GeForce 400 Has Entered the Building

Our friends at NVIDIA have sent us a GeForce GTX 470 to play around with. Second most-powerful in a family of four cards, its siblings are the GTX 480, 465 and 460. The 460/465 cards are the “Budget Gamer” line coming in the mid $200.00 mark and the 480 is the headliner in the show coming in varying flavors around $500.00. The 470 is going for $320.00 to $350.00 right now from various online retailers and will be the primary focus of today’s scribbling.


So, the first thing we ask, what are the primary differences between the 470 and the 480. Let’s take a look at the raw numbers:

The physical i/o connections on the card are identical with the exception of the power connectors, the 470 uses 2–6pin and the 480 uses 1-6 pin and 1-8 pin plug. There are grumblings about there being no media connector and dings against NV’s HDMI audio but, honestly, if I’m going to plug my plasma into this bad boy the audio will be going from my HD audio card directly to my audio receiver.


Aside from the aspect of the faster GPU and bigger hardware feature set, the big difference between the GF 400 series cards and their predecessors is DirectX 11. While the current list of DX11 games is very short it is expected to grow soon and much sooner than the 2 – 3 years some folks in the online community were projecting. With HL 2 part III and Starcraft II and on the list I’m really looking forward to seeing the difference in image quality and performance.


Unfortunately my GTX 280 died a hot and violent death shortly after receiving the 470 so side-by-side benchmarks will have to wait until I get the RMA’d card back. I can say that I have seen improved performance in Metro 2033 (now maxed out and with DX 11 features enabled) Just Cause 2 and even World of Warcraft.

On top of comparing this GPU to the 280, I'm really hoping to get my hands on another 470 to play around with 3D Vision Surround.

Droid X: This Phone Will Self-Destruct In 3,2,1..

More shocking news in from the cell phone community. Motorola and Verizon have apparently decided to bring the hammer down on the Android modding community with the introduction of eFuse. One of the big draws of the Droid X is it's use of Android 2.1, an open-source and highly customizable OS. With eFuse, if you make any changes to the OS or firmware that it can't certify as factory original, it "kills" the phone requiring a hardware fix to reactivate. Normal rooting may not be able to get around this as it starts certification before the bootloader so it will detect *any* changes.

Needless to say, the natives are restless...

Proving the Rumors True, Apple Offers Free iPhone 4 Bumpers

Apple iPhone 4 users can breathe a sigh of relief. Many believed that Apple would go Marie Antoinette on them and tell them to eat the proverbial cake in regards to bumpers for their shiny new toys. It seems that free cases and refunds for those that have already purchased one are in the works.

This just in: Case refunds only apply to those purchased from AT&T or Apple, no third-party cases will be covered by the refund. While I can see their side of this and they do need to protect themselves by controlling refund costs, they should at least quantify a base refund value and offer this to those who can show valid proof of purchase. Just my two cents..

Air Cooling Goodness!!

So, I had an i7 870 and motherboard fall into my lap recently. As I fully intended to OC the bejeezuz out of it, I needed to go hunting for a good cooler and was almost unanimously pointed to the Venemous line from Thermalright, specifically the Venemous X-RT and after installing it I can't be happier.



I know what you're saying.. "James, you *need* to go watercooled, newb!" bah.. been there, done that and may yet return but I just don't have the time/interest right now for a high-maintenance cooling solution.

To make a long story short (I know, too late) at the stock 2.93GHz I'm idling at ~25c and 50c under load. I have this bad boy cranked to 3.6GHz now running 30c idling and 60c under load, this is still almost 40c under CPU max. I've tried to squeeze a little more out of the CPU but my memory can't keep up and the stability goes out the window. I'm hoping to get my hands on some Corsair XMS3 DHX sticks soon so we'll see if that helps. I've seen posts online of this CPU/Mobo hitting near 3.9GHz on air and I'd like to get there myself.

iPhone 5 Rushed Through Engineering

Acknowledging that the signal issue is indeed hardware, Apple is pushing the iPhone 5 out the door. Insiders heard engineers grumbling "Let's see them hold this antenna".

iPhone 4 Makes Sour Apples?

As the iPhone 4 reviews begin to gush (and I do mean gush) from the professional review sites I'm beginning to hear grumblings from folks just now getting theirs. It appears as though you can't activate them unless you're running OSX 10.5.8 and have iTunes 9.2. Now while I understand it's human nature to resist change, I thought you Mac folks were on the cutting edge. I'm running 10.6 on my DELL for goodness sake...