AMD posted a new Catalyst driver (8.93.7 RC10) specifically for Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The driver is WDDM 1.2 compliant, and supports all launched AMD Radeon GPUs from HD 5000 thru HD 7000 series (except HD 7900 and HD 7700); AMD A-Series, C-Series, and E-Series APUs; FirePro, and FirePro 3D series products. Highlights include:

• Native Stereo 3D support: Windows 8 will natively support Stereo 3D for full-screen and windowed gaming, and video applications
• Unified Video API - Video playback is now integrated within the DirectX 11 API; enabling simultaneous high quality Video and 3D content, and the potential for enhanced video transcoding performance
• Optimized screen rotation
• Improved sleep / resume performance
• Optimized Power Consumption

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 8.93.7 RC10 for Windows 8 Consumer Preview

AMD has really went on a slashing spree this week as in addition to making the FX-6100 and FX-8120 cheaper, it also updated (read lowered) the pricing of nine Phenom II processors. As seen in the chart below, the Phenom cuts range from 2% to 15%, the biggest drop being seen on the Phenom II X4 965 which went from $135 to $115.

Double-digit cuts were also made for the X4 955 (10.3%), X4 975 (11.4%) and X4 980 (10.8%) while the X6 1055T and X6 1075T went down by 6.1% and 8.8%, respectively.

Even as there's quite some buzz around Microsoft's next major version of Windows, there are reports such as one from Bright Side of News citing "multiple sources close to Microsoft, or inside [it]," revealing the tentative launch schedule of the two main branches of Windows: for x86 platforms (client and enterprise), and ARM (for tablets and compact computing devices). Windows 8 for clients and enterprise (x86 architecture), will get up to 5 months' head-start over the much hyped ARM version for tablets. It is expected to be launched some time in Q4 2012, while the ARM version, some time in Q2 2013.

Intel and AMD can rub their hands as they both have extremely compact x86 processors fit for the tablet form-factor planned, and can woo tablet designers to opt for their solutions and get Windows 8 tablets instead of waiting for the ARM version of the operating system. Tablet vendors with mature ARM-based designs can always opt for Google's Android operating system, which will see no major competition for the greater part of this year.

XSPC is finally ready with a full-coverage water block for AMD Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 graphics cards (AMD reference PCB). The block is design to keep the card within the size specs. of a single expansion slot, while providing liquid cooling to all hot components on the obverse side of the PCB, including the GPU, the 12 GDDR5 memory chips, and the VRM. Measuring 220 x 142 x 9 mm (18 mm at ports), the main portion of the block is milled out of a block of copper, while the portion over the VRM is milled out of aluminum.

The portion of the block that's over the GPU is ridged, making copper micro-fins, that increase dissipation of heat to the coolant. The top is made of CNC-cut stainless steel. The block is ready for CrossFire setups with four G1/4" ports, two G1/4" plugs are included. Listed on the company's online store (currently out of stock), the XSPC Razor 7970 is priced at £82.67 (US $131).

SAPPHIRE Technology has just introduced a passively cooled card in its new HD 7700 series - the SAPPHIRE HD 7750 ULTIMATE is the first totally silent card to embody all the features of this new generation of products based on the revolutionary new graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7750 ULTIMATE is the first card in this generation to use a passive heatpipe and heatsink cooler to deliver totally silent cooling, and increased reliability as it has no mechanical moving parts. It shares all the features of the HD 7700 series and the highly acclaimed GCN graphics processing architecture making it ideal for HTPCs and any general purpose PC where operational noise needs to be kept to a minimum.

Sunnyvale-based AMD Inc. has today launched two new FX Series processors, the FX-6200 hexa-core and the FX-4170 quad-core, and announced price reductions for the October-released FX-8120 and FX-6100.

The FX-6200 and FX-4170 are made on 32 nm process technology, and feature an AM3+ package, a TDP of 125 W, and 8 MB of L3 cache. The FX-6200 has a base clock of 3.8 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) and is up for pre-order @ 152.70 Euro while its quad-core sibling is set to 4.2 GHz (4.3 GHz Turbo) and is selling for 120.60 Euro.

The updated FX-8120 and FX-6100 prices stand at $185 and $145, respectively.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics Add-in Board (AIB) shipments and sales' market share for Q4'11. The JPR AIB Report tracks computer graphics boards, which carry discrete graphics chips. They are used in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and some other devices such as scientific instruments. They may be sold as after-market products directly to customers or they may be factory installed. In all cases, they represent the higher-end of the graphics industry as discrete chips rather than integrated processors.

Overall shipments of graphics AIBs for the quarter came in above the last quarter at 16.1 million units compared to 17.2 million for Q3'11.

The evolution of the graphics market has resulted in two camps - suppliers of graphics AIBs: those which carry NVIDIA graphics chips and those which carry AMD chips. NVIDIA GPU-based boards increased by 3.7% from Q3 while AMD-based boards decreased 3.6% for the same period. Sales of AIB products have been directly impacted by the rise in economic growth in the BRIC countries, and in particular in China where there is a strong preference for discrete graphics AIBs.

Sony has begun working on its next-generation gaming console under the Playstation brand, and Forbes learned that it's none other than AMD designing its graphics processing unit (GPU). AMD is far from new to the game console GPU business, as its GPUs already drive graphics processing in Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii consoles. If launched anytime soon, the next-gen Playstation will create a rare moment where GPUs of all three major game console makers would be AMD-made. The current Playstation 3 console uses an NVIDIA GPU.

According to a Forbes report which cites former AMD employees, AMD approached NVIDIA for a merger, before going on to acquire its rival ATI. Well before 2006, AMD's CPU designers envisaged the basic concept of an APU, where with advancements in silicon fab processors, chip-designers could add other components to a processor, such as an integrated GPU that's reasonably powerful. AMD lacked an integrated graphics chipset of its own, back then. These were some of the prime-movers of AMD's hunt for a GPU company, which was then much healthier, as it then had a promising and competitive CPU lineup.

According to the Forbes report, AMD first approached NVIDIA with the idea of a merger. Back then, AMD and NVIDIA had extremely cordial relations, as NVIDIA had a large market-share in motherboard chipsets for AMD processors. Apparantly, NVIDIA's boss Jen-Hsun Huang insisted on going on to become the CEO of the proposed AMD-NVIDIA combine, an idea that didn't fly too well with AMD's Hector Ruiz. AMD then went on to acquire NVIDIA's cash-strapped rival ATI Technology, which went to make AMD's Graphics Products division before being restructured and fully amalgamated with the rest of AMD.

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 Q4'11.

We found that shipments during the fourth quarter of 2011 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, the new seasonality that has developed since the economic crash of 2008. Prior to that shift, Q4 was a seasonally up quarter, since 2008 it's been a seasonally low to down quarter-and this year it was down the most since 2008. A lot of it was blamed on the floods in Thailand, but general economic malaise still permeates the industry.

The TMEIII is the next evolution of the hugely successful TherMax Eclipse CPU cooler series. The increased number of heat-pipes combined with a higher number and density of dimpled fins and crowned with two (2) high airflow, Nano Bearing DC fans for extreme cooling performance. Five (5) U-shaped 8 mm all-copper heat-pipes are in direct contact with the CPU heat-spreader (heat source), rapid heat transfer to the 45 aluminum dimpled fins providing a larger surface area for optimum heat dissipation.

The TME III is supplied with two (2) 12 cm BlackStar 7 blades, high quality precision Nano - Bearing DC fans, providing high airflow and sufficient cooling. These fans are PWM controlled to provide the best sound / cooling ratio possible. Compatibility is guaranteed with multi-platform mounting for all current Intel and AMD micro-processors. The TME III brings cooling power to an all-new level. Another amazing product from Spire - Powered by Innovation.

Chinese company Yeston thinks there's still room for factory-overclocked Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards in the market, it unveiled the R6870 Game Master, designed to have high overclocking headroom. The card uses a custom-design PCB with an 8+1+1 phase VRM to power the GPU. The VRM takes advantage of LFPAK MOSFETs and two NEC TOKIN Proadlizers, which condition power and enhance stability with voltage-assisted overclocking. Out of the box, the card ships with reference clock-speeds of 900 MHz core and 1050 MHz (4.20 GHz effective) memory, leaving it entirely to you to take the clock speeds where you want them to go, instead of being spoon-fed with factory-OC profiles.

Moving on to the cooling, Yeston gave the R6870 Game Master a zesty cooling assembly that spans three expansion slots. It uses a lateral-flow design with a blower pushing air through numerous aluminum channels where heat is dissipated to it. It appears like heat is conveyed to these channels using heat-pipes, and not a hot plate. As a nice cosmetic touch, Yeston gave the card a thick back-plate that is ridged. It helps reduce PCB bending and could assist heat dissipation just a little. Display outputs include two each of DVI and mini-DisplayPort, and one HDMI. Power is drawn from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Out now in the Chinese market, the Yeston R6870 Game Master is priced at 1,199 RMB (US $190).

Cyclos Semiconductor, the inventor and only supplier of resonant clock mesh technology for commercial IC designs, today announced at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, CA that AMD has successfully implemented Cyclos' low-power semiconductor intellectual property (IP) in the AMD x86 core destined for inclusion in Opteron server processors and client Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). The adoption of the Cyclos resonant clock mesh IP to reduce power consumption demonstrates the commitment AMD has made to provide its customers with not only class-leading APU performance but also with the lowest possible power consumption.

AMD's 4+ GHz x86-64 core code-named "Piledriver" employs resonant clocking to reduce clock distribution power up to 24% while maintaining the low clock-skew target required by high-performance processors. Fabricated in a 32nm CMOS process, Piledriver represents the first volume production-enabled implementation of resonant clock mesh technology. "We were able to seamlessly integrate the Cyclos IP into our existing clock mesh design process so there was no risk to our development schedule," said Samuel Naffziger, Corporate Fellow at AMD. "Silicon results met our power reduction expectations, we incurred no increase in silicon area, and we were able to use our standard manufacturing process, so the investment and risk in adopting resonant clock mesh technology was well worth it as all of our customers are clamoring for more energy efficient processor designs."

Building on the success of its first Mini PC, hailed as the smallest PC in the world, SAPPHIRE Technology - a world leading manufacturer and supplier of PC graphics cards, mainboards and multimedia solutions has just introduced a new model - the SAPPHIRE EDGE-HD3 based on industry leading APU technology from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE EDGE-HD3 shares the same slim, stylish outline as the earlier models but delivers increased graphical capability and higher core performance as a result of incorporating the latest E450 APU technology from AMD. At less than half a litre in volume, it is slimmer and smaller than most wireless access points - in fact around the size of a paperback book! Its stylish design and simple pedestal mount make it equally at home next to a TV or a business monitor whilst occupying the minimum of desk or shelf space.

The launch of AMD's Radeon 7800 series is on course for March, as AMD wants to complete the launches of the entire Radeon 7000 series before NVIDIA even has its first GPU out. Radeon HD 7800 will be designed to occupy key price points in the sub-$300 market segment, where it strikes price-performance sweetspots for gamers. Central to this series is a new 28 nm GPU, codenamed "Pitcairn", from which will be derived three SKUs: the Radeon HD 7870, Radeon HD 7850 2 GB, and Radeon HD 7850 1 GB. The specifications look like this:

Radeon HD 7850

• 20 Graphics CoreNext Compute Units, 1280 stream processors
• 80 TMUs, 24 ROPs (de-linked from the memory bus, of course)
• 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, 2 GB and 1 GB variants
• Clock speeds of 900 MHz core, 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz effective) memory

Radeon HD 7870 specifications follow.

Before the end of this quarter AMD is set to introduce a bunch of fresh FX Series chips, including three boasting a 95 W TDP, the FX-4150 quad-core, the FX-6120 hexa-core and the FX-8140 octo-core.

The FX-4150 features a base clock of 3.9 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) and 12 MB of cache (4 MB L2 + 8 MB L3) while the FX-6120 has its cores set to 3.5 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) and packs 14 MB of cache. As for the FX-8140, it's clocked at 3.2 GHz (4.1 GHz) and has 16 MB of cache. All three models have an AM3+ package and are made using 32 nm process technology. No word on pricing yet.

AMD announced today that industry veteran John Byrne has been appointed senior vice president and general manager of Global Accounts. In this newly created position, Byrne will be responsible for ensuring AMD's worldwide sales organization effectively addresses customer needs by exceeding the expectations of AMD's largest multinational partners. He will report to AMD President and Chief Executive Officer Rory Read, in his capacity as acting chief sales officer.

An updated pack of Catalyst Application Profiles is now available for download and it includes profiles for the following five games:

- Alan Wake - Improves CrossFire performance
- Syndicate - Improves both single GPU and CrossFire performance
- Darkness 2 - Improves CrossFire performance
- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - Improves CrossFire performance for the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series to avoid negative scaling at low resolutions
- Natural Selection 2 - Fixes shadow map flickering issue seen with CrossFire enabled

To get the Catalyst Application Profiles v12.1 CAP 3 see this page.

Radeon users who can't/won't wait for a WHQL certification process can now get their hands (not literally) on the Catalyst 12.2 driver featuring support for Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, HD 4000, HD 5000, HD 6000, and HD 7000 Series cards. Available here for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, this release brings the following goodies:

Windows 7 and Windows Vista support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

- Enables support for Windows 7 64-bit/32-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit/32-bit
- Windows XP support will be made available in AMD Catalyst 12.4

Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing is now available for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications

- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900 and 7700 Series
- Users can now enable Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications
- Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications)

AMD's Radeon HD 7800 series performance GPUs that target cost-benefit sweet-spots will be launched in the first half of March. The launch will include Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon HD 7850. The two SKUs are based on a new 28 nm ASIC codenamed "Pitcairn". Little is known about its specifications at this point, from reliable sources at least.

In April, AMD's rival NVIDIA will get its GeForce Kepler family of GPUs, all guns blazing. In April alone, NVIDIA is expected to launch a high-end part, the GeForce GTX 690, a performance part, the GeForce GTX 660, and mainstream part GeForce GTX 640. The three will be based on three new ASICs built on the 28 nm process, the GK110, GK104, and GK106, respectively.

April will be the most interesting month for PC enthusiasts as Intel will launch its third-generation Core processor family, codename "Ivy Bridge". Little is known about AMD's high-end Radeon HD 7990 "New Zealand".

SGI (NASDAQ: SGI), the trusted leader in technical computing, announced today that its SGI ICE 8400 high performance compute (HPC) system with AMD Opteron 6200 processors achieved the top performance number for 64-, 32-, 16-, 8-, and 4-socket configurations for the SPECMPIL2007 benchmark. The SPECMPIL benchmark is SPEC's "benchmark suite for evaluating MPI-parallel, floating point, compute intensive performance across a wide range of cluster and SMP hardware," according to the SPEC website.

The SGI ICE 8400 platform with AMD processors is a completely open platform optimized for HPC workloads and runs an off-the-shelf Linux operating system for application compatibility. Although the ICE platform is able to comfortably support multi-petaflop sized installations, design considerations allow cost effective solutions down to a half rack. Single- or dual-plane integrated InfiniBand can be cabled into four different topologies, including hypercube, enhanced hypercube, all to all, and fat-tree, allowing flexible network customization for a variety of workloads.

CyberpowerPC Inc., a manufacturer of custom gaming machines, today announced its Zeus series - a powerful new line of desktop computers that offer the power of thunder with Intel's new i7-3820 CPU; the speed of AMD's lightning fast FX CPUs; the refined design of NZXT's Switch 810 chassis, and legendary Advanced Hydro Liquid Cooling.

The initial Zeus rollout includes six models. The Zeus Thunder 1000, 2000, 300 and MAX will all feature Intel's latest CPUs, including the new 2nd Gen. Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E quad-core CPU operating at 3.6 GHz, a 10 MB L3 cache and HyperThreading support. The Zeus Lightning series consists of the 1000 and 2000 models with the AMD FX series native 8-core desktop processor, which allows you to immerse yourself in the most advanced 3D games and achieve extreme mega-tasking with ease.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder of custom desktops, notebooks, and workstations, now offers PC enthusiasts the AMD Radeon HD 7750 and HD 7770 graphics solutions in their award-winning desktop systems.

MAINGEAR will offer the option of choosing AMD Radeon HD 7700 series cards, which is AMD's latest mainstream variant of their 7000 series GPUs, on their desktops. The new AMD Radeon HD 7700 series graphics cards offer the world's most advance graphics with the industry's very first 28 nm GPU design at an affordable price point.

Similar to the AMD Radeon HD 7900 series, the AMD Radeon HD 7770 also offers 1 GB GDDR5 video memory, 1 DVI, 2 mini-display ports, and 1 HDMI output, as well as superior performance with dual card configurations thanks to AMD CrossFire technology. The AMD Radeon HD 7750 sports a single slot design, sips a mere 55W, and supports 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, and 1 DisplayPort output. Both the AMD Radeon HD 7900 and 7700 series graphics supports DirectX 11 and with AMD Eyefinity, and gamers and creative professionals can enjoy support for up to 6 displays for immersive entertainment and enhanced productivity.

Club3D joined the HD 7700 party by launching its pair graphics cards, the Radeon HD 7770 (CGAX-7772) and Radeon HD 7750 (CGAX-7752). The two cards appear to be contract-manufactured by TUL, the company behind PowerColor and VTX3D, as the card designs bear a striking resemblence to those by the two brands. The HD 7770 of course is based on AMD's reference board and cooler designs, with a red-colored PCB. The HD 7750, on the other hand, features a refreshing single-slot cooler. The HD 7700 packs 640 GCN stream processors, and feactures clock speeds of 1000 MHz core, and 1125 MHz (4.50 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory; while the HD 7750 packs 512 stream processors, with clock speeds of 800 MHz core and 1125 MHz (4.50 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory.

A leading brand of graphics card maker - VTX3D, today reveals the most alluring product, VTX3D HD7700 series. Based on the latest AMD Cape Verde GPU, VTX3D HD7700 series packed with incredible features and ready to satisfy everyone. With built-in 28nm GPU design and advanced DirectX 11.1 support, your games and apps have never had it this good.

The VTX3D HD7700 family includes HD7770 GHz Edition and HD7750, and both are fitted with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. VTX3D HD7770 GHz Edition and HD7750 are clocked at 1000MHz and 800MHz respectively, also together with 1125Mhz for both memory, delivering the best performance in its class. Moreover, all VTX3D HD7700 products support the latest PCI Express 3.0, delivering double the bandwidth per lane for faster communication between GPU and CPU.