XFX rolled out its first non-reference design Radeon R9 290 series graphics cards, the Radeon R9 290X Double Dissipation (model: R9-290X-EDFD), and the R9 290 Double Dissipation (model: R9-290A-EDFD). The two are based on a common board design, with a non-reference design PCB by the company, and its tall, dual-slot Double Dissipation cooling solution that's featured on the company's Radeon R9 280X DD graphics card. The cooler uses a dense aluminium fin stack to which head drawn from the GPU is fed by copper heat pipes, and dissipated by a pair of 80 mm fans. As an added bonus, the "XFX" logo on the cooler shroud lights up. Both cards stick to AMD reference clock speeds. That's 1000 MHz core and 5.00 GHz memory for the R9 290X, and 947 MHz core and 5.00 GHz memory for the R9 290. The two are offered at prices identical to reference-design cards, or a tiny premium in some markets.

Futuremark is proud to announce that Quanta Computer has joined its Benchmark Development Program. Quanta will work with Futuremark to create new benchmarks for PC and mobile platforms. Futuremark creates the world's most widely used benchmarks, software that helps people compare the performance of the devices they depend on every day. 3DMark and PCMark are used throughout industry, business and government, by more than a thousand specialist press publications, and millions of people worldwide.

Quanta Computer is the world's largest notebook computer ODM company. Quanta manufacturers one out of every three laptops sold globally and is an ODM partner for every one of the top ten PC companies. In recent years, Quanta has extended its businesses into enterprise network systems, home entertainment, mobile communication, automotive electronics and digital home markets.

ASUS announced its Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II series graphics cards, which include a model that sticks to AMD-reference clocks (up to 1000 MHz core, 5.00 GHz memory), and one that offers factory-overclocked speeds of up to 1050 MHz core, and 5.40 GHz memory, the DirectCU II OC. The card features a completely non-reference design, with a PCB designed in-house by ASUS, which features a 10-phase VRM, which draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The features Samsung-made GDDR5 memory chips. There's 4 GB of memory on board, across a 512-bit wide memory interface.

The DirectCU II cooling solution is nearly identical to the one deployed on the recently launched GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II OC. It features a large aluminium fin-stack heatsink to which heat is fed by 8 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes. The heatsink is ventilated by a pair of 92 mm fans, one of which features ASUS's unique lateral+axial hybrid impeller, called CoolTech. Niceties include a back-plate, and an all-black cooler shroud, with sheets of red and gold stickers, so you could style the card the way you want to. The card is expected to be priced as low as 499€.

After months of Catalyst 13.11 betas AMD has now made available a new WHQL-certified graphics driver, the Catalyst 13.12. This release features support for the Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, Radeon R7 and R9 Series cards and is available for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1.

Download: Catalyst 13.12 WHQL 32-bit / Catalyst 13.12 WHQL 64-bit

AMD launched the Radeon R7 260 graphics cards, positioned in between the $139 Radeon R7 260X, and the $89 Radeon R7 250, which makes for a fairly big gap. It is expected to be priced no more than $110. Based on the same 28 nm "Bonaire" silicon as the R7 260X and the HD 7790 from the previous generation, the R7 260 is a mildly de-tuned variant of the R7 260X.

The Radeon R7 260 features just 768 of the 896 stream processors physically present on the "Bonaire" silicon. The GPU is clocked at 1000 MHz, compared to the 1100 MHz of the R7 260X; and the memory is clocked at 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), compared to the 6.50 GHz of its sibling, which churns out a memory bandwidth of 96 GB/s on the chip's 128-bit wide memory bus. 1 GB, and not 2 GB is the standard memory amount. The maximum power draw is reduced to 95-Watt from 115-Watt on the R7 260X, and the card makes do with a single 6-pin PCIe power connector to draw power from. API support is consistent - DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3, and Mantle. AMD TrueAudio appears to be supported.

Here's the first picture of the PCB under the hood of MSI's Radeon R9 290X Gaming OC graphics card, which was unveiled in Japan, over the weekend, and which was detailed in a slightly older article. It turns out that MSI will use the same board design (including the back-plate) on both the R9 290X Gaming OC and the R9 290 Gaming OC, both of which have been put up for pre-order by Canadian e-tailer NCIX. The R9 290X Gaming OC is priced at $699 CAD including taxes (US $660); while the R9 290 Gaming OC is priced at $529.99 CAD including taxes (US $500).

The PCB itself is a slight variation of MSI on AMD's reference design. The layout is identical, but there are subtle differences in component choices MSI made. For example, it ditches Coiltronics-made chokes for MagicTech. Appears to use SK Hynix made memory chips (instead of Elpida on a vast majority of retail R9 290 series boards), etc. It also appears to retain dual-BIOS. According to NCIX, both cards will feature untouched memory clock speeds of 5.00 GHz, yielding memory bandwidth of 320 GB/s, but feature 5-7 percent overclocks on the GPU. The R9 290 Gaming OC features GPU clock speeds (possibly PowerTune boost) of up to 1000 MHz (vs. 948 MHz reference), while the R9 290X Gaming OC features 1040 MHz.

At a press event held in Japan, MSI showed off its second non-reference design Radeon R9 290X graphics card besides the R9 290X Lightning, the R9 290X TwinFrozr 4S Gaming OC. The card features MSI's top-grade TwinFrozr IV cooling solution with the red+black color scheme; and a non-reference design PCB by MSI. Its PCB will feature a strong VRM, a voltage controller that's fully accessible using Afterburner, factory-overclocked speeds, and a back-plate decking up the rear portion of the card, even though there's nothing on the rear side of the PCB that requires active cooling. Since the card features a BIOS-toggle switch, you can expect one of the two BIOS ROMs to feature a failsafe BIOS with reference clock speeds. MSI is expected to launch the card a little later this month. The R9 290X Lightning, however, can't be expected before 2014. One could expect a similar-looking card (perhaps minus the back-plate) based on the R9 290 (non-X).

AMD's Radeon R9 290X is a great chip with sub-par reference cooling performance that's not just noisy but could also cool the GPU inadequately, making it throttle. With AMD allowing its partners to come up with non-reference design cards, most AMD Radeon add-in board (AIB) partners are pulling out their workhorses (think DirectCU II, WindForce 450W, TwinFrozr IV, VaporX Dual-X, etc). PowerColor has more fluid plans. The company could be among the first partners to come up with an R9 290X card that's ready for liquid cooling out of the box, the R9 290X LCS.

PowerColor Radeon R9 290X LCS features a full-coverage liquid-cooling block by EK Water Blocks, which besides the PowerColor LCS branding, is basically EK-FC R9-290X with the nickel-acetal top option. The block appears to be factory-fitted onto an AMD reference design PCB. PowerColor didn't mention clock speeds or pricing, although given the block's $145 aftermarket price, one can't discount the possibility of a $120~150 premium over the $549.99 pricing of the R9 290X. PowerColor could launch the Radeon R9 290X LCS, along with another air-cooled non-reference design card a little later this month.

XFX unveiled the first passive-cooled Radeon R7 200 series graphics cards, the full-height Radeon R7 250 Core Edition, and the half-height (low-profile) Radeon R7 240 Core Edition, pictured in that order. Both cards are based on a common half-height PCB design for the 28 nm "Oland" GPU, but due to higher thermal loads on the R7 250, its taller heatsink makes the card full-height. The R7 250 Core Edition offers AMD reference clock speeds of 1050 MHz core, and 4.60 GHz memory. It offers 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface. Its cooling solution is a heat-pipe fed aluminium fin stack. The R7 240 Core Edition, on the other hand, retains the same PCB, but makes do with a more compact cooling solution that makes the card low-profile ready. It features AMD reference clock speeds of 780 MHz core and 1.80 GHz memory, featuring 2 GB of DDR3 memory. The R7 250 Core Edition is priced around €92, while the R7 240 Core Edition goes for around €75.

AMD is inching toward a possible post-x86 future for itself, beginning with its enterprise product stack. In a blog-post, the company outlined a landmark product bearing its enterprise Opteron branding, codenamed "Seattle," which will be designed for scalar data-centers. Based on the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture by ARM, the chip will feature either four or eight cores based on AMD's own implementation of ARMv8, and a high-bandwidth integrated memory controller with support for up to 128 GB of system memory with ECC.

Since ARM-based processors are traditionally part of heavily integrated systems on chips (SoCs), "Seattle" will be an SoC, and among other things, will integrate a 10 Gb/s Ethernet controller, with support for AMD's FreedomFabric technology. Linux kernel 3.7 and above will come with ARMv8 architecture support, and Microsoft is already developing a Windows kernel with ARMv8 support that will be implemented on both its client (Windows RT, Windows Phone) product lines, and a future version of Windows Server. That said, AMD won't give up on x86. As the only active x86 licensee apart from VIA, AMD will continue to make APUs with 64-bit x86 cores for as far as the eye can see (in other words 2015). Future of its client CPU (non-APU) lineup based on the AM3+ socket, however, appears bleak.

Here's the first detailed body-shot of ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer, which was teased by the company earlier today, and which could end up being one of the most feature-rich socket AM3+ motherboards, if the end is neigh for AM3+. Designed for gaming PCs with up to two graphics cards, although it features three long x16 slots, the Fatal1ty 990FX Killer is a full-size ATX motherboard. It's design appears to be more gamer-centric than overclocker-centric. It draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, with an optional 4-pin Molex connection to stabilize power to add-on cards; and conditions it for the AM3+ CPU using a 10-phase VRM that's cooled by an heatsink that's independent from that which cools the AMD 990FX northbridge (i.e. no heat-pipe linking the two). The AM3+ CPU socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, which support up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 MHz memory; and to the 990FX northbridge over a 5.2 GT/s HyperTransport link.

The AMD 990FX chipset puts out two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, the third slot is electrical PCI-Express 2.0 x4, and possibly wired to the SB950 southbridge. The southbridge handles five internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, the sixth port is wired out as eSATA. The Fatal1ty 990FX Killer, as teased this morning, is among the first motherboards to feature an M.2 slot, extended out of a PCI-Express link. PCIe SSDs tend to be faster, as more interface bandwith is on tap. As many as six USB 3.0 ports are on offer, of which one switches between header and internal type-1 port (for those tuck-away software license keys) all of which are driven by third-party controllers. Wired networking is care of a Killer E2200 network controller, that's optimized for gaming. The board features 7.1-channel HD audio, with a high SNR CODEC, PCB ground-layer isolation (to prevent electrical noise), and an EMI shield for the CODEC; which ASRock collectively labels "Purity Sound." The board is driven by AMI UEFI BIOS, with full support for Windows 8 Secure Boot.

AMD is reportedly releasing a fix for frame-pacing issues for Radeon-based systems with Eyefinity setups in January, 2014, according to an AnandTech report. This September, AMD rolled out the first fix into the frame-pacing issues that affected Radeon GPUs based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, in which raw-framerate didn't come with the right pacing between each frame, resulting in display output that isn't fluid, which even caused accusations to fly from some quarters about how honest AMD really is with performance numbers of its GPUs.

The Catalyst update that rolled out in September 2013 resolved the problem for a majority of users - with single displays connected to single GPUs, but left out cases in which people use Eyefinity (single display head spanning across multiple physical displays), on CrossFireX (multi-GPU) setups. It was originally expected that AMD would release the so-called "phase 2" Catalyst driver update looking into frame-pacing issues this November, but since the month has passed, AMD has obviously hit a delay. AnandTech reports that delay could last as long as two months, and one should expect "phase 2" to come out only towards the later half of January, since in the first half, AMD, along with the rest of the industry, will be busy with the 2014 International CES, where it will launch its next-generation A-Series APUs, codenamed "Kaveri."

Gigabyte rolled out a revision of its Radeon R7 250 OC graphics card, featuring its 100 mm fan-heatsink that featured on its Radeon R7 240 OC graphics card. The card features a blue Ultra Durable 2 PCB, with Gigabyte's in-house fan-heatsink design that uses a chunky aluminium block with copper core and spirally-projecting ridges, and a 100 mm fan ventilating it, suspended on a black ABS shroud. The card features a small factory-overclock on the GPU, at 1100 MHz, compared to AMD reference speeds of 1050 MHz. The 2 GB of DDR3 memory is left untouched at 1.80 GHz. Display outputs include dual-link DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI 1.4a. The card relies entirely on the PCI-Express bus for power. Based on the 28 nm "Oland" silicon, the Radeon R7 250 features 384 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, 24 TMUs, 8 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide memory interface. Expect this card to retail for $90.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards, today launches another high performance model which belongs to TurboDuo series, the PowerColor TurboDuo R9 280X OC. Featuring the most innovative GCN architecture, the TurboDuo R9 280X OC fully utilizes the AMD Eyefinity technology, and support ultra high resolution gaming, providing unrivaled performance without sacrifice a single detail.

The new TurboDuo R9 280X OC runs at a factory-overclock of 880 MHz, even reach to 1030 MHz with boost, together with 1500 MHz for memory clock, using 384-bit high speed memory interface connects to 3GB of GDDR5 memory, indulging gamers with higher frame rates. In addition to default OC setting, the TurboDuo R9 280X OC takes advantage of PowerColor's exclusive Gold Power Kit, which includes multi-phases design, DirectFET and Digital PWM, delivering the best OC performance with stability.

AMD missed its late-November window for giving its partners enough Radeon R9 290 series chips to roll out their custom-design boards in time for Christmas (the winter shopping season). It turns out that custom-design R9 290 and R9 290X cards could launch perilously close to Christmas, or miss it altogether, and launch next year. Custom design R9 290 series cards are highly anticipated as the press didn't receive the reference-design cooling solution of the two cards as well as it did the chips themselves. Reference design coolers, reviews revealed, are not only noisy, but also don't cool the GPUs well enough to prevent throttling under gaming loads.

Barring the recent reveal of MSI's Radeon R9 290X Lightning PCB, we've not come across a single custom-design R9 290 series card. Sources told ComputerBase.de that custom-design R9 290 (non-X) cards could launch first, in the mid/late-December thru January time-frame, and R9 290X could follow "later." One AIB partner which did not want to be named, attributed it to under-supply of the "Hawaii" silicon, and not any design defects that AMD is working to correct. The Radeon R9 290 (reference) is priced at $399.99, and the R9 290X for $549.99.

AMD has just made available a new build of its still-in-beta Catalyst 13.11 graphics driver. Dubbed Beta9.5, this latest release fixes the graphics corruption seen in Starcraft, the intermittent flickering seen on some Radeon R9 270x cards, and makes sure that the Overdrive feature doesn't disappear from the Catalyst Control Center (bug which was experienced by owners of Radeon R9 290 Series cards). Moreover, the driver improves frame pacing results in AMD Quad CrossFire configurations for Hitman: Absolution, and Total War: Rome 2.

The Catalyst 13.11 Beta9.5 is available for Windows 8.1/8/7 and features support for the Radeon R9, R7, HD 7000, HD 6000 and HD 5000 Series cards.

Download: Catalyst 13.11 Beta9.5 for Windows

We'd feared something like this would happen for some time now, but leaked AMD product roadmaps confirmed it that AMD FX "Vishera" is the last line of CPUs from AMD. The company will only focus on APUs from here onward, and at the very most, one could expect CPU core counts to go up from their current quad-core stale-meat since A-series "Llano," which will continue into the 2014 A-Series "Kaveri," too.

The alleged AMD roadmap slide leaked to the web by ProHardver.hu points out that socket AM3+ "Vishera" will exist on AMD's product stack for as far as AMD's eye can see - looking deep into even 2015. Unless AMD is planning on hanging its towel with AM3+, it wouldn't mark its roadmap slide out in this way. 2015 will see the introduction of "Carrizo," an APU that succeeds "Kaveri," which will be based on future-generation "Excavator" CPU micro-architecture, and a future-generation GPU architecture, along with full HSA programming model implementation. "Kabini" will have its spell running into mid-2014, at which point "Beema" will succeed it.

Specifications of two of AMD's top next-generation APUs, the A10-7850K and A10-7700K, were leaked to the web, revealing an incremental or evolutionary upgrade over the 6000 "Richland" series. To begin with, the two are based on the 28 nm "Kaveri" silicon. Straightaway we find that AMD hasn't been able to catch up with Intel's 22 nm leap for close to two years. All that it manages is to bring the rated TDP of the overclockable "K" chips down to 95W, from the traditional 100W. "Kaveri" puts three of AMD's recent innovations in CPU and GPU on one chip - "Steamroller" CPU micro-architecture, "Graphics CoreNext" GPU architecture, and hUMA (heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access), a technology that allows the CPU and GPU to access the same portion of memory simultaneously.

"Steamroller" features the same component hierarchy and basic design as its predecessors "Piledriver" and "Bulldozer," in which clumps of two cores that feature dedicated and shared number-crunching resources, called modules, make up the basic units of a processor. "Kaveri" features two such modules, and hence features four CPU cores. "Kaveri" misses out on an L3 cache cushioning transfers between the modules, and other uncore components on the APU yet again, and each module features a 2-megabyte L2 cache at its last level, totaling the L2 cache amount to 4 MB on "Kaveri." The integrated memory controller features a 128-bit (dual-channel) DDR3 memory interface, with support for standards as high as DDR3-2133 MHz on some models. The PCI-Express root complex complies with the newer PCIe gen 3.0 standard, as do we imagine the A-Link (chipset bus). AMD introduced huge changes with the GPU component.

In a bid to make it a watertight option in the crucial sub-$200 market segment, Sapphire decked up its Radeon R9 270 graphics card in a new factory-overclocked variant, the Boost OC Edition. The card looks identical to the R9 270 Dual-X which the company launched in mid-November, but comes with factory-overclocked speeds of 920 MHz core, 945 MHz PowerTune Boost, and 5.60 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory; against AMD reference speeds of 900/925/5600 MHz.

The card features a custom-design black PCB by Sapphire, a compact Dual-X cooler that uses a pair of fans to cool a full-fledged aluminium fin-stack heatsink to which heat is conveyed by copper heat pipes; and draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Based on the 28 nm "Curacao" silicon, the R9 270 features 1,280 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. Expect this card to retail for around $180.

Here are the first pictures of a custom-design PCB for AMD's 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon. Pictured below is a pallet (a set of two uncut PCBs that are just punched, wired and stacked) of the MSI Radeon R9 290X Lightning. It exposes both the obverse and reverse sides of the PCB. MSI is taking no chances in giving "Hawaii" a strong electrical muscle, given that it's quite possibly the most power hungry GPU out there (even if not the GPU with the most transistors).

The MSI Radeon R9 290X Lightning PCB features a 15+2 phase VRM that draws power from a trio of power connectors, which is a first for single-GPU graphics cards. These include two 8-pin connectors, and a 6-pin. One can also make out three 4-pin fan connectors, and a few voltage measurement points. Display connectors include a pair of piggy-backed DVI connectors, and the usual DisplayPort and HDMI fare. The PCB overall, appears to be a good centimeter taller than what constitutes as "full-height" for add-on cards. The extra height creates room for a BIOS switch, some VRM circuitry, and the power connectors.

AMD began selling the A10-6790K, a new socket FM2 APU based on the 32 nm "Richland" silicon. The chip is positioned between the A10-6700 and the A10-6800K, and is a notch below the latter. It comes with an unlocked base-clock multiplier, making overclocking a breeze. The A10-6790K features 4.00 GHz CPU clocks, with maximum TurboCore frequencies of 4.30 GHz, each a notch (0.5x base) lower than the 4.10 GHz core and 4.40 GHz TurboCore frequencies of the A10-6800K. Further, the maximum rated DRAM speed is lowered from DDR3-2133 MHz on the A10-6800K, to DDR3-1866 MHz on the new chip. It features the same Radeon HD 8670D graphics clocked at 844 MHz, and its TDP rating is the same 100W. Expect the chip to be priced about 15 percent lower than the A10-6800K.

AMD is serious about putting two 6.2 billion-transistor "Hawaii" GPUs onto a single board, in a future dual-GPU graphics card it reportedly codenamed "Vesuvius," after the famous volcanic peak just off the coast of Naples. The card will feature two "Hawaii" GPUs with core configurations that are unknown at this point, but the source suggests it's in the maxed out "XT" configuration. AMD could, of course tinker with clock speeds, compared to the GHz-range Radeon R9 290X. We can't even imagine how AMD will handle power and thermals, given how its handling of the two on the R9 290X has been less than exemplary.

Next year PC maker iBuyPower is planning to embrace Valve's Steam OS and release its own Steam Machine. Seen below in prototype form, iBuyPower's upcoming Steam OS-running 'console' looks a bit like a PlayStation 4, design-wise, and packs an AMD processor (likely an APU) and AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card (in contrast, Valve's own Steam Box prototypes have Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs), and a 500 GB hard drive.

The iBuyPower Steam Machine also has a glossy white chassis with a customizable light bar, and is set to cost $499 (as much as an Xbox One). The Steam Controller wasn't mentioned but it's likely at least one will be bundled.

According to a new report by Jon Peddie Research, the graphics add-in-board market has seen shipments of 14.5 million units in the third quarter of 2013. The 14.5 million translate into a 3.9% increase compared to Q2 but a steep, 17% fall over Q3 2012. The on-quarter boost is in line with seasonality but is far less than the 10-year average which is 12%.

In Q3 2013 NVIDIA was on top with a market share of 64.5% - up from 62% in Q2 (an up from 64.0% in Q3 2012), while AMD grabbed 35.5% after having 38% of the market in the previous quarter (and 35.7% in Q2 2012). Matrox and S3 were almost non-existent, with 0.0% in the chart.

As a little weekend treat AMD has rolled out a new build of the Catalyst 13.11 graphics drivers, the Beta9.4. This release improves CrossFire scaling in Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer and is claimed to 'maybe' fix the intermittent black screens or display loss observed on some Radeon R9 290X and R9 290 cards. The mobile-friendly version of the driver comes with Enduro profiles for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Need for Speed Rivals.

The Catalyst 13.11 Beta9.4 is available for Windows 8.1/8/7 and features support for the Radeon R9, R7, HD 7000, HD 6000 and HD 5000 Series cards.

Download: Catalyst 13.11 Beta9.4 for Windows / Mobility Catalyst 13.11 Beta9.4 for Windows