# Video Card ? (Side-port?)



## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 29, 2008)

What is this onboard video with HD3xxx's with 'side-port memory' on them?  Most seem to be 128 MB.

Isn't onboard video supposed to suck?  Why are these boards so much more expensive and respected?



Also, can anyone reccomend me the fastest dual+ core CPU there is?  I am looking for PER-CORE performance, as I need extreme CPU performance for a single-threaded app.  So dual, triple, or quad core are fine as long as it's the fastest per-core specimen on the market.


----------



## Pi (Aug 29, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Also, can anyone reccomend me the fastest dual+ core CPU there is?  I am looking for PER-CORE performance, as I need extreme CPU performance for a single-threaded app.  So dual, triple, or quad core are fine as long as it's the fastest per-core specimen on the market.




IBM's making 5 gigahertz POWER6 boxes.


----------



## Koda (Aug 29, 2008)

Side port allows a graphics card (typically in a laptop with an ATI card) to use some of the user memory for storage of graphics related memory. 

Think of it like having the ability to give up some of your main RAM and make it available to the graphics card to make your card have more memory.

I have an ATI 200M in my HP Laptop, it has 128MB of 'UMA' which is dedicated video memory, on the card, and the ability to use up to 128MB of 'sidePort', or shared memory, and you can do combinations with that. If your card has ONLY sideport configuration, thats not necessarily a good thing either.

The only thing wrong with onboards is they're typically Intel based chipsets, which until recently have been traditionally horrible for video gaming, and the other limitation is, you can't take the graphics card out if it breaks, or you want to upgrade.


Performance stuff is always fun to dig through around http://www.tomshardware.com/

If you're building a desktop rig, you shouldnt worry about discrete vs onboard. Just make sure the motherboard you buy does NOT have onboard video, and slap in a nice 8600 or 8800 from nvidia.


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 29, 2008)

Actually Koda, I don't think you're right.  These boards are marketed as having '128 MB sideport onboard memory' indicating something complete different from traditional RAM sharing.


Also, ICH LIEBE FUNT!!!!!!!!!! while that is by far the coolest processor ever made, it's not x86 based and thus will likely not appreciate my attempts to install windows on a system based on POWER6.


----------



## X (Aug 29, 2008)

alienware has a quad-core cpu with 3.2gighz per core. and up to 3tb of hard drive.
http://www.alienware.com/products/area-51-desktop.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51-R6&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT


----------



## Koda (Aug 30, 2008)

*shrug*

I'm just going off of how my laptop was marketed in 2005. 
"ATI Mobility Radeon 200M Graphics card with 128 Mb of dedicated memory."

On board is not necessarily dedicated. Its possible there is a RAM chip built into the motherboard which it shares from. Some Dells and I think Sony laptops do that occasionally. When you're looking for graphics cards, the key words really are 'discrete' or 'dedicated.' Host-based, onboard, or shared are ones to steer away from.

Now that I look some more, I mixed up which was which, Sideport is the dedicated memory, UMA is the shared. 

/s/UMA/Side-port/
/s/Sideport/UMA/ for my previous post  The discussion doesnt really hinge on which is which anyway. Good luck with your computery endeavors


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 30, 2008)

Right, but i'm asking about Sideport RAM for onboard video.  Not dedicated memory or shared RAM, or aperture RAM.  This 'sideport' thing is new to marketing, i've never seen it until the newer AMD boards with ATI HD#'s onboard.  The odd wording and change in used and use of terminology suggests soemthing different from dedicated or shared memory which has been standard since, what, 1991?



Also, thanks half-witted fur, but i'm looking to build my own PC.  I find any and all retailers to be overpriced and not precisely match my wants.  IE, I have my RAM, desired videocard, and HDD array picked out already.  I shall have harddrive storage faster than PC100 SDRAM.  Muwahahahahaaa!


----------



## Runefox (Aug 30, 2008)

At first, I believed that what's being referred to here is what ATI calls "Hybrid Crossfire". It's an onboard graphics card that can later be upgraded with an aftermarket card and then combine their processing power, instead of disabling the onboard graphics.

But that's not it. From what I can gather, it's similar (in fact, Sideport refers to a new way in which ATI video cards interlink). Sideport RAM is, as far as I can tell from my research, RAM that is hard-wired on the motherboard and linked to the Northbridge chipset (which controls the graphics bus and PCI Express) via its own 5GB/s (max) link. Again, this link is normally used for communication between multiple video cards - This Sideport RAM, therefore, can be used to not only augment the onboard graphics chip with dedicated memory, but also augment any attached video card that supports Hybrid Crossfire.

Sweet.

Oh, as for processors:

If you're looking for Intel, the E8500 is the best dual core performance per dollar. The next step up is a measly 166MHz faster, for an extra $100. You could always get the Q9650 and have a huge performer (better than the last set of Extreme series; Wait for the new batch of Extremes if you want even more for ridiculously expensive prices), but it's much more expensive than the E8500 (about 3x the cost) and with little single-thread performance gain (and indeed lower clock speeds and the same amount of cache per chip) at the moment.

If you're looking for AMD, the Phenom X4 9950. The Triple cores are more or less the same as the Quads in performance per core, and the Phenoms outperform the Athlon X2's in almost every way (I think memory throughput is lower, though, if I remember correctly). Best of all, it's the same price as the E8500.

Also, if you're going AMD, DO *NOT* get a motherboard with the AMD 780G chipset. This chipset will not support a quad core processor, even if the manufacturer says it will (they're lying). There are many known issues with the 780G chipset with processors requiring 120W of energy or more, and quads fit the bill. In some cases, the motherboard can fail within minutes of first turning it on simply because the motherboard manufacturer scrimped on the mosfets. If you're getting a quad, get a board with the 790FX or 790GX (if integrated video is a must) chipset.


----------



## Koda (Aug 30, 2008)

I don't really know exactly, but I was looking over graphics card comparison charts and they seem to list 'Sideport' in the same columns as DDR2, DDR3, etc.. Maybe sideport is a type of RAM?

Bleh, IMO, just go Nvidia. Their support and drivers are far better than ATI's.


----------



## Runefox (Aug 30, 2008)

Nah, I think Sideport accepts those types of memory modules in the same way as modern graphics cards can take GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4 and more recently GDDR5. I'm pretty sure it's non-expandable, or if it is, I haven't seen it on any of the boards claiming to be capable of it.

As for NVidia's drivers? No. They're not nearly as good as ATI's are as far as their interface and customizeability go. For performance, they recently rolled out some performance tweaks that edged them out from ATI, but the price for ATI's cards are still much better for the performance you're getting.


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Aug 31, 2008)

Actually, due to recent market trends, I am not going to invest in nVidia at this time. Additionally, I have traditionally had terrible problems with nVidia cards and game reliability, namely on Everquest2.


Also, thanks Runefox!  That sounds a lot more accurate.  =3
Also, thanks for the CPU advice!  I don't really even need more than 2 cores, just I need AS MUCH performance on one dedicated core as possible for an app.


----------



## Pi (Aug 31, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Also, ICH LIEBE FUNT!!!!!!!!!! while that is by far the coolest processor ever made, it's not x86 based and thus will likely not appreciate my attempts to install windows on a system based on POWER6.



That's what you asked for, that's what I gave you. Although I kind of snicker in that you're using Windows for "performance".


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

Considering my work software doesn't run on any other platform, I don't really have a choice.

But feel free to keep being snide and thinking the world runs on Linux alone.


----------



## Pi (Sep 1, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Considering my game program doesn't run on any other platform, I don't really have a choice.



Fixed that for you.



> But feel free to keep being snide and thinking the world runs on Linux alone.



BSD, mofo. (in before "they're the same thing"; they're not.)


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

No, that would be work software.  Unless of course you consider data entry and collections to be a 'game'.


Sorry that the world isn't the pretty picture you paint and your OS does not, in fact, rule the world.  Acting smug doesn't make me like your OS anymore than I did when it failed to do what was needed, either.  In fact, such an attitude tends to only continuate the opinion that 'I'm (insert non-windows) i'm better than you!' OS users are just pretentious fools, and hurts your cause a lot more than it ever helped.


Now then, I think this thread has run to a close, since we've gotten past the help I needed (thanks again Runefox!) and all that's left is the 'change your OS' trolls.


----------



## verix (Sep 1, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> No, that would be work software.  Unless of course you consider data entry and collections to be a 'game'.
> 
> 
> Sorry that the world isn't the pretty picture you paint and your OS does not, in fact, rule the world.  Acting smug doesn't make me like your OS anymore than I did when it failed to do what was needed, either.  In fact, such an attitude tends to only continuate the opinion that 'I'm (insert non-windows) i'm better than you!' OS users are just pretentious fools, and hurts your cause a lot more than it ever helped.
> ...


You're projecting pretty badly in this post. Pi isn't an OS zealot and didn't even come off as such in his posts. If you're going to get so defensive over your forced choice of operating system leave it to a more intelligent battle. Getting angry when someone gives you an answer to a vague question isn't really a great method of communication.


----------



## nrr (Sep 1, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Also, ICH LIEBE FUNT!!!!!!!!!! while that is by far the coolest processor ever made, it's not x86 based and thus will likely not appreciate my attempts to install windows on a system based on POWER6.


Sure it will.  You'll just have to wait a few months and pony up about $20,000 worth of funding for it to happen.


----------



## nrr (Sep 1, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> The odd wording and change in used and use of terminology suggests soemthing different from dedicated or shared memory which has been standard since, what, 1991?


Actually, it's more like "since the dawn of time."



			
				Archibald Ironfist said:
			
		

> Also, thanks half-witted fur, but i'm looking to build my own PC.


There is no need to be attacking people here.  Calling the other posters in this thread half-witted furs or similar is completely inappropriate.



			
				Archibald Ironfist said:
			
		

> I find any and all retailers to be overpriced and not precisely match my wants.  IE, I have my RAM, desired videocard, and HDD array picked out already.  I shall have harddrive storage faster than PC100 SDRAM.  Muwahahahahaaa!


Good luck attaining consistent transfer rates in the neighborhood of 200MB/s without the help of some (too) fancy (for a personal desktop box) RAID trickery.

FWIW, I'll be laughing myself to the bank when you accidentally hose one or more of your filesystems and are unable to recover from backups because it was an oversight on your part.


----------



## nrr (Sep 1, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Considering my worthless work software doesn't run on any other platform, I don't really have a choice.


Fixed.  I'm a research assistant for one of the natural sciences departments at a research university in the southern part of Illinois, and we make it a point to use software that sucks less and runs on several platforms because we may run into snags in projects that don't bode well politically with our sources of funding for research or even the university administration.  It's happened before.



			
				Archibald Ironfist said:
			
		

> But feel free to keep being snide and thinking the world runs on Linux alone.


But feel free to keep being snide and thinking that anyone who knocks Windows is hinting at running Linux.  It could very well be, as it was in this case, a poke at one of your reasons for sticking with Windows.  Instead of performance really being the dealbreaker here, it's code portability.



Archibald Ironfist said:


> No, that would be work software.  Unless of course you consider data entry and collections to be a 'game'.


I can't really see data entry needing a box that powerful, but okay.

... and our data collection nodes are all multi-processor/multi-core with several instances of our code executing concurrently.  Learn how to leverage MPI for this kind of thing.



			
				Archibald Ironfist said:
			
		

> Sorry that the world isn't the drek drek drek...


verix already wrote something in reply to this, but I will add something else.  You need to learn how to write.  It's obvious that you consistently misuse parallelism and verb tense agreement.



			
				Archibald Ironfist said:
			
		

> Now then, I think this thread has run to a close, since we've gotten past the help I needed (thanks again Runefox!) and all that's left is the 'change your OS' trolls.


Not even close.


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

"There is no need to be attacking people here.  Calling the other posters in this thread half-witted furs or similar is completely inappropriate."




Actually, that's his username.  See?

Nah, the truth of the matter is that I got the help I needed and all you guys are doing is being butthurt that the world doesn't turn your way.


----------



## nrr (Sep 1, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Nah, the truth of the matter is that I got the help I needed and all you guys are doing is being butthurt that the world doesn't turn your way.


Don't lump me in with them.  I'm looking at harmonic analysis.

I hopped in on this because it was worth the few minutes' break it earned me.


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 1, 2008)

Ah.  Then a toast to forum-based entertainment, my good man!  ..fur!  ....thing?


----------



## nrr (Sep 2, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Ah.  Then a toast to forum-based entertainment, my good man!  ..fur!  ....thing?


Polystyrene foam cup.


----------



## Archibald Ironfist (Sep 2, 2008)

Dip it in gasoline for a few days and pour off the gas.  Napalm!


----------



## Eevee (Sep 2, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> Nah, the truth of the matter is that I got the help I needed and all you guys are doing is being butthurt that the world doesn't turn your way.


This is an interesting reaction to being called on an inappropriate choice of platform.


----------



## verix (Sep 3, 2008)

Archibald Ironfist said:


> all you guys are doing is being butthurt that the world doesn't turn your way.



lol says the guy who goes on a ridiculous tirade about operating systems after being barely poked at

tell us more about those assholes at the Oxford institute who think they're so special because they define "words"


----------

