RAM | Reseller Advocate Magazine: Issue 80

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By William Van Winkle

Graphics:

By the time you master the concepts of overclocking a motherboard and CPU, dealing with graphics should be almost second-nature. ATI/AMD and NVIDIA both have lengthy lists of GPUs appropriate for mainstream enthusiasts as well as the software tools to fine-tune their settings. For years, tools like RivaTuner and ATiTool have been popular among enthusiasts. EnTech’s PowerStrip offers control over more than 500 different display variables. For those who want to dig in and monkey around, these are some choice bananas.

In contrast, AMD bundles a simplified tool set—again called Overdrive—into the CATALYST graphics driver. Overdrive is enabled on all recent XT-class ATI/AMD chips. Depending on the Catalyst version, you can find the option to turn on Overdrive within the Advanced View Option > Graphic Settings area of the Catalyst UI. Newer versions will have a dedicated Overdrive tab. After clicking the unlock option, users can choose the AutoTune option to automatically overclock the frequency of the graphics processor. How much? AMD doesn’t really say beyond “a safe amount.” Web forum reports seem to average around a 20% boost, and some have found those settings unstable, depending on the specific product. A little tweaking with the advanced Overdrive options can quickly remedy things. Here’s another point where the reseller can step in and offer some expertise in optimization without overwhelming users with technical details.

LATEST AND GREATEST
With AMD now rolling out its Radeon HD 4870 GPU, enthusiasts will have a new high-end to covet. Meanwhile, the HD 3870 will become an excellent pick for mainstream enthusiasts.

These tools will usually give you more in-depth info in terms of increasing engine speed, memory speed, memory timings, these sorts of things,” says AMD’s John Bruno. “We include our tools in the box because we perceive there’s a certain class of users who want to be overclockers but value convenience and simplicity.”

Overclocking the GPU is fine, but don’t ignore simpler and arguably more conservative routes to increasing performance, such as CrossFire and SLI graphics processor bonding. A lot of buyers are going to get their systems with a $100 to $200 graphics card installed. This is the center of the graphics bell curve among mainstream types. Smack in the middle of this zone, you can find a Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB card based on PCI Express 2.0 (another must-have spec for would-be enthusiasts), HDCP support, 320 stream processors, GDDR4 memory, and two DVI output ports. It’s a killer deal on a very good card.

You could get into a long overclocking discussion with buyers wanting even more performance, or you could simply sell them another HD 3870 card and enable CrossFire teaming. (True, with CrossFireX, you can now have three or four cards linked in tandem, but this is the serious firepower specific to ultra-high-end gamers and thus beyond our present discussion.) With CrossFire, you’re going to see about 1.7X the performance in certain apps as only running one GPU. For about $20 more than buying two cards, buyers can also opt for the Radeon HD 3870 X2, which places two 3870 GPUs on a single card, potentially saving a motherboard slot.

Dipping under the mainstream enthusiast band, you may find gamers who want more performance and can’t afford a second graphics card. This is when hybrid graphics come in handy. Hybrid technology teams the discrete, add-in GPU with the integrated graphics processor (IGP) built into the appropriate northbridge. AMD and NVIDIA both offer this capability today. Essentially, hybrid teaming is a performance upgrade that entails no overclocking. IGPs are still underpowered by discrete graphics standards, but come on—it’s free! The performance difference may not show up as a 50% gain in benchmarks, but it will likely be enough to let the user bump up one or two notches in filtering quality without taking any performance hit. You’re trying to improve the user’s entertainment experience within a set budget range, and this is a great way to do it.

Not least of all, consider vendor platforms as a way to court mainstream enthusiasts. As an example, AMD considers the CrossFireX platform suited to enthusiasts, but below this, in the mainstream, are the would-be enthusiasts who need a way to know that their hardware can accomplish what they really want it to.

“We realized that there’s a mainstream audience out there that wants to play the latest games,” says AMD spokesman John Swinimer. “They go into a store and buy a system to play them, and our research shows that nine times out of 10, they’re not going to be able to play these games. So we developed this AMD GAME! platform and testing process to make sure that consumers can see the logo and get what they expect.”

Today, there are two divisions within this platform, GAME! and GAME! Ultra. The former requires at least an Athlon X2 5600+, Radeon HD 3650, and an AMD 770 or NVIDIA nForce 500 chipset. The Ultra version bumps up to a Phenom X4 9650, HD 3870, and AMD 770 chipset. The end result is AMD’s assurance that today’s hottest games (Quake Wars, Lineage II, Sims 2 Deluxe, etc.) can maintain at least a sustained 30 frames per second display rate, which is the minimum necessary for the human eye to perceive fluid motion. AMD GAME! makes this assurance at 1280 x 1024 resolution while Ultra does so at 1600 x 1280.

The AMD GAME! badge is available to all qualifying PC resellers, OEM and mom-and-pop alike. However, the channel has the advantage of being able to explain what the badge means, plus a smart reseller can translate AMD’s platform into a good, better, best scenario. Good is buying a modern PC configuration. Better is having the mainstream enthusiast assurance of a GAME! platform. Best is taking that platform and optimizing it still further with the component selections and optimizations detailed above and below. Platforms only create a level playing field in one regard. The reseller’s job is to use the platform as a jumping-off point into greater value-adds.

Memory

This is an awkward time for those targeting high-performance memory. On one hand, we have the old guard, DDR2, with years of development, refinement, optimization, and price drops behind it. On the other hand, there’s the new DDR3, which seems as if it’s just now getting into its second wave of products and first real generation of performance-oriented SKUs. Pricing on high-end DDR3 remains steep, but it is the future. Intel is already weeding DDR2 out of its high-end platforms, and mainstream chipsets are doubtless next. Look for AMD to make the jump to DDR3 in its next major CPU revamp sometime in 2009. We’ve seen these transitions before, but that doesn’t make the decision any easier.

Price may offer some hope for guidance. If we were to pick mainstream enthusiast parts on both sides of the memory fence, we’d find that DDR3 currently sells at a 70% to 100% premium over DDR2 on a per-gigabyte basis. Yes, high-end DDR3 is faster. The clock speeds ramp much higher, and there’s doubtless more overclocking margin, but there are still those pesky budget constraints to consider.
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THE FUTURE IS HERE
High-performance DDR3 modules like this Platinum pair from OCZ are steadily closing in on the price of similar DDR2, and DDR3 offers a much longer upgrade path for would-be enthusiasts.

Another key factor in deciding which side to recommend (and thus perhaps the CPU and chipset to enable it) is timings. There are four primary timings noted on most every RAM module: Column Address Strobe latency (CAS or CL), RAS-to-CAS Delay (TRCD), RAS Precharge (TRP), and Minimum RAS Active Time (TRAS). These might be noted as, for example, 3-3-3-10. If you think of placing a meal order at a restaurant, it takes different amounts of time back in the kitchen for each part of your order to become ready. The whole order may come back to you at once, but it took a different number of “cycles” for each of those items to become ready for delivery. Memory timings work the same way, with each timing having its own number of cycles for processing a memory request. Predictably, when these timings are lowered, the performance of completing orders accelerates.

The biggest early criticism of DDR3 was that its timings were significantly higher than those of DDR2. Even though DDR3 offered faster clock speeds, these gains were often more than offset by inferior timing latencies. Today, manufacturers are finally starting to bring DDR3 timings down, allowing the advantages of faster clock rates to become more apparent.

As you might expect, there are many grades of memory, each with its own frequency, voltage, and timing tolerances. OCZ is a vendor renowned for chart-topping modules. One of its leading DDR2 modules is the Platinum Edition PC2-8500, based on a 1066 MHz speed with 5-5-5-8 timings and a 2.2V power spec. The top-end Platinum part on the DDR3 side runs at 2000 MHz with 9-8-8-28 timings and a 1.8V spec. Truth be told, it’s impossible to make a general statement about how much better the DDR3 part is than the DDR2. The answer will largely depend on whether the application is leaning more heavily on the frequency or timings. We can say for certain that the premium parts from vendors like OCZ are far more overclockable than their mainstream or value equivalents. On this front, you really do get what you pay for.

That said, we’d like to suggest another shortcut for mainstream enthusiasts. For some time, NVIDIA has had its Enhanced Performance Profiles (EPP) platform, which optimizes module settings when paired with a compatible SLI chipset. Intel now offers essentially the same technology with its Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) technology for DDR3 modules.
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“Intel XMP memory allows overclocking right out of the box, so it doesn’t matter if you’re mainstream or enthusiast,” says OCZ vice president of marketing Alex Mei. “When you plug this into an Intel X38, X48 platform, it’s going to overclock automatically to match your ultimate system specs. That means the tightest timings and lowest voltages necessary to achieve the highest megahertz clocks. For the Intel platform, that means around 1600 MHz.”

Accord to Mei, XMP is getting to the stage where even hardcore overclockers are going to be satisfied with what they get out of the box, plus the configuration has the benefit of better stability. Experts may be able to squeeze out another 5% at a granular level in the BIOS, but we’re very drawn to the plug-and-play philosophy.

You’ll almost immediately notice that the major enthusiast memory vendors offer high-end parts with ornate heatsinks—some even blending air and water cooling. However, most sources agree that the only time these high-end heatsinks are needed is when the user engages in long-term running with over-voltage, and this takes us back to the bling-loving enthusiast group. Most mainstream buyers will be content to take the performance gains of the next rung down the ladder, sacrifice the complexity and eye candy, and pocket the difference.

DDR2 is going to continue at least through the middle of next year, but even vendors agree that the main reason to buy DDR2 today is its aggressive price. DDR2 still packs the most bang for the buck, but the more enthusiast-oriented your mainstream buyer is, the more attracted he’ll be by DDR3's headroom and future road map.

THE WHOLE ENCHILADA

We covered the core ingredients in a mainstream enthusiast PC and the elements of each ingredient that you should be promoting in order to court buyers, but at some point you’re going to need to make a first impression. People are going to see your machine from across the room and either ignore it or want a closer look. The big OEMs have this sort of curb appeal down pat, and that’s what you’re up against. Can your customer order 10,000 machines from China designed by a fleet of San Francisco design artists? Probably not. But there is hope.

Even a mom-and-pop reseller shop can team up with a paintbrush artist, maybe a local automotive paint shop, and put really slick finishes on an off-the-shelf chassis. Or maybe you can work with a talented but affordable metal shop to fab some intriguing custom parts. If you want to compete with the really big kahunas, you need a really cool-looking system because nobody wants a super-fast setup in a beige case.

More Bling, Less Work
With an enthusiast-minded tower from Thermaltake, a lot of the extras already come included, saving everyone time and expense after the sale. Units like this Armor MX feature loads of expansion room

This type of extreme makeover can be done, and a reseller can even build it into a business niche. Look at Vigor. Look at Puget Systems. These shops went up against Dell and won. The key is to create a new design, something that’s personal and specialized. Admittedly, it helps if you’re passionate about enthusiast systems and have a deep feeling for what could stand out in this field. If you don’t, that’s OK. Chassis vendors like Thermaltake, Cooler Master, and even Antec (you gotta love that piano black finish) have all kinds of sexy going on around some very solid, performance-oriented interiors, and you don’t need to pay for custom extras.

Get your enthusiast package together, make sure all the pieces fit and make sense, learn down to the letter how to optimize it better than anyone else, and take it to the mainstream. There are plenty of buyers waiting for you to show them how they can achieve their enthusiast dreams at an affordable price.

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