Powercolor officially rolls out dual HD 6870 X2

Previously seen and introduced at Computex in Taipei, the Powercolor Radeon HD 6870 X2 graphics card has now been officially announced. Packing two 40nm Barts XT GPUs sharing the same PCB, the new HD 6870 X2 comes with a custom dual slot cooler, 2GB of GDDR5 memory and a total of 2240 Stream Processors.

As noted, the new card packs a total of 2240 Stream Processors, or 1120 per GPU and works at 900MHz for each GPU and 4200MHz for a total of 2GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a dual 256-bit memory interface. Since we are talking about a custom card, Powercolor used a "Platinum Power Kit" on the PCB that includes 13-phase VRM, ferrite Core Chokes and DrMos.

The cooler that will keep the temps of both GPUs uses two slots and features six heatpipes with Heatpipe Direct Touch technology as well as two fans to keep the card as cool as possible. The card needs two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors and features two DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 1.4 and two DVI outputs.

The latest info was that it should be priced at around US $449 and should end up about 15 percent faster than the GTX 580.

.

http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/item/23154-powercolor-officially-rolls-out-dual-hd-6870-x2

Asus introduces the AMD Llano-supporting F1A75 Series motherboards

Asus today revealed its very first motherboards that support AMD's A-Series (codename Llano) APUs (accelerated processing units), the F1A75-V EVO and F1A75-V Pro. Both of these boards have an ATX form factor and are powered by the AMD A75 chipset.

The F1A75 Series models boast an FM1 socket, and feature a Dual Intelligent Processors 2 setup (a TPU and an EPU), DIGI+ VRM power, four DDR3 memory slots, seven SATA ports (at least six are SATA 6.0 Gbps), and three PCI-Express x16 slots which provide support for CrossFireX configurations and for the AMD Dual Graphics technology (allows users to pair up the GPU within the APU with a low to mid-range discrete graphics card to get a graphics performance boost of up to 128%).

Asus' boards also have Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and eSATA connectivity, 7.1 channel audio, D-Sub, DVI and (seems like) HDMI outputs, and UEFI BIOS.

The F1A75 Series motherboards should become available next month.

http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/39422/asus-introduces-amd-llano-supporting-f1a75-series-motherboards

Advanced Micro Devices at present is not able to compete in terms of pure performance against Intel Corp.’s Core i7-series “Sandy Bridge” microprocessors, according to benchmark results, but with its next-generation Bulldozer-based chips the company fully aims to fight.

With its FX-series AMD Zambezi desktop processors the Sunnyvale, California-based company plans to fully compete against Intel Core i-family of high-performance central processing units. A document from AMD seen by X-bit labs claims that AMD FX-series central processing unit (CPUs) powered by the Bulldozer micro-architecture will be fully able to rival Core i7 2600-series chips.

Among the advantages that are mentioned by the AMD documents that X-bit labs has happened to see are “more overclocked cores”, “more cores dual graphics, OpenCL and GPU” compute and others. By the end of the year the firm expects over 10% of its desktop products to be based on the Bulldozer micro-architecture and be in the AM3+ form-factor.

AMD Orochi design is the company's next-generation processor for high-end desktop (Zambezi) and server (Valencia) markets. The chip will feature eight processing engines, but since it is based on Bulldozer micro-architecture, those cores will be packed into four modules. Every module which will have two independent integer cores (that will share fetch, decode and L2 functionality) with dedicated schedulers, one "Flex FP" floating point unit with two 128-bit FMAC pipes with one FP scheduler. The chip will have shared L3 cache, new dual-channel DDR3 memory controller and will use HyperTransport 3.1 bus. The Zambezi chips will use new AM3+ form-factor and will require brand new platforms.

The Sunnyvale, California-based chip designer plans to introduce AMD 900-series chipsets compatible with Zambezi processors in Q2 2011. The Bulldozer processors, Radeon HD 6000 "Northern Islands" discrete graphics cards and AMD 900-series core-logic sets will power AMD's next-generation enthusiast-class platform code-named Scorpius.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20110313163718_AMD_Aims_to_Fight_Core_i7_Sandy_Bridge_with_Bulldozer.html

Today we have an interesting AMD rumour to bring your way. A little over a year ago, it was reported that AMD was set to launch a pair of Thuban-based four-core CPUs called the Phenom II X4 940T and Phenom II X4 960T. After nearly a year, no such processor has been seen in retail, but, today the folks over at MyDrivers.com have posted a plethora of photos showing off AMD’s mysterious Phenom II X4 960T processor and its secret ability.

The Phenom II X4 960T features a 3.0 GHz clock speed with 3.4 GHz Turbo Core and a total of 8MB of cache. However, things get interesting very quickly as some motherboards (the ASRock 890GX Extreme4, ASUS M5A88-V Evo and GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3 in the published images) are able to unlock this four-core processor to one with six cores with even more cache! In Japan, the X4 960T is priced between the X4 955 and X965, but when unlocked, it should perform similarly to the X6 1075T.

Until we have official word from AMD, we’ll keep this filed under rumour, but the evidence in the shots below looks quite legitimate. Here’s to hoping we see this CPU in North America before AMD’s Bulldozer-based FX-series CPUs launch in late summer.

http://motherboardnews.com/2011/06/23/amd-quietly-launches-phenom-ii-x4-960t/#more-1283

AMD resigns at BAPCo.

What we need in this brave new world are planning and sizing tools that enable IT to capacity plan, and users to buy the right systems for their needs. And that means we need benchmarks that are relevant for those applications. AMD will not endorse SYSmark 2012 benchmark and has resigned from the BAPCo organization. More from AMD CMO Nigel Dessau:

http://blogs.amd.com/nigel-dessau/2011/06/21/1006/

Intel's New Tri-Gate Ivy Bridge Transistors: 9

Intel announced today that its upcoming Ivy Bridge processing platform, which will be based on a 22-nm version of its second-generation Core (aka Sandy Bridge) microarchitecture, will also utilize a new transistor technology called Tri-Gate.

The company says that Tri-Gate transistors, the first to be truly three-dimensional, mark a major change in the way the industry has done things for 40 years, and could revolutionize it. Here's a quick glimpse at some of the most important facts and figures about Tri-Gate transistors, and what they will mean for PCs in 2011 and beyond.

Cont.:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384909,00.asp

AMD A-Series Chips Promises Faster Graphics and Longer Battery Life

AMD is taking the wraps off its Fusion A-Series processors. Whereas the Fusion chips that launched earlier this year were designed to compete with Intel's Atom CPU in netbooks and very-low-cost ultraportable PCs, the A-Series targets midsize mainstream laptops. The CPU cores aren't likely to stand up to Intel's "Sandy Bridge" second-generation Core processors, but the new chips promise superior graphics performance and battery life in laptops priced at between $500 and $1000.

In early January 2011, AMD shipped the first of its Fusion line of processors: the E-Series and the C-Series. Based on the same chip design, those products have been popular and highly acclaimed in premium netbooks and low-end ultraportable laptops, providing CPU and graphics performance that eats Intel's Atom for lunch at competitive costs. AMD calls these processors APUs, or Accelerated Processing Units, to call attention to their ability to offload some parallel processing tasks to the DirectX 11-capable graphics portion of the chip.

Well-received though they have been, the E- and C-Series chips aren't the Fusion processors to get excited about. The real deal is the chip code-named Llano, which has now launched as the A-Series APU. These new chips are meant for midpriced and midsize laptops. Delays in GlobalFoundries' 32-nanometer manufacturing held up the launch of Llano, but now it's finally ready to see the light of day. The chips use a smaller manufacturing process than the 40nm process (produced by TSMC) used by the E- and C-Series, and they include more-powerful hardware and a handful of unique new features.

We don't yet have laptops equipped with A-Series APUs to test, but the new chips look impressive on paper. For impatient statistics fans, here's a rundown of the different laptop model numbers and their specs. (Though it designed the A-Series chips primarily for laptops, AMD will also produce desktop A-Series models that use more power and run slightly faster.

Cont.:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/230187/amd_aseries_chips_promises_faster_graphics_and_longer_battery_life.html

NVIDIA Makes SLI Support on AMD Platform Official with New BETA GeForce Driver

NVIDIA today released its latest version of the GeForce software suite, version 275.50 BETA. With this release, NVIDIA enables SLI support on AMD socket AM3+ platform. The driver enables SLI multi-GPU technology certified AMD 990FX, AMD 990X, and AMD 970 motherboards. Keep in mind, not every AMD 9-series chipset-based motherboard will run SLI, only certified ones, just like not every Intel 5-series and 6-series chipset based motherboard features SLI. Look for the SLI logo when buying the motherboard.

Besides this major change, GeForce 275.50 improves 3D Vision performance on Duke Nukem Forever. It adds new 3D Vision profiles for Duke Nukem Forever Demo, Mars benchmark, Rise of the Immortals, and Rusty Hearts. 3D Vision profile for Alice: Madness Returns is improved. This is a BETA release, use of which is not covered by product warranties. SLI support on AMD, and all features in this release will be carried forward by future WHQL-signed driver releases.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

ASUS Matrix GTX580 Platinum

The ASUS Matrix GTX580 Platinum belongs to its Republic of Gamers (ROG) series and come with various overclocking tools like TweakIt and ProbeIt. A Safe Mode button ensures that users have a reliable fallback if their overclocked settings do not work. This graphics card also uses ASUS' DirectCU II thermal technology with sound-dampened dual fans that provides 600% greater airflow and 20% cooler performance than the reference design.

For details and review click the link below:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/product-guide/view/185050/review/185052

GALAXY Graphics Cards Obtain Windows 7 Certification

Manila, Philippines -- GALAXY proudly announced that its entire product line has obtained Windows 7 certification and has become the first manufacturer in the graphics industry to obtain WHQL for the upcoming Windows 7 operating system.

The upcoming Windows 7 operating system, compared with the Vista, offers faster performance with less resource utilization and more new functions. Taking into account that a lot of of people are fousing at Windows 7 even before its launch, Windows 7 ready graphics card are great things to look forward to.

Early adopters should not hesitate upgrading to the new operating system with Windows 7 ready GALAXY graphics cards.