After taking the market by storm with the launch of the HD2900XT in mid-May, GECUBE launched today this year's heavyweight graphics card - the HD3800 Series. The product that reviewers and gamers have all been waiting for is now finally here. Equipped with the latest RV670 (55nm) graphics chip from AMD, the HD3800 series marks the first time that the PCI-Express 2.0 interface has been used on a graphics card and incorporates the latest ATI CrossFireX technology. With support for DirectX 10.1, it delivers next-generation 3D graphics performance for ultimate realism. You can now enjoy both high resolution and superior image processing technology at the same time!

AMD today announced the introduction and immediate availability of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of graphics processing units (GPU). As the world's first series of graphics processors to deliver Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 support, 55nm process technology and tri and quad multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series ushers in a new era of enthusiast gaming performance at mainstream price points. The ATI Radeon HD 3800 series will be introduced in two variants at launch, from US $179 MSRP, the ATI Radeon HD 3850 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and from US $219 MSRP, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 with 512MB GDDR4 memory. The launch of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series redefines the enthusiast segment and puts high performance gaming in reach of more users than ever before. This innovative new series of graphics products also represent the first step in the launch of AMD's upcoming enthusiast platform codenamed "Spider."

Sorry, only pictures available, no details listed.

Graphics card manufacturer Diamond has quite conveniently leaked the specs for AMD/ATI's upcoming HD 3800 series of cards, giving the technical details of both the HD 3850 and the HD 3870. These do conflict a little with the earlier leaked specs, although they're still quite similar. According to the Diamond site, the HD 3850 will feature a core speed of 668MHz and 256MB of 256-bit GDDR3 memory at 828MHz (1656MHz DDR) and the HD 3870 will have a core speed of 775MHz and 512MB GDDR4 memory at 1.2GHz (2.4GHz DDR). Both will be manufactured using a 55nm process, and both will support DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1. Interestingly the cards are also said to feature up to four GPU support using an AMD 790FX based motherboard. The full specs are shown in the screenshots below, as Diamond has now removed the cards from its website.

According to VR-Zone, the official name for AMD/ATI's RV670 will be Radeon HD 3000 series. Previously codenamed Radeon HD 2950 series, today one of the AIB partners - GeCube has even listed out Radeon HD 3800 on their website. AMD has also decided to drop PRO, XT, GT, XTX from their future HD 3000 series graphics cards. The last 2 digits of the model name will determine the performance of the card. For example RV670PRO will be known as Radeon HD 3850 while RV670XT will be known as Radeon HD 3870 when they are launched on November 15th.

AMD/ATi sends word that a new Catalyst driver package (7.10) dubbed the "Shoot em up" driver will be released by the end of the week. Here is a partial list of performance improvements:

• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Crossfire performance improves as much as 23% on ATI Radeon 1000 series products and single card performance improves as much as 23% on both ATI Radeon HD 2000 and ATI Radeon 1000 series products
• Battlefield 2142 Crossfire performance improves 5-23% on the ATI Radeon HD 2600, ATI Radeon HD 2400 and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series
• Call of Duty 2 performance improves up to 6.7% on both single card and Crossfire ATI Radeon HD 2600 and ATI Radeon HD 2400 configurations
• Call of Juarez DirectX 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 42% and single card performance improves up to 34% on all ATI Radeon HD 2000 series products.
• FEAR Crossfire performance improves as much as 16% on the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX, ATI Radeon X1650 XT, ATI Radeon HD 2400 series and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series

Sapphire has not only showcased its Radeon HD 2600 X2 DUAL at this year's World Cyber Games (WCG) Grand Final in Seattle but it has also shown off some soon to be released products including a AMD Phenom X4 Engineering Sample CPU, Sapphire RD790 (790 FX) motherboard and Crossfire setup consisting of two RV670 cards. AMD is calling its CPU+GPU+Chipset package "Spider".

Although there are no firm details about the specs yet, AMD has essentially confirmed that it is working on an R680 graphics processor by including it in the latest set of beta Catalyst drivers. According to VR-Zone the R680 will be released during the first quarter of 2008 and will support PCI Express 2.0, DX 10.1, Double Precision FP, Quad Crossfire and UVD, with a core clock frequency of 800MHz+ and 512MB/1GB GDDR3 memory. I would like to emphasise that those specs are just rumours though, and AMD has not made any official comment yet.

It looks like AMD is planning to unveil its new RV670 chip to the public this weekend at the World Cyber Games. The Radeon HD2950PRO (which uses the RV670 graphics processor) is set to be officially released on November 19th, with the specs suggesting that it will support DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.0, PCI Express 2.0, UVD and CrossFire. The card comes in two varieties, the higher performing Gladiator model which will have GPU and memory clocks of 825MHz and 2.4GHz respectively, with its little brother Revival having clocks of 750MHz and 1.8GHz respectively - presumably AMD will be showing the faster card this weekend if it wants to impress gamers. Hopefully this should mean that some reliable benchmarks could be available soon, which would allow for a comparison between the RV670 and the power-hungry R600.

AMD is preparing to launch its new Radeon HD 2950PRO (RV670) chip on November 19, 2007. The company recently notified graphics card makers that design verification test (DVT) samples will be sent out at the beginning of this month and AMD will start producing a batch of 1.5 million chips in the first week of November. The Radeon HD 2950PRO will continue to adopt the R600 chip structure. It will support DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.0, PCI Express 2.0, UVD and CrossFire technology. The chip also features built-in HDMI, HDCP and 320 stream processors per GPU. The Radeon HD 2950PRO will come in two versions, Gladiator and Revival, with Gladiator adopting 512MB GDDR4 graphics memory, a GPU frequency of 825MHz and a memory frequency of 2.4GHz. Revival will adopt 256/512MB GDDR3 graphics memory, a GPU frequency of 750MHz and a memory frequency of 1.8GHz.

AMD today announced SAPPHIRE Technology, the official graphics supplier for the World Cyber Games (WCG) Grand Final, will exclusively supply graphics cards based on the ATI Radeon HD 2000 series from AMD for the competition. As the official WCG supplier of GPUs, AMD will co-host a demonstration area with SAPPHIRE to showcase exciting next-generation platform technology for the gaming community. The WCG 2007 event is scheduled to take place in Seattle, WA from October 3-7.

AMD Announces AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition

Advanced Micro Devices has announced its new central processing unit (CPU) that is officially aimed at enthusiasts and gamers who dare to overclock and tweak their systems. The new processor from the Black Edition lineup comes with unlocked multiplier, which allows to easily set it working at higher clock-speed, getting additional performance virtually for free.

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor 5000+ Black Edition is an affordably-priced, dual-core processor targeted to the consumer channel, boasting a customizable clock multiplier for tunable performance, enabling mainstream end-users to reap the benefits of setting their own speed limits, a statement by the world's largest maker of x86 central processing units maker reads.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition microprocessor works at 2.60GHz, features dual-channel DDR2 memory controller, 1MB of level-two cache (512KB per core) and is compatible with socket AM2 mainboards featuring 1000MHz HyperTransport bus. The chip has 65W thermal design power and is made using 65nm process technology.

Spy photos showing video card powered by the ATI RV670 GPU have leaked online.

AMD's new RV670 will have two versions; RV670 XT and RV670 PRO, named "Gladiator" and "Revival". Both new GPUs will power Radeon HD 2950 XT and Radeon HD 2950 PRO video cards when released. Gladiator will feature 512MB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 1.2GHz, and 825MHz clocked core. Revival will come in 256MB or 512MB GDDR3 flavors, with 750MHz core clock and 900MHz memory clock speeds. Both GPUs will be made using 55nm technology, with support for DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1, PCI-E 2.0, UVD and next generation CrossFire technology. In addition, RV670 XT will be manufactured by AMD while the RV670 PRO will be produced by other manufacturers (not specified). The new GPUs will be released by the end of 2007, or in the beginning of the next year. The information HARDSPELL is reporting is not confirmed by any official source close to AMD or ATI, keep it in mind while reading.