CPU NEWS UPDATE : Larrabee Canceled for Consumer Market

Well the first time i read about Larrabee, automatically I doubt it will be used widely on consumer market. Looks like I'm right about it, lol.

What is Larrabee ? Well, before we go into that, let me explain it from the root and damn I'm sure its full of confusing terms and history.

A recap of history

Back in the era of Intel Pentium 4, Intel swear they'll break the 4ghz stock clock but instead the Pentium 4 hit a maximum speed of 3.8 Ghz on air cooling and heats up like unstable plutonium, further clock increase needs extreme cooling and it looses out to the Athlon 64 series in terms of price/performance/thermal. That is the end of Ghz/Mhz race and the starting of performance-per-mhz race or so called clock efficiency race.

What made the AMD Athlon 64 so much better than the P4, by only having a 2.0Ghz Athlon 64 costs almost 30~40% cheaper and almost equally faster than a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4?
This is because of the AMD's Intergrated memory controller and a two-way direct bandwidth between the processor/chipset/rams, Hyper-Transport (not to be confused with Hyper-Threading). Originally, the old athlon XP or athlon design is based on the pentium designs, utilises a single bus except the P4 is a quad pumped bus. Intel has been using the quad pumped bus until the recent Core2 series

When Intel notices they can no longer improve the old tech, they invested much to design a new ones during the Core2 fever. During the time, Core2 is ahead of the Athlon 64 in terms of price/thermal/performance and even triumph over AMD's first Phenom line.

After Intel jumped from the Core2 and onto integration of their memory controller into the Intel i7 processor and using a new bus design named as QPI (Quick Path Interconnect), like we all belive this will soon no longer able improve anything else but to increase clock speed and efficiency until it hits the wall.
As history repeats itself, every new will become the old and we keep search for the new. The future of CPU is the combination of CPU with a GPU (processor + graphics processor)

Larrabee

Recent hyped Larrabee made its news by introducing both CPU and GPU together performing 3D games rendering in real time, some sources mention it ran the games on lower quality and resolution and some defended it ran on high res and quality. From what I gathered, the Larrabee still haven't run anything taxing as Crysis or UT3 or STALKER, what they showed on wiki graphs and other webs are just simulated results of the performance, its not an actual performance graph.

Well, based on my experience, if it's able to run on high quality then its a really hot piece of silicon which needs to cool by running the computer remotely at North Pole or having a big heat sink sized like our head and heat pipes as thick as hot dogs.
(The north is running out of ice!)

Somehow until recenly, Intel canceled the Larrabee for the consumer market and making it a general purpose or enterprise market, for example, movie or entertainment industries or other scientific organization. 

Still, its still not as cool as having these...

 

You could fold your wallet 200x if you can do that. :P

GPU UPDATES : Nvidia's Fermi

"The GeForce 310 was released on November 27, 2009, but is another rebrand of Nvidia's older DirectX 10.1 cards rather than the newer DirectX 11 technology. It is unknown when the upcoming 300 series will be released with Direct3D 11, Shader Model 5.0, and GDDR5 memory support. It is expected to be fabricated on 40 nm process, with a target release at the end of 2009"

Quoted from Wiki

Looks like Nvidia is using the same old lame re-branding tactics again like how they did to the Geforce 2 / 4 series and the Geforce 8/9/GTX(S) 2 series. It'll be big trouble when there's no DX11 ready card from them in 2010 Q1. If they do, release it ASAP, they better make it cheaper, faster and costs lesser than the current GTX cards and its shit tired using or even looking at re-branded stuffs.

For now, we have Dirt 2 and Stalker : COP using DX11's new functions and technique especially tessellation. ATI's 5 series showcased superb performance over the GTX 285 or even the GTX 295 at rough 20% more speed and costs less in heat, power and price ! For now, RED FTW !!1!! lol !

(COMPUTER GRAPHICS TECH) Nvidia GF100 : Code Named Fermi

Lets make it simple , ATI = RED , NVIDIA = GREEN. Both are big players in the dedicated performance market. 

Well, as most PC users who has been waiting for new stuffs from Nvidia sure heard of the new "Fermi" architecture GPU. Just recently a picture was posted on DriverHeaven showcasing a GF100 Fermi GPU running a 24inch 1920x1200 running a 8pin + 6pin power connector.

What is the new Fermi about ? well, in respond to the current king-of-the hill ATi HD 5970, Nvidia's fermi was in development secretly (lol) behind the red's release. To be honest, Nvidia is late in the race but the previous cards is a few steps ahead of the red's time. Let me explain why.

Lets start from a few years back during the Nvidia 6xxx series card and the ATi Xxxx cards. (I'm not going deeper back, as it's unnecessary)

The Nvidia 6 series lowest end was the GF 6200 and the ATi's lowest end was the X300 , both is on the same level but performance varies, Nvidia is a clearly ahead of the ATi low to mid end in terms of price/perf back in the days, but on the high end the Nvidia 6800 is going head to head with the X800 where the ATi's highend is cost effective but simply lacks of shader model 3.0 where Nvidia excels. This is the time when the heat starts.

Not too long after the Green's 6 series made a huge bucks selling the 6600 and 6800 like hot cakes, they made a new 7 series right out based on the same design but with more power, running 20+ shaderpipes on the high end and running more cooler and faster than the Red's X800 and X1800, Red did something about this and they made a card that could come close to it but fails to keep to heat and power consumption down. This is the part where Green starts to pull further than Red's position.

Right after the end of the old pipeline tech, both company jumped into the shader/stream processor tech where the GPU itself is a multithreaded GPU (in layman's term). The Red's was indeed still behind the green with its HD2xxx series cards, its hot, its eating too much power for price/performance and the crowd still prefers the Green's 8 series, from this time on Nvidia started to make lots of money for further research. Lets make a table for it so i can fast forward  without posting a wall of words.


ATI                                                  Nvidia

ATI X300/600/800                    ><   GeForce 6 series
   
ATI X1300/1600/1800/1950       ><   GeForce 7 series

ATI 2xxx Series                        ><   GeForce 8 Series

ATI 3xxx Series                        ><   GeForce 8 Series

ATI 4xxx Series                        ><   GeForce 9 Series (8 in 9's disguise)

ATI 4xxx/5xxx Series                 ><   Geforce GTX2xx Series (certain 2xx series is also an old 8 !)  

ATI 5xxx/6xxx ?                        ><   GF 100 (fermi)?

As you can see, the rows above contains generations of card from both big players. Nvidia has been using the GeForce 8 series for the three continuous battle without making much change other than making it more smaller and power saving, imagine how much have they made during these time.

Lots of review sites thinks Nvidia is losing this time, well ? they're not and I hope not (IM NO NV FANBOY, but they do make innovative stuffs), coz whenever there's competition in the market, there will be a rock bottom price fight and the winner will be the consumer. Power to the people !

Crysis 2 - Crynet System's Nanosuit 2

I came by some Crysis 2 rendered armor sometime ago and I've post it along some real life replica of the armor during the game expo. Enjoy !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the replica of the suit.

Here's the side by side comparison between the second nanosuit and first nanosuit.

There are others, if i post them in here its gonna get crowded.

PC Hardware Review : Logitech X-540 5.1 surround sound systems

Hi all, I'm back for a review on the Logitech X-540 as I promised on last month.

Here's the specs lists fromt the main site:

Hardware

• Drivers:
  Satellites: (2) 2" drivers per satellite
  Subwoofer: 5.25" ported driver
• Speaker dimensions (H x W x D):
  Satellites: 8.4" x 3.2" x 5"
  Center channel: 7.8" x 4.75" x 3.75"
  Subwoofer: 11.25" x 6.5" x 9.75"

Warranty Information

• 2-year limited warranty

Package Contents

• Speakers: 4 satellites, 1 center channel, 1 subwoofer
• Control center
• Color-coded audio cables
• Game console adapter
• User manual

Part Number

• PN 970223-0403

Technical Specifications

• Total RMS power: 70 watts RMS
  Satellites: 45 watts RMS (2 x 7.4W front, 15.4W centre, 2 x 7.4W rear)
  Subwoofer: 25 watts RMS
• Total peak power: 140 watts
• Frequency response: 40 Hz - 20 kHz

First of all here's some pictures of the product but please forgive me as the shitty digicam I'm using doesn't have the functions my bro's Lumix has. Btw, the images have been re-sized to smaller resolution to make things less blurry.

Now here's what its looks like when we open the box. *duh

 

This is how it looks likes when unpacked and placed accordingly like the X-540 ads, it reminds me of  Wall.E.

This is the woofer, standing on my cracked plastic chair. (risky stand, might fall anytime)

 

This is the rear connection ports, as you can notice the colours of the ports and forget about the blurry words on it, it shows the Front (green) , Orange (center/sub) , Black (Rear)

The sub driver is placed below the enclosure itself, basically if you ask me why not facing the front or side I'd say the bass is more equally created when the driver is facing the floor, instead of having a direct heart thumping(sick) bass i'd rather have my room, floor, chairs, tables (yes, it goes that far lol) shaking. 

TEST SETUP

Okay now here's the funny part for some pros who read this, I'm using a cheap ass on-board Realtek AC1200 audio chipset for the sound test, the thing is its not a heavy performer compare to Creative's x-fi or Asus's Xonar dedicated card etc.

Well, since nowadays onboard audio chipsets are widely available even on high end boards except those who have onboard x-fi, these cheap onboard are used mostly throughout the budget community where they don't need to fork out and extra RM200 purposely for a sound card, but it'll be great if you are able to fork out some extra for the dedicated card.

Lets face it, on-board is not able to output as strong as the dedicated, its only capable of reaching 60~70% of what the dedicated have but it still proved able to do 5.1 or even 7.1 for no extra charge apart from the board.

Test system ? my main gaming arsenal.

PERONAL VERDICT

Well, i've been using or testing this baby since the day I bought it back. 
The matrix mode of the system indeed does alot of help to create a fake surround from the stereo source, example like a orchestra or live acoustic music, the matrix function helps create an the sound to make a environment from only stereo source...or even bullet-time motion if you imagine hard enough.  

There is a limitation on the X-540, the cable lenght. Its somehow limited to a rough length of 4m where I'm lucky enough to mount it to the wall behind my workstations. (see previous post for the wide view of the setup) 

Songs tested with results:

Terminator Salvation - Intro: Being very close like watching the intro in cinema, nice !

Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons Of Liberty - Main Theme/Soldiers from Kasatka: What to say ? I can feel like I'm actually Solid Snake kicking ass although I'm not.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Main Theme/Battle In The Jungle: Hmm, tastes like snake. Plays jungle spy theme nicely !

Eagles - Hotel California: Well, we can't miss this unplugged live version of the song, everything is crystal clear even with the matrix mode on.

Sting - When Dolphins Dance : From start to end, the bass is nicely done without going too over, thanks to the manual bass adjust @ 40~60%.

U2 - Miracle Drug and One: Sounds so good I replayed it so many times during that day.

Movies watched or tested with results :

Ratatouille: Very very responsive surround on the dvd's 5.1 DTS Surround sound where you can hear the water splashing or the surroundings. 

The Fifth Element: Good effects and surround, but abit light on vocal due to the movie itself and some tinkering with the settings fixed that.  

IronMan:  During few of the action or fighting parts, you can hear bullets ricocheting around "ratatata ! whzip ! shzip ! Boooom !"  

Games Tested with results : 

Unreal Tournament 3: UT3 is running OpenAL, in order to enable surround in-game, i have to go to my motherboard audio software to enable 5.1 where the game itself doesn't have a toggle function to switch between different speaker channels. Still, I'm able to hear plasma blasters behind my head from far away although actually he is right behind me few steps away, i guess thats the problem with the game itself . 

Medal Of Honor - Airborne: Full surround sound ! Feels like watching Band of Brothers, gunshots, explosions, American-os yelling behind me, Nazis yelling at me and people groaning in pain under my iron sight! Basically, it works good with it. 

Race Driver - GRID: I do notice surround sound in this game but certain sounds are too weak from the rear speaker especially another vehicle is behind your ride tailgating. 

Left 4 Dead: Now, this is the game that frigging fully utilize the 5.1 channels. I can hear boomers burp, hunters making monkey noises, smokers doing their walks on the roof , Louise grabbing pills, Bill getting smacked by a tank behind me if i turn the volume above 60% where most of the time i play below 50%. 

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: Oh right ! Sounds so good with being able to know where those bullets came from. Works good while fighting inside the ship of the tunnels, might not be able to hear whats what while being shot outdoor. fark ! I blame the soundcard and the game personally.

Crysis: Koreans thrash talking behind me while I sneaked pass them !



FINAL THOUGHTS 

Now, after some time of testing there are ups and downs of every product and let me write this down :


Pros :
-Cheap budget 5.1 for the masses 
-Center Speaker is able to clip on the LCD 
-Rotating Feets ! Wall mounts !! "+ 2" 
-Matrix mode for virtual surround on stereo medias especially musics.  
-Solid sounds and bass although the sub looks smaller than most of the 2.1 speakers. 
-VERY VERY good for gaming purpose and also musics.
-Wired volume controller, once the it screws up, some old basic replacement and soldering will do the trick. 
-Cables can be extended with those cheap analog extension cables from audio/video dealers


Cons :
-Wired volume controller (a remote controller should be an extra !) 
-No treble control  
-Short cable (rear) , only around 4m more or less  
-Satelites are made of plastics  
-Movies not as good as the games and musics.  
-Unprotected sub driver, one small baby poke and its done dead.



Lastly some extra before and after images of the front setup :

PC Hardware Preview : Logitech X-540 Surround System

HE GOOD NEWS
Good news is.......Yee haw ! I have finally got myself some surround sound action !
Here's some pictures for starters.

This is the newly unopened box looks like. About the box....hmmm....see the next picture.

Now, about the box, i think its crafted in Japan. Its sharp, it brings hurt and pain. ( I'm kidding about this).
But some part of it is true, thats blood from my finger. The cardboard box's edges was so hard and well cut it somehow capable of delivering a cut onto my finger.
I've got some bad news as well.... read on.

THE BAD NEWS
The bad news is, well its a preview and i wont be doing any full noob review until i had some free time. But some short words on it, it friggin' rocks ! ! I'll post a full review sometime after 26th . Stay tuned ! and btw, here's a picture on how it looks like when unpacked, don't mind the mess, I'm gonna mount it on the wall later.

Netbook sales will soar to 22 million in 2009 – IDC

Posted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt

May 4, 2009 9:30 AM

Pressure is mounting on Apple (AAPL) to do something about the netbook problem.
IDC reported Friday that worldwide shipments of these sub-compact portable computers grew seven-fold year-over-year in the first quarter of 2009, according to Computerworld's Agam Shah. By the end of the year, IDC estimates, netbook shipments could reach 22 million.
Meanwhile, Apple's market share is shrinking, and Mac sales fell last quarter for the first time in five and a half years.
"Vendors are waking up to the fact that people respond to so-called 'good-enough' computing," Jay Chou, research analyst at IDC, told Shah. "They don't really need all the power of a Core 2 Duo CPU most of the time."
Steve Jobs famously dismissed netbooks as "a piece of junk," a sentiment echoed two weeks ago by COO Tim Cook.

"It’s not a space as it exists today that we are interested in," Cook told analysts during Apple's most recent earnings call. "Nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in.”

Apple watchers parsed those lines carefully, noting that "the space as it exists today" could change dramatically the moment Apple releases its long-awaited touchscreen tablet computer.
But that misses the point.
Netbooks, which sell for s little as $300 to $350, are typically used by students for note-taking or as light-weight secondary computers in situations where all one needs is a keyboard and a wireless Internet connection.
An Apple tablet might be a game changer, but it's not going to sell for $300. and it's not going to serve those needs. Nor, for that matter, will an iPhone or an iPod touch — the devices Cook and Jobs have suggested are Apple's versions of a netbook.
That's why the smart money is betting that Apple will respond to the growing netbook threat by cutting MacBook prices — sharply and soon — before back-to-school sales start, and parents who might have given their kids Apples for graduation settle for Acers instead.

Source : http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/05/04/netbook-sales-will-soar-to-22-million-in-2009-idc/

Looks like for sure Apple have to make their iPhones or whatever overpriced small stuffs they're gonna make are capable of doing real computer works (ie : Ms Word/Powerpoint Portable , Photoshop portable, display output etc etc...) than just tapping large icons or buttons.
Those apps they have aren't doing any good.

GAME CHALLENGE : Race Driver : GRID

I was very bored today after cleaning up my room, so i was wondering what games should i play. Since i completed most of the games, i fired up RD: GRID with one reason in my mind : hit max drift combo in max race laps.

So, after firing up the game i hit straight and notice the lap can be only set to "50" maximum drift GP race laps with Extreme bots, ok then ! lets go !

I've done non breaking combo drifts in normal 3~5 laps race, but not a god-damned "50" lap combo !

After placing all my mental focus on the first max combo run at "99", bad things happened.

I was hoping to continue doing combos till the last 50th lap, somehow i lost focus during the 10th plus lap and went off track and went rage mode by crashing those stupid bots. (: P)

Before i quit, i rested for a few seconds by stopping the car at the middle of the track, then i kept trying again and failed at 80+ combo on second attempt.After second attempt i switched from right hand to left hand to control the D-buttons. Instead of stopping the race, i went on without noticing what I'm doing.

Third try and final results..

I finally reached "99" again during the third attempt and then only i realize the max combo is set to "99" max, man it was satisfying but i wish it can go beyond that especially unlimited combo (yes, I just learnt that "99" is the max after the third try for max combo on the 45th lap).
The final score was 1.4 billion, if not mistaken it could be higher than 2 billion score if the combo is continuous from first lap to last lap. (will try next time)

Lets talk about my favourite 2 wheel vehicle : Motocycles

I had my motorcycle license along with my car license, I had the same driving exam done at the same day and it was a friggin' experience for me as i need to remember two different set of basic hand signs for the bloody Perodua Kancil and the worthy Honda EX5 kapchai.

This baby escudo is a 1000bhp machine, no joke ! Been lovin't it since 2000 !

I've lost interests in fast cars since i'm 13, but i still do like a few, namely Subaru Imprezas (i do wish for one) , or McLaren F1 (Still in my favourite list, even though there are faster cars). For now, I'm interested on 4WD or Sub-compact cars like the ol' rally version of Peugeot 206.
Why I'm intereted in is the 4WD kind of vehicle ? It beats running into potholes in K.L or whatever a Malaysian road have in store for you. 

The Harley XL1200L and the Ducati Monster

Other than 4WD vehicles, I've developed an interest in motorcycles, especially cruiser bikes or the sports bike shown above. Why bikes ? i've been encountering this question or responds such as "Bikes are dangerous...".

Well my friend, on safety issue a car is as equally dangerous on a high way while moving fast like 80~120km/h. I , myself is not a road rage kind of road user and I swear (70~80 km/h is my max driving speed). The main reason for getting bike is to save fuel or doing short distance travel.
If a biker is careful and aware of the surrounding enough, its safe enough to travel further. I've seen so many car accidents or bike accidents, I dare say most of these driver or rider are careless road users (flame me! i dare you) like doing zig zags between traffics, turning without noticing the surroundings.

My personal Netbooks(Net-tops) and Notebooks (Laptops) point of view.

Recently i wanted to get myself a Netbook, however i'm in tight of budget for something else and ended up drooling for one instead of owning one. But damn soon i'll get one when the spec is right !

A came across few of my friends (each at a different time) and we talked about mobile computers, laptops, etc etc...and i told them i'm planning to get one netbook myself. Most of them own a laptop which i'm kinda embarrassed to say i don't own one even i really needed it. *sob

After telling one of my friend about how i liked those little things, the most often opinion i get from them is " but these notebooks are damn slow compare to those bigger ones" . It's true but i had different point of view, to clear things up i decided to write an explanation on *why i think these little stuffs are better in most ways.

What is a netbook ? Its basically a smaller sized 7 inch ~11 inch brother compare to our 13inch ~ 17inch laptops. They are basically smaller in size, lighter in weight more portable than any portability a laptop can get.


My own POV for getting a Netbook  :
Let's just imagine you're a businessmen, student or a person who needs a computer most of the time, you need your pc to do word processing, accounting, studying, or even gaming or web surfing.

SIZE/WEIGHTS : 
After so many years of innovation and technology improvement, laptops are getting bigger and bulkier instead of getting more portable. The first main reason for the need of laptop is to enable a person to carry around a small and portable sized computer. Back in the days where laptop is sized like 2 military's 50cal ammo box strapped together then later we have a laptop sized as thick as an oxford dictionary and now we still see them as thick as a marketing text book.

The last smallest laptop i've used for more than 2 hours is the Apple MacBook 13inch with the Nvidia 9400 inrergrated. Any laptop above 13 inch is consider too much to carry around for me, why ? why the f*** do i want carry around a piece of equipment sized at 15 inch and weights over 2kg. I don't feel the likeness of bringing a big arse laptop bag into the tight cubic sized public toilet while i'm having no where else to place it while i'm doing my business.
Some will say " Well ? leave the bag with your friend ", i'd say "I don't suppose you have friend with you all the time".

Netbooks are mostly sized from 8 inches to 11 inches and weights from 1kg to 1.5kg, depending on specifications and material used.

SPECIFICATIONS/PERFORMANCE/PRICE:
Naturally most people will judge an object or something on its size, but at least do not compare apples to oranges. The specs on a netbook are very much different compare to the laptops while laptops can have the specs of a netbook which is very much brainless to do so.

A typical netbook consists of some low powered and less power consuming hardwares like an Intel Atom 2xx cpu, an Intel Integrated GMA950 series graphics chipset, 1 Gigabytes of memory, wireless network and 160 Gigabytes of storage capacity without optical drives. (get a slim external drive)

A typical notebook consists of the usual very near desktop performance CPUs , Intel Intergrated GMA 4xxx series graphics chipset, 1 Gigabytes of memory, wireless network and 160 Gigabytes of storage capacity with optical drives.

Most users who needed a laptop have one primary need from a laptop, to do everything except gaming, and their second need is to game if possible. The specs of a netbook can easily handle any daily softwares like MS Word , Internet Explorer, music players. If you have the freetime, you can go through the links which i will post later in the same post to showcase what *games , YES GAMES , can a netbook handle from low end or old dated games to current games.

Its true netbooks are less performing compare to laptops, but who ever needs a laptop mainly for gaming i'd say you must be rich and must be a mad gamer and sorry, the main idea of laptop is not gaming. It still falls back to portable and efficient problem.

Estimated performance between netbooks and laptops :
Worksheet performance : netbooks are near equally fast as laptops (how fast can MS word go ? its not a game dammit !)

Gaming performance : netbooks are naturally slow due to the specifications, some are able to play games like COD4 at low res and quality. Gaming on a mobile platform isn't cool, unless you're paying 10k for that piece of thing.

Battery performance : Hahahaha , laptop you say ? NO , its netbook's best card. Netbook beats laptop 3>1 here with its 3 hours battery life AT LEAST.

After reading, you will still wonder why netbook ? well if you ask me to get a fast laptop because its pointless for getting a netbook, i'd rather want it to be power efficient, portable and able to get my spreadsheets done.
Heavy gaming on a laptop might as well spend my time gaming on a desktop.

Last thing to justify getting a netbook, the price.
The performance of a RM1.3k netbook is almost equivalent to a 14inch+ RM1.6k laptop and netbook sports a 3 hours at least of battery life compare to a laptop with 1 hour and 40 min of battery life at max. Its light , it can be as fast as the bigger low-end siblings, its able to work for 3 hours least, less heat and costs lesser. Why not netbook ?

The only reason for getting a laptop is when you don't want a desktop, and able to find a wall plug everywhere and don't mind the performance of the machine.

*UPDATED VIDEO




One viewer commented on the 2nd video :

"Only uneducated will pay for a netbook over the notebook? You are either very naive or very young. I travel a lot and the 2 most important things for me are: small footprint (typing on planes), long battery. My wife has a desktop replacement laptop, which is fine and has its place ,like the specs with a big screen below. The netbook market is booming for a reason. Now with the ION the fact that I can frag out to CoD4 and other games is fantastic! Even get some playtime!"

I have to agree with this guy who commented on youtube !

Btw, on first video ! FRIGGIN OWNAGE HERE PAL ! COD4 ! (still show awesomeness although its on low settings)

LCD REVIEW : ACER H233H 23.6 inch WideScreen LCD

LCD REVIEW: ACER H233H REVIEW

reviewed by LHTY
(No copy/paste without approval)

My Samsung 2253TQ was sent back for warranty and it came back to me after a few weeks, but its a Samsung 2233SWPlus as a replacement. I sold the LCD to my friend Tommy right after i tested it for a few hours(Don't worry, i will do a re-test on the 2233SWPlus when i get the chance). The reason of selling was the marketed 5ms instead of what i wanted, a 2ms lCD.

After searching and surveying the market for 22 inch LCDs with 2ms spec, i nearly gave up on searching due to the price for 22inch 2ms. As days passed by, i searched around the web for 23 inch and i came by the Acer H233H. Around most I.T oriented peoples, Acer is very much being *left out when they are shopping for LCDs or Laptops, some say the quality is not so good compare to others and some say its problematic. I come by this sayings often and it has given me an expression to avoid getting Acer, until whats left is Acer in my LCD list.

The Acer H233H is packed up nicely in a cool looking black box with great looking design (hey, I do stare at the boxes if they're looking good).







As you can see above, the few bright white words are the touch sensitive buttons. So its no longer the old button mechanism which could be damaged when we press around too often (they hardly spoil anyway).

Package includes :

• Acer H233H 23.6inch LCD
• DVI / HDMI (not shown in picture)/ VGA cables
• LCD stand / Driver Discs / Multilingual Manual
  

========================================================================================================


Specification
Size/Type
• 23" wide-screen TFT LCD
Panel Technology
• TN (twisted nematic)
Maximum Resolution / Maximum Refresh Rate
• 1920 x 1080 / 75Hz
Dynamic Contrast Ratio
• 40000:1
Horizontal / Vertical Viewing Angles & Frequency
• Viewing Angles: 160° / 160°

Frequency: 54.2KHz - 83.8KHz / 49.0Hz - 75Hz
Brightness
• 300 cd/m2
Response Time
• 5ms
Pixel Pitch
• 0.265mm
Maximum Colors Supported
• 16.7 million
Color Saturation
• 72% NTSC
Bit
• Six + HiFRC (high frame rate control)
Acer® CrystalBrite Technology
• No
Signal Connectors
• VGA
DVI (HDCP)
HDMI
Power Supply
• 100V - 240V
AC Adapter
• Internal
Power Consumption
• On: 31.7W
Off: 0.72W
Sleep: 0.76W
Audio
• Two 1.5W integrated speakers
Mechanical Adjustments
• Tilt: Yes
Swivel: No
Pivot: No
Height adjustment: No
Detachable foot stand: Yes
Kensington® Lock / VESA Wall Mount
• Supported
Dimensions & Weight
• 21.7" (552.0mm) W x 6.8" (171.6mm) D x 16.1" (408.0mm) H

10.8 lb. (4.9kg)
Compliance
• Energy Star®
MPR II
Chassis Color
• Black
Limited Warranty*
• Three-year parts and labor limited warranty*

========================================================================================================

TESTING METHOD

BLACK LEVEL TEST:(standard 255LV test)
I think I have to point out is the Dynamic Contrast and Responds Rate, the stated specification on the Acer website shows its product running 40k Dynamic Contrast and 5ms Responds Rate, the model i have now sports a 80k Dynamic Contrast and 2ms Responds Rate. This brings a question on why it's showing different spec on the website and the actually market product.

GAMING TEST:

GRID , UT3, Ghost busters: The Video Game , Call of Duty 2 

 COLOUR PRESET :  Graphics

MOVIE TEST:

Terminator Salvation 4 min 1080p trailer, Silent City 720p, I am Legend 1080p, Shrek The Third, 60sec Fraps recorded COD2 gameplay.

COLOUR PRESET:  Movies


NOTICE : The pictures displayed is not any print screen picture, it's a direct camera shot. Please do not judge solely on the pictures itself as the camera is not any DSLR camera which enables manual preset shutter speed and iso settings. The displayed pictures are to show you how exactly the display looks like.
 With the lack of proper testing hardwares, the result may be vary depending on each person's point of view and exeprience.  

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BLACK LEVEL TEST RESULT 

 The Acer H233H displayed an impressive 254 score out of 255 ! This shows the H233H is capable to showing more objects in the dark. 


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RACE DRIVER : GRID

A racing game developed by the team who created the Operation : Flashpoint and Colin McRae Rally series. It features realistic graphics and vehicle physics, GRID is used for motion test for the LCD in order to determine whether its capable of giving good quality gaming. Racing game naturally do not need ultra-fast responds from LCD, a 5ms is more than enough for it.






RACE DRIVER : GRID RESULT

As I was testing a 3 round drift match and an a Pro-Tune match and replaying it throughout the 6 total laps, the Acer H233H is capable of displaying objects fast enough without any lag.

After playing a few more rounds i'd say the Acer H233H is more than capable of playing driving games, no lag or any bad motion ghosting noticed.

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UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3

The fourth installment of the Unreal Tournament series (excluding unreal championship and Unreal) , it's a fast paced First Person Shooter which requires good respond rate from the LCD in order to frag-without-delay. Most FPS veterans are capable of differentiate a 2ms and 5ms, although sometimes LCD with a 2ms rating will not guarantee to work as the exact 2ms rated.




UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 RESULT

The first thing I did was firing up a Deathmatch with 20 bots in skilled difficulty and with god mode enabled in order to test the game without getting fragged.
Running at the resolution of 1920x1080, with my pc generating a constant 40 Frames Per Sec (FPS) with Framerate Smoothing disabled, i find that the Acer H233H is still able to display static objects and dynamic objects fast enough if the player is not a crazy strafer HOWEVER, if the player is a Quake style mad strafer, I think the LCD will not be able to fully satisfy the needs unless it's a CRT we're talking about.
Unreal Tournament series and the Quake series are natural fast paced game compare to the usual conventional modern shooter.

The Acer H233H's UT3 respond is somewhere near my previously owned Samsung 2253LW but not on par of it. Nevertheless, it's still fast enough for keeping yourself on the top 3 in the 20 adapt skilled bot ladder.

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GHOST BUSTERS : THE VIDEO GAME

A newly released Ghostbuster which continues as the sequel for the movie. This game served as our casual game test where it requires less strafing to prove whether the LCD is suitable for the casual gamers usage.




GHOST BUSTERS : THE VIDEO GAME RESULT

A slower third person shooting game which serves as our console simulation test on PC desktop LCD displays. After firing up GB (Ghostbusters) at the final boss stage, the Acer H233H displays the object flawlessly even if i'm mad strafing around busting the final boss's @ss.

This shows the Acer H233H is qualified for console games for sure. Hook up with a PS3 or Xbox360 to it's build in HDMI port and you're ready to go !


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CALL OF DUTY 2  

A well known second installment of the WWII first person shooter developed by InfinityWard. This game serves as our fast pace gaming test. It is no doubt a four year old game but still serves as our main FPS game with its oh-still-stunning visual. COD4 is not being tested as the game's bloom effect are too exposed compared to COD2.



CALL OF DUTY 2 RESULT 

As for the famous COD2, image quality is still superb and capable of displaying objects fast enough to sweep the "Nuts" machine gunners. However on certain dark places in COD2 like tunnels with concrete wall, the textures may look strange, it is mostly due to the game texture itself and the color might be grey-ish on surface bump-mapping.

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MOVIE TEST:
COLOUR PRESET: Movies

Terminator Salvation 4 min 1080p trailer, Silent City 720p, I am Legend 1080p, Shrek The Third, 60sec Fraps recorded COD2 gameplay.

Three of the movie trailers turned out great responds great except the colors are abit on the grey-ish side due to quicktime mov files with default color profiles. However on Shrek The Third 720p and COD 2 1080 res .avi file shows more vibrant colour and movies turns out great with the Acer H233H.

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MY PERSONAL P.O.V / VERDICT

After testing the usual tests when I get my hands on new LCD, these basic tests showed how well the Acer H233H performed in gaming , video and photographic usage.

The colour or image quality is very much near perfect, no back light bleed, no distortion, non static outputs on screen but the model which I got have small dead pixels that shows white during the screen shows black displays. Well, I guess I'm unlucky, nevertheless its unnoticeable during gaming or movie if the user sits at least a 50cm distance from the LCD. (no one will stick too close to any displays)

Acer is a well know brand for low priced product. By being low priced will place a question in our mind about it's product quality, well my friends think no further because the Acer H233H has proven to be a solid product on image quality and physical build. The Acer H233H is hanging on my wall with a wall mount, its solid, its fast and its beautiful ! With a price like RM650 for a 23.6inch, 1080p reso and HDMI capable 2ms LCD? What a bargain !