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Mid-range NVIDIA 9600 GT with DispalyPort shows up

At least for now, sold state drives (SSD) are all show and no go. Very few people are actually willing pony up the premium for SSD storage on notebook computers.

The reasons for this include the high price of NAND flash right now keeping the prices for the SSDs above what most consumers will pay. Another reason is the low storage capacities compared to traditional HDDs, and finally there is the problem with durability since a SSD can be written to and from only a fraction of as many times as a HDD can.

Despite these draw backs companies continue to jump onto the SSD bandwagon. At Computex, Patriot (probably best known for enthusiast RAM products) announced its SATA-II 256GB SSD. Important specs are missing like price and availability. All TweakTown can say is save your money, it’s sure to be expensive.

The DisplayPort standard sits poised to replace HDMI and DVI ports for video cards thanks to its ability to push higher than the 2560 x 1600 resolution DVI video cards max out at. We have some DisplayPort monitors available now from Dell (thought they are still limited to 2560 x 1600) and now we are getting some video cards using the DisplayPort interface.

Zotac has announced its 9600 GT sporting the DisplayPort interface. Zotac also showed off a new 9800 GTX called the Zone Edition that uses a silent liquid cooling system and carries a 5-year warranty. The premium for the product is reported to be an additional $50. The warranty isn’t something to get excited about; XFX offers a double lifetime warranty on its video cards.

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Zotac
By gigahertz20 on 6/3/2008 5:35:00 PM , Rating: 2
I've never really heard of Zotac until this past week, I guess they do a good job of pushing out Nvidia Geforce cards, and right now there is a Zotac branded 8800GTS 640Mb at the website below for $129 shipped. Can't beat that price.

http://fxvideocards.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-8800-GTS-640...




RE: Zotac
By therealnickdanger on 6/3/2008 5:44:18 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Mid-range NVIDIA 9600 GT with DispalyPort shows up

I've never heard of a DispalyPort either. ;-)


RE: Zotac
By diego10arg on 6/3/2008 6:55:58 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
At least for now, sold state drives (SSD) are all show and no go.


I've never heard of Sold State Drives either, but I guess they are the ones already purchased, right? :P


RE: Zotac
By eek2121 on 6/3/2008 6:01:52 PM , Rating: 2
I've had a Zotac 8800 GT graphics card for a while now. It's a single slot, dual DVI card. Solid performance and reliability. I'd never heard of them prior to seeing their card on newegg. At the time it costed $229.99 while all others were $250-$260. I will definitely purchase their brand again in the future.


RE: Zotac
By Anh Huynh on 6/3/2008 6:14:03 PM , Rating: 4
Hi everyone.

My name is Tuan and I'd like to identify myself as an employee of ZOTAC. No I don't officially go by Anh anymore, but feel free to call me Anh if you're used to it :). I am assisting North America with PR efforts. This is my first product related post as a non-employee of DailyTech.

We don't have as large of a presence in North America/US as we do in Europe -- where we're known as a premium manufacturer of high-end graphics cards. We do however carry a top to bottom line up of NVIDIA-based graphics cards and motherboards.

Our ZOTAC GeForce 9600 GT DP is a unique product. While other competitors have released similar models that pack 6 outputs, our GeForce 9600 GT DP is the only product that can output the BIOS and boot screens over all outputs. Do note however, that you can only use two outputs simultaneously at any given time.

If you guys have any other questions, I'll be glad to answer them :). Also, do note I might not offer an instant response as I am in Taiwan for Computex at the moment.


RE: Zotac
By masher2 (blog) on 6/3/2008 7:13:09 PM , Rating: 2
> "9600 GT DP is the only product that can output the BIOS and boot screens over all outputs. Do note however, that you can only use two outputs simultaneously at any given time."

That's a shame, as I'm running a triple-monitor setup myself, and I know a few people who run four. There aren't many card makers other than Matrox who offer single-card solutions for this...and those cards are typically very poor on the 3D acceleration side.


RE: Zotac
By Lightning III on 6/3/2008 8:46:39 PM , Rating: 2
There you go 4 at once for 339 after mib

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...


RE: Zotac
By Polynikes on 6/3/2008 9:11:02 PM , Rating: 2
That thing looks ridiculous. I can't even imagine what I could use 4 displays for simultaneously.


RE: Zotac
By Visual on 6/4/2008 3:22:01 AM , Rating: 5
For starters, you could most definitely use them to expand your imagination.


RE: Zotac
By Fnoob on 6/4/2008 8:17:38 AM , Rating: 2
I use 4 40" Sony Bravia 1080p's to expand my power bill.


RE: Zotac
By jackedupandgoodtogo on 6/5/2008 1:36:15 AM , Rating: 2
A lot of day traders have 2 or more monitors, but imagine any simulator that supports multiple monitors (like Flight Sims), 3 up front, one in rear. Having 4 monitors and decent 3D would be very nice!


RE: Zotac
By crystal clear on 6/4/2008 10:12:16 AM , Rating: 2
You forget to add to your comment the links needed for more information(specifications/prices etc) on your product.

Also links on sites that have reviewed/tested your products.

Your promotion is incomplete without this.


How much resolution do we need?
By smilingcrow on 6/3/2008 6:20:37 PM , Rating: 2
I appreciate that for medical imaging and other specialised areas a resolution of 2560x1600 might be considered limiting but how many typical PC users require more than that on the desktop?




RE: How much resolution do we need?
By masher2 (blog) on 6/3/2008 7:10:28 PM , Rating: 2
A decade ago, few people considered 1600x1200 limiting either. DisplayPort is positioned for the future.


RE: How much resolution do we need?
By martinrichards23 on 6/4/2008 5:01:46 AM , Rating: 2
Is our eyesight going to improve in the future as well? Because if it isn't, then the extra resolution will make virtually no difference.


RE: How much resolution do we need?
By smilingcrow on 6/4/2008 5:32:08 AM , Rating: 2
That’s what I was thinking. Maybe younger people with 20/20 vision can happily view resolutions higher than 2560x1600 on a 30” screen but that’s no use to me and do people really want screens larger than 30” on the desktop?

Displayport is a good idea but I can’t see that it’s addressing the mainstream.


RE: How much resolution do we need?
By Fnoob on 6/4/2008 8:22:28 AM , Rating: 3
"do people really want screens larger than 30” on the desktop?"

Absolutely.... and more of them please. I would trade them all for that 'Ultra-HD' ~80" Samsung - cuz the just the thought of 7680x4320 on the wall makes me all giggly.


RE: How much resolution do we need?
By anonymo on 6/4/2008 8:26:29 AM , Rating: 4
I hope you guys are not serious. You may still be under the false impression that higher resolution equates to smaller icons and text on screen, which is not true.

Consider the fact that conventional film (35mm for example) has no resolution constraints. Is your eyesight so confused that you require your favourite films to be scaled to some constraining resolution instead of their native format?

Resolutions will increase until they number so great that we can no longer see the pixels with the naked eye. I think that is the whole point.


By masher2 (blog) on 6/4/2008 12:04:06 PM , Rating: 2
Absolutely correct. Standard print resolution *begins* at 300dpi, and some people can claim to see improvements as high as 2400 dpi. Meanwhile, the average monitor runs under 100 dpi.

There's a huge amount of room for improvement...and that's ignoring the fact that monitor sizes will continue to grow, which means more pixels, even without the pixel size itself shrinking any.


By Quiescent on 6/4/2008 9:52:13 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe it's not. Maybe it's addressing gamers, and other people who really need the boost in resolution to have more space to work in.

You can acquire higher resolutions and adjust the size of icons and fonts to suit your needs, you will still have a huge amount of space left to work with.

But for people who enjoy the small text, and whatnot, they'll not want to adjust sizing.


By Quiescent on 6/4/2008 9:40:59 AM , Rating: 2
I do.

This is why:
http://kelpie.fragvault.com/images/flswhyineedmore...

I would prefer a higher resolution on just one monitor, and yes it would be nice to acquire several monitors for better use of FLS.


Here we go again...
By Fluppeteer on 6/4/2008 10:47:20 AM , Rating: 2
"The DisplayPort standard sits poised to replace HDMI and DVI ports for video cards thanks to its ability to push higher than the 2560 x 1600 resolution DVI video cards max out at."

No, it doesn't. The bandwidth of DisplayPort is only very slightly higher than HDMI1.3 or (the usual minimum of) dual-link DVI, and much less than HDMI1.3 would be over a type B connector. It doesn't have enough bandwidth to drive a WQUXGA monitor - the next "standard" size above 2560x1600 - at full refresh. In fact, the only monitors of that resolution have DVI inputs, although admittedly they either need several or run at reduced refresh rates, so arguably DVI supports the higher resolution.

What DisplayPort *does* support is higher combinations of colour depth and resolution (e.g. 2560x1600 at >24bpp) than most DVI configurations - although HDMI can also do this. Not that it matters for so long as there are perfectly good DVI monitors with internal colour look-up tables, and desktops are generally only 24bpp.

Disclaimer: I've been fairly vocal in various fora in my discouragement of DisplayPort, because I believe it's a standard formed by corporate politics which offers little to the end user over the existing alternatives. In return, we all pay (in money, confusion and reliability) for the extra connectors and/or dongles. I have no vested interest beyond this, but I don't want misinformation like "it supports higher resolutions" spreading because I still have a vague hope that DisplayPort will sink without costing us all too much. I won't mind if they up the spec so that it actually *does* support higher resolutions, instead.

I've got nothing against Zotac, who are just following the direction of the market. I'm sure they make fine graphics cards. I'd just like you to buy the version without the DisplayPort connector on it.

Incidentally, I've not heard of a 3200x2400 CRT, but I'd like one. (The 3840x2400 displays are LCDs - I have one.) I run six monitors across my desk at work, and often can't fit all the code I want to work on on the screens at once. Even a WQUXGA screen can't show the images from more recent digital cameras at 1:1, although it gets close. Some of us would really liks more resolution - although I'd prefer it to come with smaller pixels than the current crop of 30" screens.




RE: Here we go again...
By Anh Huynh on 6/4/2008 4:32:19 PM , Rating: 2
DisplayPort is designed to replace multiple video standards, not just desktop. It's supposed to replace VGA, DVI and LVDS so laptops, desktops both have a standardized digital interface. Although dual-link DVI is still perfectly fine, DisplayPort adds audio into the mix. Yes HDMI can output audio, but HDMI is designed as a home theater standard, not to mention HDMI has very high licensing fees so its not likely you'll find it in low cost systems.

It's also backwards compatible with single-link DVI as well. So DisplayPort, on paper is a great idea for the average consumer. High end users that are using DVI will not notice much difference.


RE: Here we go again...
By Fluppeteer on 6/5/2008 11:32:04 AM , Rating: 2
Sorry to rant on with an aside, and this is still not a criticism of Zotac, but...

DisplayPort is intended to replace DVI and LVDS - and DVI was supposed to replace VGA. It hasn't (very few cards even have DVI-D connectors rather than DVI-I that provides a convenient analogue break-out for VGA dongles). A single standard is a laudable aim, but for the next ten years we'll have to put up with multiple connectors for reasons of backwards-compatibility; I speak as someone with five CRTs on my desk and no cheap replacement for my 2048x1536 screen at home. Without providing definitive advantages, it would be better to pick a current standard and try to make it ubiquitous, rather than have a format war and extend the period for which backwards-compatibility is necessary. To the best of my knowledge, the internal connection community has shown no interest in moving from LVDS; I believe panels that use DVI TMDS directly exist, so the DisplayPort advantage of running with fewer wires appears not to be a big selling point. Most of the marketing I've seen indicates that the DisplayPort forum (VESA?) have given up on suggesting it as a replacement for HDMI in the AV space, and are concentrating on competing with DVI and LVDS.

If I read the web site correctly, HDMI fees are $10K per year for the company, plus 4 cents per connector. This is well within the range of a small business proposition, although admittedly inconvenient for a home hobbyist. (HDCP also has fees, but these are typically required for DisplayPort too.) I believe there is no official agreement that the DisplayPort founders will not start charging for their patents, although they are not currently doing so. While it's obviously better to have a free standard than one with a licence fee, and format wars have been fought over such things before (Firewire), surely 4 cents compares well with the cost of adding a second physical connector for compatibility reasons and the consequent industry confusion. Sometimes it's better to let your competition make a little licence money if it means you're making a fortune yourself; I can't believe that many companies have margins so tight that the HDMI fees are "very high" - low end devices may choose the cheapest and most common connector (VGA), but picking DisplayPort will only be a good option once it's already ubiquitous, and that will take years.

DVI is electrically compatible with HDMI (the connectors are physically different and there are optional differences in what data is output, but a single-link DVI-D image is a valid HDMI image). A purely mechanical dongle allows DVI graphics cards to support HDMI, and there is no reason that an HDMI signal cannot be transmitted over a DVI cable - the only reason this has not happened more commonly is that there has been no demand to connect the audio signal to the graphics card until recently. I retain the vague hope that someone will add 340MHz TMDS transmitters to dual-link graphics cards in the interests of HDMI 1.3 support, and thereby show what an HDMI type B connector could actually do. While there is a description for sending DisplayPort signals down a DVI connector, the electrical format is entirely different and requires far more supportive silicon.

Backwards compatibility between DisplayPort and DVI is a myth, reliant either on active conversion dongles or video connectors that support both electrical signals internally. Gefen sell devices that transmit DVI signals over cat 5 cable; this does not mean that DVI and 100BASE-TX are compatible standards.

DisplayPort is:
1) Potentially cheaper than LVDS for internal connections, but there seems to be little interest in moving to it. Whether internal connectors match external ones seems to be irrelevant to the consumer, at least at this stage (I believe there is no intent to use the same physical connector anyway, so you couldn't use your laptop screen on a desktop - just to use the signalling specification).
2) Slightly cheaper than HDMI, until you factor in the need to support HDMI as well for compatibility; the costs of HDMI have been over-stated anyway.
3) Slightly higher bandwidth than single-link HDMI 1.3, but much lower bandwidth than the (admittedly rare) dual-link connector. DisplayPort has insufficient bandwidth to run WQUXGA screens at full refresh; HDMI 1.3 type B would have enough bandwidth, in theory.
4) Slightly higher bandwidth than dual-link DVI, assuming the minimum common dual-link DVI frequency of 330MHz, but DVI has no official upper limit (c.f. 400MHz 10-bit RAMDACs on almost every graphics card's VGA outputs in the last ten years).
5) A slightly more resilient connector than HDMI, but less so than DVI.
6) Slightly smaller than HDMI type A (I believe), but larger than HDMI type C connectors.
7) Capable of mixing higher resolutions with high bits depths than DVI, but HDMI can also do this, and for RGB signals there is little benefit for so long as high end monitors have internal LUTs and desktops are 24bpp.
8) Capable of using a single cable for all connection speeds (making it more self-compatible than HDMI, which uses different connectors for single and dual link), but no less confusing in specification than single vs dual-link DVI (it has two possible speeds, and 1-4 lanes).
9) Potentially capable of driving multiple monitors and optical connectors, but has little bandwidth to do so any better than other display solutions (TripleHead2Go, Gefen, DisplayLink).
10) Digital only, which simplifies the connection but provides no backwards-compatibility path for VGA monitors in the style of DVI-I.
11) A small incremental improvement (I don't deny this) that is vastly outweighed by the overheads to the industry of adding a new type of connector, along with the needs of supporting all the other connector types that are already out there.

I've no vested interest in seeing it fail, but I've seen absolutely no evidence that it's a great idea for anybody, average or otherwise, other than possibly as an attempt by VESA to justify their existence and Dell's management to be on the leading edge of something. I'm happy to be persuaded that there's a good reason for it to succeed, but every argument I've seen so far has been either tenuous or completely spurious - whereas there are very good reasons not to force another standard onto the market.


SSD Durability
By Kaldskryke on 6/3/2008 7:26:01 PM , Rating: 2
Please stop beating this dead horse. NAND Flash reliability has come a long, long way since the days when its durability was a notable issue. Nowadays, under typical consumer usage patterns, an SSD will likely live longer than its user, let alone the drives own obsolecense. That includes SLC and the less-durable MLC.




RE: SSD Durability
By semo on 6/4/2008 7:17:37 AM , Rating: 2
yep. that horse is beat. and the low storage thing is not such a huge deal either (store your mucic and videos somewhere else).

big problems are high price and the fact that some ssds still aren't faster thand hdds in real world usage.


What became of the hybrid drives?
By epobirs on 6/4/2008 3:05:51 AM , Rating: 2
Last year, there was much talk about use of flash memory short of replacing the entire hard drive. One approach was to have a place on the motherboard to install a relatively small SSD, just a few gigabytes. The other was to have flash as a large persistent cache on hard drives, especially for portables.

This seemed to have a lot of promise for having the best of both worlds. Boot the OS and run the most often used apps from flash while reserving the hard drive for data and less frequently accessed items.

Seagate produced some hybrid drives with a rather meager amount of flash but nothing seems to have happened since. Anyone know any more on this?




By Quiescent on 6/4/2008 9:43:29 AM , Rating: 2
What happened is that the EeePC came out and everyone has become excited about it's success and the success of the SSDs being used.


By bravacentauri83 on 6/3/2008 7:27:08 PM , Rating: 2
Palit already had a 9600GT available with displayport capabilities. I know Palit has a number of brands under its wings, but I forget if Zotac was one of them. Other than that, this isn't much of news other than another manufacturer is implementing it.




Well...
By Quiescent on 6/4/2008 9:35:35 AM , Rating: 2
I remember my boyfriend getting a big ass CRT monitor (That he wouldn't use because it has a big scratch on it) that supported 3200x2400. He accomplished this with his old setup housing 7800GT SLi. Not sure if he was able to get this resolution because of SLi or what.

As for SSDs, I've jumped on the bandwagon, but only to use it for important storage. Plus, I found the cheapest, semi-decent SSD, and I think it will be great. (Will have a back-up of the drive on my current 80GB HDD, just in case it's defective!) And the read speeds and write speeds certainly outdoes my current harddrive read/write speeds. by 2x on read, and ??? on write.




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