Soon we will have Windows 8 tablets based on the AMD hardware, these tablets will be cheaper than the alternatives based on Intel  Clover Trail and will have an unbeatable 3D performance.
   The new superstar is the AMD Z-60 APU, codenamed Hondo, which the company will bring on the market later this year, propelling a new wave of Windows 8 tablets.
  The elements of attraction for future Windows 8 tablets with AMD hardware are: the x86 compatibility with PC applications, autonomy up to 10 hours on a tablet and can attach to a docking station with keyboard and mouse for converting the tablet into a notebook.
  Unlike Clover Trail platform with Intel Atom processor, the new AMD chip focuses primarily on 3D skills, announcing gaming performance even 5-6 times higher than is possible with an Intel tablet, which opens new horizons for Windows 8 tablets. Basically, tablets with AMD's APU could get a whole new utility, serving as gaming platforms with access to titles that we expect to meet only on a console or on PC systems.
   According to AMD, on Windows 8 tablets built on their platform you can play games like Modern Warefare 2 and Orcs Must Die at medium quality settings and a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. For movies you can  attach a TV or monitor with HDMI and play them at a resolutions up to 1920x1200 pixels. However, AMD recommends that for the best viewing of the videos to confine ourselves to materials with 720p resolution.
   AMD Z-60's power consumption will be less than 5W , which accommodate in the tablets under 10mm thickness and weight comparable to conventional tablets with ARM processors. Autonomy varies from 6 hours for watching movies,  8 hours for surfing on the internet or up to 10 hours on the Windows Presentation Mode, of  the text documents and PowerPoint presentations. According to AMD, the autonomy for standby is almost 2 weeks.
by byetech

   Back in June we mentioned that AMD’s upcoming D4 Bolton chipset does come with FM2+ support but back then we were lacking some details.
   It turns out that Bolton D4 is just a new version of the A85X chipset that will have better support for Richland processors. AMD has already officially confirmed that Trinity refresh in 2013 comes in the new 28nm process and we found out that the current schedule for Richland processor is late Q2 2013 launch.
   We also heard from AMD that the FM2 infrastructure is here to stay and that the future processor including FM2 based Richland will work in FM2 boards. It remains unclear if Richland qualifies as a FM2+ processor that simply works in all FM2 motherboards.
   The long-term strategy is to stick with the same socket for a longer than just one generation, as this was always a side of AMD that many fans appreciated.
   The Bolton D3 chipset will also support both FM2 and FM2+ parts and comes without four USB 3.0 connectors but it allows cheaper motherboard to hit the market.
You should not have any doubts, Windows 8 will work just fine on Trinity and Richland and they are pretty nice processors in their respective price ranges.
source(via)Fudzilla

   AMD announced the availability of the second generation of APUs, Trinity, for desktop PCs, small and home theater.
   The second generation of AMD APUs Desktop Series are available at prices between $ 53 and 122 dollars.

   The Alpha 24 Super Stock all-in-one personal computer is described by Maingear's CEO Wallace Santos as the proof that people don't need to sacrifice anything when choosing an all-in-one over a standard desktop PC.
   The so-called disadvantages that all-in-one systems have compared to desktops are multiple: lack of upgradeability, lower top performance potential, little overclocking support (if any) and, of course, a higher price.
   Maingear decided to eliminate these drawbacks, or at least offer enough to completely counterbalance them.
   The overclocking issue is easy: people who consider buying an AiO aren't thinking of tweaking the clock by default.
   The lack of upgradeability and performance issues were solved in a single move: Maingear equipped the Alpha 24 Super Stock with high-end components that won't actually need changing for months, years even.
That leaves the price, and we dare say that the number achieved by the custom system maker, $1,349 / 1049 – 1,349 Euro, is more than decent when taking into account just what Alpha 24 Super Stock can do.
   The Core i3-3240 Ivy Bridge CPU (3.4 GHz) is the base processor option, but a Core i7 can be chosen instead. Up to 16GB of RAM back up the unit.
   For graphics, Maingear selected an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 GPU, but has the GeForce GTX 680 in reserve, just in case.
   Moving on, a hard drive supplies the configuration with as much as 3TB of storage space, though an SSD can be employed instead, with a top capacity of 256 GB but faster data rates.
   Everything else follows the standard blueprint: HDMI, USB ports (2.0 only for some reason), mic/headphone jacks, ODD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an ODD (DVD or Blu-ray).
   "In this day and age, there shouldn't be a reason anyone would need to compromise for an all-in-one performance PC," says Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of MAINGEAR.
   "Other all-in-one PC solutions pale in comparison to the ALPHA 24 and can be summed up with just a few words: 1080p gaming set to Ultra, maxed anti-aliasing and tessellation."
source(via)Softpedia

We know it’s a big statement but sources close to the matter that have seen a roadmap or a two have revealed us that Haswell comes three times faster 3D graphics than today’s Ivy Bridge Core i3000 series.
It turns out that Haswell, Intel's fourth-generation core architecture, can score three times the performance of Ivy Bridge GT1 and the Haswell in mind is called GT2 Desktop SKU.
In addition the new core scores up to three times faster in video conversion, something that Intel got better in the last few processor generations. Of course, up to three times in 3D and up to two times in video conversion are best case scenarios, but it sounds quite optimistic and impressive.
It can make AMD and Nvidia run for their money in the lower end market segment and possibly better gaming at entry level notebooks and desktop computers.
When one of the Nvidia’s general managers was asked what happens if Intel gets its act together and get its integrated graphics much faster, he replied that Nvidia will make even faster entry level parts. The same probably goes for AMD, but with the added luxury of top notch graphics in APUs.
The chase will definitely continue heated up in Q2 2013 when we should expect to see the launch of Haswell.
source(via)fudzilla

American fabless CPU and GPU designer, Texas-based company AMD is stealthily introducing a new revision of the HD 7750 GPU that has an increased default frequency. The reason for this move is either the recent Nvidia GTX 650 and 650 Ti launches , or the simple fact that AMD’s GCN chips have very good yields.
We’re inclined to think that the motivation is a combination of the two.
The new cards are reportedly using the same cooling system, but they feature a slightly different PCB.
The cooling system has remained exactly the same, as the “Cape Verde” GPU is a very cool piece of technology when compared with other GPUs, but we would have liked to see more custom single-slot designs.
The PCB is a little larger, making it exactly like a HD 7770 PCB in dimensions and weight.
On the new HD 7750, the GPU is clocked at 900 MHz instead of the 800 Mhz we were used to see on the “older” HD 7750 video cards.
It seems like the price will stay the same so the casual gamers going for an AMD Radeon HD 7750 video card should enjoy the better performance for free.
The Radeon HD 7750 graphics processing unit is clocked at 900 MHz when working in full load 3D mode.
In 2D mode, the frequency of the GPU will drop to a low 300 MHz.
The GPU has a very small 123-square millimeter die size, containing 1.5 billion transistors containing 512 unified shader processors, 32 texturing units and 16 ROPs.
The “full” “Cape Verde” comes with 640 shaders and 40 texturing units, but that’s the Radeon HD 7770, and the HD 7750 version has some of the units inactive that add to the 100 MHz GPU frequency handicap.
source (via) Softpedia

AMD had to cancel Krishna and Wichita as GlobalFoundries could not deliver these parts before the latter part of this year. This seemed too late for AMD and this is why they have shifted its plans to a new Kaveri 28nm APU.
Kaveri will have Steamroller-based cores. These are the cores that are coming after Pilediver Bulldozer cores that will find its place in the upcoming Trinity APU.
According to well-informed sources, Kaveri 28nm APU and both desktop and notebook versions are scheduled to launch at CES 2013. This is the current plan and GlobalFoundries should be able to make these new 28nm processors on time.
Kaveri is set to replace 32nm Trinity in A10, A8, A6 and A4 market segment and it will be dual to quad core based processor with very good DirectX 11 graphics. It will support DDR 2133 memory and socket FS2L for desktop.

source fudzilla

Since 296.17 version, NVIDIA will release GeForce and Quadro drivers for Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Even if the new operating system from Microsoft is still in beta, NVIDIA wants to offer support now, in order to provide official support from day one, when Windows 8 will be available in final version.
Currently downloads will include a unified package for all three operating systems.
Those who want to download the latest NVIDIA drivers can follow this link, where they will find the Windows 8 verion.
(by byetech staff)

Well, this had to happen sooner or later, Sony will use AMD's next-gen graphics for its genre needs. Currently, the PlayStation 3 has Nvidia-RSX graphics card. Perhaps Sony is not happy with what Nvidia offers, reaching to the conclusion that the best option would be the switching to AMD. Xbox 360 uses a Xenos graphics card provided by AMD.
Switching to AMD will question the compatibility function of the Sony's next console. But considering that PS Vita has no problems, the company could solve problems.
This information was revealed by former AMD engineers, and both AMD and Sony declined to comment.
(by byetech staff)

AMD's graphics cards roadmap for this year has been elapsed on the Internet in a less "official" way.  MSI has published a slide in which can be seen clearly as possible models that will be launched by AMD. Coded names for the new models are at least strange, so we deal in March, respectively in February with "Cape Verde" Radeon HD7750 / HD7770 and "Pitcairn" Radeon HD7850 / HD7870.
Radeon HD7750 will have 1GB RAM and HD7770 model will benefit in some versions of 2GB RAM.

( by byetech staff  )

Gigabyte has launched two new graphics cards of the Radeon HD 7970 series, GV-R797D5-3GD-B and GV-R797OC-3GD, which incorporates the following technologies Microsoft Direct X 11, AMD Eyefinity 2.0, AMD APP, AMD HD3D and AMD PowerTune.
One of the graphics cards Gigabyte GV-R797OC-3GD has Triangle Cool an improved cooling technology and WINDFORCE 3X Cooling Technology, which reduces the temperature by up to 15% more than usual cards.
The cooling system of the new Gigabyte graphics cards keeps the structure anti-turbulence and add triangular technology for more efficient airflow and a stronger cooling.
Gigabyte video cards have integrated a DisplayPort and a HDMI 1.4a which allows the use of the Blu-ray 3D, Stereo 3D gaming and 3D photos.
( by byetech staff )

After the specs of the Radeon HD 7970 were revealed at the end of last week, a new series of slides detailing some of the key features of AMD’s Radeon HD 7900 series were leaked online.
These confirm the support for PCI Express 3.0 as well as the introduction of a new power-saving technology called ZeroCore by AMD.
ZeroCore is quite an interesting approach to power saving as it allows the card to be completely turned off when not in use, such as when the operating system shuts down the monitor in idle.
The technology also works when more than one GPU is installed inside the system in a CrossFireX configuration, by turning off the non-primary graphics cards in 2D mode.
The result is up to a tenfold decrease in idle power consumption, AMD claiming that HD 7900 cards can draw less than 3W when ZeroCore kicks in.
In addition to this new power-saving technology, AMD has also improved the card’s Eyefinity support which has now reached the second revision and adds DDM audio and HD3D to its feature list.
DDM audio is a special directional audio system that outs independent 7.1 channel audio streams through each of the HDMI and DisplayPort connectors, according to TechPowerUp.
This means that when one moves an application window from one display to another, the audio accompanying this app is automatically directed towards the new screen.
As far as the HD3D support is concerned, things are pretty self-explanatory but it’s important to mention that AMD’s drivers will now compensate for the display angle according to user's perspective and bezel.
AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 is based on the Tahiti XT core and a recent leak revealed that it would feature 32 Compute Units, for a total of 2048 streaming cores, 128 texture units, 32 ROPs and a 384-bit wide memory bus.
This will be connected to 3GB of GDDR VRAM working at 1.37GHz (5.5GHz effective), while the GPU will be clocked at 925MHz. The card is expected to be announced on December 22, with availability being scheduled for January of 2012.
source softpedia.com

A slide that appears to be a part of press pack for the HD 7900 series has leaked online. The slide looks pretty legit and gives a detailed specs that were rumoured earlier.
As noted, the new HD 7970 is based on GCN architecture, features 32 CUs and 2048 ALUs. The card works at 925MHz for the GPU and features 3GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5.5GHz and paired up with a 384-bit memory interface. According to the slide, it packs 32 ROPs and 128 texture units. The most surprising detail from the slide is the idle board power that is set at below 3W. The max board power is at below 300W thus the card need 8-pin and 6-pin PCI-E power connectors. The card will pack one DVI, two mini DisplayPort and HDMI outputs.
The slide might be fake but for now all the details seem pretty correct considering what we have heard from our sources and various rumours. The NDA date is set at January 9th 2012.
source fudzilla.com and obr-hardware.com

This is one of those product releases that will leave the tech-savvy somewhat mortified, but it's not the first time we run into an entry-level video board with 2 GB of DDR3 memory.
On the flip side, we can safely say that this is one of, if not the only PCI Express x1 card we heard referred to as an option for legacy systems.
Last we heard, ISA, VL BUS and VGA were what qualified ad legacy video interfaces, but maybe that's just us.
Anyway, the HIS Radeon HD 6450 has 160 stream processors, a 64-bit memory bus and clocks of 635 MHz for the GPU and 1,000 MHz for the RAM.
D-Sub, dual-DVI and DisplayPort connectors are present, along with the ATI Eyefinity Technology (multi-monitor setups).
Alas, the price wasn't even hinted at.
source softpedia.com

Advanced Micro Devices hasn't said anything much about its upcoming collection of graphics cards, but it did reveal a few things about some other matters.
Among other things, the Sunnyvale, California-based company has spoken its mind in regards to GPGPU computing.
In supercomputers, while x86 CPUs do much of the work, there are areas where parallel processing is ideal, especially since the parallel capabilities of GPU computing accelerators is, simply put, humongous.
AMD doesn't think special-purpose GPU-based accelerators should be made compatible with CPU sockets though.
In other words, if one really must have parallel processing in the CPU, it should be due to an on-die graphics part while not giving up the x86 part.
In other words, its Fusion technology is supposed to have a great potential in HPC installations.
“APU is a better and cleaner solution than sticking a GPU in the same socket,” said Neal Robison, senior director of content and application support at AMD.
Oddly enough, AMD actually did entertain the thought of CPU socket-compatible GPUs several years back.
In the early 2,000s, it came up with Torrenza, a special-purpose accelerator that would install in the same sockets as AMD Opteron server microprocessors.
At this point, it is rather clear that nothing will come of Torenza, even though Intel is doing its best to promote similar solutions, the Knights Ferry and, eventually, Knights Corner.
One cause behind AMD's stance is that the investment in Fusion has already been made and there is no point in not using an already available resource.
The other matter is that, while GPUs have very high compute performance, they can't work at full potential because the software isn't as efficient.
GPUs also can't use features already available in x86 CPUs, so Fusion APUs apparently make more sense since they lack these disadvantages, except the software one which is out of AMD's hands or Intel's for that matter (barring participation in software development consortia and the like).
source softpedia.com

Nvidia seems pretty confident that the high energy efficiency of the ARM architecture makes it a much better alternative for HPC computing than x86 and therefore is currently working on bringing this arch in the high-performance computing and server markets.
In an interview with EETimes, Sumit Gupta, Director for High Performance Computing Products at Nvidia said that the only advantage of x86 systems is that they can react much faster to unpredictable tasks, but ARM is far better suited for applications that require maximum performance on minimum power.
“The number one consideration for x86 has always been to make operating systems like Windows run much faster and to be able to respond to unpredictable tasks, such as a mouse-click or a keyboard entry,” said Gupta.
He continued by adding that this is the reason why such a large part of the x86 CPU die is used for branch prediction and speculative execution, two features that aren’t that important for running HPC tasks.
“It’s a terrific processor for everyday computing, not the right device as we go towards high performance computing,” concluded Nvidia’s rep.
According to Gupta, what the HPC crowd needs in the future is a platform that combines the advantages of the ARM processor cores with those of CUDA GPUs.
Nvidia has already begun exploring this alternative together with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) which plans to build am exascale supercomputer using energy-efficient ARM processor cores.
In order to help BSC, Nvidia has provided it with a series of hardware boards that pair together quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices with Nvidia CUDA GPUs.
BSC's ultimate goal is to deliver exascale-level performance while using 15 to 30 times less power than current supercomputer architectures.
source softpedia.com

As you can imagine AMD CEO Rory Read is busy meeting with partners these days, and with the most recent Bulldozer launch that went anything but smooth, confidence in AMD is not at the highest level.
When it comes to graphics, Nvidia has a lot of market share that it gained in 2011 especially in notebook graphics. However, this might change in 2012 as it looks like AMD will be the first with next generation Radeon HD 7000 graphics and Read is telling partners that this can make a vital difference.
We don’t know how Southern Islands will compete against Nvidia’s Kepler in this 28nm faceoff, but all reports indicate that Nvidia’s Kepler comes a bit later, quite a bit later. On the other hand Nvidia claims record Ivy Bridge design wins, which should translate into more than 200 notebook design wins with new Kepler chips. This means Nvidia should continue its dominance in notebook market for the time being.
When it comes to desktop graphics, many AMD partners believe that they have a good chance against Nvidia and they are being assured by AMD that they should be able to get enough 28nm chips. This was a problem for Northern Islands, people wanted to get the cards, but they were hard to get at launch and by the time supply issue was solved, Nvidia came into play and prevented AMD from capitalizing on its first-to-market advantage.
Let’s see how Radeon HD 7000 plays out, as this will be the first significant move for Read and AMD and it could give as an idea of what to expect in 2012.
source fudzilla.com

Nvidia is hoping to grab a lot of GPU design wins in 2012, courtesy of Apple and upcoming Ivy Bridge notebooks, but the outfit is currently struggling to keep up with AMD and Intel in the GPU space.
The introduction of integrated graphics on Sandy Bridge and Llano generation is expected to start slowly chipping away at overall low-end discrete graphics sales, but Nvidia is losing share to AMD at the same time. According to FBR’s quarterly PC system tracker survey, Nvidia’s overall share dropped to 15 from 17 percent over the past 18 months. Since the survey focuses on complete systems, the results should be taken with a grain of salt, as we are not sure how it covered the upgrade/enthusiast retail sales.
However, Nvidia also lost some ground to AMD in the discrete space and it now commands a 41 percent share, down from 45 percent. Curiously, the report found that discrete graphics attach rates have remained largely stable in the notebook market and they even increased in the desktop space over the past 18 months, which seems rather baffling.
FBR offers an explanation, though. Traditional users of low-end desktops are apparently shifting to notebooks, leaving the market to enthusiasts and gamers. At the same time, low-end notebook users are turning to tablets, thus maintaining the discrete GPU share in notebooks. So, if you ever wondered who is buying tablets to begin with, it seems to be people who first realized they didn’t need a desktop and now they are figuring out they can do without notebooks, too.
source fudzilla.com

In terms of desktop graphics, AMD will definitely be the first with 28nm with Nvidia coming a bit later. Rumour has it that both Nvidia and AMD won’t have these big cores until later, so we are expecting a pretty level playing ground.

Nvidia is telling its partners that Kepler will certainly wins over Southern Islands, but naturally company has to claim victory until it’s proven otherwise. TSMC is starting to ramp up 28nm production but the yields are not at great levels and this is one of the main reasons why Nvidia wants to come a bit later. For Nvidia, 28nm transition starts with notebook chips and introduction of Ivy Bridge in March / April 2012.

Both Nvidia and AMD partners claim that that Q4 2011 sales are great, and that many good games have boosted already sales. Launching a fancy 28nm graphics card and not being able to supply enough would simply kill seasonal sales, and this is definitely something that both AMD and Nvidia are trying to avoid.
source fudzilla.com