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Radeon HD 6990 pictured, GeForce GTX 590 rumored for PAX East 2011 reveal
Multiple cores are old hat, particularly in the GPU world where you can have hundreds of simultaneous processing units working in concert, but multiple GPUs on the same PCB, that's still exciting territory (not least because of the crazy thermal and power requirements that go with it). AMD and NVIDIA are set to clash horns on this field of battle once again, fishing for mindshare as much as they are for high premium sales, with the Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590, respectively. The former has already slipped out of the shadows of mystery to reveal a size slightly longer than an A4 sheet of paper, while the latter is being rumored for an unveiling at the PAX East 2011 gamer gathering. Expected GTX 590 specs include 1,024 total CUDA cores, 3GB of onboard RAM with dual 384-bit memory controllers, and three DVI outputs for some single-card 3D Vision Surround gaming. This year's PAX East is kicking off on March 11th and AMD is also looking very close to launching its part, so you should need no more than a couple of weeks' worth of patience before everything about the latest and greatest from both camps is known.
AMD ships 1.3 million Fusion APUs, 35 million DirectX 11 GPUs, says it has 'momentum'
Hey, this interim CEO thing doesn't seem to be too hard at all. Thomas Seifert, the temporary solution to the problem created by Dirk Meyer's departure from AMD's top spot, has had a pretty comfy ride reporting the company's latest quarterly results. The pecuniary numbers themselves ($1.65b revenue, $375m net income) were tame and unexciting, but Seifert got to make a pair of juicy milestone announcements. Firstly, on the mobile and ever-so-efficient front, he noted that 1.3 million Fusion APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) have been shipped to partners since AMD started deliveries in November, and secondly, in terms of discrete graphics chips, he disclosed that the Radeon HD 5000 and HD 6000 series DirectX 11 GPUs have surpassed the 35 million units shipped mark. To give you some perspective on what that means, sales of Nintendo's bestselling Wii console are hovering somewhere around the same figure. So yes, AMD, your wagon has momentum, but shouldn't it have a driver too?
KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 WHDI graphics card is first to go wireless
What you're looking at is the world's first wireless graphics card affectionately dubbed the KFA2 (aka, Galaxy) GeForce GTX460 WHDI 1024MB PCIe 2.0. The card uses five aerials to stream uncompressed 1080p video from your PC to your WHDI enabled television (or any display courtesy of the bundled 5GHz WHDI receiver) at a range of about 100 feet. Otherwise, it's the same mid-range GTX 460 card we've seen universally lauded with 1024MB of onboard RAM helping to make the most of its 336 CUDA cores. Insane, yes, but we'd accept nothing less from our beloved graphics cards manufacturers.
AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 launch assault on enthusiast gaming market
It's taken AMD a long time to refresh the top end of its graphics hardware, but today's culmination to that wait has to be described as somewhat bittersweet. Sweet, because we're finally getting a successor to the venerable HD 5870, one that offers improved power management and tessellation performance at a lower $369 price point, but also bitter because in terms of sheer firepower, the Radeon series doesn't seem to have made quite the leap many of us had hoped for. The new top of AMD's single-GPU pile, the HD 6970, offers 1,536 stream processors, an 880MHz core clock speed, and 2GB of GDDR5 RAM running at 5.5GHz for a total of 176GBps of memory bandwidth. Its partner in crime, the HD 6950, is expected to list at $299, for which saving you'll have to sacrifice some clock speed (down to 800MHz) and processing units (1,408 in total). There's a neat little addition to both new boards: a Dual-BIOS switch that will act like Google's hardware jailbreak toggle on the Cr-48, allowing tweakers to unlock the extra (unprotected by warranty!) performance headroom in their cards. Early reviews all seem to agree that both the Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 have struck a very fine price-to-performance ratio. The 6970 manages to spar with the much pricier GTX 580, but given that it's priced similarly to NVIDIA's GTX 570, it scores plaudits for being a more than viable alternative. The HD 6950 is seen as the real value item here, however, particularly since it occupies a relatively unique spot in the price range, and most reviewers tipped it as their new bang-for-the-buck leader. Read - HardOCP Read - AnandTech Read - Tech Report Read - Guru3D Read - PC Perspective Read - Hot Hardware Read - techPowerUp! Read - Hexus Read - TechSpot
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 and AMD Radeon HD 6870 square off in dual-card showdown
Whether you're an NVIDIAn calling it SLI or a Radeonite referring to it as CrossFireX, a multi-card graphics setup is nowadays almost a prerequisite for experiencing the best that PC gaming has to offer. It'd be negligent of us, therefore, not to point you in the direction of the Tech Report crew's latest breakdown, which takes an investigative peek at dual-card performance on NVIDIA's latest and greatest GeForce GTX 580 and naturally compares it to a wide range of other alternatives on the market. AMD's latest refresh, the Radeon HD 6870, is among those options, though it's worth remembering that the company's real high-end gear isn't due for another couple of weeks. All the same, most people will be buying their holiday rigs right around now, and if you want an exhaustive guide as to what's what on the graphics front, the source link is your best, um... source.
AMD promises Radeon HD 6900 series launch for the week beginning December 13th
AMD's cutting it mighty close, but the latest word from its PR mouthpiece is that the hotly anticipated Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 will be unveiled just in time for the gift-giving holidays. Fudzilla has heard directly from the Radeon team, who say they're "going to take a bit more time before shipping the AMD Radeon HD 6900 series." The NDA is expected to lift on the week beginning December 13th, but it's anyone's guess whether reviews of the cards will be accompanied by widespread in-store availability. Our hearts say yes, but our minds are already making other plans.
AMD GPU roadmap points to a happy 2011 for Radeon lovers
The ATI name might be dead, but Radeon graphics cards are only growing bigger, bolder and better. AMD's recent financial analyst day has made official what many of us already knew or suspected: there'll be three new high-end GPUs forthcoming in the first quarter of 2011. The slides explicitly describe the recently launched HD 6870 / 6850 as mere refreshes, aiming to bring HD 5800 series performance in a more efficient package, but peek beyond them and you'll see an armada of HD 6900 chips just itching to bring the fight to NVIDIA and its newly crowned GTX 580 king of the single-GPU hill. No specs yet, of course, but at least we now know there'll be some fireworks to greet us early in the new year. Oh, and if the mobile realm is more your thing, we've got a shot of AMD's plans on that front waiting for you just after the break.
ATI Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 reviewed, deemed worthy of the midrange
AMD's Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 graphics cards are here, but they might not be what you expect -- though alphanumerics suggest they'd succeed the lauded Radeon HD 5870 and 5850, these new "Bart" chips are actually a pair of solid plays for the PC gaming mainstream. $180 buys you a Radeon HD 6850 with 960 stream processors, a 775MHz core clock and 1GB of GDDR5 memory at a 1GHz effective rate, and $240 nets the HD 6870 with 1120 stream processors and 900MHz / 1,050 MHz clocks respectively. On paper that puts them a good bit behind the finest, but a collection of reviews show they can keep up with the pack, as the 6870 consistently manages to surpass the framerates possible with NVIDIA's $200 GeForce GTX 460, and even the cheaper 6850 can do the same in certain games. Some reports indicate they run a good bit hotter than their predecessors, however, so despite the bevy of ports they're probably not right for your next HTPC. Hit up the reviews below for some promising benchmarks, and if you aren't turned away by AMD's lipsticking of the pig, you'll find ten varieties already for sale at our source link. PR after the break. Update: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 768MB now sells for $170, so there's definitely still some mid-range muscle in the green camp. Read - AnandTech Read (1), (2) - Guru3D Read - HardOCP Read (1), (2) - Bit-tech Read - Hot Hardware Read - PC Perspective Read - Legit Reviews Read - Techgage Read (1), (2) - TweakTown Read - Hexus Read (1), (2) - TechPowerUp Read - HotHardware Read - TechSpot Read - Vortez
AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 officially pictured, coming this Friday
AMD said it's bringing the new heat this week, but, in a classic act of showmanship, it's teasing out only imagery today and insisting on making us wait until Friday to truly learn what the next generation of Radeon graphics is made of. For now, we have the full titles of its leading lights, namely the Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6850, along with plenty of pictorial evidence of their existence in a lab somewhere. We note with glee that the default output arrangement includes no less than five ports, including two DVI, one HDMI (1.4a), and two Mini DisplayPorts. We'd rather the latter two were full-sized, but it doesn't look like ATI AMD had the room to fit them in. As to power requirements, the HD 6870 will need two 6-pin connectors to augment the juice it gets from the PCI Express port, while the HD 6850 will sate its needs with just the one. Anyhow, enjoy the gallery below and make sure to have your popcorn ready for the benchmark-heavy reviews coming up at the end of the week.%Gallery-105362%
AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year
The attentive newshounds over at AnandTech have picked out a golden nugget of disclosure from AMD's earnings call last night, citing CEO Dirk Meyer as saying "we will be launching our second-generation DX11 graphics offerings next week." What he's talking about, of course, is the highly anticipated refresh of the Radeon HD 5000 series, which some recent spec leaks suggested would bring a healthy bump in performance. After announcing the new product line next week, AMD promises to flood the market with "hundreds of thousands of units," which will be shipping before the end of this quarter -- meaning you'll have a Radeon HD 6xxx in time for the holiday gaming craze if you really want it. Can't ask anymore than that, now can we?
NVIDIA starts selling own-brand GPUs at Best Buy, AIB partners left befuddled
It would seem NVIDIA is ready to take the plunge into selling its graphics cards directly to consumers. Only problem with this plan, however, is that the company has opted to partner up with Best Buy, who's started stocking its shelves with NVIDIA-branded GPUs a wee bit ahead of the official announcement. As most of us already know, NVIDIA and AMD traditionally rely on add-in-board partners to build and support the actual graphics boards, but now the (original) Green Team seems set to take those reins into its own hands. HardOCP has discovered Foxconn will be responsible for building these perfectly generic GeForces and NVIDIA is promising a pretty generous three-year warranty to go with their luxurious packaging. The company's official response to these revelations has been to say that Best Buy will be the only place the own-brand cards can be purchased and that the effort is intended as a "complement" to products from its partners. Yes, we're positive they'll see it that way too.
AMD Radeon HD 6770 and 6750 spec sheets emerge, give NVIDIA cause for concern
Alright AMD, we still haven't forgiven you for burying the glorious name that was ATI, but if your next GPU refresh is as mighty as these numbers indicate, we might at least let you in from the doghouse. A slide detailing two flavors of the upcoming 40nm Barts chip has sprouted up from two independent sources online, and it shows some appreciable gains between generations. The new HD 67x0 cards appear manifestly speedier than their predecessors -- with faster clocks, more texture units, and more ROPs -- but the fun really gets going when you compare them to the HD 5870 and 5850, AMD's previous high-end cards. Memory bandwidth and pixel fillrate are identical between the HD 6750 and 5850, while the HD 6770 even manages to beat the formerly imperious 5870 in a couple of areas. Of course, this is all still unconfirmed information, but considering that Barts is only an "upper midrange" chip that's already stepping on the toes of last year's finest, we feel safe in expecting some pretty big things from the flagship Cayman silicon when it lands -- which will be soon if all these leaks and rumors are anything to go by. [Thanks, Vygantas]%Gallery-103368%
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 on sale at Newegg, ahead of official release
Just like its older sibling the GTX 460, NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 450 is hitting online stores, even though we've yet to hear a word from NVIDIA itself about the new Fermi-based graphics card. While we can't confirm rumors that the GTS 450's got a new GF106 chip under that plastic shroud, it seems evident we're looking at a somewhat less powerful board -- shipping samples from ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte and Palit show just 192 CUDA cores (down from 336) and a narrower 128-bit memory interface. That doesn't mean the GTS 450 won't necessarily be a capable gamer, though, as the graphics and shader chips are actually clocked closer to 800MHz and 1.6GHz respectively this time, and so far they're all paired with a full 1GB of GDDR5 memory with the same 3.6GHz effective rate -- no 768MB cop-outs. At around $130 a pop, we imagine dedicated graphics enthusiasts will spend the extra to get those bonus cores, but if you've only got three portraits of Ulysses S. Grant to spare, this might just be your board. Don't take our word for it, though -- if history's any indication, we'll have plenty of reviews come Monday morning. [Thanks, Chris S.]
AMD kills ATI brand, you can look forward to blood-stained Radeons
This, dear friends, is a sad, sad day. ATI, the name of hope for all PC gamers who were sick and tired of NVIDIA rebadging the same GPU over the past couple of years, is to be no more. The callous souls over at AMD have decided that our little consumer brains aren't sophisticated enough to handle two awesome brands, so they're just axing the use of the ATI moniker from here on out. Product line names will be retained, with the Radeon and FirePro branding still intact, but ATI Eyefinity will now be known as AMD Eyefinity. The first graphics cards to, erm, benefit from the new nomenclature will ship "later this year," and the whole thing is said to have been motivated by AMD's move to Fusion APUs -- hybrid CPU and GPU chips -- where it's considered beneficial to have a unified branding strategy. Great, but did anyone consider the fact that the graphics wars will now be fought between two teams wearing green jerseys?
ATI leaks out Southern Islands codenames for next-gen GPUs
Um, oops? ATI's latest Catalyst driver release has dished out some info that we imagine the company didn't want to reveal quite yet. The names of some Southern Islands have been spotted -- Cayman and Antilles appear to be the flagship chips -- suggesting a refresh to the critically acclaimed Evergreen line of GPUs may not be far off. Rumors have been swirling for a while about ATI's reputed shift to island-based nomenclature, and while hard specs are nowhere to be found, we can see that the Red Team is planning an overhaul with no less than 10 new additions to its roster. Hardly unpredictable, but good to know that ATI has something to counter NVIDIA's heart-stealing GTX 460. [Thanks, Jack]
ATI CrossFireX versus NVIDIA SLI: performance scaling showdown
We know who the daddy is when it comes to single-card graphics performance, and we've even witnessed NVIDIA and ATI duking it out with multiple cards before, but this here roundup is what you might call comprehensive. Comparing a mind-boggling 23 different configurations, the Tech Report guys set out to determine the best bang for your DirectX 11 buck. Their conclusion won't shock those of you who've been following the recent love affair between reviewers and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460: a pair of these eminently affordable cards regularly outpaced the best single-GPU solutions out there. Slightly more intriguing, however, was the discovery that its elder siblings, the GTX 470 and 480, have improved in performance to the point of being markedly ahead of ATI's Radeon HD 5870, with the blame for this shift being put squarely on the shoulders of NVIDIA's driver update team. Hurry up and give the source a read while it's still fresh, we can't imagine ATI letting this be the status quo for too much longer.
ATI overtakes NVIDIA in discrete GPU shipments
You'd think with ATI having the performance, value and power efficiency lead for so long -- at least since the Radeon HD 4000 series -- NVIDIA would be in all kinds of trouble, but it's only now that AMD's graphics division has finally taken the lead in quarterly shipments. This is according to Mercury Research, whose analysts place the split at 51 to 49 percent in favor of ATI -- still a tightly contested thing, but it compares very favorably to the Red Team's 41% share in the same quarter last year. This data is concerned with discrete GPU shipments only (laptops included), whereas on the integrated front Intel continues to reign supreme with 54 percent of the market shipping its cheap and cheerful IGP units. ATI has made forward strides there as well, however, with 24.5% ranking ahead of NVIDIA's 19.8%. If Apple shifting its iMac and Mac Pro lines away from the Green livery wasn't enough, perhaps these numbers will finally start ringing some alarm bells over at NV HQ. [Thanks, Zubayer]
Rambus victorious in patent fight with NVIDIA, can expect neat wad of cash for its troubles
So what if Rambus doesn't really produce anything tangible these days? We're hearing the "innovation" business is going really well for the company that recently celebrated its 1,000th patent, and now there's a nice big windfall in its near future as well. The US International Trade Commission has handed down a ruling agreeing with a previous judgment that NVIDIA infringed on three Rambus patents in the design of its memory controllers, with the ultimate outcome being a ban on importing such infringing goods into the country. Of course, that's the one thing we're sure won't be happening, but NVIDIA will now have to sign up for a license to Rambus' precious IP portfolio, which might be a tad bit costly given that GeForce, Quadro, nForce, Tesla and Tegra chips are named as being in violation -- aside from Ion, that's pretty much NVIDIA's whole hardware business.[Thanks, Marc]Update: NVIDIA, unsurprisingly, has said it will appeal the ruling. [Thanks, Xero2]
ASUS ARES cries havoc, lets slip the GPUs of war: a review roundup of the world's fastest graphics card
When you name your graphics card after the God of War, you'd better hope it brings some heat, but judging by early reviews, that's just what ASUS has done. The three slot monstrosity above is the ARES, a $1200 limited edition, fully custom board, sporting twin Radeon HD 5870 GPUs, four gigabytes of GDDR5 memory and practically enough raw copper to smelt a sword. We're not joking: the thing weighs nearly five pounds and requires a 750 watt power supply with three power connectors (two 8-pin, one 6-pin) to even run. Of course, you're getting a graphical behemoth for that kind of price, steamrolling every other GPU on the planet -- paired with even a 3.8GHz Core i7-930 CPU in 3DMark Vantage (on Extreme settings), Overclock 3D racked up a fairly ludicrous 15,000 score, and the card ripped past 25,000 with a Core i7-980X and a second ARES in CrossFire. The card was less impressive in actual gameplay, merely spanking the (much cheaper) Radeon 5970 and GeForce GTX 480 by a modest amount, and several reviewers complained it was fairly loud... but as the old adage goes, nobody needs a Ferrari to drive the speed limit, but we'll all drool over them anyhow. Bring on the liquid nitrogen, folks. Read - Legit Reviews Read - Overclock3D Read - Guru3D Read - PC Perspective Read - TechPowerUp Read - Hot Hardware
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 set up in 3-way SLI, tested against Radeon HD 5870 and 5970
Not many mortals will ever have to worry about choosing between a three-way GeForce GTX 480 SLI setup, an equally numerous Radeon HD 5870 array, or a dual-card HD 5970 monstrosity, but we know plenty of people would care about who the winner might be. Preliminary notes here include the fun facts that a 1 Kilowatt PSU provided insufficient power for NVIDIA's hardware, while the mighty Core i7-965 test bench CPU proved to be a bottleneck in some situations. Appropriately upgraded to a six-core Core i7-980X and a 1,200W power supply, the testers proceeded to carry out the sacred act of benchmarking the snot out of these superpowered rigs. We won't spoil the final results of the bar chart warfare here, but rest assured both camps score clear wins in particular games and circumstances. The source link shall reveal all.
