Sapphire Unveils Radeon HD 6850 Vapor-X

Sapphire has announced the upcoming launch of its Radeon HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition, a Radeon HD 6850 which as its name suggests has the cooling dual-slot Vapor-X of the manufacturer. This graphics card is factory overclocked. We thus find in the cooler floor of a 10-phase power, a GPU clocked at 800 MHz Barts (25 MHz higher than the reference model) and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1100 MHz (1000 MHz for Radeon HD 6850 classic).

The features of OpenGL 4.2 are released

The Khronos Group has released the features of OpenGL 4.2. The program includes small changes to make life easier for developers. The OpenGL compatible graphics cards require only 4 updated drivers to support new products. NVIDIA has already released an update on its website. AMD will soon follow suit.

The announcement was made at the opening of SIGGRAPH 2011, living on the world of computer graphics, held for the first time this year outside the United States, specifically in Canada, Vancouver. Among the new features, there is the possibility of re-forms that have already been tessellisées by the GPU instead of forcing them to go through the process of tessellation.

Nvidia "expect Kepler in 2012, not before"

Recently, Chris Malachowsky, co-founder of Nvidia, confided that future graphics processors of the company known as Kepler code released in 2011, at the end of the year. Nvidia wanted to curb his words without denying it completely. A spokesman said: "Although we will have first chips this year, the production of products based on Kepler is actually 2012.

We wanted to clarify this so that no one expected to see the products available this year. "That has the merit of being clear. AMD on the other hand may be able to deliver its next-generation GPU (Southern Islands) this year, thanks to a chip less demanding in terms of frequency. Nvidia, AMD and Apple even depend largely on the ability of founders such as TSMC in servicing the etching 28 nm.

• NVIDIA seen delaying Kepler, Maxwell graphics to 2012, 2014 (08/07/2011)
• NVIDIA delaying GPUs over subpar performance and production? (08/07/2011)
• Carl Sagan on Kepler (10/07/2011)
• Nvidia's "Kal-El" quad-core tablet coming in the fall, phone to be announced at CES 2012 (02/08/2011)
• Nvidia, Your S&P Leader (01/08/2011)

Nvidia (geolocation)  NVidia (homepage)  NASDAQ: NVDA (googlefinance)  NVidia (blog)  NVIDIA (NVDA) (wikinvest)  NVidia (crunchbase)  Nvidia (wikipedia)  NVIDIA: The Way It's Meant To Be Played (youtube)  Nvidia Hair Dryer (youtube)  Johannes Kepler (wikipedia)  

Radeon HD 6950 Sapphire Toxic

The manufacturer Sapphire has launched a new model of graphics card factory overclocked, the Radeon HD 6950 Toxic Edition. Equipped with a dual-slot cooling, this features a Radeon GPU clocked at 880 MHz Cayman (against 800 MHz for the reference model) and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1300 MHz (50 MHz or more than other Radeon HD 6950).

Of course CrossFireX compatible, this graphics card has two power connectors PCI-Express (one 8-pin and one 6-pin) and DVI (x2), HDMI and DisplayPort mini (x2). Both versions should finally be proposed, depending on whether the game Dirt 3 is delivered with the card or not. As far as prices, however, is still unknown ...

• AMD Claims the Radeon HD 6990M Is the Fastest Consumer GPU [Guts] (12/07/2011)
• AMD throws down the GPU gauntlet with Radeon HD 6990M (12/07/2011)
• AMD rolls out Radeon HD 6990M - billed as the world's fastest laptop GPU (13/07/2011)
• AMD announces the Radeon HD 6990M, has some pointed words for NVIDIA (12/07/2011)
• ASUS to release passively-cooled Radeon HD 6770 DirectCU Silent graphics card (02/08/2011)

Radeon (wikipedia)  

Zotac: an Infinity GTX 580 water

The manufacturer Zotac has announced the launch, in cooperation with the company CoolIT, the GeForce GTX 580 Infinity Edition, a factory overclocked model and benefiting from a liquid cooling system all in one. While the reference model features a GPU clocked at 772 MHz (1544 MHz to 512 CUDA cores) and memory running at 1002 MHz, the Infinity GTX 580 GPU benefits from turning to 815 MHz (1630 MHz for the shaders ) and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1025 MHz.

NVIDIA GPUs Kepler arrive late 2012

NVIDIA said its next-generation graphics processor known as the Kepler code come out of factories by the end of the year, according to remarks reported by Xbit labs. We contacted NVIDIA France and await their response. Rumors suggested that Kepler would have passed the stage Taped Out in early July and production difficulties at TSMC forced the chameleon a marketing plan for 2012.

It seems that this date is confirmed. Indeed, delivery of graphics chips to partners at the end of the year would provide a marketing graphics cards in the first half of 2012. The technical details around the chip are still scarce.

Asus Radeon 6770 passive DirectCU

Asus has just launched on the market a new model of Radeon HD 6770 equipped with the cooling system DirectCU the manufacturer. Composed of a radiator through which several heat pipes, the cooling system is completely silent as devoid of any fan. In terms of technical characteristics, there is a GPU with 800 Stream Processors, the operating frequency is not known.

However, we can assume that it is identical to that of the reference model (850 MHz). There are also 1 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, as well as VGA, DVI and HDMI. The price and launch date of the Radeon HD 6770 DirectCU have not yet been provided by Asus.

• AMD Radeon HD 6770 Specs (25/06/2011)
• Take a closer look at the new Apple iMac (06/05/2011)
• AMD Claims the Radeon HD 6990M Is the Fastest Consumer GPU [Guts] (12/07/2011)
• AMD throws down the GPU gauntlet with Radeon HD 6990M (12/07/2011)
• AMD announces the Radeon HD 6990M, has some pointed words for NVIDIA (12/07/2011)

Radeon (wikipedia)  

AMD's Radeon saddled benefits

AMD has posted mixed financial results for the second quarter of 2011. While the challenger to Intel's success in selling a record number of CPU, its sales and earnings are down from last year. Blame it on the graphics division, which displays an operating loss. The turnover of the branch CPU is stable over the year (1.207 billion dollars against 1.212 billion in the second quarter of 2010) and operating profit was up ($ 142 million against 128 million last year ).

Cables mini-DisplayPort/HDMI prohibited

Originally used exclusively by Apple, the mini-DisplayPort connector is now a large number of AMD graphics cards and notebooks Dell, Toshiba, HP or Lenovo. The number of screens with native port is identical necking, it is mostly through a mini-DP to DVI or HDMI. But now the promoter of the consortium has ruled that HDMI cables adaper mini-DP to HDMI is illegal.

Remember that the HDMI is a standard charge (unlike the DisplayPort): Each company wishing to use this interface must pay a license to HDMI Licensing LLC, which has power of life and death on the standard, its variations and related products. HDMI Licensing LLC has informed the cable manufacturers with a mini-DP port male on one side and a male HDMI port on the other that their products were incompatible with the license HDMI.

Soon the shelves Tegra 2 overclocked?

Currently, the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC operates at 1 GHz in the tablets, but that could change: the chip supports actually be overclocked to 1.5 GHz without too many problems with programs like SetCPU. And some NVIDIA partners have understood the value of the thing: it is rumored that some manufacturers who already overclockent graphics cards in the factory (we think MSI, for example) could provide Tegra 2 tablets under overclocked from the purchase.

AMD Launches Radeon 6990M

After NVIDIA GTX 580M and is AMD's turn to propose a GPU for portable high-end Radeon HD 6990M chip. This new chip is in fact (simplifying) a Radeon HD 6870 slow: moving from 900 / 2 100 MHz on the desktop version to 715 / 1 800 MHz here. The chip embeds 1120 calculation units (224 vec5) against 960 (192) on the old high-end HD 6970M.

The texturing power also increases, with 56 units against 48, and the frequency increases from 680 MHz to 715 MHz. The rest of the GDDR5 memory, but AMD recommends 2 GB instead of 1 GB on the old range. The chip, about 20% faster than the 6970M is expected to arrive quickly at Alienware and Clevo.

Tegra 3: anti-aliasing and output in September

Tegra 3, aka Kal-El, is the next mobile chip from NVIDIA. The SoC (chip all-in-one) should land at the end of the summer (apparently the end of September) and will propose some new face Tegra 2. First, it will go from two cores to four type Cortex A9, which can be useful in some applications. Second, the SIM has been added to the cores, was one of the (few) flaws Tegra 2.

SIMD "ARM", NEON, makes it possible to overcome the lack of FPU chips and software like Flash Player is already optimized. Finally, the GPU should be from 8 to 12 "cores," although the concept is rather vague in the case of Tegra. And this increase in power will actually be used: NVIDIA should propose a solution to the anti-aliasing.

AMD E-450: a Turbo for the GPU?

AMD is expected to propose in the future a new APU at entry level, the E-450. This chip is expected to replace the current APU and E-350 would be a simple evolution of the latter. The party would win a few MHz CPU, going from 1.6 GHz to 1.66 GHz, but the Bobcat cores do not move: it is 64 bits, and storage OoO 512 KB of cache per core.

The memory management is changing a bit, going from DDR3-1066 to DDR3-1333. This is the graphics changing "most": the Radeon HD 6310 Radeon HD 6320 is a. The chip is still based on Cedar and Radeon 5450 and 80 processing units are still present, but the frequency increases slightly. 500 MHz now, we will move to 508 MHz mode and a "Turbo" will be on hand, in some cases for up to 600 MHz frequency.

Nvidia confirms the release of its GPU Kepler in 2012

We learned there is little that the next GPU architecture from NVIDIA, Kepler, was "taped out". This important step does not allow to determine with certainty the launch window of Kepler. Last September, Nvidia was counting on the second half of 2011, but production difficulties by TSMC left some doubt.

Uncertainty is no longer valid as announcing the release of Kepler in 2012. In the best case, we must expect a launch in the first quarter of next year, two years after the GeForce GTX 480.

Gigabyte Radeon HD6970 review its Windforce 3X

Gigabyte is, according to some sources, preparing a new revision of its Radeon HD 6970 "Windforce 3X." R697UD named GV-2GD-rev. 2.0, this new graphics card takes some of the characteristics of the current version (solid electrolyte capacitors of Japanese manufacture, PCB copper 2oz or the famous Windforce 3X cooler with three fans), but also benefits from the addition of a circuit NEC Proadlizer supposed to improve the overall stability under heavy workload.

[Excluded] AMD after Thames and Lombok, and here CapeVerde Pitcairn

It's been several months that AMD develops slowly but surely, the next generation of graphics chipsets. The current chips "Northern Islands" and should leave their place by some time for new GPU and a new range: Southern Islands. Last March, we will tell you already that AMD had the names given to its future graphics chipsets: New Zealand, Tahiti Tahiti Pro and XT, but Thames and Lombok (and its variations XT / GL, Pro, LE, and AIO).

GeForce GTX 580 from eVGA Classified

According to sources, EVGA will soon bring to market a version of  "Classified" of its GeForce GTX 580. Factory overclocked (the frequencies are not yet known), this model should also have a custom design. We should find a CUDA GPU has 512 cores and two SLI connectors, two DVI outputs (one third exit, at first owner, also appears in the photos), a rather large cooling system, a power stage and reinforced three power connectors PCI-Express (two 8-pin and one 6-pin).

AMD: Catalyst for Llano 11.6a A6 and A8

Just formalized by AMD, the Llano "desktop" A6 and A8 benefit from a new version of Catalyst graphics drivers unified. 11.6a stamped, this hotfix is therefore supports the Radeon HD 6530D and 6550D integrated APU-3600 A6, A6-3650, A8 and A8-3800-3850 recently launched by the manufacturer. Catalyst 11.6a hotfix is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32 and 64 bit).

• Why memory is the weak link in AMD's latest Fusion chip (30/06/2011)
• AMD's Fusion A-Series: Can Llano Match Sandy Bridge? (30/06/2011)
• iSuppli: Intel Sandy Bridge woes fail to help AMD (30/06/2011)
• AMD Trinity APU will provide 50% performance boost over Llano, due in 2012 (18/06/2011)
• AMD Llano APU prices leak (24/05/2011)

NYSE: AMD (googlefinance)  Advanced Micro Devices (geolocation)  AMD (homepage)  Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (wikinvest)  AMD (crunchbase)  Advanced Micro Devices (wikipedia)  

Two new GeForce GTX 5xx mobile

The catalog of graphics cards for the mobile market expands with the arrival of two new models: the GeForce GTX 570M and 580M. Support for DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, these cards support CUDA technology course, PhysX, SLI and 3D Vision Optimus. The GTX 580M features a GPU clocked at 620 MHz and 384 CUDA cores running at 1240 MHz, accompanied by 2 GB (maximum) of GDDR5 memory at 750 MHz on a 256-bit bus.

Gigabyte updates its GeForce GTX 560 Ti SOC

The manufacturer Gigabyte has just updated its GV-N560SO-1GI-950 or GeForce GTX 560 Overclock Super Ti for short. If the frequency of the GPU is still 950 MHz and that of 384 CUDA cores and gigabytes of GDDR5 memory does not change over the current GeForce GTX 560 Ti SOC (respectively 1900 MHz and 1145 MHz), the system cooling, however, was slightly revised and corrected.

This embeds V2.0 indeed a cooler consists of a massive aluminum radiator, crossed by several copper heat pipes and topped by two 100 mm fans (hopefully), slightly sloping. Classics DVI (x2) and HDMI are of course still present.