BI's general distaste for anything "2.0" renders us lukewarm (pardon the pun) on the "Cinema 2.0" concept, but the idea behind OTOY -- a cloud of a big pile of AMD/ATI CPUs and video processing cores to deliver high-res 3D content to systems that aren't capable of generating it on their own -- seems rather nifty. After a quick perusal of the demo screenshots on the site, BI thinks they look a lot better than what we've seen on your average netbook or iPhone, though we're hesitant to call 1024x768 with very-apparent aliasing effects "high definition."

Comparable to Quake ]|[? Sure. On par with today's titles? Not so much. But, for what it is intended to do, it looks promising. Whether content is developed to deliver on that promise (or a user base develops to take delivery) remains to be seen. The proliferation of potential thin-client devices might make this viable soon.

Sooner than soon, however, is now, and Nvidia's GTX 295 may already be in some of your hot little hands. Not that BI is jealous or anything. The GTX 295 is, essentially, two GTX 280 cores, die-shrunk (to 55nm, from 65nm) and de-clocked to GTX 260 levels, presumably in the interest of power and TDP concerns. As it is, it's still capable of drawing nearly 300 watts, so a robust power supply is de rigeur (minimum recommendations call for 680 watts for a system with a single 295 in it, so anyone looking to go for dual SLI is looking at needing a 1KW unit, at least).

For a single-card solution, it's aimed squarely at ATI's 4870 X2 for "best in slot." Depending on which title you look at, the two cards trade punches fairly evenly, and performance on either of them is damned impressive. That said, early returns, even with the latest drivers, are somewhat of a mixed blessing for The Green Eyeball Gang. The decrease in clock frequency, coupled with the reduction in memory to 896MB per core (the 280 has 1GB) and the commensurate narrowing of the memory bus from 512 to 448 bits leave it a little starved for bandwidth when high levels of anti-aliasing are called for at high resolutions. Somewhat paradoxically, even with the 24 extra processing cores relative to the GTX 260 (240 vs 216), most reviewers found that a conventional GTX 260 SLI setup was very nearly as quick as the 295, and, owing to the just-introduced price tag of $499 and up, a pair of 260's can actually be procured for about 10% less cash. The 4870 is also slightly less expensive, but market pressures being what they are, prices will probably be coming down fairly soon, which is always lovely to see.



Rafe Brox spends his days wielding a phone in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. When not causing friends and enemies alike to /facepalm electronically, he can be found extolling the virtues of the weird peripherals in his life, from kettlebells to the Trackman Marble. If you also share an unhealthy passion for PC hardware or know a good place he can get help for this addiction, the target coordinates are rafe.brox AT weblogsinc DOT com.