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What do the Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U all have in common? AMD silicon

What do the Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U all have in common? AMD silicon
  • Posted June 13, 2013, 8:45 AM by David Tom | Filed in Gaming, Hardware
  • After consumers were told the final details about the Xbox One, Wii U, and PS4, many game enthusiasts have weighed their options and are ready to make a purchasing decision. So who’s the big winner? Simply put, it's AMD.

AMD first to reach 5GHz with FX-9590 processor

AMD first to reach 5GHz with FX-9590 processor
  • Posted June 11, 2013, 11:33 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Hardware
  • The first commercially-available processor to reach clock speeds of 5GHz is now a reality courtesy of AMD. The FX-9590, the latest addition to the chipmaker’s FX lineup, features eight Piledriver processing cores and is completely unlocked as per its Black…

AMD A10-6800K and A4-4000 Richland APU Review

AMD A10-6800K and A4-4000 Richland APU Review
  • Posted June 4, 2013, 11:00 PM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware
  • Little over 6 months since launching Trinity on the desktop, AMD is updating their product lineup with a minor refresh. Codenamed Richland, these new APUs offer no substantial changes to either the CPU or GPU. Other than some clock speed improvements and better power management, everything is mostly the same.

    Leading the pack is the A10-6800K, which is stepping in to replace the A10-5800K. Both processors are identical with a few minor exceptions. The A10-6800K is clocked slightly higher and has an updated Radeon HD 8670D GPU. We're also taking a look at the bargain basement A4-4000 at the other end of the spectrum, which we suspect is going to be a slightly slower version of last year’s A4-5300.

Nvidia unveils Geforce GTX 700M GPUs, 780M claims fastest mobile graphics

Nvidia unveils Geforce GTX 700M GPUs, 780M claims fastest mobile graphics
  • Posted May 31, 2013, 1:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Mobile Computing, Gaming
  • Not to be outdone by its arch-nemesis AMD, Nvidia has launched a fresh volley of mobile Geforce GTX 700M GPUs, namely the GTX 760M, 765M, 770M and 780M. Nvidia claims its GTX 780M is the fastest mobile GPU in existence,…

Download: Catalyst 13.6 beta adds support for new APUs, AMD Wireless Display

Download: Catalyst 13.6 beta adds support for new APUs, AMD Wireless Display
  • Posted May 29, 2013, 2:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Gaming, Mobile Computing
  • AMD's Catalyst 13.6 beta is now available for public consumption and is intended for Radeon HD 5000 series cards and newer. On the list of changes is support for Temash, Kabini and Richland APUs; support for AMD Wireless Display (competitor…

AMD A4-5000 Review: The affordable ultraportable APU

AMD A4-5000 Review: The affordable ultraportable APU
  • Posted May 24, 2013, 2:37 AM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Mobile Computing
  • In 2006 AMD announced 'Fusion', a project aimed to develop a system on a chip that combined a CPU and GPU on a single die. Fast forward to this day, AMD has taken things a step further with Kabini, the first ever quad-core x86-based SoC.

    AMD are releasing their first Kabini based processors today with the launch of the A6-5200 and the A4-5000. The A4-5000 that we are reviewing features four Jaguar cores clocked at 1.5GHz, a total L2 cache of 2MB, and the Radeon HD 8330 GPU on-die.

MSI GX60/GX70 laptops arrive, armed with Radeon HD 8970M, Richland CPU

MSI GX60/GX70 laptops arrive, armed with Radeon HD 8970M, Richland CPU
  • Posted May 22, 2013, 2:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Gaming, Mobile Computing
  • Delivering on earlier promises, MSI is now shipping its GX70 and newest GX60 gaming laptops. The $1,299 and $1,399 laptops are the first of their kind to feature AMD's Radeon HD 8970M -- what AMD argues may be the pinnacle…

Metro: Last Light Tested, Benchmarked

Metro: Last Light Tested, Benchmarked
  • Posted May 21, 2013, 1:28 AM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Gaming
  • When the Metro 2033 was released in 2010 it contributed to raise the PC graphics bar making good use of the latest DirectX 11 rendering technologies. Metro: Last Light follows its predecessor roots by using a heavily customized and improved version of the 4A Engine.

    Furthermore, the developer has continued to cater to loyal PC gamers who have considerably more power than console gamers at its disposal by including a richer gaming experience visually as well as a benchmark tool for measuring your system's performance.

JPR: Nvidia GPU shipments are up despite turbulent PC market

JPR: Nvidia GPU shipments are up despite turbulent PC market
  • Posted May 20, 2013, 12:00 PM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Industry News, Hardware
  • Jon Peddie Research (JPR) has released its first quarter estimates for the graphics processor market, reckoning the three month period as disappointing for Intel, but overall encouraging for Nvidia and AMD on the desktop. The company’s report tracks both integrated…

$1100 MSI laptop packs Radeon HD 8970M, AMD claims fastest mobile GPU

$1100 MSI laptop packs Radeon HD 8970M, AMD claims fastest mobile GPU
  • Posted May 15, 2013, 3:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Industry News, Mobile Computing
  • In 2012, AMD began shipping its mobile line-up of Radeon HD 8000M-series just in time for the arrival of 2013. AMD unveiled today its latest addition to that mobile GPU line-up, its upcoming series of Radeon HD 8900M chips. The Radeon 8900M-series flagship, the 8970M, packs twice the number...

AMD quad-core FX-4350 and six-core FX-6350 get official

AMD quad-core FX-4350 and six-core FX-6350 get official
  • Posted May 2, 2013, 7:30 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Industry News, Hardware
  • AMD recently added two new chips to the FX processor family, the quad-core FX-4350 and the six-core FX-6350. Both chips are based on the Piledriver architecture, support the latest instruction sets including FMA3 and AVX and work with existing AM3+…

AMD's Kaveri solves age-old issue, promises faster on-die GPUs

AMD
  • Posted April 30, 2013, 3:00 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Hardware, Industry News
  • AMD has revealed more information regarding Kaveri: its upcoming 28nm Steamroller-based APU. The company is touting Kaveri's heterogeneous system architecture -- a design which aims to greatly increase the performance output of on-die graphics cores. This technological achievement likely mark…

AMD Catalyst 13.4 (WHQL), 13.5 (Beta) ready for download

AMD Catalyst 13.4 (WHQL), 13.5 (Beta) ready for download
  • Posted April 25, 2013, 12:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Gaming, Hardware
  • AMD has released two new sets of drivers for Radeon graphics card owners, namely Catalyst 13.4 and 13.5b2. The former driver bundle is WHQL-certified while the latter remains in beta; however, both offer the usual crop of bug fixes and…

AMD Radeon HD 7990 Review: Dual GPU Comeback

AMD Radeon HD 7990 Review: Dual GPU Comeback
  • Posted April 23, 2013, 11:00 PM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware Breaking News
  • The current generation AMD GPU series collectivelly known as "Southern Islands" were released over a year ago, with the beginning of its rollout in January 2012. Sixteen months later, the Radeon HD 7000 series is still very much relevant, as AMD continues to release new models under the same GPU family.

    Although it's been over a year since AMD launched the Radeon HD 7970, we are just getting an official dual-GPU version. The Radeon HD 7990 takes a pair of 7970 GPUs with overclocked cores and memory, packing 8.2 TFLOPS computer power, 6GB GDDR5 and an upgraded PEX bridge to connect the two GPUs.

AMD unveils G-Series X, hints at future ARM-based chips for embedded market

AMD unveils G-Series X, hints at future ARM-based chips for embedded market
  • Posted April 23, 2013, 2:00 PM by Jose Vilches | Filed in Hardware With Video
  • AMD announced its G-series embedded APUs this morning comprising three quad core parts and a couple of dual cores, four of them integrating Radeon HD 8000 grahics and an I/O module on a single piece of silicon. With power envelopes…

Sapphire Edge VS8 Review: The $500 Mini PC

Sapphire Edge VS8 Review: The $500 Mini PC
  • Posted April 23, 2013, 12:26 AM by Shawn Knight | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware
  • While full-sized desktop computers are still around, tablets and smartphones have proven that technology has come far enough to essentially cram a fully capable computer into a space that is suitable for your pants pocket, a purse, or a small backpack. This idea of shrinking hardware hasn’t been overlooked by manufacturers as several now feature space-saving designs based on mobile hardware.

    Such is the case with Sapphire’s new Edge VS8 mini-PC powered by AMD’s A8 APU. The system is hardly any larger than an external optical drive, while still packing 4GB of DDR3 memory, Radeon HD 7600G graphics, a 500GB SATA HDD, built-in support for Bluetooth 3.0 as well as 802.11 b/g/n wireless and a bevy of rear I/O connections.

GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Review, SLI Performance Tested

GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Review, SLI Performance Tested
  • Posted April 22, 2013, 3:16 AM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware
  • The GTX 650 Ti was our favorite $100 - $150 graphics card last year, as it thrashed the Radeon HD 7770, its direct competitor. Then last month AMD decided to attack the $150 price point with a new HD 7790 GPU, but the reaction didn't take long to arrive.

    Just a week later Nvidia officially countered by releasing the poorly named GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, now the third graphics card to carry the GTX 650 name. At $170, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost sits between the Radeon HD 7790 and the 7850. In terms of performance, we actually expect the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost to be a lot faster than the GTX 650 Ti, even when it's based on the same GK106 architecture.

The History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 4: The Coming of General Purpose GPUs

The History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 4: The Coming of General Purpose GPUs
  • Posted April 16, 2013, 10:05 PM by Graham Singer | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware
  • With DX10's arrival, vertex and pixel shaders maintained a large level of common function, so moving to a unified shader arch eliminated a lot of unnecessary duplication of processing blocks. The first GPU to utilize this architecture was Nvidia's iconic G80.

    Four years in development and $475 million produced a 681 million-transistor, 484mm² behemoth -- first as the 8800 GTX flagship and then with cards aimed at several segments. Aided by the new Coverage Sample anti-aliasing (CSAA) algorithm, Nvidia saw its GTX demolish every single competitor in outright performance.

The History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 3: The Nvidia vs. ATI era begins

The History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 3: The Nvidia vs. ATI era begins
  • Posted April 10, 2013, 1:49 AM by Graham Singer | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware With Video
  • With the turn of the century the graphics industry bore witness to further consolidation. Where 3dfx was once a byword for raw performance, its strengths before its dismissal laid in its full screen antialiasing image quality. By the time 2001 dawned, the PC graphics market consisted of a discrete card duopoly (Nvidia and ATI), with both of them in addition to Intel supplying the vast majority of integrated graphics chipsets.

    Prior to the Voodoo 5’s arrival, ATI had announced the Radeon DDR as “the most powerful graphics processor ever designed for desktop PCs.” Previews of the card had already gone public on April 25, and only twenty-four hours later Nvidia countered with the announcement of the GeForce 2 GTS (GigaTexel Shader).

Next Xbox to feature AMD processor, not compatible with 360 titles

Next Xbox to feature AMD processor, not compatible with 360 titles
  • Posted April 9, 2013, 4:30 PM by Rick Burgess | Filed in Microsoft, Gaming
  • Sources close to Bloomberg report that Microsoft has signed a deal with Advanced Micro Devices to manufacturer processors for its yet to be named, next-generation Xbox "720" console. This confirms previous rumors of an AMD-made "Jaguar" APU which would purportedly…

AMD to start bundling free games with APUs later this month

AMD to start bundling free games with APUs later this month
  • Posted April 4, 2013, 5:00 PM by Matthew DeCarlo | Filed in Gaming, Hardware
  • AMD is reportedly prepared to take its "Never Settle" promotion to the next step by extending it to other product lines. According to Hardware Luxx, shoppers who opt for one of the company's APUs will be rewarded with free game…

BioShock Infinite Tested, Benchmarked

BioShock Infinite Tested, Benchmarked
  • Posted April 1, 2013, 3:00 PM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Gaming
  • Three years having passed since BioShock 2 and the dawn of a new console generation on the horizon, BioShock Infinite has taken the opportunity to mix things up. Along with DX11 effects, folks playing on PC can look forward to higher resolution textures and a healthy range of customization over settings like anti-aliasing, texture detail and filtering, dynamic shadows, post-processing, and so on.

    Our Bioshock Infinite test comprises 24 DirectX 11 graphics card configurations from AMD and Nvidia covering a wide range of prices, from the affordable to the ultra-expensive.

AMD showcases dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 at GDC

AMD showcases dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 at GDC
  • Posted March 27, 2013, 1:00 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Gaming, Hardware
  • AMD launched the Radeon HD 7790 late last week to cover the mid-range market which left many looking to see when the company was planning to tackle the high end. We now have some solid answers as AMD showcased the…

Happy birthday: Intel's Pentium processor turns 20 years old today

Happy birthday: Intel
  • Posted March 22, 2013, 2:30 PM by Shawn Knight | Filed in Industry News
  • Intel’s infamous Pentium processor got its start 20 years ago today with the release of the Pentium 60 CPU. That chip utilized Intel’s 5-volt Socket 4, was build on an 800-nanometer process and carried 3.1 million transistors. For comparison, today’s…

Radeon HD 7790 Review: Aiming straight for the $150 segment

Radeon HD 7790 Review: Aiming straight for the $150 segment
  • Posted March 22, 2013, 2:41 AM by Steven Walton | Filed in TechSpot, Hardware Breaking News
  • The latest member of the Southern Islands family, the new Radeon HD 7790 is designed to fill the gap between the Radeon HD 7770 and 7850. Set to precisely target the $150 price tag, the HD 7790 should be an affordable solution that provides good value to gamers on a budget.

    The HD 7790 is set to go head to head against the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, which represented the best value in this bracket. To sweeten the deal, AMD is also offering a free game bundle of Bioshock Infinite for a limited time.

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