Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers' market share for 2014 1Q. For the previous three quarters, the PC graphics market has gone up. This was the first quarter to show a decrease in shipments since last. Shipments were down 11.6% quarter-to-quarter, and down 4% compared to the same quarter last year.

Quick highlights:

• AMD's overall unit shipments decreased 18.2% quarter-to-quarter, Intel's total shipments decreased 7.9% from last quarter, and Nvidia's decreased 10.4%.
• The attach rate of GPUs to PCs for the quarter was 135% and 33% of PCs had discrete GPUs, which means 67% of the PCs are using the embedded graphics in the CPU.
• The overall PC market decreased 9% quarter-to-quarter, and decreased 3.5% year-to-year.

BIOSTAR has released the A88MQ motherboard based on the new AMD FM2+ socket design that supports AMD Multi-Core (x4, x2) socket FM2+/FM2 processors AMD A-series/ E2-series processors all in a micro ATX form factor. Using the AMD A88X Chipset, the A88MQ, gives users the options for small build using the MicroATX form factor. It gives 4 DIMM slots supporting DDR3 RAM up to 64GB. It uses the newest SATA3 6Gb/s bus which is twice the speed of previous SATA2. There is also support for AMD Dual Graphics Technology.

The A88MQ will give users the 6+ Experience. The first, Audio+ includes audio features from BIOSTAR which are extensive with True Blu-Ray Audio and SPDIF out. The Video+ features support for full HDMI 3D 1080p and a Dual-Link DVI port for resolutions up to 2560x1600. The Speed+ features include support for SmartSpeedLAN which is a free software application that monitors and manages your PC's network behavior. There is also Charger Booster, the fastest and most efficient charger solution for Apple devices such as iPads and iPhones.

NVIDIA's energy-efficiency leap achieved on existing 28 nanometer process, using the "Maxwell" based GM107, appears to have rattled AMD. The company is reportedly attempting a super-efficient, 28 nm, mid-range chip of its own, codenamed "Tonga." The chip could power graphics cards that compete with the GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750. The chip is likely to be based on Graphics CoreNext 2.0 micro-architecture, the same one that drives "Hawaii," which means AMD isn't counting on the micro-architecture for efficiency gains. It could feature an evolution of PowerTune, which works closer to the metal than its existing implementation on "Hawaii." Other features could include Mantle, TrueAudio, and perhaps even XDMA CrossFire (no cables needed). The chip could be wired to up to 2 GB of memory.

Another equally plausible theory doing rounds is that "Tonga" could be a replacement to "Tahiti Pro," designed to compete with the GK104 at much lower power footprint (than "Tahiti"), so AMD could more effectively compete with the GeForce GTX 760. The chip could be similar in feature-set to "Tahiti," with a narrower memory bus (256-bit wide), but higher clock speeds to make up for it. If this theory holds true, then "Tonga" could disrupt both Tahiti Pro and "Curacao XT." Curacao XT (R9 270X) is designed to offer a value-conscious alternative to the $250 GTX 760. The R9 280 is competitive in performance, but takes a beating on the energy-efficiency front, and is also costlier to manufacture, due to the higher transistor count and four additional memory chips. We could hear more at Computex 2014.

Cyberpower Inc., a manufacturer of custom gaming machines, notebook systems, and high performance workstations, today announced its Power Mega Pro series - a redesigned family of AMD and Intel high-performance workstations powered by AMD and Intel processors that offer a minimum of 8 processing threads configurable up to 40 threads with dual Intel Xeon E6-2690 v2 processors.

From video editing to 3D design and rendering, the Power Mega Pro series is crafted with premium components to ensure a seamless, reliable computing experience to tackle the most demanding CPU and GPU-intensive applications. CYBERPOWERPC did extensive research and testing to design the perfect mix of seven base model Power Mega Pro systems - all of which offer workstation level performance for running advanced applications out of the box. Customers have a choice of the OpenGL performance of an NVIDIA Quadro GPU, or the ability to distribute a load across 20 or more Intel Xeon processing threads.

AMD stabilized end-user pricing of its Radeon R9 series graphics cards, restoring them to their original launch prices in most cases, and even lower in some. Pricing of most AMD Graphics CoreNext architecture-based GPUs inflated over the past 6 months, due to the frenzy created by Cryptocoin currency miners, who leveraged the chips' GPGPU performance to 'mine' currencies such as Litecoin. Sensing that high prices are driving gamers away from Radeon, AMD swung into action by dealing with the problem at two levels. First, VP Global Channel Sales, Roy Taylor micro-managed the supply chain in China, and next, the company dealt with distributors and retailers.

At the time of preparing this article, most Radeon R9 series-based graphics cards, including high-end ones such as the R9 290X, and non-reference cards, are back to their original price-points on US retailer Newegg.com. The R9 290X can now be had for as low as US $519.99 (launch-price $549.99, was inflated to $750), the R9 290 for $379.99 (launched at $399.99, was inflated to $600), the R9 280X as low as $279.99 (launched at $299.99, was inflated to $400); the R9 280 as low as $229.99 (launched at $249.99, was inflated to $280); and the R9 270X at $199.99 (was inflated as high as $250).

AMD today announced that its SeaMicro SM15000 server set a significant industry benchmark record for hyperscale cloud computing with a demonstration that highlights how OpenStack can quickly and reliably provision on-demand computing services at scale. The test provisioned 168,000 virtual machines on 576 physical hosts. The first 75,000 virtual machines were deployed in six hours and thirty minutes. This is the largest known demonstration of OpenStack scalability ever. AMD achieved the record in collaboration with Canonical using the Ubuntu OpenStack (Icehouse) distribution. MaaS (Metal as a Service), part of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu OpenStack, was used to deliver the bare metal servers, storage and networking. The solution is available today and is the most scalable, automated application for deploying OpenStack in hyperscale environments.

"This record validates that the SeaMicro SM15000 is well suited for massive OpenStack deployments," said Dhiraj Mallick, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Data Center Server Solutions. "The combination of Ubuntu OpenStack and the SeaMicro SM15000 server provides the industry's leading solution to build cloud infrastructure that is highly responsive and ideal for on-demand services."

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the addition of 'Adaptive-Sync' to its popular DisplayPort 1.2a video interface standard. This technology delivers several important capabilities to computer users: Adaptive-Sync provides smoother, tear-free images for gaming and judder-free video playback. It also significantly reduces power consumption for static desktop content and low frame rate video.

Computer monitors normally refresh their displays at a fixed frame rate. In gaming applications, a computer's CPU or GPU output frame rate will vary according to the rendering complexity of the image. If a display's refresh rate and a computer's render rate are not synchronized, visual artifacts-tearing or stuttering-can be seen by the user. DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync enables the display to dynamically match a GPU's rendering rate, on a frame-by-frame basis, to produce a smoother, low latency, gaming experience. In applications where the display content is static-such as surfing the web, reading email, or viewing a slide presentation-DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync allows the display refresh rate to be reduced seamlessly, lowering system power and extending battery life.

AMD is reportedly working on a new single-GPU graphics card SKU to compete with the likes of GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and perhaps even take a swing at the GTX TITAN Black, since it's not too far ahead of the GTX 780 Ti at single-display gaming. The new SKU will be more than just a clock-speed bump, it will leverage HBM (high-bandwidth memory), a cutting-edge new technology that relies on stacking multiple DRAM dies with dedicated memory paths into a single package, cutting down on power-draw, thermals, and PCB real-estate.

The first kind of HBMs to hit the market are 8 Gbit 4Hi, which will interface with the GPU over a 128-bit wide path, which means there will be just four memory packages on the card (since the "Hawaii" silicon features a 512-bit wide memory bus), with improvements in the area of power-draw and heat output. The memory could be clocked higher, too. Sadly, memory bandwidth is not the prime-mover in VGA performance, and AMD will have to offer higher GPU clocks for the card to stand a chance against NVIDIA's high-end single-GPU offerings. As for the name this card would bear, we get a sense of deja vu about how NVIDIA launched the single-GPU GeForce 7950 GTX alongside the dual-GPU 7950 GX2, replacing the 7900 GTX. And so, it wouldn't surprise us if AMD named it Radeon R9 295X.

One of AMD's lead testers, Jason Megit tweeted these pictures of a gaming PC build running Lichdom: Battlemage at "super high resolution." How high? 11520 x 2160 pixels, or a 3-display Eyefinity setup using Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) monitors. You might think the system must be running three or four top of the line cards, given that Lichdom: Battlemage is driven by CryEngine 3, the same one that powers Crysis 3, from the makers of some of the most GPU-intensive games; but it isn't. The game was running on a single Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card. Lichdom: Battlemage is currently available as a pre-alpha, if you pre-order the game for $19.99 on Steam. From the looks of it, Lichdom: Battlemage is shaping up to be a modern-day Hexen.

Over the weekend enthusiasts couldn't find AMD's Catalyst software suite 14.4 WHQL on the company's Game portal. The company reposted it a little later, with a cautionary note about why they had to pull the download. Apparently, the AMD motherboard chipset drivers included in the suite were later found to be unstable on some systems, particularly the southbridge AHCI driver. The issue seems to affect only certain southbridges, the SB700, SB710, and SB750. There's no word on newer generations of southbridges with SATA 6 Gb/s controllers and FIS switches, such as SB850, SB950, and A-series FCH chipsets, being affected. Our SB950-based motherboard isn't showing any signs of instability. AMD rebuilt the suite without the affected driver when it re-posted the suite later on Monday.

MSI's all new R9 270X GAMING 2G ITX is the latest addition to the MSI GAMING line-up and a perfect companion to the latest Intel and AMD Mini-ITX motherboards. At just 17 centimeters the card is fully featured and surprisingly cool and silent given its size and performance. This is thanks to the MSI RADAX fan solution, a true Hybrid Radial/Axial fan that combines the best of both worlds and reduces temperatures up to 30%. This is one of the consistent elements of MSI's GAMING Graphics Cards which all give you more performance while reducing temperatures and noise.

The new MSI GAMING App allows you to instantly overclock your MSI GAMING Graphics Card and MSI GAMING Motherboards, while you can video capture and stream in high quality with XSplit Gamecaster and MSI Predator. Military Class 4 components provide excellent stability and lifetime and the RADAX fan keeps your card running at low noise and full speed all day. The MSI R9 270X GAMING 2G ITX, combined with a variety of MSI GAMING motherboards in Mini-ITX provide a unique, rich gaming experience optimized for today's online and socialized gaming world while offering amazing thermal and acoustic performance in the mini-ITX form factor.

AMD today announced a roadmap of near- and mid-term computing solutions that harness the best characteristics of both the x86 and ARM ecosystems, called "ambidextrous computing." The cornerstone of this roadmap is the announcement of AMD's 64-bit ARM architecture license for the development of custom high-performance cores for high-growth markets. Today's announcement also provides a forward-looking glimpse into AMD's development plans to deliver truly unmatched ambidextrous computing and graphics performance using a shared, flexible infrastructure to enable its customers to blaze new paths of innovation for the embedded, server and client markets as well as semi-custom solutions.

"Before today, AMD was the only company in the world to deliver high performance and low-power x86 with leadership graphics. AMD now takes a bold step forward and has become the only company that can provide high-performance 64-bit ARM and x86 CPU cores paired with world-class graphics," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "Our innovative ambidextrous design capability, combined with our portfolio of IP and expertise with high-performance SoCs, means that AMD is set to deliver ambidextrous solutions that enable our customers to change the world in more efficient and powerful ways."

While AMD may have scored one up over NVIDIA by making its 500-Watt dual-GPU graphics card, the Radeon R9 295X2, a 2-slot thick product that draws power from just two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, AMD's implementation also lugs along a radiator and coolant tubing that not everyone may find room in their cases for. Some enthusiasts may simply not trust factory-fitted water cooling solutions. For such people and more, who'd like to keep their builds "dry," PowerColor is coming up with the first truly non-reference design R9 295X2, the Devil13.

Pictured below, the R9 295X2 Devil13 from PowerColor features a completely custom-design PCB that is said to feature a meatier VRM than the one you get on reference design boards; which draws power from 4 (that's right, four) 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The PCB appears taller but just as long as the reference one, and features a back-plate that doubles up as structural reinforcement. The cooler is an interesting piece of engineering. It appears to feature two independent aluminium fin heatsinks, each over one of the two GPUs, and a base-plate heatsink to cool the memory, VRM, and bridge chip. The contraption is then ventilated by three 100 mm fans that appear to feature lateral+axial hybrid air-flow blades, on their impellers. PowerColor could launch the R9 295X2 Devil13 at Computex 2014, if not sooner.

Designed to enable the best user experience on today's most popular and innovative PCs, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced its 3rd-generation Mainstream and Low-Power Mobile Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). Combining category-leading compute performance with unique features and rich user interactions, the 2014 AMD Mainstream and Low-Power Mobile APUs (formerly codenamed "Beema" and "Mullins," respectively) are the ideal choice for consumer and commercial client devices alike.

These new mobile APUs feature up to four newly-designed x86 CPU cores with updated, industry-leading AMD Radeon graphics and a hardware-level data security solution based on the ARM Cortex-A5, all on a single, power-sipping system-on-chip (SoC). Products based on these new APUs are already announced by Lenovo and Samsung, with many more expected on-shelf in time for the 2014 back-to-school shopping season.

AMD released a WHQL-signed version of its Catalyst 14.4 software suite, its first in four months (the previous one being 13.12 WHQL). The driver builds on the Catalyst 14.4 Release Candidate the company shipped out a little earlier this month, to lend immediate support for Radeon R9 295X2, which hit the shelves on the 21st. The four highlights of Catalyst 14.4 include support for the R9 295X2, CrossFire frame-pacing improvements for a number of games, full support for OpenGL 4.4 API, and bug-fixes for AMD Mantle API.

Among the games AMD worked to improve CrossFire performance of, include Crysis 3, which sees improved frame-pacing; Far Cry 3, which sees improved 3-GPU and 4-GPU scaling; Anno 2070, which sees an overall CrossFire scaling improvement of 34 percent; Titanfall, which sees reduced game flickering an micro-stutter; and Metro: Last Light, which sees 10 percent improvement in CrossFire scaling. The driver also addresses bugs related to 3x1 Eyefinity setups using three Ultra HD displays. For gamers running Battlefield 4 with its Mantle renderer, AMD addressed the performance slowdown seen when switching windows using Alt+Tab; and fuzzy textures when playing the game on rotated displays.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.4 WHQL for Windows 8/7/Visa 64-bit | Windows 8/7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit

Sapphire unveiled the industry's first factory-overclocked Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card. The R9 295X2 OC from Sapphire sticks to AMD reference design, and ships in the metal suitcase, much like its base model; but comes with factory-overclocked speeds of 1030 MHz core (vs. 1018 MHz reference), and 5.20 GHz memory (vs. 5.00 GHz reference). The rest of its feature-set is identical to that of its reference-design product. The company didn't reveal pricing. The R9 295X2 is a dual-GPU card with a pair of 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, with 2,816 stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 512-bit wide memory interfaces, each; and each holding 4 GB of memory, totaling 8 GB on the card.

It's not just NVIDIA, which will lack 20 nm GPUs in its portfolio this year. AMD senior vice-president Lisa Su, responding to a question by Wells Fargo, in its Q1 investors call, confirmed that her company will stay on 28 nm throughout 2014, and it's only later that it will move on to 20 nm, and FinFET after that. "I think what I said earlier sort of what we're doing in terms of technology strategy, we are 28 this year, we have 20-nanometer in design, and then FinFET thereafter. So that's the overall product portfolio," she said.

AMD and NVIDIA manufacture their GPUs on a common foundry, TSMC, which has faced delays in implementing its 20 nanometer silicon fab node transition, forcing both companies to come up with new GPUs on existing 28 nm nodes. A huge leap in performance could be a tough ask for those new GPUs. NVIDIA is expected to tape out its performance-segment GM204 and mid-range GM206 chips, both of which are 28 nm, later this month, and the first GeForce GTX products based on the two are expected to roll out by late-Q4 2014 and early-Q1 2015, respectively.

AMD has now released a new Catalyst driver build, more specifically, an RC (Release Candidate) of the Catalyst 14.4 which is expected to arrive in its final, WHQL-certified form in the next couple of weeks. The 14.4 brings full support for OpenGL 4.4 as well as some CrossFire and Mantle tweaks. The driver has support for the recently-introduced Radeon R9 295X dual-GPU card as well as for the rest of the Radeon R9 200 Series, the R7 200s, R5 200s, HD 8000s, HD 7000s, HD 6000s and HD 5000s.

The Catalyst 14.4 RC can be downloaded from this page.

MSI, the gaming force in Graphics Cards is happy to announce the availability of the new AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Graphics Card. With two R9 290X GPUs on-board with clock speeds up to 1018 MHz and 8 Gigabyte of GDDR5, the R9 295X2 delivers the most insane frame rates in todays and future games. The card is cooled with a zeo maintenance liquid cooling system so gamers can expect cool temperatures, quiet operation and consistent performance. So whether you're looking at the best card for Gaming at 4K and higher resolutions or want to be in the driver's seat for this year's most stunning PC Games, the R9 295X2 is the right choice.

The record-shattering dual-GPU R9 295X2 is packed with two Hawaii XT GPUs featuring 5632 processors running at speeds up to 1018 MHz. The massive 8 Gigabyte of GDDR5 runs at 5 GHz and delivers enough bandwidth to drive 4K screens or 5 1080p screens in Eyefinity. Together with support for TrueAudio and Mantle technology, the R9 295X2 is ready to power the best games of 2014.

AMD today announced a refresh of "Never Settle Forever", the popular game bundle program for AMD Radeon products. Starting today, the "Never Settle Forever" promotion will be available to a wider range of AMD Radeon graphics cards, spanning the R7 Series graphics to the ultra-enthusiast AMD Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card. For the first time ever, the "Never Settle Forever" program will be rolled out to AMD's entry-level graphics products: the AMD Radeon R7 250X, R7 250 and R7 240 GPUs.

AMD's "Never Settle Forever" is dedicated to letting gamers select from a strong line-up of in-demand games as a reward for choosing AMD Radeon graphics. Users will receive up to three choices of free games when they redeem their AMD Radeon Reward coupon. The actual number of available choices will vary by Rewards tier: Gold, Silver or Bronze.

Sapphire gave the Radeon R9 270X some Tri-X treatment, and a high factory-overclock, with its Black Diamond Edition graphics card, which is exclusive to the Greater China region. The card features the same triple-fan Tri-X cooling solution with back-plate as some R9 280X graphics cards, featuring a meaty aluminium fin heatsink that's ventilated by a trio of fans. It offers a factory core overclock of 1100 MHz, and a memory overclock of 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective); compared to AMD reference speeds of 1000 MHz core, 1050 MHz boost, and 5.60 GHz memory. Other features include temperature-activated color LED logo badge, and dual-BIOS with UEFI modules. Based on the 28 nm "Curacao" silicon, the Radeon R9 270X features 1,280 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory.

BIOSTAR, manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, industrial computing systems and peripherals, has officially launched the latest edition to the CPU On-Board motherboard lineup, the "A68N-5000." The A68N-5000 uses the AMD A4-5000 which is a 4 core CPU with a clock speed of 1.5 GHz with an integrated Radeon HD 8330 GPU that supports DX11.1 and HDMI, a single channel DDR3(L)-1600 memory controller as well as the Southbridge with various I/O- ports. The system runs cool and quiet with heat sinks instead of fans, this reduces noise and also dust buildup as well as cuts down on power costs.

The flagship graphics card from AMD, Radeon R9 295X2, started selling, and is listed by leading retailers worldwide. AMD set the MSRP of this card at US $1,499, the pre-tax price could swing by ±5%. At that price, the R9 295X2 is the costliest reference-design graphics card by AMD, and is currently the fastest one money can buy. A dual-GPU on a stick solution with two 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, the R9 295X2 features a total of 5,632 GCN2 stream processors (2,816 per GPU), 352 TMUs (176 per GPU), 128 ROPs (64 per GPU), and a total of 8 GB of memory, across two 512-bit wide memory interfaces. The card is cooled by a factory-fitted water-cooling solution by Asetek.

AMD today announced revenue for the first quarter of 2014 of $1.40 billion, operating income of $49 million and net loss of $20 million, or $0.03 per share. The company reported non-GAAP operating income of $66 million and non-GAAP net income of $12 million, or $0.02 per share.

"AMD continued our momentum by building on the solid foundation we set in the second half of 2013, further transforming the company," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "Backed by our powerful x86 processor cores and hands-down best graphics experiences, we achieved 28 percent revenue growth from the year-ago quarter. We are well positioned to continue to grow profitably as we diversify our business and enable our customers to drive change and win."

Hightech Information System (HIS) today proudly announces the HIS R9 295X2 Liquid Cooler 8GB. HIS R9 295X2 Liquid Cooler 8GB is the world's fastest graphics card engineered for ultimate performance. Its features the Next Generation CrossFire support for up to 5 GPUs with no interconnect bridge required. It's designed with the latest technologies, all metal construction and features two R9 290X GPUs, which provides an all-round graphic experience to all users.

The R9 295X2 graphics card reference design ships with an advanced closed-loop liquid cooling system developed jointly with Asetek. Users can enjoy such cool temperatures, quiet operation and consistently high performance. Another powerful strength is Mantle technology. Games enabled with Mantle speak the language of Graphics Core Next to unlock revolutionary performance and image quality.