XIGMATEK LOKI SD963

On the test bench today is Xigmatek's mid-compact Loki SD963 heatsink. The Xigmatek Loki SD963 stands 134mm tall, weighs 430 grams, comes equipped with a 92mm fan mounted on rubber vibration absorbing fan posts and will support a second 92mm fan if desired (not included). The 92mm PWM fan scales in speed from a moderately audible 2800RPM to 1200RPM. The heatsink is compatible with Intel socket 775/1155/1156/1366 and AMD socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+ processors. Over the next few pages Frostytech will tell you if the Loki SD963 is worth its weight in aluminum, or junk for the recycling bin. Let's begin.

GIGABYTE G-1 KILLER FOR EXTREME PERFORMANCE

Since the release of the P67 chipset for Intel's Sandy Bridge processors, the interest of the consumer market has shifted away from the X58 chipset. However, the majority of hardcore computer enthusiasts still remain faithful to their older Core i7 systems for several valid reasons. The primary reason is that unless equipped with NF200 chip, the P67 chipset is only able to support up to 16 PCI-E lanes, which can be split into (x8/x8) configuration for SLI/CrossFire. In comparison, the X58 chipset supports 32 lanes, meaning both PCI-E slots can run at x16, providing a sigificantly higher threshold for the bandwidth. While a regular computer user might not notice the difference between 8x and 16x PCI-E performance, those that use SLI or CrossFire set ups with dual GPU graphics will notice a slight drop in performance. In addition, LGA 1366 socket is able support 6-core processors, while the LGA 1155 socket can only support 4-core processors.

INNO3D GEFORCE GTX 590

Since NVIDIA unleashed the GeForce GTX 590 just days ago, it is no surprise to see its various partners show off their own solutions, and Inno3D has now joined the fray with a stock-clocked version of it.

One might say that consumers have been waiting for NVIDIA to unleash a dual-GPU, DirectX 11 video card for many months.
In fact, it could be seen as odd that it only now happened, considering the fact that AMD had its first one out way back on 2009 and has since revealed a second one. It was also found that, according to reviews, the new GTX 590 came out slower compared to the Radeon HD 6990 (the successor to the HD 5970), although it was described as “the best dual GPU product ever built” by its makers anyway.

Granted, the dual-GF110 card has other advantages, like a lower noise output, albeit it still takes up a lot of space. Inno3D presented a card of its own now, whose two GF110 chips work at 607 MHz each, while the 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM are clocked at 3,414 MHz.
Meanwhile, the 1,024 CUDA cores feature a shader frequency of 1,215 MHz, while the memory interface is of 768 bits (384 bits per GPU).
All in all, the Inno3D GeForce GTX 590 has a memory data rate of 2,414 Mbps and a bandwidth of 327.7 GB/s.
Needless to say, 3D Vision Surround is supported, at a resolution of 5760 x 1080 pixels even, as are Quad SLI and PhysX. The price was not mentioned, but it shouldn't be too different from the $699 that NVIDIA imposed for its original. 


taken from : news.softpedia.com