GainWard’s nVidia GeForce GT 440 is nothing special. By that, I mean, it’s pretty much a entry-level that can do some gaming, but as soon as you move into the games that require some pounding on your GPU, it falls apart, even when you pump out some more megahertz via overclocking tools. Let me explain.

I originally purchased this graphics card as I wanted to replace my ATI HD4850. How nVidia markets it’s cards is confusing, and I thought this would be a mid-range card since 440 is the beginning of the GT4xx series. As a general rule, I later discovered that in the GT 4xx family, that the 400 – 430 cards were entry-level, 440 – 470 were budget, and 480 – 500 were performance cards. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Still, the card itself would possibly be the equivalent of an ATI HD5450 – it uses a single slot PCIe x16 connection, and doesn’t require additional power as it’s bus powered. I guess this bus-powered design does limit it how much performance it can pump out, since my older ATI HD4850 requires a 6Pin connector. The fan and heatsink look pretty nice too.

Benchmarks
For the record: the PC used to test this is my custom-built AMD Gaming PC, which consists of a Phenom II X2 CPU clocked at 3.0Ghz, an ASUS M4N68-M V2 motherboard, 4GB of Corsair DDR3 Memory and 500GB WD Green SATA2 HDD, and a recycled HP IDE DVD Burner. Yes, I still use IDE. (Shush!)

Note: FPS means Frames Per Second in our review; not First Person Shooter.

The first game I tried was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It seemed to have potential, however, as soon as I finished the first chapters’ mini-mission (where you go through a few challenges to determine your game’s difficulty settings) and walked outside, the game’s smoothness became jumpy. During gameplay, the FPS was bobbing up and down between 15 to 30 FPS. If you stripped all the eye-candy and ran it bare, then you got a reasonable 3 – 10 FPS speed boost. Of course, it depends on the amount of activity on-screen. Going prone and crawling around while looking low kept the FPS high, but standing up and looking around brought the card to an average of around 25 FPS. Playable, but not your cup of tea.

At the stock clocks, Multiplayer was choppy, but when overclocked to 900Mhz Core (along with memory clock adjustments), the game was playable. However, the card became unstable, giving me 3 black screen and reboot events.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was the second game I tested. The game lagged like hell with the recommended defaults that Treyarch recommend when you click the OK button on the “Set optimal defaults?” dialog. So, I stripped all the eye candy away and went barebones. The result? At the most, around 15 FPS. Choppy, but the worst I got was 3FPS, which mainly happened when a person threw a Willy Pete smoke grenade and made a smoke screen in Multiplayer. I promptly became the Round-ending Killcam. Oh joy.

Lastly, I tested Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Again, with eye candy stripped, it was quite playable. The game engine is optimized to provide a decent experience, even on shitty graphics cards. There were parts of the game were the game was a little laggy, but hey, blame the GPU. I was unable to get a reading of the FPS, but it was better than Black Ops.

Overclocking
I wouldn’t recommend overclocking this card. While you can, it’s a matter of upping the Core GPU clock in conjunction with the RAM clock. Too high on either one and you’ll get nasty results, like pixel mispatches, corrupted display, etc. Shader Cores seem to be OK for overclocking. I was able to up the shader core from 1.6Ghz to 1.9Ghz without any ill effects, but I proceeded with caution. I used TechPowerUp’s GUITool which is a old alpha modding tool, but I was able to successfully get the card OverClocked. The worse result was that over 45,000 pixels mismatched when testing for stability – so it was a matter of trial and error.

I also used MSI’s Afterburner tool, but after a 30min burn-in and a good session on Modern Warfare online to test my custom clocks, the GT440 in my possession released the magic smoke. Yep – screen went blank, and the card stopped responding. A forced reboot resulted in the motherboard using the onboard video chip – the GeForce card, after a few reboots, was dead. So yeah, overclocker beware.

Conclusion
The card itself should provide a decent boost if you’re playing old games on integrated graphics. However, don’t expect miracles to happen with this budget card. One thing that the card has going for it is the fact it has 96 CUDA Cores, and if you need a card that has some CUDA cores for a CUDA-accelerated project; then this would be ideal. Still, with that all concluded, it’s not too shabby for the price I paid for it – $79 (incl. postage). Get it if you absolutely need a GPU but don’t intend to party hard.

We just spotted this earlier today. Apparently, it seems that rumors suggest that Nintendo may be considering making a interface for Android-powered devices to ‘interact’ (one way or another) with the Wii U, the console that is still under development. Other rumors suggest that the Wii U may run on Android itself, or just have some parts of Android mixed in with it all.

Again, these are all rumors – we don’t have anything to confirm that they are genuine, but given Nintendo’s ignorance of supporting other (mobile) gaming platforms other than it’s own, we wouldn’t be surprised if this rumor falls flat. At this moment in time, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Information in this article was sourced from Android Community.

The Raspberry Pi is almost ready for public release, and we’re predicting that it’ll sell like hot cakes. And yes, Coburn’s Domain is hopefully going to be one of the first to get a hands-on with the public-release version of the Raspberry Pi.

The ‘Pi blog has just announced download links for the Debian “reference” file system, which allows people to tinker with the Raspberry Pi and it’s multimedia abilities.

You can download the reference file system from this page. However, we advise you consider using BitTorrent just to relieve stress from Raspberry Pi’s overloaded HTTP download servers. Stay tuned for more information as it arrives.

A brave group of developers from the XDA-Developers forums have ported a version of Android 4.0.3, Ice Cream Sandwich to the original Samsung Galaxy Tab (model P1000). This port provides a quality working ICS ROM that is suitable enough to replace the stock ROM that the Galaxy Tab ships with.

Basic features work flawlessly, but a few of the luxuries like camera are broken (you can use the viewfinder, but picture taking & video recording are no-go). Still, it is excellent to see Ice Cream Sandwich grace a older-generation device with decent hardware even in today’s standards.

Check out the XDA-Developers Galaxy Tab Android Development forum for more details!

Let’s face it – Apple sometimes likes to boast about it’s products hardware being the fastest in the class. While it might seem true to some extent depending on what you use the iDevices for, the founding member of Raspberry Pi, Eben Upton, has stated that the Raspberry Pi should provide at least twice the performance of an iPhone 4S in a wide range of activities. Eben also throws nVidia’s Tegra mobile chip out the window.

Quoted from a interview with Digital Foundry with edits to clarify:

“I was on the team that designed the [Raspberry Pi] graphics core, so I’m a little biased here, but I genuinely believe we have the best mobile GPU team in the world at Broadcom in Cambridge. What’s really striking is how badly [nVidia] Tegra 2 performs relative even to simple APs using licensed Imagination Technologies (TI and Apple) or ARM Mali (Samsung) graphics.”

For the complete story, check out Tom’s Hardware article on the subject. The Raspberry Pi only costs $25 or $35 (depending on model), but with the graphics potiental, it could be a worthy candiate for portable ARM device projects. Some include Kids Ruby, Yoyo Games GameMaker, Python and even XBMC, a open source Windows Media Center replacement.

With the Raspberry Pi almost set for launch, it will be put head to head against our other ARM devices here at Coburn’s Domain. Stay tuned.

When the Raspberry Pi goes on sale, Coburn’s Domain will be getting one to review and also run our benchmarking suite on it. It will be put head to head against a CuBox and our faithful SheevaPlug. While the CuBox is ARMv7 and the SheevaPlug is ARMv5, the Raspberry Pi is a ARMv6 device – whatever the case, it should be rather interesting to see what the go is.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/574

Previously, we’ve talked about the Raspberry Pi and it’s glory. Sure, for a $25/$35 device, it’s not a bad gadget. However, if you’re craving some extra power, then the CuBox will satisfy.

The CuBox is from a Israel startup company called SolidRun Ltd. The device provides a cube form factor miniture PC, which provides the following features:

• 800Mhz DualCore Marvell ARMADA CPU with VFPv3, wMMX SIMD and 512KB L2 Cache
• 1GB DDR3 RAM clocked at 800Mhz
• 1080p Video Decoding Engine, allowing outputs of 1080p @ 60Fps with minimal CPU intervention
• OpenGL Embedded Standard 2.0 Graphics Engine
• Gigabit LAN, SPDIF (Optical Audio), 3Gbps eSATA, Dual USB 2.0 Ports, microSD slot
• Infrared Receiver for remote controlled applications
• microUSB for debug console

Don’t just dismiss this device without taking a look at the Solid-Run website – it could be your next PC! The best feature is that this device is unbrickable. That’s right, even if you try bricking the device or brick the device by accident, the device can restore itself back to a working state.

The 1080p @ 60Fps output makes it a powerhouse if you want a media center that can provide grunt in a tiny form factor, or want to watch your favorite shows (Anime, Drama, Casual shows, etc) on a big screen. With that being said, the CuBox makes the Raspberry Pi cry in the corner.

While one of our friends have pre-ordered one of these devices; they are hopefully going to be released early next year. In the meantime, check out SolidRun’s website – we’ll keep you posted on the device when one hits our shores.

Photo Credit: SolidRun Ltd.

Anyone remember the credits for the original Portal valve game? How GlaDOS was still alive? No? Well, the iconic song has been geekily remixed, floppy disk drive-style. As this PCWorld article shows you the proof that the song plays rather nicely on a quartet of Floppy Disk drives. Maybe minus the vocals.

It’s stuff like this that makes people wonder how awesome yester-year’s technology was back in the day. We’ve seen scanners do Beethoven songs, but this? We don’t know what to say.

Photo Credit: Sam Cox

We’ll admit that the Coburn’s Domain Labs does have a old 700Mhz G4 Apple eMac, but when this floated past our inbox, we couldn’t help but say “Cute”.

Powered by a hidden Arduino inside the basket and a infrared beam, when the cat breaks the beam, the Arduino realises it’s got a cat inside the cosy eMac shell, and supposedly “boots” up the eMac. Partner this with an LED light that cycles colors, and it provides the best sleeping experience your cat can thank you for. When kitteh exits the eMac, it’ll power itself off.

Originally, the eSleeper was going to have a DVD drive that rewards the cat with a treat, but that got scrapped due to space constraints.

Read the PC World article here for the full scoop. One of the amazing hacks we’ve seen so far.

This is the Huawei SONIC. Simply put, it’s a bargain 3.5″ Capactive touchscreen smartphone that runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) on a 600Mhz CPU coupled happily together with powerful GPU.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Build Quality
Despite being made in china, the phone itself doesn’t feel like it’s a toy. By that, I mean, it survives a drop off a ledge onto a lino floor that’s about 2 metres off the ground, face-down. It’s an all-round solid build and should survive a lot of drops. The touchscreen and buttons aren’t spongy nor “soft”, so that’s a plus.

Features
Huawei went into overdrive here and offered a smashload of goodies. Here’s some screenshots to show you what’s on offer.

Some apps have been installed from the Market, so the list isn’t 100% stock. One of the best things here is the Smart Traffic Monitor. It’s like a watchdog, you set how much data you want to use per day and if you break that quota, it’ll either ask you to chew into tomorrow’s allowance or switch off 2G/3G data. Also can be used to monitor your data usage on Unlimited data plans. HiSpace is a crap Android Market ripoff. There’s also a built-in Twitter and Facebook client to the right of the Dialer app (also seen in the “Streams” app).

Huawei have copied the iOS “jelly” icon editing mode and it shows – tap and hold, and the icons jiggle around like jelly. It even allows you to quickly uninstall apps by tapping on the X overlay! (Sadly, drocap2 failed to take a screenshot while in the icon jiggling mode.)

Here’s something to chew on. The instruction manual states a high-capacity eMMC card is already embedded into the device. For those who don’t know, the eMMC is a cheaper alternative for storage. Sadly though, it is not high-capacity. It’s more like 16 megabytes (yes, megabytes!) of storage. We have proof – look at the “Internal SD Card” information in the screenshot below. Luckily, the phone does come with a 2GB MicroSD already inserted into the device.

EDIT: The internal storage can be accessed via plugging the phone into a USB port and tapping “Mount SD Card”.

The phone also comes with a 3MP Camera without any Flash, and that’s pretty run-of-the-mill. The photos the camera takes can be a little ugly at times. There’s also a nice Music app, and Fast Boot – which is pretty much hibernate on PCs.

Performance
While it won’t match up to it’s big rivals, for a sub-$200 Android smartphone, it’s got a gutsy Qualcomm MSM7xxx chipset that has a 600Mhz CPU driving the show. There’s also a Ardeno 220 GPU that runs the graphics side of the phone – which offloads GPU work onto the GPU itself, to save the CPU from rendering 3D content.

Even on the stock ROM, it’s still speedy. Huawei really have taken care with the OS and tweaked it to perfection. There is a little bit of lag when answering calls, and the lock screen can be a little unresponsive. These are minor, but can be annoying when the phone decides to pause for a moment when you need a phone number.

Quirks
The Android Market also has a habit of re-downloading installed apps for no apparent reason (and I didn’t even press the update button nor is auto-updating enabled). We’re not sure if this bug is only on this device or if it affects others too.

There’s also the lag issue, but that’s been already addressed above.

Coburn’s Verdict
The HUAWEI SONIC is a budget phone that will serve the casual geek nicely. The sleek look will raise an eyebrow, and it’s powerful CPU will handle a fair amount of tasks. The SONIC’s included software is more than enough to manage your working life: there’s a calendar, notepad, Documents to Go, and heaps more.

Highly recommended. My personal comment is that it performs beautifully and having Android 2.3 on the device out-of-the-box without needing a ROM update is a bonus too.