probably play on this system. So I was forced 
to try some mainstream games: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Sim City Societies, Ghostbusters, Sims 3, and X-Men Origins Wolverine. I had a good experience on all of them with decent frame rates and resolutions. For fun I loaded Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty World at War, and Tom Clancy’s Hawx. Sure, take down the res and some of the eye candy; just the fact that they were playable on integrated graphics is a feat in itself.
One final feature I must point out is the “Tigris” platform’s support of Direct X 10.1 from Microsoft, currently the latest graphics technology available until DirectX 11 arrives sometime next month. It allows either better looking games or better performance. While I didn’t personally run these FPS scores the lab did, and on higher end games with some eye candy on the ATI Radeon HD 4200 drove HAWX at 1024×768 at 25FPS, Battleforge at 1280×1024 at 24FPS, and Stalker: Clear Sky at 30 FPS, while the competition either crashed or had worse than a third the performance and experience.
Why would any consumer buy a system with generic or dated graphics? Beats me.
Thin Is In: Tigris-based MSI Notebook next to the MSI notebook based on AMD’s Second Generation Ultrathin Platform
Conclusion
For that full-sized, full-featured mobile experience, I was impressed with the MSI system based on the “Tigris” platform. Like I said above, the video encoding quantum leap was amazing and just shows how powerful the combination of the GPU and CPU working together can be. Increasing the stakes on the video playback side was a treat and fun to try out and see all those features. Finally, with support for Direct X 10.1 technology from Microsoft and the ability to play real games and of course mainstream games, the system should keep all the mainstreamers happy and surprise even some gamers. Now that’s VISION. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Breaking Records with Dragons and Helium in the Las Vegas Desert
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:55 AM
How do I describe what happened in a tent on the edge of the Desert in Las Vegas on the last night of CES? Completely over the top…. I can say that it was a story that included dragons and helium at temperatures near the point where atoms and molecules cease to move. While I wasn’t at the event, I had droves of people come to me within and hours to tell an account of what happened. After researching the night’s activities, I wanted to bring it to you.
“The Experiment” was held on the edge of Las Vegas with the goal to push AMD Phenom TM II X4 processors to the absolute limits1 using the most extreme techniques and methods available. The testing was done on AMD Dragon platform technology complete with dual ATI Radeon TM HD 4870 X2 and motherboards based on the AMD 790FX chipset.
Overclockers Macci, Hardman, Sampsa and SF3D were given 500 liters of liquid helium and an arsenal of motherboards from DFI and Gigabyte. I am an absolute neophyte when it comes to overclocking and have lots of fun with it, but when you add the pros and put great gear in their hands, the results are stunning. This proved quite true on this special night in the Vegas desert.
A world record score of 45,474 on 3D Mark 05 capped off the evening with all four processor cores at 6301MHz, the memory controller running at 3843MHz, and memory at DDR2-1100MHz. A pair of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards using ATI CrossFireX™ technology were air-cooled at 800/950MHz.
The team was reinstalling drivers and cold booting on what the meter read as -242C but at that point the meters are only an approximation….amazing stability at temperatures on the verge of absolute zero (-273C at which atomic motion ceases). The team even got a run with one core operating at 6.8 GHz.
Remember, almost all of this stuff is certain to void your hardware warranties and could cause serious damage to your PC hardware. We burn through motherboards, processors and graphics cards at an alarming rate doing it. And liquid helium is incredibly dangerous in untrained hands. Only the most experienced, safe and methodical overclockers should every even think of attempting something this extreme.
There is some great initial posts out there, check it out.
English
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3570593&postcount=432
Event Thread (English)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211726&page=18
German
Finnish
http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/3dmark05n-maailmanennatys-suomeen
YouTube Video of The Event
The team would like to break that record as they refine their techniques and the community goes beyond. We appreciate the support from the OC community that AMD has had over the years and hope that our Black Edition processors continue to raise the level of fun and competition. I am hearing that Dragon technology is proving to be a compelling platform for overclockers and we hope that the community enjoys it.
1) AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
First Weekend with the Fusion for Gaming Utility
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:36 PM
In Nigel’s latest blog, he gives the big picture of what the new AMD Fusion campaign means to our customers and business partners. Being the new tech lover that I am, I decided to explore the new AMD Fusion for Gaming utility. I‘ll start broad, then get to the juicy details, but first a teaser from my personal numbers: I saw a best-case gaming experience frames-per-second improvement of over 100% using the new utility.
First, as I have covered in previous blogs here and here, for PCs, AMD innovates around usage models. Whether it’s productivity, home media, or playing games, we work with customers, channels, and end users to better understand their pain and pleasure points, apply the right integrated technologies to meet those needs, and then help deliver the complete experience through our customers and channels.
Console and PC Gaming are very important usage models to AMD, and we apply many hardware and software innovations for both “hard-core gamers” and “consumers who like to play games.” Hardware innovations include our ATI Radeon™ HD graphics, AMD Phenom™ and AMD Turion™ processors, and the chipset platforms. On the software side, we deliver drivers and the award-winning ATI Catalyst™ Control Center that lets you tweak almost every aspect of your graphics card with respect to 3D, video, color, power management, multi-GPUs, and display connectivity. Also, AMD Overdrive™ allows you to tune the performance of your CPU, memory, and chipset.
When the AMD Fusion for Gaming development team asked me to try out their newest software creation last weekend, I jumped ALL over it and wanted to share my experiences.
Hard core gamers know that to have the best experience possible, they need a bad-ass graphics card like the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870, a beefy CPU like the Phenom™ 9850 processor, a great performance chipset like the AMD 790GX, software tools like AMD Overdrive and ATI Overdrive™, and as few applications and tasks as possible running in the foreground and background. Historically, even for knowledgeable enthusiasts, this would be a time-consuming process. For the mainstream user who likes to play games, this type of performance optimization was completely out of reach. To solve these pain points, we created the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility.
The AMD Fusion for Gaming utility was designed to optimize your AMD-based PC for smoother, more responsive game play in the latest PC games with the touch of a button; the utility helps achieve the performance previously only available to highly technical enthusiasts. It works by temporarily shutting down background processes and intensifying processor performance with AMD Boost. That means you can keep all the features, tasks, and applications running on your Microsoft® Windows Vista® PC ready when you need them, but turn them off when you are ready to get down to serious gaming.¹
”Simplicity” was the design principle for the utility, but we still let you peek behind the curtains into the advanced interface to change how the utility works. You can customize with user selectable profiles to individually optimize your PC for gaming. Also, you can easily build your own profile and choose exactly what you want disabled for a leaner footprint. If you want to squeeze every bit of performance from your system, engage our most advanced acceleration technologies such as AMD Overdrive, Auto-Tuning and Hard Drive Acceleration.²
So with that long-winded intro, let me tell you what I personally experienced…
Desktop Gaming
I saw a big improvement in my desktop gaming experience using Fusion for Gaming. This was not surprising given I used Expert Profile that initiates AMD Boost, Hard Drive Acceleration, AMD OverDrive and ATI Overdrive in addition to shutting down unneeded services and third-party applications. Playing games just felt “better”. I know that doesn’t sound like science, but real gamers know what I mean. On Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, my system felt more responsive and snappier. I did a few rudimentary benchmarks on these two games using FRAPS, and saw about a 23-29% improvement in frame rates. Using some canned benchmarks, I saw the following:
- 3D Mark: 15% overall score improvement in 3DMark
- World In Conflict: Based on the setting, improvements in frame rates were 55% for the “average” setting, 157% for the “minimum” setting and 116% for the “maximum” setting
- Lost Planet: 5.8% “Snow” and 24% “Cave” scene frame rate improvement
Very impressive, but again, not surprising, given I was overclocking the CPU, GPU, hard drive, and shutting many Windows services, foreground and background apps. I am not a professional benchmarker like Kyle Bennett or Marco Chiappetta, but these numbers make sense given the “feel” of the game. And remember – these are my results achieved on the platforms indicated below – your experience may differ.
Notebook Gaming
One of the things I love to do with my 6 year old son is play PC games. We place a notebook on the coffee table in the living room, plug in two controllers, and go to town. We play games like Lego Star Wars II, Lego Indiana Jones, and IronMan… age appropriate stuff.I would consider this usage model to be about “people who like to play games”, NOT the “hard core gamer”. Surprisingly, I saw some of the largest boosts here. I didn’t expect it because I didn’t initiate AMD OverDrive or ATI Overdrive, just AMD Boost, Hard Drive Acceleration, and turned off unneeded tasks and applications. My hunch is that because it was a 2GB integrated graphics system where graphics shares memory and I run a lot of background tasks, shutting those down really helped. Again, the experience of Lego Star Wars II just “felt better.”
Like the desktop system, I ran some rudimentary benchmarks on the notebook:
- 3D Mark:8.9% improvement in 3DMark
- World In Conflict: Based on the setting, improvements in frame rates were 140% for the “average” setting, 600% for the “minimum” setting and 53% for the “maximum” setting
- Lost Planet: No improvement in frame rates
I didn’t expect to see any improvement, honestly, so I was surprised to see the World in Conflict numbers. Again, my hunch is that it is the memory impact and all the tasks and the applications that were shut down plus the fact that I used a 2GB integrated graphics system. And again – these are my results, yours may differ.
All in all, I was impressed at the simplicity AMD Fusion for Gaming utility brought to my desktop and the improvement to the gameplay. And on the notebook side, I was very surprised at how much it improved my gaming experience and framerates. While not perfect without some glitches as the utility is in beta, I think the AMD for Fusion for Gaming utility pulls together the strength of AMD’s CPU, GPU and chipset franchises better than ever, and pays off on the promises AMD has made to its customers, channels, and end users on the “fused” value of the three components.
You can download the Fusion utility here and AMD Overdrive 2.14 here, and I would love to hear about your experiences.
¹ THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.
² AMD’S PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.
Desktop configuration: AMD Phenom X4 9850 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics, Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard (BIOS 81BF1P03) with 790GX chipset and SB 750, 1GB Seagate hard drive (7200 RPM), 2GB Corsair XMS2 RAM, ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8, AMD OverDrive 2.1.4.
Notebook configuration: Toshiba L305D-S5873, AMD Turion X2 RM-70 processor, ATI Radeon 3100 graphics, 2GB RAM, 160GB (5400RPM) hard drive, ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8.
Applications: GooglePack, Digsby, Tweetdeck, Picasa 2 media detector, Windows Defender, Orb, Internet Explorer 8.0, Windows Home Server Connect, AT&T Communications Manager, CD/DVD Acoustic Silencer and Config Free (On Toshiba)
Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD.His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.