AMD Brings Back All-In-Wonder

AMD has released a press announcement that it Expands The Ultimate Visual Experience™ combining exceptional HD Graphics, HDTV, and HD Video for PCs. This   actually means that AMD is going to bring back the good ‘ol TV Tuner + graphics card that ATI used to sell under the All-In-Wonder line of products. The new ATI All-In-Wonder card is a PCI-Express 2.0, has the HD3650 GPU and Theater 650 Pro TV Tuner.

After AMD had stopped selling these products, with the last launch in Jan 2006, it does come as a surprise to a lot of people. The big advertisement with this launch is that AMD is making here is that it is full HD and can record in full HD. It can playback BlueRay and HD content at 1080p.

From the press release:

ATI All-in-Wonder HD prepares you for brilliant TV, sharp images and smooth playback on a wide variety of HDTVs and displays. With support for Microsoft DirectX® 10.1, gamers can play the top HD games with life-like 3D graphics, stunning realism, and great shading effects. Full support for PCI Express 2.0 technology allows for twice the throughput of current PCI Express 1.0 cards, which means gamers will be ready for demanding graphic applications.

The price of the product is going to be around $199 and sounds like a really good deal and value-for-money. The full spec-sheet can be found here. The plans are to hit the streets by July end.

Crysis Leaked!! Tread With Caution

The word has spread like wild fire on the internet that the highly anticipated game, Crysis has been leaked on to the torrent sites. Crysis is probably "the game" to be played this year and everyone have been sitting waiting for the game. And finally when there was only a week left, some notorious guys have leaked it off to the internet. This is really bad news for EA, since people who even had intentions to buy the original, won't be able to hold their patience anymore and download the game.

But I would suggest some caution to all the super-excited gamers, not to download any torrent with the alphabets C, R, Y, S, I, S. They should probably look at comments and also think if its the final version or some lame beta/alpha testers had received. And if EA has the final version, they should package it quickly, work night-out and send it to the shops by tomorrow. That would mean, the people who don't want to download 6GB, would go to the shops and get it first!!

Also, with the cracks not out yet, you never know who bundles the Trojan or Virus with the crack. Why do you as gamers expect the malicious crackers to crack his head without cracking your computer first!!?? So, don't rush mate.. Take your time and get the real package on the shelves... I mean who wouldn't want the manual for this all-time collectible ;-)

Update (18:00hrs GMT): Since, I talked about Dx10, the screenshots here are some food for thought comparing Dx10 Vs Dx9... I'm wondering if I like the Dx9 output??

Gamers should be less selfish: Buy the 3xxx series

DirectX 10 Cards That Will Be Cooler

Finally I think we will have DirectX 10 cards worth your money... DirectX 10 is widely publicized to be the best thing that happened to gaming since "PacMan". I really don't see many games on the shelf that use only Dx10. Nor did we want the cards!! Yet it's been months that ATI & Nvidia have been selling Dx10 cards with the 2xxx series and 8xxx series respectively.

Coming on 14th Nov (Apparently Children's Day in India), we have the next-gen Dx10 cards launched by ATI also known as the 3xxx series (RV670). The first cards will be called the 3850 & 3870. These cards aren't apparently any faster compared to previous Dx10 cards. But what's special about these cards is that it'll be cooler and taking less power compared to both the 8800 and the 2900.

When the 8800 and the 2900 were released, I didn't buy them because of the high power required by these cards. Even when not under heavy usage these cards easily suck in close to 200W power and close to 300W on load. That much power requirement is just plain insane and should have been banned by government agencies considering the Global Warming Issue..

The 3xxx series doesn't make the power requirement lower by much, but it still promises atleast 50W lower than the current cards. I hope gamers realize they are being overly selfish by buying these power sucking monsters and buy something less power hungry. We are going less power hungry in processors, but when do we expect such a trend with graphic cards?? [Fusion?? Larabee??]