RadeonHd4850
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AMD chops up to $50 off Radeon HD 7970, 7950 and 7870 graphics cards
The recent release of the Radeon HD 7970 Ghz Edition is having knock-on benefits further down the stack. $20 has now been shaved off the regular 7970 rrp in addition to the last discount we reported, while the 7950 is down $50 to $349 and the 7870 has also been nudged $50 deeper into the mid-range sweet spot at $249. Other cards in the line-up may also drop by some degree, although there's no official word on those just yet. These summer prices should start having an impact in stores from today -- just in time to benefit from the latest Catalyst 12.7 drivers, which promise to bring significant performance gains and hence even more tension to your NVIDIA product comparisons.
Apple's Core i5 / i7 27-inch iMacs now shipping to expectant owners
Lovers of Snow Leopard, oversized IPS display panels, and Intel's very latest processors, your time for rejoicing has come. Apple has begun sending off shipping confirmations to customers who ordered up their slab of quad-core all-in-one nirvana in October, and the biggest and baddest iMacs should be arriving at their new homes imminently. To remind you, the reason for waiting on these units was the 2.66GHz Core i5 750 inside, which comes along with 4GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 4850, and a cool terabyte of storage. We're sure some of the eager new owners couldn't resist upgrading that spec to a 2.8GHz Core i7 860, which we can kind of see the sense in -- after all, an iMac is for life, not just for Christmas. That's how that saying goes, right?
Okoro OMS-BX300 goes for the 'you must be high' end
You know, with the PS3 slumming it in a lower weight class and $300 price point, you'd think it'd be hard to sell people on costlier "Blu-ray Digital Entertainment Systems," but that hasn't stopped Okoro from trying. Updating its BX300 unit with dual Blu-ray Lightscribe drives, a Core i7-920, 6GB of 1,333MHz DDR3, pair of hot swappable 2TB HDDs in RAID1, and a 64GB SSD for OS duties is all well and good (okay, it's kind of awesome), but -- even though it has come down some -- the price is still a loony $3,095. There are also dual NTSC / ATSC / QAM tuners and a CableCARD option to go along with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 -- and for an extra $800, you can get the slinkier touch pad remote-pimping version pictured on the right. Ah well, just another reason to envy rich people. [Via ZDNet]
MSI details well-specced GT725 17-inch gaming laptop
Remember that GT725? You know, that behemoth of a gaming laptop announced alongside 43.8 other MSI machines at CES. Anywho, MSI has just come clean with the actual specifications, and gamers in the crowd looking for a portable rig should be pleased. The machine is claiming to be the first ever gaming lappie to include ATI's 512MB Radeon HD4850 GPU, and that's complemented by a 17-inch WUXGA (anti-glare) display, a 320GB SATA hard drive, Blu-ray optical drive, 4-in-1 multicard reader, up to 4GB of RAM, a plethora of ports, nine-cell battery, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, gigabit Ethernet and a 2 megapixel webcam. There's also an ExpressCard slot, four standard speakers plus a "subwoofer" and a Turbo Drive Engine to make overclocking a lesson in simplicity. The 7-pound unit is being billed as MSI's new flagship laptop, and with a list of internals like that, we can fully understand why. Full release is after the break.
Legion Hardware offers advice for building the best Crossfire rig
Choosing the right graphics card / chipset combo to give you the most bang for the buck is always tricky business, and even moreso when you're looking to get the most out of some brand new hardware like AMD's Radeon HD 4000 series cards. Thankfully, the folks at Legion Hardware have now stepped in to help out a bit, although, as is often the case, it's not entirely a clear cut choice. If it's a bargain you're looking for though (relatively speaking), it seems like pairing an ASUS P45 motherboard with a couple of Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards (for a total of about $550) will give you enough performance to impress all but the most demanding gamer. If you want to push those benchmarks as far as possible, however, you'll have to go up to an ASUS X48 board, although even the folks at Legion Hardware question whether the mere 5% performance gain is worth the extra cost. If you want to make your own decision though, you can hit up the link below and dig through the numbers yourself.[Via PC Perspective]
ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 reviewed: all that and a bag of RV770 chips
If you haven't heard of AMD's new RV770 graphics processor then you either haven't been paying attention or are simply too set in your ways to start calculating your GPU's performance using a 1.0 TFLOP base unit. For the rest, we bring you all the reviews that on-line advertising can buy in the link round-up below. We'll give HotHardware the honor of summarizing the performance of the sub-$200 Radeon HD 4850 and $299-ish 4870: "it appears AMD is back in the graphics game versus rival NVIDIA." Now put on your propeller caps and start clicking.Read -- Hot HardwareRead -- PC Perspective Read -- Hardware Canucks (HD 4870 only) Read -- AnandTechRead -- TweakTown (4870 in Crossfire)
Force3D, Asustek, GeCube roll out Radeon HD 4850, 4870 series cards
AMD has already gotten its official business with its new Radeon HD 4850 series out the way, and it now looks like the flood of various iterations is in full swing, with at least three manufacturers already pushing cards out the door. Among the first out of the gate is relative upstart Force3D, which has not only let loose a Radeon HD 4850 card, but a Radeon HD 4870 as well, the latter of which AMD still seems to be staying mum about. As HEXUS.net reports, however, this particular version will boast a core frequency of 750MHz, along with 512MB of GDDR5 memory and an effective clock speed of 3,600MHz. According to DigiTimes, Asustek also has a pair of similar Radeon HD 4870 cards set for release, along with a pair of HD 4850 cards packing 1GB and 512MB of DDR3 memory, while GeCube seems to be content to launch just a single 4850 with 512MB of DDR3 memory. Hit up the links below for the full rundown of specs, which unfortunately doens't include prices just yet.Read - HEXUS.net, "Force3D jumps the gun, launches its Radeon HD 4870"Read - DigiTimes, "Asustek and GeCube launch ATI Radeon HD 4850-based graphics cards" [Via TG Daily, thanks Kris120890]
ATI Radeon HD 4850 gets official: available immediately
Considering that we've already seen AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4850 benchmarked, it's not like we really needed some official verbiage to cement our belief that the unit was real. Nevertheless, said verbiage certainly doesn't hurt, and that's precisely what's been delivered this morning. The HD 4850 is a single-slot PCIe 2.0 card featuring 512MB of DDR3 RAM, a 625MHz clock speed, 993MHz memory speed, 480 stream processors and support for CrossFireX / DirectX 10.1. We're also told that at least Diamond Multimedia's HD 4850 is available as we speak from a number of fine retailers, thus we presume everyone else's version of the card shouldn't be too far behind.
RV770-based AMD Radeon HD 4850 gets benchmarked
Judging by the fact that AMD tipped the whole world off to its upcoming RV770-based GPUs earlier this week, we don't suppose it'll be too upset that a 512MB MSI Radeon HD 4850 happened to land a little early in the PC Perspective labs. Design wise, there's nothing too out of the ordinary -- a single-slot cooler design, twin dual-link DVI ports, single 6-pin PCIe power connector and one goofy looking monster that you'll never see again once this thing gets installed. Care to see how it fared when facing the pressures of modern day gaming? You know where to look.
