Double Touch

Falling in Canon’s DSLR range between the EOS 450D and the EOS 40D, the EOS 30D has for the past three years dominated the serious amateur market. However with the arrival of its spiritual successor, the 40D – released in September 2007 and offering a list of new features – does the camera offer good value for money over what it replaced, the EOS 20D? If you cannot justify the expenditure for the new 40D, but are serious about getting into photography and are looking at both the 20D and 30D, then this is the review for you. Here we are taking a look at the EOS 30D.

The first point to note is that the 30D is no longer being produced by Canon, so to find one you have to venture onto eBay or check out independent photo retailers for used or shelf-bound units. The price has dropped somewhat since its initial release and plummeted since the arrival of the 40D. Originally given a recommended market price of £1099 before settling at around £800 at the peak of its popularity, the 30D with kit lens (EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6) can now be found for as little as £500.

On paper, the 30D shares many aspects of the excellent specification of the 20D. These include an 8.2 MP sensor, Digic II Image processor, a high-precision 9 point AF (Auto Focus) system, 5 fps fast continuous shooting and durable magnesium alloy body. In addition the 30D, due to sharing its sensor with the 20D, also inherits its 1.6x crop factor.

What the 30D doesn’t share however is its larger and sharper 230,000 pixel, 2.5in LCD monitor, which is a great new addition. This is the LCD that Canon has used on the EOS 5D and EOS 1D Mark II N and provides a much wider viewing angle. In addition to the new LCD screen the 30D picks up a few more tricks over the 20D, such as a wider selection of ISO settings and spot metering.

Spot metering allows for a finely tuned exposure in complex lighting situations, such as scenes with high contrast and wildly variable levels in brightness. The improved range of ISO settings [up to ISO1600] allows hand held shots in low-light conditions with the ISO setting now appearing in the viewfinder of the 30D. Further there is now a larger image buffer and a RGB histogram making it easy to get your exposure spot on at the scene.

Moving away from specifications for a moment, the 30D is an absolute pleasure to use. Providing a big body, nice handgrip and with a weighty feel the 30D feels excellent in the hand improving stability while shooting,. Certainly we found it to feel more professional than the 20D and personally I found it easier to hold, having large hands. The 30D actually weighs in 20gm heavier than the 20D, taking its weight up to 785gm; although this never caused an issue when we used it for long periods.

The specifications and ergonomics are one thing but how did the 30D perform in testing? Well on release there was an air of disappointment over the 30D only been shipped with Canon’s 8.2MP CMOS sensor, for many had expected 10MP. Now there’s no denying that there is a large gap between the two, but honestly if you are a serious amateur, or simply an enthusiastic hobbyist, it doesn’t make any difference. The 8.2MP sensor produces more detail, greater dynamic range and less noise than its predecessor and this is coupled with the excellent Digic II processor providing you with excellent images time after time.

If there is a criticism you could level at the 30D it’s that close up, and when using a wide angle lens, the images showed a slight softness around the edges. This is nothing though that we couldn’t quickly correct in Photoshop or Elements and if anything, it’s better for your images to be too soft than too sharp when adjustments need to be made.

There are a few more advantages to the 30D to over lesser DSLR’s. The energy consumption has been significantly reduced, with roughly 10% more shots per battery. Secondly the 30D incorporates Canon’s image auto rotation feature so any image taken in a portrait orientation will appear so in the LCD monitor. Thirdly the loud, slightly cheap sounding clack of the 20D has been replaced with a deeper and softer sound, making the 30D much more suitable at quiet venues. Of course all these aspects are built into the 40D, but for the price point, they still add up to a great package.

Lastly it’s important to understand that the 30D is compatible with the Canon EF-S range of lenses, a small but excellent series of lenses specifically designed for all the Canon bodies which utilise the APS-C sensor. This matters specifically if you are in the market for a wide angle lens that remains truly wide angle even with the crop factor. When testing the 30D we used Canon’s EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM, which performed superbly. With the 1.6x crop factor the lens provided an effective focal range of 16-35mm in 35mm format.



Verdict

Despite being recently replaced by the superb 40D the 30D is still an excellent choice for any photographer, serious amateur or hobbyist. The image quality is excellent and is offered at a perfect price point. However, the 30D is only an incremental improvement over the 20D and if you own the latter, it’s hard to recommend as an upgrade over the newer 40D. If you are in the market for a top-end amateur piece of kit though and have no previous history of DSLR’s, then the 30D is now more than ever a great choice.

With the recent announcement of the upcoming 9-series from nVidia, spearheaded by the 9800 GX2 which it is rumoured will be released in March, the life-span of nVidia’s current top end 8-series is coming to an end. With both the 8800 GTX Extreme XXX and 8800 Ultra looking vulnerable, with the former now a year old, the question is: “do these cards still represent a wise purchase?” It is the GTX Extreme XXX that we’re looking at today; so let’s see how it stacks up.


Statistically speaking, the XXX is, as you would expect, excellent. Building on the standard GTX’s unified architecture of 128 stream processors running at 1.35 GHz, with a GPU clocked at 575MHz and the 768MB of RAM clocked at 900 MHz (1.8GHz effective), the XXX ramps up the clock speeds further. The XXX boasts a GPU clock of 630 MHz, a RAM speed of 1GHz (2GHz effective) and the same 1.35GHz clock on the stream processors. In addition, both cards run on the same 384-bit interface. This is a sizeable overclock on paper, specifically considering that the XXX uses the same standard HSF seen on the GTX.

The HSF however is perfectly adequate and remains relatively quiet even when dealing with the heightened clock speeds. The card itself though remains huge and as with the GTX it is 269mm long, so it would be advisable to measure up your case before opening your wallet. As with the GTX this card also provides a vast array of features including: HDCP, SLI, Dual DVI Out, HDTV compatibility and a TV Out.

In terms of overall design the card has not changed since the GTX. The XXX still uses the reliable 90 nm process seen on the GTX for the chip and the styling remains as sleek as ever on the board. Just as with the GTX the XXX requires two six pin PCI-E power connectors, with a heavy draw on the PSU. You need a serious power supply to run the XXX stably and it would be advisable to refer to the power draw graph at the end of this review before making a decision.


To test the titanic XXX, I used our Asus Striker Extreme motherboard in partnership with an overclocked and overvolted Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo. This set-up was then coupled with 2GBs of Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4, running at 800MHz and with timings of 4-4-4-12. The operating system used was Windows Vista and the driver revision was nVidia’s latest WHQL Certified 169.25.

As the list of graphs show at the end of this review, the results were impressive. Testing the card with Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3 and Supreme Commander the XXX consistently provided excellent performance, with only the two cores on the E6600 pulling down the minimum frame-rate. The vast amount of RAM on the XXX also allowed for a gradual curve of diminishing results at higher resolutions. This card is most at home at resolutions of 1680 x 1050 or higher and in all but the system breaking Crysis, allowed for playability at 2560 x 1600. It is important to note however that these results were based with the XXX running in Dx9. While the card was still good in Dx10, this is only in comparison with lesser offerings from nVidia and ATI and the XXX only provided playable (25fps or greater) framerates at resolutions of 1280 x 1040 or lower in Crysis.

Despite the impressive display by the XXX in the benchmarks we could not push the card any further with RivaTuner. Even the slightest overclock to the already aggressively overclocked XXX proved to be too much for the card and caused a system crash. Indeed it would seem that even a GPU of this calibre has its limits. It is here though where we hit the crux of the matter. With the inability to overclock the card further, it soon became apparent that you could almost match the speed of the XXX with an overclock on a standard GTX. Results were not kind to the XXX in testing this, with the standard GTX only throwing results 1-3 fps behind it after an overclock. Now of course the overclock on the XXX is guaranteed but it comes at a very high cost.


So what else do you get bundled with the XXX? Well apart from the standard quick install guide, latest drivers and manual, you get a few extras. These include two VGA to DVI dongles, a HDTV block (3-way RCA component), a SVideo cable and a six-pin to Molex power cable. Slightly disappointing however is that there is no top video game title included with the XXX. This feels slightly at odds, considering both the GTX’s pedigree as a gaming card and the slightly mediocre bundle described above. The XXX does however come with a two-year warranty.


Verdict

The nVidia 8800 GTX Extreme XXX offers almost unparalleled performance with modern games, with only the marginally faster Ultra taking the series crown. Unfortunately however, the card does not offer unparalleled value for money. With only a 10 per cent increase in performance over the standard GTX and almost an extra £100 on the cost, it would be foolish not to buy a standard card and overclock it. Well either that or, if you have serious money to spend, wait for the DirectX 10.1 compatible 9800 GX2.