Although both graphics processors mentioned above were manufactured using the same 50nm technology, ATI managed to put together something very impressive, as the ATI Radeon HD 4650 video card is rated at 55Watt maximum TDP vs. the 78Watt TDP of the Radeon 3650 video card. The number of stream processors (parallel graphics processing units) was increased from 80 to 320, while the rest of the hardware components on ATI Radeon HD 4650 video cards are actually slower. The memory transfer rate for example is just around 22400MB/s on the HD 4650 card, while the HD 3650 card reached 25600MB/s speed.

Ati Hd 4650 Video Card

As you can see, ATI Radeon HD 4650 video card doesn’t require an additional power plug, even though it reaches the performance of the previous generation Radeon HD 3850 – extremely power hungry – video cards. The cooler is also very small, because the graphics chip’s architecture is very efficient, constantly reducing core speed when not at full load. Some video card manufacturers like MSI tried to equip ATI Radeon HD 4650 video cards with passive cooling solutions, but they weren’t successful. Let’s face it, you can’t just get rid of 55Watts of heat without using heat pipes and/or fans. The maximum heat I have seen successfully dissipated by a passive heat sink is around 40Watts, but not without sacrificing the component’s lifespan. It is well known that most electronics age quicker if they constantly overheat or have to face significant temperature variations (ex: +/- 40 degrees Celsius).

Ati Hd 4650 Video Card

The ATI Radeon HD 4650 video cards have a hidden benefit, that is extremely useful when you have a low budget and a Crossfire compatible motherboard with two or more PCI-Express 16X slots. These video cards can work in Crossfire mode without requiring additional cables or power. Two ATI Radeon HD 4650 video cards can work together in order to provide one cheap gaming desktop with a decent 3D processing power. The guys at hothardware.com tested Radeon HD 4670 cards, which are basically the same thing with slightly increased GPU clock speed.

Ati Hd 4650 Video Card

As you can see on the graph, one such card almost beats the Radeon 3850 card and by adding a second one in Crossfire mode performance increases by almost 80%. This is a very good percentage, as most high-end cards offer just around 50% performance increase when configured in Crossfire or SLI mode.

At the time of writing six ATI Radeon HD 4650 video card models are available at newegg.com, for prices between 47 and 136 US dollars.

The first graphics cards didn’t have any cooling, just like the first PC microprocessors, because they ran at such low speeds that couldn’t raise their temperature to critical levels. Today’s computer video cards and microprocessors need at least an attached heat sink with or without a fan.

Video Card Coolers

There are three different types of video card coolers that produce significantly different results. In the picture above you can see a (completely) passive cooler, which is basically a big piece of metal with a large surface. This kind of coolers are used highly efficient video cards with very low power consumption. Although the size of these coolers are precisely calculated (usually over sized), they tend to let the graphics processor reach critical temperatures, depending on the ventilation in a particular computer case. The only huge benefit of this kind of solution is that they are cheap, they don’t make any noise and don’t wear out.

Video Card Coolers

In this picture you see a heatpipe-based cooling solution. This is a flexible way to eliminate noise and also has a very high efficiency level. The heat pipes have gases and vapors inside, circulating with an impressive speed, thus taking the heat from one end to another much more effectively than any solid material. This solution is relatively expensive, but it offers much more control over where you want to take the heat, as these heat pipes can take heat in any direction and relatively long distances. For example the computer manufacturer can decide to make the top (or bottom) of the computer case a large heat sink, and take all heat from all components there, using just heat pipes – no fans.

Video Card Coolers

The third type of video card coolers are also heatpipe-based, but in these pipes some kind of liquid is circulated, using pumps. This is a very effective and much more flexible solution, as the pipes connecting different metal components can be made of any flexible material and installed in the computer case by any user that knows how to use a scissor. The downside is that so-called liquid cooling makes a lot of noise and costs hundreds of dollars for a complete gaming system. You know that your computer is properly cooled, but you have to listen to the noise and spend all that money.

Because none of these solutions are perfect, manufacturers also make video card coolers that are combinations of these technologies.

Currently there are more than 30 different ATI Radeon 5450 video cards available on the market for prices between $35 and $140. Beware of the cheapest models! All models are relatively slow, with 64bit memory buses, but the cheapest ones have only 32bit memory buses. The 32bit crippled memory bus has a significant impact in performance, so if you don’t need such a card for a technical reason, go for a 64bit version at the same price point.

Ati 5450 Video Graphics Card

Most of these cards don’t consume much energy, so they don’t generate significant amounts of heat. They are usually fitted with a very small heat sink with a very small fan, or a large heat sink without a fan. This is only relevant when you don’t have enough space in the computer case or simply want to eliminate noise. The performance of the cards isn’t tied to the type of cooling solution.

The most impressive feature of these small graphics cards is that they support Eyefinity technology, allowing the user to connect up to 6 monitors to just one card in some cases. Please note that the basic version of Radeon 5450 cards can only handle two independent monitors at once, although it has thee output ports.

Ati 5450 Video Graphics Card

ATI Radeon 5450 video cards are usually installed in small form factor computers, where their job is to be quiet and play FullHD video content, maybe even to run a few 3D games.

There were 7 different ASUS Radeon HD 3450 video card models ever made. The biggest difference between them is in on-board memory size, ranging from 128MB to 512MB. If you’re looking for a card that will fit in a low-profile computer case, then you’ll be concerned about size too. Only 4 of the 7 card models are meant for small computer cases.

Asus Radeon Hd 3450 Video Card

A big version of the ASUS Radeon HD 3450 video card (EAH3450/HTP/512M)

looks like this. It uses passive cooling, so it’s very quiet. As a consequence the graphics processor’s frequency had to be reduced slightly to 600MHz, in order to produce less heat. The 512MB of on-board DDR2 memory are accessed through a 800MHz 64bit memory bus, the speed of which is comparable to that of integrated graphics processors’ shared memory. This particular model has DVI, analog VGA and HDTV out ports. 3xxx series cards don’t support Eyefinity, so just two display outputs can be used simultaneously.

A special feature of all Radeon 3450 video cards is the AMD Hybrid Crossfire technology, which allows the use of both integrated and discrete graphics processors in order to improve performance.

Asus Radeon Hd 3450 Video Card

According to ASUS you may witness a 60% performance gain by using Hybrid Crossfire with an on-board Radeon 4200 graphics processor.

An enhanced version of the ASUS Radeon HD 3450 video card is the EAH3450 TOP/HTP/128M model. It has the same type of outputs and also the same size, but it has a bigger passive cooler, which allowed ASUS to raise the graphics processor’s frequency to 820MHz (from 600MHz).

Just 128MB of memory have been installed on this card, but it runs at a much higher 2 x 700MHz speed (still through a 64bit memory BUS). In reality however this increase in clock speeds doesn’t really affect overall card speed, as it’s limitations come from its architecture, not frequency. All Radeon HD 3450 video cards have 40 stream processors, just like Radeon 4200 integrated solutions. If a game won’t run well on the first model, then it will probably behave in the same way with this one (10-20% difference max).

Asus Radeon Hd 3450 Video Card

Newegg.com still sells Radeon 3450 video cards, but not from ASUS. Prices start at $32 and go as high as $190 for a special edition with 4 output ports.

3 Port Video Card

The cheapest video card available today is the nVidia Geforce 8400 GS expansion card, made for PCI-Express 16X slots of course, even though its performance doesn’t require even 20% of the bandwidth such a slot has to offer. It has a VGA port, a DVI port and an S-Video port (or HDMI), but only two can be active simultaneously. This is a structural problem, because nVidia didn’t foresee the potential of having more monitors connected to any home or office PC.

Mid-range and high-end video cards today can run up to 6 monitors at once. AMD was the first to make a high-end video card that uses Eyefinity technology (mostly software) to control up to 6 high resolution digital screens (DVI, HDMI or DisplyPort).

3 Port Video Card

This is the Radeon 5870, arguably the best single-GPU video card ever released. It offers both performance and flexibility at a reasonable price.

Low-end AMD video cards also support Eyefinity technology with up to 3 ports, but there’s a strange limitation to this feature. According to official specifications the AMD Radeon 5450 video chip is fully capable of managing 3 monitors, but some manufacturers used HDMI on their cards instead of DisplayPort, and these support only two monitors simultaneously. In my opinion this is a shameful limitation, found out by users only when it’s too late. When three monitors and the video card are already purchased, it’s very unpleasant to realize that the card and possibly one of the monitors have to be replaced with models equipped with DisplayPort.

3 Port Video Card

This is an ideal low-end video card with 3 ports, supporting 3 independent (or combined with Eyefinity) monitors for only $40. It is recommended for users who want to put together a high-resolution workstation with basic processing power, mostly used for non-3D applications, multimedia and maybe for playing some simple 2D/3D games.

There are five different Asus EAH3450 video card models.

ASUS EAH3450 SILENT/DI/512MD2 comes with all three popular types of display output ports: VGA, DVI and HDMI. Even though it’s equipped with 512MB of on-board memory, it doesn’t offer much 3D performance. It has a UVD unit (like all Radeon HD cards) which accelerates the decoding of video files and streams. This is the feature which recommends this video card for HTPC configurations, as Intel GMA chips don’t offer such acceleration.

ASUS EAH3450 TOP/HTP/128M offers a slightly higher performance (~25% increase) thanks to the 128MB of on-board DDR3 memory and higher GPU clock frequency. This video card also uses passive cooling, but it won’t fin in low profile HTPC cases.

ASUS EAH3450/DI/256M is a low-profile video card, installable in most HTPC cases. As you can see it has a significantly smaller heat sink, so GPU clock speed is definitely lower than on other models. The 256MB of on-board memory doesn’t really recommend it for anything other than multimedia playback.

ASUS EAH3450/HTP/256M is a low-profile video card with a high efficiency heatsink (V engine). Unfortunately there are some HTPC cases in which this card doesn’t fit, because its cooler is larger than the card. It has 256MB of DDR2 on-board memory and legacy S-Video TV-out instead of the HDMI port.

ASUS EAH3450/HTP/512M also uses the V-cool engine and is equipped with 512MB of on-board memory. It’s a full size graphics card, so it doesn’t fit in most HTPC cases.

Any one of these three may cause the system to not boot up, because they have to work together perfectly in order to execute the thousands of lines of commands in a complex graphical used interface based operating system like Microsoft Windows.

Frequent hardware errors that prevent boot up include memory errors, bad sectors on the hard disk, overheated processor, defective video card or power supply and main board voltage regulator problems.
When a computer will not boot up because of a memory error it usually remains stuck while doing the memory self test right after the computer is turned on or when larger parts of the memory is occupied by parts of the operating system while loading. This problem may have two solutions: replacing the defective memory module or removing it if there are more than one modules.

When a computer will not boot up because of a bad sector on the hard disk there are more solutions to resolve the problem, but only temporarily, because when one bad sector appears more will soon follow that will make the system very unstable.

NTFS doesn’t support marking of bad sectors, so after you locate the defective sector you have to exclude it from any partition types that can’t handle it. You do this by creating a partition right up to the bad sector and another after it, leaving the system with two 100% healthy partitions to use with the error on unallocated space that will never be read or written again.

If the bad sector is right at the beginning of the disk in a zone called the boot sector, then the disk will most likely will be unable to boot anymore, but it still may be used as a secondary disk.

Voltage regulator problems, video card errors and power supply failures can only be corrected by replacing the defective component, there are no alternative solutions.

An overheated processor can be diagnosed by entering the BIOS setup before the system tries to boot. It will be under a menu item called System Health or Hardware Monitor on most computers. Theoretically a microprocessor had to stay under 72 degrees Celsius, but practically even prolonged use with inadequate cooling above 60 degrees may cause failures.

The solution is to check the cooling system that consists of thermal conductive paste on the CPU surface, a metal part (heat sink) of the CPU cooler pressed against it with the help of mounting clips and the fan on the heat sink connected to the motherboard’s fan controller or to any other cable of the power supply.

As you can see this cooler has thermal paste on the bottom that spreads on the CPU surface when it’s activated by heat after a proper installation. If there’s no paste, it can be bought separately at any retail computer store and applied to the heat sink or CPU surface.

A burned out fan has to be replaced with a new one while worn out fans may be temporarily repaired by applying some fine mechanical oil to the bearings.

There’s always the possibility that fan speed is too low and it causes overheating, in which case it can be raised in the BIOS setup by disabling the smart fan controller or the fan will have to be replaced with a faster one.

When a computer will not boot up because of a software problem, a quick format and complete reinstall will solve it in most cases.

Only in December 2009 did ASUS adopt a significantly newer technology, 3D with shutter glasses, for it’s Asus G51J-3D laptop.

The configuration of this $1600 gaming laptop is somewhat surprising. It’s based on Intel’s latest Core i7 720QM real Quad Core Mobile processor running at 1.6GHz, but jumping to 2.8GHz when 1-2 cores are inactive, thanks to Intel’s Turbo Boost technology.

With its integrated dual channel memory controller it supports up to 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory, a decent performance between laptops. It also has a very power graphics card from nVidia: Geforce GTX 260M, although the LED-backlit screen supports resolutions up to just 1366 x 768, almost the same number of pixels (1049088) as the old 1280 x 800 (1024000 pixels) resolution laptop screens that were never associated with full-size (15.4” and up) gaming laptops. The extra horsepower of the graphics card is used to display up to 120 frames per second, necessary for the shutter-glass based 3D (stereoscopic) technology to run smoothly.

Naturally the glasses and infrared shutter synchronizer go with the graphics card, so they are also supplied by nVidia, while ATI added 3D support to catalyst drivers, leaving the development to third party middle ware vendors. Smart move from ATI (AMD), because stereoscopic screens haven’t been tested properly yet, so to enter such a market with your own product is a huge gamble, you never know when or if it will be taken off the market due to possible long-term health risks. 3D screens and glasses were added to the laptop computer accessory list back in 2009, other notable innovations are related to products that have been on the market for a long time, like external DVD burners for laptops powered by a single USB 2.0 port.

The SE-S084D Slim External DVD Writer is the masterpiece of Samsung, it was launched at the beginning of this month. The special features of this useful laptop computer accessory include a very reduced size, only 2cm thick and improved writing and reading speeds. Although it’s never recommended to write dual layer media with a laptop drive, it’s good to know that efforts are made in their improvement. Samsung SE-S084D supports the standard CD reading and writing at 24X, but also the read and write of DVD+/-R, DVD+RW and DVD+DL discs at 8X, while DVD-RW and DVD-DL can be written only at 6X speed.

It’s made for laptops, but it can be connected to any device that has a free USB port (and also the appropriate software/firmware naturally). For those who are used to DVD players, this little box is an ideal substitute paired up with a DivX/Mpeg2,4 capable monitor with a USB port or with a SD screen with AV inputs. According to USB 2.0 specifications it can consume up to 2.5Watts (or 500mA on 5Volts) while any standard DVD player consumes at least 15Watts and generates a lot more noise, so it can be considered environment friendly.

The transition to AT form factor cases was very simple. Everything stayed the same except for the maximum power output and the toggle power switch. Power was raised to 200W and 250W on some models, but cables and connectors remained the same as on the first XT computer power supply, the only significant change was moving the power switch to the front of the computer case for easy access.

As you can see the AT power supply already had all the basic characteristics of the ATX power supplies we use today. Size, fan position and size, and most power cables remained the same.

More worrying is the power requirement of today’s computers. While most servers are satisfied with a 700-800Watt power supply, extreme gaming PC’s with up to 4 graphics cards require even more powerful power supplies that may reach 1200-1500Watts.

These high-power computer power supplies had to suffer some modifications, because such a big power consumption cannot be sustained a single circuit. Because graphics cards (and processors too) require 12Volts, they split it into 2 or more 12V circuits called Rails. This way they managed solve a more important problem too, that occurs when many different devices are connected to a single power circuit, so the power requirement is not stable anymore, some devices manage to disturb others with impulses they generate mostly on the 12V power cables. On power supplies with more rails, the CPU, graphics cards and other devices can be paired up in a way that they don’t exceed one rail’s maximum power specification and “noisy” devices don’t bother the quiet ones with impulses, because they are on different rails.

Unfortunately this device pairing on rails is not (yet) done automatically, usually the manufacturer decides and the user is left with very few combinations. In some more fortunate cases the manufacturer let’s the user decide, by putting connectors on the front of the power supply instead of soldering cables directly on the rails inside.

A few words need to be said about efficiency. While many people wonder why some power supplies are more expensive than others, technicians know exactly why, and computer stores will soon be forced to specify every power supply’s efficiency so the customer can decide. Just like in the field of home appliances, every fridge, air conditioner, washing machine and others have an unmistakable logo thar refers to the efficiency class A+,A,B,C,D … and so on. The cheapest Computer power supplies ($10 – $20) have an efficiency factor between 30% and 50%. This means that a 100Watts worth of components connected to such a power supply will consume 200-300Watts, thanks to the power supply’s losses.

More expensive power supplies ($25 – $50) have 60-76% efficiency factors, that are reasonable, but the best power supplies start from ~$100, and have efficiency factors above 80%, some manufacturers managed to go as high as 99% that don’t even need active cooling anymore.

Whenever you’re buying a power supply, look for the 80Plus logo on the box!

Spacewar was a very primitive computer game, but just in a few years it was installed on every research computer in the US and this increased popularity eventually led to the development of more and more games, evolving into a $40 billion industry in recent years.

Computer games play a very important role in the personal computer industry, because they frequently require faster hardware to display improved graphics, so manufacturers have to pack more power in graphics cards, CPUs and RAMs.

Although graphics quality is very important, the most successful games include many games that were 1-2 generations behind (in terms of graphics) at the time of their release. For example Tetris was a very popular game, people played it worldwide for many years, although it’s interface wasn’t more complex than a chessboard. Its resolution was 10 x 20, but the different falling shapes kept the player alert throughout all the different (difficulty) levels.

Another huge success was Super Mario, the Mexican plumber. A two-dimensional color game that set the standard for platform games was released when programmers already experimented with partially 3D games like Tennis or adventure games that permitted the character to move in 6 directions in the virtual world. From this point of view Super Mario was a generation behind because it could move only in two directions (jumping, climbing the beanstalk going down the drain don’t really count, because they were only at specific locations in the game).

Wolfenstein was one of the first real 3D computer games. While it had very poor resolution graphics and very low frame rate (when animating objects), the overall experience was great. Walking around in a maze, discovering hidden rooms, searching for keys, opening doors and of course killing Germans:

Starcraft was a more recent hit, in 1998 it quickly invaded computer screens worldwide. It was a 2D game, but with very cool animations produced in 3D. Gamers didn’t mind, and were very satisfied with the Real Time Strategy gameplay:

World of Warcraft is the king of MMORPGs (massively multi player on-line role playing game). Although its graphics engine isn’t very evolved, it runs on all computer configurations and offers the best on-line gaming experience for a wide range of social categories. Kids, teenagers, adults and the elderly, they all found something they liked in the game:

It wasn’t the first MMORPG nor the last, but Blizzard managed to make a very diversified virtual world, everything with the right shame and color, just like they did with Starcraft. Older graphics engine, but great graphics content. In conclusion the computer game industry has done something great in the past decades, they brought digital entertainment into many homes, so it’s important to support them by buying original games and discouraging piracy.