Asus A8Jr With Ati X2300!!

can any of our vendors give us any details on this notebook?
and how does the graphics compare to the previous a8j's and the G1?

Asus A8Jr Specifications

- Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology
- Intel Core 2 Duo Processors T7600/T7400/ T7200/T5600/T5500
- Mobile Intel 945PM Express Chipset
- Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Genuine Windows XP
- Genuine Home
- Genuine Professional
- 14.1″ Widescreen Color Shine LCD, ASUS Splendid Video Intelligence Technology
- ATI Mobility Radeon X2300
- 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth V1.2/V2.0 +EDR (optional)
- 5x USB Ports, 1x TV-Out, 1x DVI Port, 1x Card Reader, 1x Express Card, 1x IEEE1394, 1x VGA Out, 1x RJ11, 1x RJ45
- 33.5 x 24.5 x 3.48~3.73cm, 2.39kg (6 cell battery pack)

Quote "Asus A8Jr, featuring the 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor, is the world’s first notebook series to utilize ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 graphics, the company announced.

“The new ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 will boost graphical performance, and utilize ATI’s HyperMemory management technology to deliver enhanced ‘performance-per-watt’ operations. It will also offer Certified for Windows Vista 3D graphics that supports the visually stunning Windows Aero user interface,” the press release says.

According to Asus, the A8Jr has high-definition support capability."

source: http://64-bit-computers.com/asus-a8jr.html

 

X2300 isnt DX10, I think the X2600 is DX10 though. I heard rumors this will cost aound $1700 on launch.

 

There is a thread in the graphics section saying that it is a DX10 card.

 

The link doesn't say it's a DX10 card... I'm not sure where it says DX10 at all.

 

x2300 is probably a x1300 level card with DX10 support(if it is a DX10 card at all)

 

I'm still at the point where they are just numbers and letters. I know a higher number = better but how ATI compares to Nvidia off the top of my head...I have no clue.

I leave that up to the nerds above my level and more numbers which I only understand to mean "Bigger = better".

 

bigger doesnt mean better

 

Well, do chips have girth?

 

If the X2300 isn't DX10 capable, then what's the difference between it and the X1300?

Sti-R, the X2300 looks like it would be the successor to the X1300, meaning it won't be as fast as the X1600.

Just to help everyone understand ATI's generational naming convention:

Radeon 9zzz series,
Xzzz series,
X1zzz series,
X2zzz series.
Where 'zzz' is the 3-digit number denoting performance level.

Eg: An X1300 may look like it's a higher number than X800 but I would rather have the X800 which has higher performance GPU and memory.

 

What about an X1600 vs an X850?

 

About even. In-game benchmarks for both are almost identical, just that with X1600 you have SM3.0 rendering.

 

the x850 will be faster.

the x1600 might have higher 3dmark scores but i dont think it even has that.

the 850 has 256 bit interface and the x1600 has 128 bit.

Those are getting close but the x850 will be faster and in a higher resolution much faster.


ati x2300 is a dx10 card. It is called the ati r610

I havent seen any news but Ive seen the nvidia roadmap and the 8400 comes out the same day. feb 1 with the vista release.

Not positive what machine will come to market first either but likely a dell.

 

An AMD product on an Intel chipset? Um, abit confused here. Didnt AMD & ATI merge together?

 

Yeah they did DTX . That's why a lot of people are saying "if I have an ATI graphics card in an Intel machine, don't I have a AMD+Intel computer?".

 

Hey now we wont have those AMD vs Intel threads any more

 

The CPU wars are over! Long live Amtel!

 

Dx10 support ehh..

can anyone chime in on if dx10 is a hardware based or software?
i was under the impression that DX10 are hardware based and not software.
does this mean that AtiX1600 wont be able to play any DX10 games if and when they are made available?

 

How does this video card performs in comparison to the actual A8j geforce 7700, without the DX10 support of course ??

 

DX10 is strictly based on hardware - hence the reason why video card makers must make new cards to support the technology.

For all those people who doubted that DX10 won't come until late spring or summer: BOO-YAH!

 

X2300 will be way less powerfull than 7700, DX10 or not. At this moment, I would rather buy A8Js again than A8Jr...

 

DX10 is a software program, but it's way of working is so different compared to the previous DX versions that it requires hardware that is build for DX10s way of working. And as far as i know you will be able to play DX10 games using DX9.0L but offcourse you won't have all the DX10 bennefits... Someone please correct me if i'm wrong, cause i'm also not an expert

 

*None* of the current notebook cards on the market will be able to play dx10 exclusive games, or access the Dx10 goodies in them. However, for the forseeable future, all games will be developed to be compatible with both Dx10 and Dx9 hardware, else you eliminate 95% of your market base because the entire market isn't going to rush out and update their card and/or system right now.

Dx10 was a complete redesign from the ground up on Microsoft's part, as opposed to their usual (updated) new releases of Dx in the past, and has all new requirements for unified shaders in the hardware gpu (rather than having separate dedicated elements for vertex, pixel etc). It also isn't hobbled by having to keep legacy support in the new code (i.e. dx9 supporting dx8), but eventually games will only ship with Dx10 support because the developers won't develop the same game code twice (and word is that they like the new Dx10 code much better because it's easier for them to work with anyway). At that point is when the rest of us will be forced to make the upgrade to Vista, since there will be no support for Dx10 in XP.

 

But, of course, for a market to fully adapt and switch to DX10 world, time will pass and it will not happen overnight.

Therefore I'm saying that better buy ATM is A8Js if games are in plan. X2300 is, no matter DX10, still lower end card...

 

The X2300 announcement from ASUS is a little premature according to Digitimes as ATI hasn't even announced such a card yet. So DX10 speculation for the card is just that - speculation (although I would highly bet that it is indeed DX10-capable).

It may be 'lower end' in terms of clock speed but certainly not 'lower end' technically or feature-wise. DX10 games will be run smoother and faster on a DX10 card.

 

Then what does DX9.0L do?... Pretty sure it has something to do with making DX10 software compatible to DX9 machines.. Would make sense because then you would also make sure that you don't rule out 95% of the market... And i understand it can't have te same effect as using DX10.. but atleast the software would run..

And again.. i could be wrong.. but if i am.. can someone please explain to me what DX9.0L does then

 

DirectX 9 Legacy does not make DX10 exclusive software work with DX9 hardware. On Vista DX9L makes it possible to use DX9 hardware with Vista and play DX9 and ealier games.

 

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. To bad it isn't the way i thought it was.. would have bin nice for everybody using dx9 hardware... Same things as DX10 only less quality..

 

That's right. If a game is DX10, it's only gonna run on DX10 hardware and OS. If a game says it runs on DX10 and DX9, that means the developers wrote two different source codes for the game (alot of work!).
Since Vista was created with DX10 API in mind, the solution to allow gamers with DX9 and older cards is to create DX 9.0L. Unfortunately this does not mean you can play DX10 games on those cards.

 

In that case, it will take a long, long, long time for users to completely switch to DX10 b4 DX9 become obsolete.
2?4?6? Years?

 

1 year tops before premier games are DX10 only. There's never been this much incentive for developers and they know that if the game is good enough, people will shell out for a new video card. In 1 year DX10 will be ubiquitous anyway on the desktop side.....all the way from $50 cards to $600 cards. And new integrated graphics solutions for notebooks will all be DX10. So you'll have no real excuse to ask developers to jump through hoops for you.

This may be where the XG Station finds a niche if it gets a GPU upgrade.....not only giving you more frames, but also allowing you to even play newer games at all.

 

playstation and xbox 360 are using dx 9.0 hardware.

So dx 10 hardware games are pc only. The percentage of games that are going to be developed with only a pc version over the next few years is small.

So in general, dx 9 hardware is likely to be compatible but possibly slow 5 years from now.

 

At least until the PS4 and XBox720 are out. LOL!

 

well like i said, 5 years. Any computer is completely obsolete in 5 years. Your best shot in your laptop purchase it to make it on the high end.

x box 360 actually has some dx 10 functions. However, xbox 360 only games are also going to be scarce seeing as playstation 3 version on dx 9 hardware isnt too different.

Anyhow I think its the key point the person is trying to figure out about dx 10. It could be a lot of nothing.

The orignal xbox came out with dx 8.0 , and pc software that requires above 8.0 or was developed without considering a dx 8 computer as the customer base is just now appearing on the market now that there is a xbox 360

x box 360 had a 32 mb geforce 3. That hardware level just hit the dumpster around the middle of last year. Its safe to compare a 256 7950 gtx which is in the ps3 to that as a benchmark

 

So DX9 compatible games will probably still be made for quite some time since XBOX360 and PS use them.. and then they also don't need to rewrite the complete code for making a PC DX9 version..

 

PC game makers couldn't care less about the console market.

Do you really think Blizzard gives a ****? Nope - they're making pure PC games - you think Diablo 3 will ever make it to consoles? Nope - and do you think Diablo 3 when released later will come with DX9 or DX10? In a heartbeat, it's easy to tell that game makers (especially for PC-only) will upgrade asap.

 

PC only game makers.... maybe... but there are tons of gamemakers that make the same game for PC AND Console...

 

There are indeed gamemakers that make games for both formats.

But, the PC has inherently been the 'cutting edge' in terms of technology and performance and anybody who thinks that the PC gaming market might be slowed down my the console market needs to recheck things. Look at the hit games for PCs and consoles. They are no way similar by any means. The PC has always been superior over consoles and it's been that way for many, many years.

 

But big publishing houses and game development teams are taking console market very seriously. Why ? Simple fact: one helluva big market. That's why we see more and more console-exclusive games (most of them do come out on PC at the end, of course ).
If you making a game for a PC and spend XX million dollars, why not spend a bit more and convert it to XB360 and PS3 (it's easier than ever!), and in that way expand targeted market.

Furthermore, about DX10, one example. Company of Heroes was announced as first DX10 game to come out. What happened ? CoH did came out on time, but as DX9 game. DX10 features will be added through a patch. No need to rewrite whole game code just to get more features.
In the near future (few years or even more), every game that comes out will be playable on both DX9 and DX10 systems and, with that in mind, (again) I see no special reason to wait and buy A8Jr over A8Js or A8Jp.
By the time we need DX10-only card, X2300 will be old news.

 

I know that, PC is and will always be superior because they refresh so much faster, but that wasn't the point.. Point is... there wil probably be DX9 games for quite some time...

Halleluja

 

I disagree. In reality, the PC and console markets are diverging. Shooters are the one crossover genre and they happen to be very high profile. But if you look at the success of the Wii over the PS3, it's becoming clear that what people want out of a console and what they want from a PC are very different and developers I'm sure are noticing that. Especially when you can use DX10 to develop faster and use the resources you would have spent making a DX9 conversion and put them into a platformer for the console to sell to the Wii market which is currently, what, 5x the size of the PS3?

We'll see, though.

 

Amen to Hyperluminous.

Those who buy consoles are those who are specifically geared towards those "console games" while those who buy PCs primarily for gaming are those geared towards the far superior PC gaming family.

For example, MMORPG strives only on the PC and is incredibly weak, if even extant, in the console domain. By the time you attach numerous peripherals to the console like a headset, keyboard, mouse - you pretty much should have bought a PC to begin with.

So amen to what hyperluminous mentioned above - those who think the PC and console gaming market are one and equal are seriously delusional. It is indeed a big market but it's analogous to telling Wynn (a casino developer) to start developing subway lines just because it's a "big market". The PC gaming market and the console gaming market may have similar games but that's negligible compared to the entire collection of games available to both. They never overlapped much and probably will never because the console system is a system meant to be kept for 4-5+ years while the PC is updated every 2 months.

 

I suppose I may as well jump into the fray as well. I'll try not to bloody the water too much, but I think a few things need to be cleared up.

1. Windows Vista was designed with DX9, the new Areo Glass desktop only requires DX9 to run. However, Vista will support DX10. Just want to point out that DX10 hardware is not required.

2. DX10 is nice, but it's not everything. Early in the article somone was asking about how a upper-end current generation GPU may compare to the X2300. While we don't know any actual stats for the X2300, its safe to assume that it will be way outperformed by the current generation of upper-end GPU's. This is always the case when a new generation is released. An old X850 is "better" than an X1400. The old X850 will probably still be "better" than this X2300. GPU "power" is best examined in a number of ways i.e. # of pixel shaders, core clock speed, memory clock speed, amount of memory, memory interface, vertex processing, etc. The level of DX support is a factor, but only one amoung many. For lower end parts (which I'm assuming the X2300 will be) it often doesn't much matter at all. The GPU may be capable of executing complex DX 10 instructions, but it may be easily overwhelmed by more basic constructs and never actually execute anything that requires DX10. This is common when playing newer generation games on laptops.

3. Not much is really known about the X2300, other than the press release and limited viewing. There are no specs published by either ATI or ASUS. While the numbering scheme seems to indicate that this will be a R600 based product, even that isn't for sure. ATI (NVIDIA is guilty of this too) has been known in the past to enhance a previous geneation product and market it with a number denoting that is belongs with a newer generation. I'm not going to say this is deliberately misleading, its just marketing. If you need an example: The R200 series parts were associated with the Radeon 8000 series of GPU's, however the lower end 9000 series GPU's (9000, 9200, etc) used R200 cores not R300 like the higher end GPU's in that series (9600, 9800, etc). I would seem odd to me that the first R600 series product would be a mobile chip. I'm not saying its impossible, but releases generally start with upper end desktop parts and then move to lower end parts, then to notebooks. It is possible that the X2300 listed is something like a rebranded/reclocked X1400. It may not even have DX10 support.

4. Until something official comes out, its all speculation (even my post here). We'll see.

Don't get me wrong, I really hope the A8Jr is available soon, and that is does indeed have a new generation GPU part (R600 series and DX10 capable). I just don't think we can site that as fact. Someone please provide a link to some real evidence/benchmarks/specifications and prove me wrong, I'll be happy.

 

I will also say that I agree with the previous posters who said that DX9 will be the mainstream for quite a while. While there will be a few high end games coming out soon that will only work on Vista and DX10, I think you'll see them have a pretty limited distribution. For all of 2007 and most of 2008, most game developers will have to make their software compatable with XP and DX9. For the developers aiming at a very large user base (Games like WoW) they will likely make versons for Win XP and DX9 probably through the end of the decade.

 

I agree to a certain extent. I, for example, really HATE playing FPS games on any console. It's just unnatural for me to play FPS games without mouse and keyboard. If FPS games are the only genre on consoles I would never buy any console at all. Similar thing goes for RTS, RPG, etc.

But people like me are minority. Lot of people bought XBox 360 because of Halo2 (or whatever is called). Lot of people think that Call Of Duty on PS3 or Medal Of Honor on PSP is a great experience.
Agreed, there are lots of games that are console origin and they cannot be easily "asimilated" to PC teritory and they are still important to console market but you cannot rule out the fact that major publishers are doing blockbusters for consoles as well as for PCs. Games (and genres) that originate from PC now became major selling point for 2 consoles. And that talks something about market change.

Nintendo is (and always was) different story. He may not have graphic and sound like Sony and MS but Nintendo retained spirit of consoles and that's why it has lots of buyers (although on Wii you can also play games that were once PC-exclusive).

I had Xbox which I bought mainly to serve me as all_in_one media player (DivX and all that stuff) and to emulate old game systems. I've sold it because now I have standalone DVD player that can play DivX files and because I don't play any games on it. For emulators I bought PSP and (besides emulators) most games I play on it are remakes of classic games from Sega and arcades.
I don't intend to buy PS3 or Xbox 360. I rather play on my PC.

But all that doesn't change the fact that there are lot of guys out there that would kill for WoW or Doom3 or Quake4 on console. And game developers and publishers are very well aware of that...

 

As far as I know, XBOX 360 is using a different DirectX API called XNA. And Playstation 3 is not using DirectX at all... It's a similar API but not DirectX per se. Some say it's more like Open GL than anything else.

I can't imagine Microsoft licensing DX technology to his console nemesis...

But returning to the topic in question, I think that we are going to start seeing more and more DX10 laptops in the very near future...

C'mon Nvidia... We're waiting for you to deal your card now!!!

Peace!
RayanMX

 

Of course, nVidia's DX10 mobile cards have been seen, but not officially aknowledged. There were a couple of Asus barebones at CES, a 13" with a Go8400 and a 15" with the Go8600, plus a Toshiba 17" with the Go8700.
There are already plenty seen/prohpesied but unnanounced notebooks with DX10 already.

 

Give it time, let them mature the product before they put out a product which lets us down.

Santa Rosa + DX10 Mainstream + Asus = Me dropping my cash.

 

There was also an msi with 8400 and ati x2600

same model actually

In a list I saw a card called nvidia 8500 as well, so theres no direct 7500 they skipped that number.

I do believe 8600 is 7700 and 8700 is 7800 meaning they dont skip a number in the next line.

8700 is um... the g80, the core thats in the 8800 but its laptop ized

 

Ok check this out.

In the coming years these pc only games are going to get scarcer. Like you say diablo 3? I know for certain with that example you are dead wrong, diablo 3 is an xbox and ps3 game as well

hellgate london is an xbox 360 game as well as a pc game.

certain games are part of the gpu conspiracy, like doom half life etc. What the upgrade pressure is going to be is just that the games will look better and run faster with dx 10 hardware. No different than today

Ok anyhow your point is actually right. Some games are made for pc gamers only.

Even those games will have to be made for dx 9 hardware compatibility. This is because the majority of games will work on dx 9 hardware so thats what the consumer has. The majority of pc games are developed with a ps3 and xbox 360 version at the same time. The ones that arent, they have to sell them to the same consumer.

So dx 10 exclusive games wont be big for years.

 

In the end this is just an endless discussion, and you just can't tell at this point what is going to happen.. We all have our own opinion, but we just have to wait and see. All will depend on how fast the market will move from DX9 to DX10... if this happens quickly.... then software will too. (wich i don't see happening, but again... just an opinion) And if it happens slowly, then there will be DX9 software being made for quite some time.

I think (OPINION ) software developers for now will stick to DX9, and not taking the risk of making a DX10 program/game that nobody wants, because nobody has DX10 yet.. And then they also have to wait and see what te market does and adapt to that.