AMD is preparing a new retail package of its feisty FX-9590 eight-core processor, in a bid to woo crowds away from Intel's Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" processor. The package combines an FX-9590, which till now was sold chip-only (without a cooling solution), with an Asetek-made liquid CPU cooler, for US $359. Given that without the cooler, the FX-9590 costs $319, the extra $40 for a liquid cooler adds great value. Based on the 32 nm "Vishera" silicon, the FX-9590 features eight CPU cores based on the "Piledriver" micro-architecture, clocked at 4.70 GHz, with Turbo Core speeds of 5.00 GHz; a dual-channel DDR3 integrated memory controller that natively supports DDR3-1866 MHz, 8 MB of total L2 cache, 8 MB of L3 cache; and modern instruction sets such as AVX, AES, FMA3, etc.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) announced today that AMD has settled all 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017 ("8.125% Notes") that were tendered, but not validly withdrawn, at or prior to 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on June 19, 2014 (the "Consent Deadline") pursuant to its previously announced tender offer (the "Tender Offer") and consent solicitation (the "Consent Solicitation") with respect to any and all of its outstanding 8.125% Notes. The Tender Offer will expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on July 3, 2014 unless extended or earlier terminated by AMD.

Under the terms of the Tender Offer, holders of 8.125% Notes who (i) validly tendered their 8.125% Notes at or prior to the Consent Deadline and (ii) consented to certain proposed amendments (the "Proposed Amendments") in the Consent Solicitation to reduce the minimum notice period required in connection with redemption of 8.125% Notes from 30 days to 3 business days were entitled to receive a total payment of $1,045.88 for each $1,000 principal amount of 8.125% Notes purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer.

AMD today launched the AMD FirePro W8100 professional graphics card, enabling new levels of workstation performance delivered by the company's second generation, industry-leading AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. With nearly 38 times the performance of the closest competing product based on double precision testing, and powered by OpenCL, the AMD FirePro W8100 is designed for the next generation of 4K CAD (Computing Aided Design) and Media and Entertainment (M&E) workflows, engineering analysis and supercomputing applications.

Bolstering the AMD Professional Graphics product family with yet another productive workstation solution, the AMD FirePro W8100 features a best-in-class 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, up to 4.2 TFLOPS of single precision compute performance, and unmatched double precision compute performance of up to 2.1 TFLOPS.

AMD today announced that its APUs and GPUs enable accelerated performance for powerful new creative workflow features available for Adobe Creative Cloud members. The latest additions to Adobe Photoshop CC will take advantage of AMD acceleration to provide valuable creativity and productivity tools. Some of these tools include motion blur effects for the next generation of Blur Gallery, a focus selection feature that enables users to quickly select in-focus areas of an image and an enhanced image resample option that preserves fine details when upscaling images.

"The collaboration of AMD and Adobe assures creative professionals access to the performance they need to make the most of incredible new features as they become available across Adobe Creative Cloud," said Steve Belt, corporate vice president, Strategic Alliances & Platform Enablement, AMD. "AMD acceleration connects the fantastic creative and productivity enhancements in Adobe Photoshop CC to the compute performance required for an effortless user experience."

AMD today announced its goal to deliver a 25x improvement in the energy efficiency of its Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) by 2020.1 Details including innovations that will produce the expected efficiency gains were presented today by AMD's Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster during a keynote at the China International Software and Information Service Fair (CISIS) conference in Dalian, China. The "25X20" target is a substantial increase compared to the prior six years (2008 to 2014), during which time AMD improved the typical use energy efficiency of its products more than 10x.

Worldwide, three billion personal computers use more than one percent of all energy consumed annually, and 30 million computer servers use an additional 1.5 percent of all electricity consumed at an annual cost of $14 billion to $18 billion USD. Expanded use of the Internet, mobile devices, and interest in cloud-based video and audio content in general is expected to result in all of those numbers increasing in future years.

Graphics card vendors are bracing for a brutal spell for Q2, 2014, in which they expect sales to sequentially drop by 30 to 40 percent. They are attributing this to swelling inventories (unsold graphics cards) lower down the supply chain. The drop in graphics card sales, for the first time, is being attributed to a drop in the demand for GPUs by crypto-currency miners, who are either moving on to more energy-efficient mining technologies, such as ASICs, or quitting the business, following the drop in value of various major crypto-currencies, such as Bitcoin. These miners end up selling high-end graphics cards at attractive prices on marketspace websites such as Ebay, affecting brand-new high-end graphics card sales. Graphics card vendors (AIB and AIC partners), have asked GPU manufacturers AMD and NVIDIA, to help them cut prices to boost sales, however, both have cut down supplies, to deal with the situation, instead. Swelling inventories often translate into price-cuts for the end users, so be on the look out.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that in connection with its previously announced tender offer (the "Tender Offer") and consent solicitation (the "Consent Solicitation") with respect to any and all of its outstanding 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017 (the "8.125% Notes"), each commencing on June 2, 2014, AMD has extended the deadline by which holders of the 8.125% Notes ("Holders") may early tender their 8.125% Notes and receive an additional payment of $20.00 for each $1,000 principal amount of 8.125% Notes purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer (the "Consent Payment") in accordance with the terms of the Tender Offer (the "Consent Payment Deadline"), for an aggregate purchase price of $1,045.88 per $1,000 principal amount of 8.125% Notes.

The Consent Payment Deadline has been extended to 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on June 19, 2014 (the "New Consent Payment Deadline"). The Consent Payment Deadline for the Tender Offer was previously 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on June 13, 2014. As of that time, $135.3 million, or 48.5%, of the $278.9 million outstanding aggregate principal amount of the 8.125% Notes have been tendered and have consented, which is approximately $4.1 million principal amount fewer tendered 8.125% Notes than required to reduce the redemption notice period for the 8.125% Notes from 30 calendar days to 3 business days. The current redemption price is $1,040.63 per $1,000 aggregate principal amount of 8.125% Notes. Withdrawal rights for Holders expired at 12:00 midnight on June 13, 2014 and are not being extended.

AMD today announced the latest step in the company's multi-year strategic transformation to deliver consistent growth and profitability by combining the company's previously separate business units, global operations and sales organizations to create a singular, market-focused organization responsible for all aspects of product strategy, product execution, sales and operations.

The new structure will be implemented on July 1 and will be led by Dr. Lisa Su (44) in her new role as AMD's Chief Operating Officer (COO), reporting to AMD President and Chief Executive Officer Rory Read (52).

At a conference in early June, AMD accidentally disclosed its upcoming FirePro W8100 professional graphics card, ahead of its launch. A cut-down of the FirePro W9100, the W8100 is based on the 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon, that's binned for higher durability. It features 2,560 GCN2 stream processors, 160 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. Compare those to the 2,816 SPs and 16 GB memory of the W9100. The core on the W8100 is clocked at 825 MHz, at which, it puts out single-precision floating point performance of 4.2 TFLOP/s. The dual-slot card is built on a red PCB that's unlike anything AMD built Radeon brand cards out of. It draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors, is shorter in length than the consumer R9 290 reference board, and features a back-plate, to cool memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB. The card supports DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.4, and Mantle. It will likely be positioned against NVIDIA's Quadro K5000, at the US $2,500 range. It will also be one of the GPU options in Dell's Precision T7800 workstations.

AMD's big score for this Summer, Sniper Elite III has been added to the list of "Silver" and "Gold" rewards, which new AMD Radeon buyers can choose from, as part of their Never Settle Forever offer. Sniper Elite III builds on the success of the popular recon shooter game Sniper Elite V2, by providing bigger maps, more detailed environments, with even more ways to approach your objectives. In addition to DirectX 11, the game can take advantage of AMD's Mantle API, and should be playable on even entry-level AMD Radeon-based solutions, such as A-series "Kaveri" APUs. The game's Mantle renderer makes it take advantage of as many as 8 CPU cores. The game ships with 64-bit binaries, and should take advantage of large amounts of system and video memory. Up for pre-order on Steam for $39.99, Sniper Elite III releases on the 27th of June, 2014.

To celebrate the introduction of its new 2014 AMD Performance Mobile APUs designed for ultrathin and high-performance mobile PCs, AMD yesterday launched its all-new enthusiast-class Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) for notebooks (formerly codenamed "Kaveri") to the edge of space, symbolically expanding the physical environment of mobile computing in parallel to how AMD expanded the performance envelope of mobile computing through its new APU design.

The new mobile APUs mark the debut of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features and Mantle gaming support for mobile devices, establishing these APUs as AMD's most advanced mobile computing technology to-date.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced its new AMD PRO A-Series APUs, delivering rich computing experiences to commercial PCs. The innovative processor technology from AMD will enable a new class of powerful, sleek and sophisticated commercial Windows PCs that integrate seamlessly into an existing IT environment. With impressive performance, the latest AMD PRO A-Series APUs with HSA features unlock true business computing performance and deliver outstanding reliability and manageability. The AMD PRO A-Series APU is one of the processors being offered in new HP Elite 700-Series notebooks.

"With the new AMD PRO A-Series APUs, AMD is looking to revolutionize commercial computing. Built around a solid offering of increased performance over our consumer products, increased product longevity and software image stability, AMD PRO processors give customers choice and affordability to meet their specific business needs," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Products. "And since every AMD PRO processor packs the latest Radeon Graphics, we are raising the bar for visual performance in business PCs."

ASRock updated its Fatal1ty branded socket AM3+ motherboard. The new ASRock 990FX Fatal1ty Killer gives AMD platform gamers most advancements in onboard connectivity. To begin with, the board is based on the AMD 990FX chipset, with SB950 southbridge. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 10-phase VRM. The CPU is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 memory.

Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 wired to the AMD 990FX northbridge, a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4) wired to the southbridge; and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes five SATA 6 Gb/s, and one M.2, with a combination of PCIe 2.0 x2 and SATA 6 Gb/s link layers. The board features Realtek's latest ALC1150 HDA CODEC, which boasts of 115 dBA SNR; equipped with ground-layer isolation, and a headphones amp. Wired networking is care of a Broadcom Killer E2200 controller. Four USB 3.0 ports, and gaming peripheral-optimized USB 2.0 ports (stabilized power); make for the rest of it. The board is driven by AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS, supporting Windows 8 Secure Boot.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced new x86 AMD Embedded G-Series system-on-chip (SoC) and central processing unit (CPU) solutions for embedded applications, including early adoption by HP for thin client deployment in healthcare, finance, education and retail, as well as Advantech for industrial applications in rugged environments.

The new product families expand upon the high-performance, low-power capabilities of the award-winning AMD Embedded G-Series platform, bringing high performance and integrated security with enterprise-class error-correction code (ECC) memory support, dual- and quad-core variants, and a discrete-class GPU and I/O controller on the same die. The new G-Series processors are pin-compatible across the AMD G-Series SoC and CPU family for ease of scalability among embedded applications, including communications and networking infrastructure, industrial control and automation (IC&A), thin clients, gaming machines, and digital signage.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced its new 2014 Performance Mobile APUs designed for ultrathin and high-performance mobile PCs, bringing the features and capabilities of the popular and powerful AMD A-Series APU family (codenamed "Kaveri") to power-efficient notebooks for both personal and professional use. The new mobile APUs mark the debut of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features and Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture for mobile devices, establishing them as AMD's most advanced mobile APUs to-date. Notebook and desktop systems powered by AMD's entire 2014 APU lineup, including systems from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and others also debuted at COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2014.

"AMD takes a major step forward today on our journey to transform and enhance the computing experience with the launch of the 2014 Performance Mobile APU family," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. "With a combination of superior total compute performance, stunning graphics and efficient power use alongside industry-first technologies, these new APUs set a new bar for cutting-edge consumer and commercial PCs."
The announcement of the 2014 Performance Mobile APU family features AMD's first FX-branded enthusiast-class APU for notebooks, and follows the recent introduction of AMD's 2014 Low-Power and Mainstream APUs.

ASUS showed off its first socket FM2+ motherboard in its Republic of Gamers family, the ROG Crossblade Ranger. Based on the AMD A88X FCH chipset, the Crossblade Ranger offers an 8-phase CPU VRM, four DDR3 DIMM slots, two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (gen 3.0 x8/x8 when both are populated), a third PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4) slot, eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, Intel-made gigabit Ethernet with ASUS LANGuard, and SupremeFX audio. The board supports both SLI and CrossFire. We expect this board to be priced under $150.

MSI unveiled its first socket AM3+ motherboard bearing its coveted Gaming Series badge, the 970 Gaming. Based on AMD 970 chipset with SB950 southbridge, the board offers most modern gaming features for the AM3+ platform. It supports FX "Vishera" eight-core processors. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, and features a strong 8-phase CPU VRM that's cooled by a massive heatsink. The AM3+ socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 MHz memory.

Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), and two each of PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI. Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. There are four USB 3.0 ports on offer. Things get interesting with its Qualcomm Killer E2200 gaming-optimized wired NIC, the same one featured on its flagship Z97 Gaming 9 AC; and Audio Boost HD audio, which features a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, a 600Ω headphones amp, electrolytic capacitors, and gold-plated jacks. MSI didn't disclose pricing.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that it has agreed to sell $500 million aggregate principal amount of its 7.00% Senior Notes due 2024 in a private offering. AMD intends to close the transaction on or around June 16, 2014. AMD estimates that the net proceeds from the issuance and sale of the senior notes (the "Net Proceeds") will be approximately $490 million after deducting the initial purchasers' discounts and estimated offering expenses. AMD intends to use the Net Proceeds to fund the purchase of all 8.125% Senior Notes due 2017 (the "8.125% Notes") that are early tendered (the "Early Tender") in accordance with the terms of a tender offer that was announced earlier today (the "8.125% Tender Offer"). To the extent AMD still has 8.125% Notes outstanding following settlement of the Early Tender, prior to or following the expiration of the 8.125% Tender Offer, AMD intends to use the remaining Net Proceeds to redeem any and all remaining outstanding 8.125% Notes. AMD will use the remaining Net Proceeds after the completion of the 8.125% Tender Offer and any redemption of 8.125% Notes to redeem, repurchase or otherwise retire other outstanding indebtedness.

The new senior notes have not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or applicable state securities laws, and will be offered only to qualified institutional buyers in reliance on Rule 144A and in offshore transactions pursuant to Regulation S under the Securities Act. Unless so registered, the new senior notes may not be offered or sold in the United States except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws.
This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the release of the DockPort standard. Developed by several VESA member companies, DockPort is an optional extension of the DisplayPort standard that will allow USB 3.1 data and DC power for battery charging to be carried over a single DisplayPort connector and cable that also carries high-resolution audio/video (A/V) data. This new extension of the DisplayPort standard is fully backward compatible with all existing DisplayPort devices. When a DockPort-enabled DisplayPort source-such as a computer or tablet-is connected with a DockPort-enabled DisplayPort sink-such as a display monitor or docking station-A/V plus USB data and power will be transferred over a common cable through a single connector. If either the source or sink device is not a DockPort-enabled, then source and sink will recognize only the DisplayPort A/V data stream.

AMD has now let loose a new graphics card driver, a fresh Catalyst build which brings performance enhancements for games like Watch Dogs and Murdered Soul Suspect, plus Eyefinity and Mantle improvements.

The Catalyst 14.6 Beta is available for Windows 7 and 8.1 (8.0 users will have to update to 8.1 if they want to install it) and supports Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, HD 8000, R5 200, R7 200 and R9 200 Series desktop cards, and Mobility Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 6000M, HD 7000M and HD 8000M mobile GPUs.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the election of new Board of Directors leadership. Alan Kobayashi of MegaChips has been elected Board Chair; Syed Athar Hussain has been re-elected Vice Chair; and Richard Hubbard of Texas Instruments has been elected Secretary/Treasurer. The new leadership slate will serve one-year terms of office.

Alan Kobayashi, VESA's new Board Chair, is Fellow & Executive R&D Management for DisplayPort Group at MegaChips Technology America. Based in San Jose, CA, Mr. Kobayashi has served in a variety of senior corporate technology roles, and he has been an author of VESA's DisplayPort Standard and served as Chair of the DisplayPort Task Group, the Leader of the organization's PHY/Link Layer Compliance Sub-groups, and as a VESA Board member. Mr. Kobayashi holds several dozen patents in the area of A/V transport and display.

"VESA's work developing standards and establishing compliance test protocols is of strategic importance to the entire video display ecosystem," explained Alan Kobayashi. "I hope to help guide the organization as we continue to enhance our existing, widely adopted standards, while also developing solutions for the industry's emerging video challenges."

AMD's third generation Eyefinity multi-display technology, will feature the ability to mix and match resolutions. AMD pioneered multi-display with Eyefinity, which allows you to span a single display head across 3 to 6 physical displays. Up until now, the technology required all participating displays in a setup to run at the same resolution, often limited by that of the lowest-resolution display. Soon, that limitation will be removed, letting you mix displays with different native resolutions, in three new modes. The first one will be called "Fit mode," in which vertical pixel counts will be kept constant among the displays. The next is "Expand mode," in which the display head assumes the vertical pixel count of the larger (central) display for the flanking displays, creating "unavailable" areas. The third one is "Fill mode," in which the head fills out the native resolutions of the displays, with no "unavailable" areas. The resulting display head, thus, won't be a quadrilateral. AMD plans to launch Eyefinity 3.0 with Catalyst 14.6, due for June 2014.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics add-in-board (AIB) shipments and suppliers' market share for 2014 1Q.

JPR's AIB Report tracks computer add-in graphics boards, which carry discrete graphics chips. AIBs are used in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and other devices such as scientific instruments. They are sold directly to customers as aftermarket products, or are factory installed. In all cases, AIBs represent the higher end of the graphics industry using discrete chips and private high-speed memory, as compared to the integrated GPUs in CPUs that share slower system memory.

AMD today announced the 2nd generation AMD Embedded R-series accelerated processing unit (APU) and CPU family (previously codenamed "Bald Eagle") for embedded applications. The new solutions are targeted at gaming machines, medical imaging, digital signage, industrial control and automation (IC&A), communications and networking infrastructure that require industry-leading compute and graphics processing technology.

"When it comes to compute performance, graphics performance and performance-per-watt, the 2nd generation AMD Embedded R-series family is unique in the embedded market," said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Solutions. "The addition of HSA, GCN and power management features enables our customers to create a new world of intelligent, interactive and immersive embedded devices."

During its 45 years history AMD has been focused on bringing technology to market that creates a visually-rich and user-friendly digital experiences. The AMD game heritage is strong and programs like the " AMD Gaming Evolved Client powered by Raptr" are demonstrating this. AMD is pleased to announce that it is reentering the eSports arena with the sponsorship of ROCCAT's professional eSport team. Through this new global sponsorship, AMD will be actively supporting ROCCAT's professional eSports team in the prestigious League of Legends and the StarCraft II league in the whole of EMEA.

"AMD is gaming, we are powering millions of gamers with our AMD Radeon Graphics and AMD APUs around the globe. Getting involved in e-sport and sponsoring Team Roccat is just a natural step for AMD moving forward. Given that AMD graphic cards like the AMD Radeon R7 240 offer great performance for games like League of Legends, we are excited and are looking forward to supporting the Roccat team and helping them win." - commented Mark Reed, Director of Marketing EMEA at AMD.