02/15, 12:30am
AMD unveils Radeon HD 7700 series
AMD took its Radeon HD 7000 series to the starter level quickly on Wednesday. The Radeon HD 7750 and 7750 GHz Edition step back in visual processor counts versus the 6700 line, from 720 and 800 cores to 512 and 640 respectively, but make up for it through more than a year's worth of technology. Both the new overall architecture and a shrink to a leaner 28 nanometer building process let the 7750 and 7770 climb to 800MHz and 1GHz core speeds (up from 700MHz and 850MHz).
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12/22, 12:30am
AMD Radeon HD 7970 retakes speed lead
AMD on Thursday retook the top spot for single-card graphics speed through the Radeon HD 7970. The video card is the first anywhere to use a 28 nanometer chipmaking process and uses this to pack 2,048 cores, or a third more than the Radeon HD 6970 it's replacing. Performance comes also through a newly widened 384-bit memory bus, PCI Express 3.0, and a full 3GB of GDDR5 memory, again a record for a single-chip card.
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12/03, 10:40pm
Intel Core 3000 series chip details show early
The desktop versions of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors have most of their details outlined in full through a roadmap discovered this week. The X-Bit Labs copy shows all the chips falling under the 3000 series in the same Core i3, i5, and i7 tiers, with four cores still the maximum for non-Extreme chips. Clock speeds would have a higher baseline, starting with a 2.7GHz Core i5 (3.2GHz after Turbo Boost) and peaking at a 3.5GHz Core i7 (3.9GHz).
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11/09, 11:20pm
Chip uses latest Midgard architecture
ARM has introduced a new graphics core, known as the Mali-T658, that promise to bring a significant leap in performance over its predecessor. The GPU is designed for mobile applications, working in conjunction with the company's Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors. The system is also compatible with a range of APIs such as OpenGL ES, OpenCL, OpenVG and DirectX 11.
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05/02, 9:20pm
Chip supports six displays, OpenCL
AMD has introduced a new graphics processor, the Radeon E6760, that is geared for embedded devices used by businesses. The component features OpenCL and DirectX 11 support, while enabling devices to distribute video output to six independent displays. Input can be processed through 480 shader processors and 1GB of GDDR5 memory.
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03/19, 6:30am
Direct X API’s a barrier to performance
AMD worldwide developer relations manager of graphics Richard Huddy has blamed Microsoft’s DirectX and its APIs for limiting the potential of GPUs in PCs. 'We often have at least ten times as much horsepower as an Xbox 360 or a PS3 in a high-end graphics card, yet it's very clear that the games don't look ten times as good. To a significant extent, that's because…DirectX is getting in the way.'
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10/19, 1:00pm
AMD shows off Llano processor in full bore test
AMD at its in-house Technical Forum late yesterday showed off a fully functioning example of its Llano Fusion processor (video below). The CPU and graphics hybrid was given a full workload and smoothly decoded 1080p Blu-ray video, calculated Pi to the 32 millionth decimal place and generated particle effects all while using the graphics and general-purpose GPU functions of the chip instead of raw CPU power. A check of the DirectCompute stats saw it running at about 30 gigaflops of combined speed, or multiple times what a regular processor would do.
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09/13, 8:15am
NVIDIA unveils GeForce GTS 450 entry video
NVIDIA this morning released its cheapest ever graphics chipset based on its current Fermi core. The GeForce GTS 450 scales back to 192 effects cores and a 128-bit memory bus but is expected to be on par or faster than its arch-rival, AMD's Radeon HD 5750. It's pitched as an alternative to integrated graphics as a partial GF106 core is both cheaper and much more energy efficient than a full GF106 core or earlier designs.
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06/02, 3:15pm
AMD Fusion CPU, GPU hybrid shown at Computex
AMD for the first time demonstrated its Fusion hybrid processor at Computex on Wednesday. The Fusion processor combines high-performance serial computing and parallel graphics processing cores onto a single die. This includes an x86 CPU, DirectX 11 graphics, a video processor and other components. Senior VP and GM of AMD Products Group Rick Bergman said there would be two versions of the Fusion, with the Llano meant for mainstream notebooks and desktops and the low-power Ontario for smaller notebooks, netbooks and other devices.
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05/31, 10:45am
ASUS teases new ROG computers, hardware
ASUS at the Computex show kicking off on Tuesday will reveal its new range of Republic of Gamers (ROG) products, including a desktop PC, notebooks, motherboard and graphics cards. Leading the group, the CG8490 desktop is powered by Intel's six-core, 3.33GHz Core i7-980X CPU and has 12GB of RAM. Graphics are handled by dual overclocked Radeon HD 5870 cards with Eyefinity support.
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03/26, 8:05pm
GeForce GTX 480 and 470 finally official
NVIDIA at PAX East tonight finally released the first video chipsets based on its Fermi architecture. The top-end GeForce GTX 480 leads the group and is billed as the "fastest GPU in the world:" it has 480 visual processing cores, 16 geometry units and four raster units that combined should beat the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series in real-world tests. It also has major optimizations to multi-card SLI that produce a 90 percent speed boost with a second card, making the case for multiple GeForce 400 series cards in high-end systems.
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01/07, 2:10am
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5K takes DX11 portable
AMD tonight claimed the performance crown by launching the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000. The new graphics core is the first to support DirectX 11 (and equivalent OpenGL 3.2) visual effects, and on most models can also handle DirectCompute and OpenCL general computing. It should also be AMD's most performance-per-watt most efficient chipset as it can push over a teraflop per second in the fastest models but, through the new design and a smaller 40nm process, consumes much less power at the same time.
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12/28, 12:25pm
Flaws push NVIDIA Fermi past CES
NVIDIA's delay for Fermi will put it in March, video card makers said Monday. The company had acknowledged a push back to the first quarter of the year, but tips to DigiTimes now have the launch of cards based on the new chipsets moved to the very end of that period. The first part would be a mid-range chipset known for now as the GF!00 while a true high-end part, the GF104, wouldn't arrive until the spring.
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11/18, 12:50pm
Internet Explorer 9 still early
Microsoft on the second day of its Professional Developers Conference by providing an early look at Internet Explorer 9. The new browser is just three weeks into development but is already expected to significantly outperform its predecessor. The new version will take advantage of hardware acceleration from graphics chipsets that support D2D in DirectX to offload many of the visual elements of browsing, such as maps or sub-pixel rendering. Microsoft's aim is to let the hardware "shine through" in the browser, chief software architect Steven Sinofsky said.
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10/02, 5:35pm
NVIDIA Fermi with Snow Leopard in mind
The just-unveiled Fermi graphics architecture will find its way into Macs and play an important role in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, NVIDIA chief scientist Bill Dally said today. While it's expected that NVIDIA would continue to play an important part of future Macs, the researcher drew a particular connection between the new GPU design and Apple's new OS, expecting that it would provide a significant boost for those apps that implement OpenCL. Windows 7 will also get support through DirectX 11 and DirectCompute.
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09/25, 11:00am
NVIDIA GeForce 300 at tape out, due soon
Despite a report of NVIDIA's 40nm GeForce 300 series GPUs facing a possible delay until 2010, the card is currently at the tape out (initial silicon production stage), Fudzilla reported on Friday. Codenamed GT300, it was was originally believed to be going on sale in October and may still reach the target if all goes smoothly during testing. The DirectX 11-capable card has already been seen by key industry people, and if the tape out began in early September, it could be shipping by middle or late October.
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08/24, 2:25pm
ATI Radeon HD 5800 Leak
AMD's major video chipset update this fall has had its feature set and release date uncovered thanks to a slip of information Monday. The ATI Radeon HD 5800 series should be fronted by the 5850 and 5870, both high-end cards that could be the first to support Eyefinity, a technology that not unlike Matrox cards will support three displays on a single card. They are also to be AMD's first graphics cores to support DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.1 visual effects in hardware.
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12/01, 5:20pm
WARP10 software graphics
Windows 7 promises to bring with it a pair of programs that will enable users to process Direct3D 10 graphics on Direct3D 9 hardware as well as processing Direct3D 9-level graphics with no hardware at all, according to an MSDN article. The former feat is made possible with software called Direct3D 10 Level9, while the latter comes courtesy of Direct3D Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP10). The new standard is a high-speed, fully compatible software rasterizer that has already shipped in beta form in the November 2008 DirectX SDK.
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11/07, 1:00pm
NVIDIA Quadro FX 370 470
NVIDIA on Thursday announced the release of two new entry-level graphics processing solutions for workstations with its first Quadro FX 470 integrated mainboard GPU and the Quadro FX 370 Low Profile standalone PCIe card meant for use in small form factor desktop PCs. Either GPU is certified for CAD and digital media apps by software makers that include Autodesk and Adobe. Both new NVIDIA products feature 128-bit precision graphics processing and 32-bit floating point precision, filtering and blending, along with advanced color compression and early z-culling. They have full-scene antialiasing capabilities as well and support OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 10 for 3D work.
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10/31, 4:55pm
OCZ intros 15" DIY laptops
OCZ on Thursday announced the introduction of its first 15-inch Gaming Notebook based on an Intel Centrino 2 platform. As with the company's previous DIY (Do It Yourself) products, the idea is to let users spec their own systems for their own applications. All of the new 15.4-inch, 1280x800 notebooks include an ATI Radeon HD 3650 GPU with 512MB of dedicated memory and DirectX 10.1 compatibility. There is also a choice of optical drives, ranging between a dual-layer DVD drive or a slower multi-drive that includes Blu-ray support. CPU support includes Intel's range of Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors, ranging from 2.0 GHz to 2.6GHz.
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09/10, 7:45am
AMD Radeon HD 4600
AMD started off Wednesday by setting a new relative ground floor for performance and hoping to beat NVIDIA's GeForce 9500 cards. The Radeon HD 4600 series is claimed to outperform both the 9500 GT and AMD's own earlier Radeon HD 3650 by including all the hardware optimizations of the 4800 series and still keeping 320 stream (visual effects) processors. It's also one of the least expensive graphics chipsets to support DirectX 10.1 and newer OpenGL 2.x visual effects, such as more precise lighting.
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07/23, 9:45am
DirectX 11 with GPGPU Tech
Microsoft's next version of DirectX will have its own alternative to the OpenCL standard proposed by Apple, the company revealed yesterday at its GamesFest conference. DirectX 11 will have support for "compute shader technology" that allows modern, more generalized video cards' effects processors to perform tasks other than rendering video, including physics calculations and other chores that would normally be handled by the main system processor.
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