Gizmodo: Ati

Nvidia Helping Modders Port PhysX Engine to ATI Radeon

matt buchanan — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:30:00 EDT

Remember those modders from NGOHQ who were swolling out ATI's Radeon graphics cards with Nvidia's PhysX physics engine? Surprise, Nvidia loves the idea of their physics engine running on rival ATI's graphics cards, so they're giving Eran Badit and his crew total support, with access to documentation, SDKs, hardware and actual engineers. AMD, on the other hand, isn't being so cooperative.

Right now, Badit is chasing the goal of porting PhysX to the Radeon HD 4800, but ATI's not giving them any hardware yet, much less developer and PR support. Not totally surprising that ATI would stall, since porting their rival's physics engine to their cards is a definite poke at them and the Havok engine they license from Intel.

And making PhysX more universal by having it run on ATI cards makes it more likely to be supported by game developers, which isn't so hot for Havok. Nvidia's definitely got the upper deck here, since in the meantime ATI looks like a bunch of meanies, but helping out Badit threatens their own wares. [TGDaily]

ATI's Nvidia GeForce GTX 280-Killer Is Water-Cooled, Super-Powered

matt buchanan — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:00:00 EDT

ATI's probably pretty mad Nvidia stole some of the excellent mid-range Radeon HD 4850's thunder by dropping the GeForce 9800 GTX+ for a mere $30 more. So they're hitting back with a special Radeon HD 4800 card designed solely for the crushing of Nvidia's top-of-the-line GTX 280 graphics card in pure performance.

Code-named "Super RV770," it has pre-installed water-cooling and an unlocked BIOS so you can push the core speed to 950MHz (maybe beyond 1GHz) with a memory bandwidth of 150GBps, even more than the GTX 280.

Diamond's Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition (which launched today for Smooth Creations' build-to-order gaming PCs) is actually the first "Super RV770" card, though it's not clocked quite as high as AMD's super spec. TG Daily expects announcements from other ATI partners like Asus and Sapphire to be coming up shortly. Of course, this is all talk 'til we see some benches. [TG Daily]

M-Series Is Industry First Quad-Display GPU, Says Matrox

Elaine Chow — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Matrox keeps updating its multi-display thingamajigs, this time with the first Quad-Head GPU in the industry, according to the company. The M-Series M9140 LP PCIe x16 can drive up to four 1920 x 1200 screens with 512MB of RAM. Matrox says its for business time, so hedge fund managers and fans of the Conchords will be able to get their graphic information overdose for $599. [Matrox via The Inquirer via Crunch Gear]

ATI Radeon Graphics Cards Running Nvidia PhysX Are Faster, Stronger, Awesomer

matt buchanan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:30:00 EDT

After Nvidia picked up PhysX, it was obvious ATI would probably get left out of Nvidia's efforts to spread the love to graphics cards and x86 CPUs (hence ATI hooking up with Havok). (Physics engines, for the uninitiated, are what make your body bounce around with aplomb after getting stuck with a grenade in Halo 3.) But some modders have fixed that and ported PhysX to ATI's Radeon 3800 cards, instantly improving benchmarks.

A Radeon HD 3870 system jumped from an overall 3D Mark Vantage score of P3800 to P4262. Though it won't be available for ATI's latest 4800 cards for a bit, you can download the PhysX enabler this weekend at NGOHQ, which should make your Unreal experience on ATI that much sweeter. [NGOHQ via TG Daily via /.]

CyberLink Uses ATI Card To Transcode Four 1080p Video Files Simultaneously

Jason Chen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:00:00 EDT

The fashionable thing these days is to take the tremendous processing power of graphics cards and put them to use when you're not utilizing them to render games. CyberLink, for one, has come up with a pretty ingenous method to take an ATI or NVIDIA card (in their case, the demo was on an ATI Radeon 4850 512MB card) and convert four 1080p MPEG-2 movies into MPEG-4. Simultaneously. As long as you've got a pretty fast video card, all you need is a copy of CyberLink PowerDirector 7 and you can be doing this too. We hope this is the kind of thing Apple's going to be putting into Snow Leopard. [TG Daily]

Mid-Range Graphics Card Showdown: Nvidia 9800 GTX+ Slides Past ATI Radeon HD 4850

matt buchanan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:59:00 EDT

Poised and waiting for ATI's latest graphics card to hit, Nvidia immediately fired off the 9800 GTX+, a nimbler version of its behemoth 9800 GTX, aggressively priced at $229 to put serious pressure on the $199 HD 4850. Benchmarks comparing the two weren't available yesterday, but PC Perspective has 'em up now. In short, while the HD 4850 can mostly keep up with Nvidia's older, regular 9800 GTX, the steroid-injected 9800 GTX+ has enough juice to edge it out in almost every single benchmark. The Radeon HD 4850 has about a month on the shelf to itself before the 9800 GTX+ hits though. Check out PC Perspective for more graphs and numbers than your brain wants to deal with on a Friday. [PC Perspective via Engadget]

ATI Radeon HD 4850 Graphics Card Onsale Now

matt buchanan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:59:00 EDT

With ATI's latest Radeon graphics card already getting benchmarked, I guess cardmakers decided it was silly to wait until June 25 for the official unveil—pretty much everybody is popping the Radeon HD 4850 right now—they're all over Newegg and assorted other merchants. Built on a 55nm process with 512MB of DDR3 memory running at 1986MHz and a clock speed of 625MHz, it's got ~~480 stream processors~~ (480 was old number, it's actually 800) and support CrossFireX up to four graphics cards. While the MSRP is $199, you can pick one up for about $174.99 after rebate. [Newegg]

ATI's Latest Radeon Graphics Card (HD 4850) Benchmarked: Mid-Range, As Expected

matt buchanan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:52:45 EDT

ATI's next line of Radeon graphics cards—the RV770-based 4800 series—doesn't officially launch until June 25, but Hot Hardware's got benchmarks already on the first shot, the mid-range $199 Radeon HD 4850. It's prompted a response from Nvidia in the form of the $229 GeForce 9800 GTX+, a speedier version of the 9800 GTX on a smaller manufacturing process. But that's just jibber jabber—the benchmarks show it's a pretty decent mid-range card, for now.

The performance is pretty on par with the pricepoint—it edges out the currently more expensive GTX 9800 (the revamped plus version wasn't available yet, so that'll be interesting) though it struggles against the 3870 X2 (which is two cards in one) and Nvidia's fresh-off-the-boat and doubly expensive GTX 260. If you're in the market for a mid-range ATI card, this might be it, but I'd wait for a showdown against the similarly priced 9800 GTX+ if possible. [Hot Hardware]

Giz Explains: Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard Parallel Processing and GPU Computing

matt buchanan — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:00:00 EDT

As you've probably heard, the next version of OS X, Snow Leopard, will not wow us with a crazy circus of features like Time Machine and Boot Camp. So why would Apple spend a year programming an OS that they can't boast has over 300 new features? Here's a quick rundown of how Apple is totally rebuilding OS X to take advantage of Core 2 Duos, graphics cards and parallel processing, in order to deliver serious performance gains. And yes, that is a big deal.

This is not going to be a super technical breakdown of parallel computing for the super nerdy, just a rough overview for my mom. Basically, parallel processing is what it sounds like: Multiple computations or processes or um, just "things," are carried out or done simultaneously, in parallel (at the same time!). Multi-core processors like Intel's ubiquitous Core 2 Duo have quickly become mainstream. They're really good are doing several things at once, since each processor core can crunch away on something—more cores, more simultaneous Captain Crunching, more faster. A brilliant consumer taste of this was actually Rosetta on OS X—on a dual-core system, one core would be "translating" the code from the PPC version, while the other ran the program (roughly speaking).

Sounds gravy right? Well, as Steve alluded in his explanation of Snow Leopard, parallel programs ain't easy to write—they're harder than sequential ones for sure, 'cause it requires the kind of math that can be broken up into little parts you can solve independently and then put back together again. Artificial intelligence, for instance, is not cakey for this. On the other hand, something like tomography—a technique for creating 3D images—totally is, because it's highly vectorizable. Or video stuff (cause you can easily divvy up the chores), videogame graphics and physics, generally.

No surprise that modern graphics cards are actually really good at parallel processing, 'cause of the way they're architected and because they usually have a buttload of cores—Nvidia's latest high-end GeForce card, the GTX 280, has 240. (It's why they're suitable for cheap supercomputers.) Nvidia, for instance, showed me some of the insane physics jujitsu the GTX 280 can pull off, it and ATI both have crazy new graphics cards (FireStream 9250 and Tesla 10P) built for "general purpose" supercomputing. Sony's Cell is sorta like this with multiple cores, but none of these are very good general processors the way stuff is designed now. (You don't see any computers running on an ATI Radeon CPU, or Cell handling the main workload on Toshiba's new laptops, do you?)

You'll note that part of Snow Leopard's feature list is OpenCL, an easy way for developers to tap the parallel processing power of graphics cards, in addition to being optimized for multiple cores courtesy of its "Grand Central" tech set. So Snow Leopard is pretty much all about parallel processing. (Microsoft hasn't been overly vocal about Windows and parallel computing.)

From what Apple has said—and the whole "Grand Central" deal (it "takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors")—it's clear that Apple is totally re-architecting Snow Leopard around parallel processing, with Grand Central acting much like the real one, organizing, assigning and scheduling a whole bunch of tasks/trains along a bunch of different paths/tracks. It's a major undertaking—Intel and Microsoft are throwing a ton of money at parallel computing themselves—and we're pretty curious about Apple is going to make parallel programming easier for programmers in a way supposedly no one's done before.

Something we missed, or you still wanna know? Send any questions about processors, prostates, Bananas or anything else to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Microsoft's $1 Billion Xbox 360 Recall Problems Caused By Chip Cheapness

Jason Chen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Microsoft's red ring Xbox 360 problems have cost the company about a billion dollars in warranty repairs, but the research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner said that the hardware problems were caused because Microsoft wanted to be cheap. Instead of using an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vender to make a graphics chip for the 360, Microsoft decided to design it themselves and have Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing create it. This saved "tens of millions of dollars" in design costs. Yes, only tens of millions.

The good news is that when Microsoft said that their red ring problems are fixed on newer units, they were probably right. They went to "an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip." Probably ATI, is what EETimes thinks. Moral of the story is to not skimp on chip design so you can save tens of millions, because that may come back and bite you in the ass down the road. [EETimes]

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 Is Triple Awesomer, With CrossFireX and XGP External Graphics Box

matt buchanan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:30:00 EDT

AMD's not letting Nvidia have all the graphics card fun at Computex this week, with some big ATI launches of their own. The Mobility Radeon HD 3800 is their new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, with supposedly 3x the performance of the last gen. A part of the Puma platform, it brings performance/power balance features, as well as CrossFireX to notebooks, and is so far the only mobile GPU supporting DirectX 10.1 (Nvidia says it ain't no thang). Finally, it's the first ATI card to roll with XGP, basically a honkin' externally powered and cooled graphics card in a box when you wanna toss steroids at your notebook (and have the outlets to do so).

AMD Announces its Highest-performance Mobile Graphics Chip Ever for HD Visual Computing on the Go

— ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3800 series outperforms previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon™ GPUs by 3X for amazing power management and eye-catching graphics1—

Computex, TAIPEI, Taiwan — June 4, 2008 —AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3800, tripling top-of-the line graphics performance in comparison to the previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon™ GPUs1. Joining the previously announced ATI Mobility Radeon™ 3000 family, the new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series offers notebook manufacturers the ability to deliver fast graphics performance, energy-efficient 55nm graphics processor technology, amazing video playback, and, for the first time ever, ATI CrossFireX™ technology for a mobile graphics solution. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series coupled with the AMD Turion™ X2 Ultra Processors, the AMD 7-Series Chipset, and industry-leading wireless technologies like 802.11n Draft 2.0 form the next-generation AMD notebook platform, also announced today, for the ultimate in HD visual performance on the go.

Notebooks equipped with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series allow users to experience the power of HD with graphics processing designed for work and play to satisfy the needs of the most demanding graphics professionals on the go. 2

“The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 is the most feature-rich notebook graphics solution we have ever produced,” said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “It’s an ‘uber-performance’ chip that beats all comers. Our notebook manufacturing customers now have the ability to create the ultimate in notebook solutions that feature amazing energy efficiency coupled with next-generation, unsurpassed mobile graphics technologies.”

As the only high-performance mobile graphics solution capable of supporting applications created using Microsoft® DirectX® 10.11, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series offers superb HD game performance and life-like realism for The Ultimate Visual Experience™. New PCI Express® 2.0 support enables fast throughput and superior overall system performance — ideal for high-performance gamers. Notebooks with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series will allow users to enjoy the latest Blu-ray movies in full-HD 1080p resolution2 and free the CPU for other tasks. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series also provides break-through energy efficiency with improved performance-per-watt to deliver exceptional battery life.
The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 features a variety of new technologies designed to improve overall notebook performance:

* The Ultimate Visual Experience™ is enabled with next generation Unified Shader Architecture, immense processing power and a 256-bit GDDR3 memory interface. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series delivers feature-rich graphics for astonishing image quality and optimal 3D modeling application performance.
* ATI CrossFireX technology for mobile graphics delivers high-performance PC gaming by combining multiple ATI Radeon™ graphics in a single notebook PC to increase graphics quality and performance. ATI CrossFireX is designed to the latest industry-standards for notebooks today.
* PCI Express 2.0 offers more than enough horsepower for the most demanding professional graphics applications by boosting 3D graphics performance while providing fast throughput resulting in an excellent overall system performance.
* ATI Avivo™ HD Technology is the high-performance engine for advanced image and video technology, while freeing the CPU from compute-intensive video decoding tasks. ATI Avivo™ HD Technology delivers smooth full HD format video playback and photo editing with brilliant colors and sharp images, ideal for professionals demanding the next level of display technology excellence. 2
* Energy-efficient 55nm graphics processor technology helps extend battery life and conserve energy.
* ATI PowerPlay™ technology dynamically delivers the optimal balance between performance and power to suit performance requirements for long battery life and superior performance-per-watt operation.
* Breakthrough Performance-per-watt is critical to users who demand exceptional performance and power saving features that help lower power consumption.
* New design size implementation allows the chip to run cool, producing less heat so that notebook delivers the power, performance and efficiency users crave.

And for the XGP:

AMD Announces Revolutionary External Graphics Solution for Notebooks

Portable ATI XGP™ Technology unlocks notebooks for enthusiast-class desktop graphics performance and true multimedia upgradeability

Computex, TAIPEI — June 4, 2008 —AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced ATI XGP™ (External Graphics Platform) Technology, a new external PCI Express® (PCIe) 2.0 graphics platform, designed to deliver enthusiast-class desktop graphic performance and true multimedia upgradeability to notebooks1. ATI XGP is an exclusive technology that capitalizes on PCIe 2.0 to deliver enthusiast-class graphics via a connected cable to an externally powered and cooled device. This unique innovation delivers up to 4.0 Gbyte/s in each direction in bandwidth communication between the notebook and external graphics, whereas previous consumer level external solutions were limited in graphics bandwidth2. ATI XGP is fully optimized for new AMD Turion™ X2 Ultra notebook platforms, also announced today.

ATI XGP Technology is being first launched with the newly announced ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3800 series for eye-catching HD graphics. As an industry first for notebooks, ATI XGP Technology delivers multi-GPU capabilities of scalable performance with ATI CrossFireX™ technology. The additional high bandwidth of the included USB 2.0 connectivity allows users to connect to a wide variety of USB-based devices, including external TV tuners, external Blu-ray players, and much more.

“With ATI XGP Technology, notebooks can switch between everyday computing and hard-core gaming with a simple plug-in that’s also portable enough to bring powerful 3D performance on-the-go,” said Matt Skynner, vice president of Marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “This technology allows users to choose notebooks with slim, lightweight and elegant designs, yet enjoy the full performance of a traditional desktop gaming rig wherever it’s convenient.”

Björn Fehrm, head of Strategy and Innovation Consumer, EMEA, Fujitsu-Siemens Corp., said: “Powered by ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 in an external AMILO GraphicsBooster, the ultra mobile AMILO Sa 3650, with ATI XPG technology, takes on two very different but equally compelling personalities. Use it for your daily computing with the internal graphics for outstanding mobility and battery life. Dock it to your AMILO GraphicsBooster when coming home, in a hotel room or at a LAN event and now your gaming and multimedia performance is in another world.”

ATI XGP Technology is contained in an external chassis connected to the notebook via a specially designed self-latching, easy-connecting PCIe 2.0 cable from Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited, a leading provider of electronic devices and connectors. Based on AMD’s dedicated research and development, the cable also provides USB 2.0 connectivity directly to the notebook allowing for additional USB functionality. Independently cooled and powered, ATI XGP Technology offers the potential for higher performance than traditional entry-level graphics solutions. Notebook users can take advantage of the varied usage scenarios including multiple monitor support, high performance gaming, Blu-ray video playback, and increased graphics performance for video editing3.

“ATI XGP Technology is cutting edge and we’re excited to participate in this revolutionary solution for notebooks,” said Mark Saubert, marketing manager, Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited. “ATI XGP Technology redefines what mobile graphics is all about.”
The initial offering of ATI XGP Technology features the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series graphics solution giving notebook users a variety of additional functionality:

* PCI Express® 2.0 offers more than enough horsepower for the most demanding professional graphics applications by boosting 3D graphics performance while providing fast throughput resulting in an excellent overall system performance
* ATI Avivo™ HD Technology that delivers smooth video playback and photos in high-definition format with brilliant colors and sharp images
* ATI Avivo HD technology features an enhanced version of AMD’s Unified Video Decoder (UVD) offering full hardware acceleration of video decode for smooth playback of full 1080p content from Blu-ray movies4
* Integrated Digital Outputs enable viewing standard and high-definition content on a variety of devices including HDMI with integrated audio and DVI5

For more information about ATI XGP Technology, please visit: http://ati.amd.com/technology/xgp/index.html

[AMD, AMD]

AMD's Puma Platform Officially Pounces, But Can It Pwn?

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:15:43 EDT

Today AMD officialized its Puma notebook platform—AMD Turion X2 Ultra dual-core mobile processors with ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics—"for superior 3D performance and HD image quality, with industry-leading wireless for greater throughput and range." As we've noted in the past, it's a consumer-grade laptop play, and performance-wise it's aimed a bit lower than the upcoming but delayed Centrino 2 from Intel. But it's here and backed by Acer, Asus, Clevo, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, MSI, NEC and Toshiba. Odds are it will be an option on your next PC buying mission. Want to know more? Take a gander at the long-winded press release below.

AMD Delivers the Ultimate HD Visual Performance on the Go with Next-Generation Notebook Platform

Balanced Notebook Platform Achieves Superior 3D Performance and HD-Image Quality with Increased Energy Efficiency
TAIPEI, Taiwan —(Business Wire)— Jun. 4, 2008 AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the availability of its next-generation notebook platform, delivering the ultimate HD visual performance and increased energy efficiency on the go. The platform features new AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processors with ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3000 Series Graphics for superior 3D performance and HD image quality, with industry-leading wireless for greater throughput and range. AMD customers overwhelmingly embrace the new platform, as evidenced by more than double the number of design wins compared to the last major AMD Turion processor introduction. These new notebook designs come from leading OEMs including Acer, Asus, Clevo, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, MSI, NEC and Toshiba.

This next-generation AMD notebook platform also serves as the foundation for new AMD Business Class, AMD GAME! and AMD LIVE!(TM) notebook solutions.

"AMD is uniquely positioned to deliver balanced platform solutions that tightly couple computing and graphics capabilities for a visually rich user experience," said Dirk Meyer, president and COO, AMD. "Our next-generation AMD notebook platform contains a host of interrelated innovations that together deliver enhanced business productivity and the ultimate in HD visual performance on the go."

Capitalizing on a Historic Market Shift

Consumers are now using their notebooks for more than just productivity, but also entertainment, such as enjoying and manipulating photos, watching videos and listening to music. Likewise, businesses are adopting Microsoft(R) Windows Vista(R) as well as applications that are more graphically intensive. Therefore, a notebook with robust graphics and video capabilities is essential to unlock the best possible experience.

"With the advent of Microsoft Windows Vista, its new graphics and multimedia features, as well as the applications that will be tailored to this operating system, discrete graphics have become a much more important part of the purchase decision," said Bob O'Donnell, Program Vice President, IDC. "With the transition from desktops to laptops, consumers and business professionals are not only seeking the portability and connectivity provided by notebook PCs, they are also unwilling to compromise on the features and performance needed to drive the latest generation operating systems and applications. This next generation of notebooks must deliver the graphics and video capabilities to address this requirement."

Superior technologies working together

As a part of the new platform, AMD today also announced a new notebook processor and chipset, which together deliver the ultimate in HD visual performance on the go. The AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile processor includes top enhancements including AMD Independent Dynamic Core Technology, a new mobile-optimized memory controller, and power-optimized HyperTransport(TM) 3.0. The new mobile AMD 7-series chipset, AMD M780G and AMD SB700, features integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics and delivers support for Microsoft DirectX(R) 10. The integrated graphics deliver up to three times the 3D graphics performance of comparable competitor graphics and offer ATI Avivo(TM) HD Technology for smooth video playback in hi-def format.

Complementing the video capabilities to deliver a rich visual experience, the platform also offers the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series discrete graphics, including the previously announced ATI Mobility Radeon 3400 and 3600 Series, and the new ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) 3800 Series, also introduced today. The 3800 Series delivers the highest levels of graphics performance in the ATI Mobility Radeon HD family, with support for PCI Express(R) 2.0, the only graphics processor with DirectX 10.1, integrated digital output support for HDMI, DVI and Display Port, and multi-monitor functionality with native support for up to 4 monitors for mainstream notebooks. When using notebooks with both integrated and discrete graphics, users can also benefit from ATI CrossFireX(TM) Technology, a feature of ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology designed to boost graphics performance up to 70 percent by running the integrated and discrete graphics together.

"Windows Vista enhances the overall performance and productivity of the personal computer, offers rich visual experiences and makes the digital lifestyle easier, safer, more entertaining and better connected than ever before," said Steven Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft. "The next-generation AMD notebook platform provides optimized technologies that will provide an even richer visual experience for customers running Windows Vista and other graphically demanding applications."

Cutting-edge wireless connectivity, enhanced power efficiency

The next-generation AMD notebook platform also incorporates the latest in wireless connectivity technologies like 802.11 draft n and 3G from leading Better by Design technology partners including Atheros, Broadcom, and Ralink. These technologies provide superior range, faster data transfer and allow users to stay connected on the go.

"AMD and Broadcom are technology partners in the Better by Design program and share a common goal of helping our mutual customers create innovative, high-performance notebooks that deliver exceptional user experiences," said Thomas Lagatta, senior vice president, Global Sales, Broadcom Corporation. "The combination of our industry-leading Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and network interface controller solutions and the next-generation AMD Turion X2 Ultra Mobile Processor platform provides notebook users with a variety of ways to stay connected to the people and information that matter to them."

The next-generation AMD notebook platform also incorporates innovative power management technologies, including AMD Enhanced PowerNow!(TM) Technology and ATI PowerXpress(TM) Technology to maximize the efficient use of power for extended battery life. AMD Enhanced PowerNow! Technology provides independent and dynamic control of core performance, and the ability to shut off areas of core logic when not in use to preserve power. ATI PowerXpress Technology, in turn, provides the high performance of discrete graphics when plugged into a power source and dynamically switches to integrated graphics when unplugged, saving up to 90 minutes of battery life.

"We offer a wide range of price and performance options on our HP Pavilion notebook computers, while at the same time featuring multiple system configurations for users to choose from in order to meet their needs," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, consumer notebooks, PSG. "HP welcomes the introduction of the AMD Turion X2 Ultra processor-based platform as it will add even greater visual performance, multimedia and power-efficient choices for customers."

Security and manageability features for SMBs

Business users increasingly are recognizing the need to support today's graphics-rich applications and operating systems in a more mobile business world. Small- and medium-sized businesses also recognize the ability of notebook PCs to increase productivity, and require improved security to prevent data loss. With designs that enable industry-standard security and manageability such as Trusted Platform Module and Enhanced Virus Protection(TM)(a), small- and medium-sized businesses will find the next-generation AMD notebook platform helps meet their needs.

AMD Next-Generation Notebook Platform Availability

Systems based on the next-generation AMD notebook platform and the AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor and ATI Radeon HD graphics, are now available from OEM customers.

The AMD next-generation notebook platform press kit offers additional information and collateral material pertaining to this launch.

AMD at Computex

Click here to see more about AMD activities at Computex, including a live broadcast of the press conference, short videos from the show floor, a daily blog, photos and more.

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

(a) As part of a comprehensive security program, AMD strongly recommends enabling Enhanced Virus Protection (EVP) and using up to date third party anti-virus software.

(C)2008. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Turion, and combinations thereof, AMD Enhanced PowerNow!, AMD Live!, Enhanced Virus Protection, ATI Radeon, ATI CrossFireX, ATI PowerExpress, ATI Avivo, ATI Mobility Radeon, ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Microsoft, Windows, DirectX and Vista are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other jurisdictions. HyperTransport is a licensed mark of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. PCI Express is a trademark of the PCI-Sig. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

AMD is pleased to have support from leading OEM customers and wireless partners for the next-generation AMD notebook platform.

"Dedicated to delivering cutting-edge notebook designs, Acer strives to offer solutions that afford exceptional experiences for all customers," said Campbell Kan, executive vice president of Notebooks WW Acer Corporation. "Consumers today want the latest in multimedia and HD entertainment, while our business users need stable, powerful systems that help them to get the job done at work or on the road. With the next-generation AMD notebook platform with AMD Turion X2 Ultra processors, Acer can offer customers the latest notebook innovations, and we plan to roll out a number of new systems across Acer Aspire and TravelMate product lines."

"ASUS is always committed to bringing customers the most advanced technologies, and we are excited to be among the first to offer systems based on the next-generation AMD notebook platform," said Henry Yeh, General Manager Notebook BU-R&D Div.2, ASUS. "The platform's improved notebook performance, dynamic power coordination and new levels of graphics processing will enable us to deliver products that provide increased business efficiency, as well as enhanced video and multimedia experiences."

"Exceptional wireless performance is a must for consumers and professionals who want anywhere, anytime access to the Web and advanced applications, and a great user experience," said Ben Naskar, vice president and General Manager of Wireless Networking Business Unit, Atheros. "Our single-chip XSPAN Wi-Fi solutions and the next-generation AMD notebook platform with AMD Turion X2 Ultra processors are optimized for 802.11n performance and power-efficiency. As a result, users will benefit from a most satisfying mobile computing experience with significantly extended battery life."

"As a leading notebook manufacturer for 25 years, Clevo strives to flexibly and efficiently meet our notebook customers' individual needs, while offering the latest technologies and superior value," said Donovan Yeh, vice president of Strategic Marketing Center, Clevo. "With the unparalleled flexibility of the next-generation AMD notebook platform featuring AMD Turion X2 Ultra Mobile Processors, Clevo can deliver the 'on the go' application performance, power-efficiency and rich visual experience our customers demand."

"Fujitsu looks forward to working with AMD and plans to incorporate the next-generation AMD notebook platform into the next-generation Fujitsu products," said Akira Nagahara, general manager, Personal Computing Division, Personal Systems Business Unit, Fujitsu Limited. "The products will provide the improved graphics capabilities, fast wireless connectivity and long battery life of the next-generation AMD notebook platform, and this collaboration will allow Fujitsu to continue to offer PCs that exceed the demands of today's consumers."

"At Fujitsu Siemens Corporation, we are increasing our focus on technological innovation giving our customers real useful benefits with the introduction of our AMILO 3000 series of products. One of the areas that needed a better solution was the increased demand for multimedia and gaming capability in notebooks without sacrificing battery life," said Bjorn Fehrm, head of Strategy and Innovation Consumer EMEA, Fujitsu Siemens Corporation. "Our technological cooperation with AMD has produced really new and exciting solutions to this problem."

"To meet the rigorous multimedia demands and expectations of today's on the go consumers, MSI continually strives to offer a wide variety of notebooks that best meet our customers' specific needs, whether they are casual gamers, video fanatics or music lovers," said Larry Wu, Global Sales VP, MSI. "MSI plans to expand the Gaming (GT730, GX730), Entertainment (EX310) and Professional (PX210, PR211) Series of notebooks with the AMD Turion X2 Ultra Platform, affording exceptional flexibility to design and deliver systems that keep pace with our customers' needs and desires."

"We believe the next-generation AMD notebook platform is the most suitable platform for the multimedia environment of the next-generation PCs, particularly with its high performance on HD content playback capability," Sakae Takatsuka, senior vice president, NEC Personal Products, Ltd. "By fully utilizing this technology, we are planning to create user-friendly products by offering many more PC usage options. With the close collaboration with AMD, NEC is dedicated to the continuous technological innovation and the growth and enrichment of the PC market which will expand the boundaries of the benefits and excitement for our customers."

"AMD and Ralink continue to deliver superior technologies to OEMs, enabling a better notebook PC experience for users around the world," said Kenny Chiu, Vice President of World Wide Business Development, Ralink. "Ralink, a member of the Better by Design program, delivers wireless LAN solutions that enable large data transfers and the consistent reliability required by today's HD entertainment applications. Next-generation AMD notebooks featuring our RT2800 and RT2700 chipsets on the next-generation AMD notebook platform deliver faster wireless data transfers and HD image quality to improve visual performance from on the go."

"As one of the world's largest laptop manufacturers, Toshiba is always looking to stay ahead of consumer mobile computing needs and desires while delivering stable, affordable and high-performance systems for business users," said Mr. Hidejiro Shimomitsu, president and CEO of Toshiba's Personal Computer & Network Company. "With the addition of AMD's next-generation platform to our Satellite line-up, we continue to deliver innovative, powerful and power-efficient mobility to end users."

Photoshop CS 4 Will Use Your Graphics Card to Run at Light Speed, Do Fancy 3D Tricks

matt buchanan — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:30:00 EDT

The next version of Photoshop (CS 4) will be juicing up performance by taking advantage of hardware it hasn't tapped before: graphics cards and physics processors. How much faster is the new 64-bit, GPU-injected Photoshop? At a demo at Nvidia's HQ, TG Daily watched "the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly." Update: John Nack from Adobe is calling bogus on some of TGDaily's info, namely the Oct. release date and says the demoed tech is not "promised to go into any particular version of Photoshop." So take it for what you will.

3D effects are spiffier too, with direct 3D model manipulation and rendering, as well as a snappier 3D accelerated panorama. Overall, it sounds like it could be the most important Photoshop update in years when it drops in October. [TGDaily]

A Simple Graph Chooses Your Next Video Card

Mark Wilson — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:40:00 EDT

The Tech Report has assembled a very straightforward bang-for-your-buck video card graph. Plotting performance on Crysis' high quality setting, you can see the simple facts laid out very clearly—like that the GeForce 9600 GT is probably worth its $5 pricetag over the Radeon HD 3850. These metrics always vary by game, and Crysis' highest settings don't demonstrate these cards at their best (the top performer can't even break 40 frames per second). But it's a quick tool to tip the scales on your next purchase. [Tech Report]

Toshiba Satellite Laptops: New Fusion Look, Charge-Anytime USB Ports, Cheaper Prices

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:20:00 EDT

Mr. T's favorite laptop maker rolled out slick, useful and budget-minded updates to its Satellite line today. First up, the 13.3" U400, 14.1" M300, 15.4" A300 and 17" P300 have a new look called "Fusion," a shiny finish with pinstripes and smoothed edges, not unlike that sucka HP's successful smooth-n-shiny-n-pinstripey look. The eight shots in the gallery make the design look a bit greenish, so we'll have to wait to pass final judgment. It's one thing to look nice on the outside, but like T, these have a lot going on on the inside, too...

The laptops will all have "Feather-Touch" multimedia touch-sensitive keys and a webcam with facial-recognition security login, presumably more for fun than true security. They will all also have Sleep-and-Charge USB ports, which will charge stuff even when the laptop is asleep or powered down, provided the laptop is plugged into a wall socket.

At the same time, Toshiba introduced two totally new laptops, the A200, with a starting price of $600 including 15.4" widescreen, DVD SuperMulti drive 160GB drive, 1GB of RAM and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core processor. The company also introduced the 17" L350 with built-in webcam, ATI Radeon X1250 graphics and DVD SuperMulti drive for $750. [Toshiba releases: Redesigned laptops; Cheap laptops]

NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 Reviewed (Verdict: Pwns Radeon HD 3870 X2, But...)

matt buchanan — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:10:18 EDT

Nvidia's headlining GeForce 9 series card, the monstrous 9800 GX2, officially launched today. It pulls an old trick out of Nvidia's hat—melding two GPUs onto a single board—so you can actually go quad-SLI for a mere $1200. It completely crushes ATI's top-of-the-line dual-GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2. But is two times the GPU necessarily two times the awesome?

It's running the same GPU series as the 9600 GT, 8800 GT and 8800 GTS 512MB (not be confused w/ the regular 8800 GTS). Actually when you look closely at the number of shader and stream processors and their clock speeds, it turns out the 9800 GX2 is basically two slightly underclocked 8800 GTS 512MB GPUs strapped together, and this plays out in the virtually indistinguishable benchmarks too.

Here's the rub: The 9800 GX2 is over 600 smackers. You can run two 8800 GT cards in SLI at $200 a pop and get almost the exact same performance for $200 less. So the real conclusion is that the 8800 GT is still the best card out there for the money. [Hard OCP]

Dell's "Affordable" XPS 630 Gaming System Starts at $1249, But Will Probably Cost You More

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:46:04 EST

Dell wanted to bring its gaming platform down from the $2000 and up arena, and into something average gamers can go and buy, so it's rolling out the previously teased XPS 630.

For build-to-order you start at $1249 and a pre-fab $1299 edition comes with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB graphics cards with SLI technology. But the expansion possibilities in the standard ATX chassis include overclockable Corsair Dominator memory and Intel Extreme processors, up to three factory installed HDDs (with a fourth bay for your own tinkering) and an optional AGEIA PhysX accelerator.

In other words, reading the fine print, it sounds like no one is going to be satisfied with the base config—even though it will come with pretty LED lighting zones that synchronize with game play. [Dell]

HTC Says Software Fix is Coming For Lousy Video Drivers

Jason Chen — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:50:06 EST

Users have been complaining about HTC's undercooked video drivers for the TyTN II, the touch and the Mogul for a while—only to get various reassurances that everything is OK in response—but HTC's finally released a statement saying that a fix is coming. They say that the video acceleration will be supported in the future, and will be included in software upgrades for current devices. No date yet, but hit the jump to see things in their words.

Some of our top engineers have investigated video performance on our devices and have discovered a fix that they claim will dramatically improve performance for common on-screen tasks like scrolling and the like. Their fix would help most of our recent touch-screen products including the Touch family of devices and TYTN II / Tilt, Mogul / XV6900. The update is in testing and we hope to release it soon. However this fix is not a new video driver to utilize hardware acceleration; it is a software optimization. Video drivers are a much more complicated issue that involves companies and engineers beyond HTC alone. We do not want to lead anyone to believe they should expect these. To explain why we are not releasing video acceleration instead of the optimization I offer you our official statement... "HTC DOES plan to offer software upgrades that will increase feature functionality, over the air wireless speeds and other enhancements for some of the phones being criticized, but we do not anticipate including any additional support for the video acceleration issues cited in customer complaints. It is important for customers to understand that bringing this functionality to market is not a trivial driver update and requires extensive software development and time. HTC will utilize hardware video acceleration like the ATI Imageon in many upcoming products. Our users have made it clear that they expect our products to offer an improved visual experience, and we have included this feedback into planning and development of future products. To address lingering questions about HTC's current MSM 7xxx devices, it is important to establish that a chipset like an MSM7xxx is a platform with a vast multitude of features that enable a wide range of devices with varied functionality. It is common that devices built on platforms like Qualcomm's will not enable every feature or function. In addition to making sure the required hardware is present, unlocking extended capabilities of chipsets like the MSM 7xxx requires in-depth and time consuming software development, complicated licensing negotiations, potential intellectual property negotiations, added licensing fees, and in the case of devices that are sold through operators, the desire of the operator to include the additional functionality. To make an informed decision about which handset suits them best, consumers should look at the product specification itself instead of using the underlying chipset specifications to define what the product could potentially become."

[Phone Mag]

ATI Breaks Teraflop Barrier with Radeon HD 3870 X2 GPU

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:07:26 EST

Remember that honkin' ATI graphics card we showed you at CES? The one that was 1,000 times as fast as a Cray-1? Well, it's official, making its debut today as the $450 ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. It's the first GPU to break the teraflop barrier, and is nearly double the performance of the HD 3870 you spent all your money on back in November. Press release with technical details after jump. [Product Page]

AMD Delivers Enthusiast Performance Leadership(1) with the Introduction of the ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3870 X2
— Industry's First Teraflop Consumer Graphics Card Redefines High-Definition Performance for 1080P Gaming and beyond —
SUNNYVALE, Calif. —(Business Wire)— Jan. 28, 2008 AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced the immediate availability of the ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3870 X2 graphics processor, expanding the visual boundaries of PC entertainment well beyond the 1080P High Definition (HD) threshold. The industry's first graphics processor to break the Teraflop (one trillion floating point operations per second) barrier, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 nearly doubles the performance of the award-winning ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3870 introduced in November 2007.(2)

Through an elegant yet aggressive design, the 55 nanometer process-based ATI Radeon 3870 X2 combines two ATI Radeon HD 3870s on a single graphics board, connected through integrated CrossFire(TM) technology. ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is also the first performance-leadership graphics product in the world to support Microsoft's upcoming DirectX(R) 10.1 technology. The ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers a new class of price and performance leadership with unbelievable enthusiast value at a suggested retail price of US $449.

This launch follows on the success of the recently released ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3400 and ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3600 series graphics products, completing a comprehensive portfolio of next-generation 55nm GPUs that deliver unparalleled price, performance and energy efficiency from entry-level to performance-leadership class products.

"PC gaming enthusiasts demand the ultimate in performance and scalability for their HD gaming experience and the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 sets the standard by which all should be compared in this segment," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Product Group, AMD. "With this launch we reaffirm our commitment to enthusiast performance leadership and send a clear message that the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is the new gold standard of the PC gaming world."

Ultimate Performance

With the upcoming introduction of Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 specification, gamers can expect more realistic gaming environments while developers have access to an increased amount of tools and resources to enhance overall image quality. Through delivering top-to-bottom DirectX 10.1 support, ATI Radeon HD 3000 series users can enjoy a more complete gaming experience now and in the future.

"We're pleased to see our newest DirectX 10 technology brought to market so soon with the introduction of AMD's latest enthusiast hardware," said Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Games for Windows, Microsoft. "One of the greatest advantages of PC gaming is the rapid pace at which the experiences evolve and improve. ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 delivers on the promise of DirectX 10 gaming with significantly improved visuals and enhanced performance."

ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 will also provide support for ATI CrossFireX(TM), the innovative next-generation AMD multi-GPU technology designed to support up to four GPUs. Software support to enable ATI CrossFireX is planned for late Q1 2008.

Ultimate HD Experiences

With the launch of ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, AMD continues to support the industry-leading Unified Video Decoder (UVD) and ATI Avivo(TM) HD for exceptional platform efficiency and image quality for H.264 and VC-1 high definition content. Enhanced HDMI functionality is also offered via integrated HDCP and audio for HDMI video.

"Alienware prides itself on staying at the forefront of HD gaming innovation so that our brand stands for the best possible experience for our customers," said Patrick Cooper, director of product group, Alienware. "With the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 in our Area-51 ALX CrossFire platform, we can push the boundaries of visual realism one step further and provide enthusiast gamers with the perfect blend of next-generation features, performance and platform efficiency."

Ultimate Efficiency

The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 is the first enthusiast graphics processors to use TSMC's 55nm process technology. The smooth transition to 55nm has allowed for a 2X increase in performance-per-watt over the previous generation. Through an elegant board design, the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers exceptional acoustics that are roughly equivalent to a single ATI Radeon HD 3870. When combined with ATI PowerPlay(TM) technology, the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers exceptional idle power efficiency with the ability to dynamically raise or lower GPU power depending on the usage scenario.

The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 launches with broad availability and ecosystem support from AMD's Add-in-Board (AIB) and Systems Integrators (SI) partners. AIB partners building boards based on the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 include Asus, ASK, Club3D, Diamond Multimedia, HIS, ITC, Jetway, MSI, Sapphire, Triplex, Tul and Visiontek. Systems integrators launching ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 series include ABS, Alienware, Canada Computers, CyberPower, Falcon-Northwest, iBUYPOWER, Maingear, Systemax and Velocity Micro.

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

(1) Performance comparisons using ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 versus NVIDIA 8800 Ultra using 3D Mark 2006, Supreme Commander, Call of Juarez, BioShock and Unreal Tournament 3 at 2560X1600 on AMD Phenom 2.6GHz CPU, AMD 790FX chipset, 2GB DDR2-800, Windows VISTA 64bit and ATI Catalyst display driver v. 8.45

(2) Performance comparisons of ATI Radeon HD 3870 versus ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 using 3D Mark 2006, Supreme Commander and Unreal Tournament 3 at 2560X1600 on AMD Phenom 2.6GHz CPU, AMD 790FX chipset, 2GB DDR2-800, Windows VISTA 64bit and ATI Catalyst display driver v. 8.45

AMD's Strategy for Bringing HD to the Masses

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:52:10 EST

We just met with AMD's CTO Phil Hester, and he clued us in on a few cool high-def processing tricks that the company will pull this year:

• The Puma mobile chipset, due out in Q2 of this year, is able to play the Transformers HD DVD (intense MPEG-4 AVC) and still have 40% to 60% of the processor left over. Normal laptops today use almost 100% of their processors on Transformers, and still drop tons of frames.

• Hybrid Crossfire will enable a cheap-o PC with integrated graphics to deliver a 1.7x speed bump when combined with a cheap-o discrete graphics card.

• A beta plug-in for Adobe Premiere is coming soon which will allow you to offload video encoding to the GPU, delivering a massive speed increase of 6x to 10x. Basically, you'll be able to encode in half the time it takes to play back, without paying a ton for the processor. [AMD]

ATI R680 Graphics Card Is 1000X Faster Than a Cray-1 Supercomputer

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:48:27 EST

We just got a nice look at the R680, the upcoming enthusiast graphics card from ATI that is, apparently, as fast as 1000 Cray-1s. We're not allowed to say exactly how fast that is, but maybe you want to hazard a guess. The details are all hush-hush but assume that what people have already written is more or less true, and this bad boy will be hitting store shelves pretty soon. Here are two more pictures for your ~~jealousy~~ enjoyment:

[ATI @ AMD]

ATI Has Triplets Thanks to AMD's New 55nm Processors

Haroon Malik — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:50:00 EST

AMD has just announced they shall be releasing three new graphics processors. ATI's R680 is the new model grabbing all the attention, thanks to its dual 55nm processor core. AMD were clear in stating the 55nm processors have identical specifications to those used in an earlier model, but the older RV670 GPU contained only one 55nm Phenom processor. The R680 will bring twice the fun with its dual core goodness and CrossFireX support.

AMD are also set to revise two existing models, the RV610 and RV630, which will both be treated to new 55nm processors, but shall remain otherwise identical. We know that Phenom cores have had a tough time courting favor with the experts, and though the new AMD triplet seem great on paper, we'll reserve judgment till they are unwrapped and put to the test. The products will all hit next month. Happy New Year, gamers. [Daily Tech]

ATI RV635 XT in the Wild - First DisplayPort-Capable Card

dango — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:58:41 EST

Hot Hardware has snagged one of the first graphics cards launched with full DisplayPort support. Before you write off DisplayPort as just another adapter to buy, consider its support for daisy-chaining: multi-head setups can be rigged up easily with the need for only one port on your box. Watch for the RX635 (along with the first DisplayPort LCDs) to hit first quarter '08. [via Hot Hardware]

Mac TV Wonder 650 Clear QAM Support Arriving End of the Month

Matt Buchanan — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:00:57 EST

Word from ATI on the initial lack of Clear QAM support—for picking up unencrypted digital cable channels—in the Mac version of the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB TV tuner we showed you: The team was focused on getting it out the door, so it'll "be available via a software update within ATI tvPORTAL itself to help ease the update process for the user" by the end of the month. [ATI]

ATI TV Wonder 650 TV Tuner Finally Debuts for Macs

Matt Buchanan — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:10:49 EST

ATI's TV Wonder 650 TV tuners have been out for PCs for a bit, but a Mac version of the Combo USB variety's arriving just this month for $149, and it comes in a special white case—guess they didn't get the memo silver's the new white. It's also sporting a polished new interface and parental controls in tvPortal, though spec-wise it appears to be the same as before (OTA Analog and HD) minus, weirdly, ClearQAM support, making it a pretty decent solution for a Mac mini HD PVR setup. This way for more photos.

[TV Wonder 650 for Mac]

Are New iMacs Running Too Hot?

Mark Wilson — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:16:58 EST

It's been a while since Apple originally acknowledged freezing with their new aluminum iMacs. But since then, many users are still having problems. AppleInsider has started to wonder if the problem is not a software error, but a hardware issue caused by overheating.

One specific symptom that some users have experienced is a series of graphical glitches before their computer freezes up. Such glitches are the same you'd see in an overclocked video card that's running too hot. And apparently upgrading to Leopard often exacerbates the problem, at least according to one Apple thread—which makes sense, since Leopard takes advantage of video chipset processing throughout normal OS functions, adding fuel to the not quite literal fire. Anyone out there having problems? [appleforum via appleinsider]

Despite record sales and boosted revenues ...

Matt Buchanan — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:23:32 EDT

Despite record sales and boosted revenues compared with last quarter, thanks to the debt-loaded ATI acquisition and the bloody price war with Intel, AMD's finishing Q3 $396 million in the red. [Ars]

Rumor: XBox 360 "Jasper" Motherboard Set For 8/08 Release

Sean Fallon — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:50:37 EDT

According to Dean Takahashi of the Mercury News, Microsoft is developing a new motherboard codenamed "Jasper." The upgrade promises to shrink the ATI graphics chip to 65nm and reduce the size of the memory chips as well. If true, this could reduce build costs and the heat problems that have plagued the 360. Although Takahashi notes that Microsoft believes they already have the heat situation under control. The upgrade is expected in August of '08. [Kotaku]

ATI Graphics May Be at the Root of iMac Freezing Issues

Sean Fallon — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:00:04 EDT

Apple's new iMac has been plagued by random—but reproducible for some—freezing issues, and it appears that the ATI Radeon HD graphics card and its drivers could be to blame. According to users participating in official Apple support discussions (here and here), the iMac continues to run during the freeze, but users are unable to control the programs with mouse clicks or keyboard commands without rebooting. Apple is apparently aware of the issue, but at this point, no official fix has been released. Some users have even reported that the latest round of video driver updates have made the problem worse, although there is no evidence to suggest that the problem is widespread. [Appleinsider and Tech.co.uk]

It's rumored that Apple is underclocking ...

Adrian Covert — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:08:02 EDT

It's rumored that Apple is underclocking the graphics cards in the new batch of iMacs. [TUAW]

ATI's recalling a batch of Radeon HD 2400 ...

Jason Chen — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:45:11 EDT

ATI's recalling a batch of Radeon HD 2400 and HD 2600 cards with a bug in the BIOS application process. If you've got one, return it. [Digitimes via Slashgear]

AMD Quad Core Phenom Gaming System in the Flesh (and Blood)

Wilson Rothman — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:00:00 EDT

We just got the chance to play around with AMD's newest quad core system, the Phenom RD790 and a pair of ATI HD2900XT graphics processors. There's a whole lot of cooling going on, thanks to John Woo's new game Stranglehold. AMD is still mum on pricing and final specs, though they did reaffirm their desire to ship this sucker in "early Q4" of this year, so like October? The system managed the Havoc physics engine with ease, jumping into sepia-toned "tequila" time and into a zoom mode that gave a bullet's eye view of the action. Lack of specs notwithstanding, the experience was mesmerizing, right up to the point where one of the bad guys in the game took a bullet in the nuts, and I actually felt his pain. Wanna see?

ATI's Mid-tier Cards Bring HDMI and 1080p Support

Louis Ramirez — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:00:34 EDT

ATI's new Radeon HD 2400 and HD 2600 cards are hitting the streets today, bringing DirectX 10 and 1080p support to your desktop. The cards, which are clocked from 525MHz to 800MHz, range in price from $99 to $199. They also pack ATI's Unified Video Decoder, which helps decode high-def 1080p video. The cards are out now and will soon be available on pre-configured systems. Price-wise, they're not a bad way to give your system's graphics a kick. – Louis Ramirez

AMD Ships Radeon HD 2400, 2600 Cards [Electronista]

Sapphire's HD 2900 Toxic Kit Cools Your Entire System

Louis Ramirez — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:10:50 EDT

Now that ATI has unleashed its new video cards, Sapphire is stepping up to the plate with its forthcoming HD 2900 XT Toxic. The kit pairs two HD 2900 XT cards with a drive-bay-mounted water cooling system designed with its own reservoir, pump and radiator system. What's cool about the system is that it'll provide enough cooling to keep your video cards and your CPU from overheating (even if you decide to overclock the cards). Pricing hasn't been set yet, though the kit should be out in the next few weeks. – Louis Ramirez

Press Release [via IGN]

ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series Launched, from $99 to $399

Addy Dugdale — Mon, 14 May 2007 09:02:02 EDT

As expected, the ATI Radeon 2000 series have been launched, starting at less than $99 for the 2400 series, $99 to $199 for the 2600 series and $399 for the ATI Radeon 2900 XT. The new cards come with 65-nm GPU, 512-bit memory bus, second generation Unified Shader Architecture, new Unified Video Decoder for HD multimedia playback and obligatory DirectX 10 support.

Also as expected, none of the models come with the belly dancers that were at the AMD press event in Tunis. Too bad, because maybe that would have distracted us from the fact that the latest Radeon cards seem to get spanked by their NVIDIA counterparts, which apparently offer higher performance and lower consumption while compared to sample cards provided by ATI. In any case, you will find the belly dancer after the jump, along with complete official specs for the 2900 XT.

Belly dancers presenting the ATI Radeon 2000 Series in Tunis, for some reason. – Jesus Diaz

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
Features & Specifications

700 million transistors on 80nm HS fabrication process
512-bit 8-channel GDDR3/4 memory interface
Ring Bus Memory Controller
Fully distributed design with 1024-bit internal ring bus for memory reads and writes
Optimized for high performance HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering at high display resolutions
Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
320 stream processing units
Dynamic load balancing and resource allocation for vertex, geometry, and pixel shaders
Common instruction set and texture unit access supported for all types of shaders
Dedicated branch execution units and texture address processors

128-bit floating point precision for all operations
Command processor for reduced CPU overhead
Shader instruction and constant caches
Up to 80 texture fetches per clock cycle
Up to 128 textures per pixel
Fully associative multi-level texture cache design
DXTC and 3Dc+ texture compression
High resolution texture support (up to 8192 x 8192)
Fully associative texture Z/stencil cache designs
Double-sided hierarchical Z/stencil buffer
Early Z test, Re-Z, Z Range optimization, and Fast Z Clear
Lossless Z & stencil compression (up to 128:1)
Lossless color compression (up to 8:1)
8 render targets (MRTs) with anti-aliasing support
Physics processing support
Full support for Microsoft DirectX 10.0
Shader Model 4.0
Geometry Shaders
Stream Output
Integer and Bitwise Operations
Alpha to Coverage
Constant Buffers
State Objects
Texture Arrays
Dynamic Geometry Acceleration
High performance vertex cache
Programmable tessellation unit
Accelerated geometry shader path for geometry amplification
Memory read/write cache for improved stream output performance
Anti-aliasing features
Multi-sample anti-aliasing (up to 8 samples per pixel)
Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality
Adaptive super-sampling and multi-sampling
Temporal anti-aliasing
Gamma correct
Super AA (CrossFire configurations only)
All anti-aliasing features compatible with HDR rendering
CrossFire Multi-GPU Technology
Scale up rendering performance and image quality with 2 or more GPUs
Integrated compositing engine
High performance dual channel interconnect
Texture filtering features
2x/4x/8x/16x high quality adaptive anisotropic filtering modes (up to 128 taps per pixel)
128-bit floating point HDR texture filtering
Bicubic filtering
sRGB filtering (gamma/degamma)
Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF)
Depth & stencil texture (DST) format support
Shared exponent HDR (RGBE 9:9:9:5) texture format support
ATI Avivo HD Video and Display Platform
Two independent display controllers
Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls and video overlays for each display
Full 30-bit display processing
Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction, color correction, and color space conversion
Spatial/temporal dithering provides 30-bit color quality on 24-bit and 18-bit displays
High quality pre- and post-scaling engines, with underscan support for all display outputs
Content-adaptive de-flicker filtering for interlaced displays
Fast, glitch-free mode switching
Hardware cursor

Two integrated dual-link DVI display outputs
Each supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)
Each includes a dual-link HDCP encoder with on-chip key storage for high resolution playback of protected content

Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs
Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all resolutions up to 2048x1536

HDMI output support
Supports all display resolutions up to 1920x1080
Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support, enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution

Integrated Xilleon HDTV encoder
Provides high quality analog TV output (component / S-video / composite)
Supports SDTV and HDTV resolutions
Underscan and overscan compensation

HD decode for H.264/AVC, VC-1, DivX and MPEG-2 video formats
Flawless DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-Ray playback
Motion compensation and IDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transformation)

HD video processing
Advanced vector adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing
De-blocking and noise reduction filtering
Edge enhancement
Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
Bad edit correction
High fidelity gamma correction, color correction, color space conversion, and scaling
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time
VGA mode support on all display outputs
PCI Express x16 bus interface
OpenGL 2.0 support

Product page [AMD]
AMD unveils ATI Radeon HD 2000 [The Register]

ATI 2900 XTX Falls at the Hands of GeForce 8800 GTX

Louis Ramirez — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:20:16 EDT

Yesterday we saw ATI's Radeon 2900 XT duke it out against the GeForce 8800 GTS (verdict: ATI stomped Nvidia). Today, however, the tables have turned as the GeForce 8800 GTX spanks the Radeon HD 2900 XTX (ATI's mac-daddy of video cards) back into submission. The gang at DailyTech put the two powerhouse cards up against each other, and surprisingly ATI lost by a decent margin on each test.

The 2900 XTX has the same core as the 2900 XT. The difference is in the memory: The XTX comes with GDDR4 memory. To be fair, the test results aren't a true indication of the XTX's final performance (considering it was a sample card), so hopefully the boys in red won't disappoint when the real deal comes through. – Louis Ramirez

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XTX, Doomed from the Start [DailyTech]

ATI Leaks More R600 Details

Louis Ramirez — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:45:42 EDT

AMD has been teasing us with glimpses of ATI's next-gen DirectX 10 video cards, and the latest peek is the most tantalizing. The cards will all fall into the HD 2000-series umbrella (the HD stands for their Avivo HD technology).

At the top of the line is the Radeon HD 2900 XT with 320 stream processors (each one reducing dependence on the CPU), native CrossFire support (making it easier to pair two of these babies up), and integrated HDMI out with support for 5.1 surround sound. They will also support

128-bit HRD rendering and 16x anti-aliasing. The RV630-based cards will fall under the Radeon HD 2600 umbrella with Pro and XT versions and finally the budget RV610-based models will carry the Radeon HD 2400 name. There's no word on what kind of power consumption to expect from these cards, but hopefully we'll hear the official word from ATI soon. The cards are expected to roll out starting this month (which is around the same time we expect Nvidia's new 8800 Ultra card and their mid-tier cards as well). Let the war begin. – Louis Ramirez

Ed: There's no HDMI in either of these pics.

ATI Releases More R600 Details [DailyTech]