Power, design and mobility come together beautifully with the new VAIO S Series of 13.3" (33.7cm) slim notebook PCs from Sony. The slim, light VAIO S Series features a stylish new 'full flat' design that's crafted in magnesium with a wide aluminium palmrest for strength, lightness, usability and looks. There's also a cleverly concealed hinge mechanism that doesn't distract your view of what's on screen. Overall thickness shrinks to less than 24mm, while weight is a travel-friendly 1.75kg (approx.)

VAIO S Series introduces a smart new battery concept that lets you keep working day and night without a pause. The internal lithium polymer battery provides power for up to 7 hours on-the-go computing (in Stamina mode). It's partnered by a second thin, flat optional lithium polymer extended battery that can be charged separately from the PC and added without removing the internal battery. The second battery attaches without having to switch off the PC, boosting stamina to up to 14 hours if you're far from mains power.

Employing rock-solid R&D capabilities, MSI rolled out a complete array of new notebook computers packing the new generation of CPU platforms introduced in 2011. It will be parading them March 1-5 at CeBIT, the international computer electronics exhibition in Hanover, Germany. MSI's wares will be displayed in Booth C38, Hall 17. Come to MSI's booth to see world gaming champions Fnatic.MSI as well as the MSI GT680-the world's fastest notebook computer. There'll be plenty of exciting things at the MSI booth to wow the crowds.

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, noted that the 20+ additions to be shown will include the awesome G Series gaming laptops, the high performance F Series, the deluxe multimedia C Series, the gorgeously slender X Series, and the highly mobile U netbook series. These stylish machines all pack the newest generation of either Intel or AMD's CPUs and advanced visual-display units. Most models also come with MSI Premium Sound-the best wrap around sound out there. Like supercar-class Dynaudio, cinema-grade THX TruStudio Pro, and premium multimedia SRS PC Sound for the home, programs designed to satisfy the audio-visual entertainment needs of users from around the world, will be on display in Hanover.

TYAN, an industry-leading server platform manufacturer, and a subsidiary of MiTAC International Corp., today launched a new 4U server system designed for CPU-intensive and HPC applications that supports four AMD Opteron 6100 series processors. TYAN offers both the 4-way S8812WGM3NR motherboard, as well as the B8821F48W8R server platform.

AMD today released version 11.2 of its Catalyst software suite. AMD's latest release has come a little early for this time of the month. With this release, AMD focused on improving features, and introducing new ones. To begin with, tessellation controls that were first introduced with Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix, has been finalized, including a fully-functional "AMD Optimized" setting, which sets the best tessellation level while maintaining optimal frame-rates. The setting is per-application, and relies on AMD profiling applications. Next, Catalyst AI Texture Filtering received updates including a new method to improve image quality with minimal performance impact. Last of the big three feature updates is the official extension of the morphological anti-aliasing (MLAA) to AMD Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs. Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Batman Arkham Asylum got some GPU-specific performance improvements.

DOWNLOAD:AMD Catalyst 11.2 for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

AMD today announced the immediate availability of five new members of the AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor family that specifically address rising demand for low-power, balanced systems for SMBs and increased performance-per-dollar-per-watt for enterprise and public sector environments. Key partners including Acer, Dell and HP are launching new or refreshed AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform-based systems this quarter, powered by these new 12- and 8-core AMD Opteron processors.

"These new server CPUs deliver greater performance than we've ever had before," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server Business, AMD. "When we launched the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platforms last year, we eliminated the '4P tax' and met market demands for higher performance-per-dollar-per-watt. Our customers' benchmarks and testimonials bear out these improvements, and these five new parts-and the rave reviews-prove that we continue to deliver on our vision."

MSI will be showing off an array of brand new, powerful display performance notebook computers, including the 15.6-inch CR650, the 12-inch Wind U270, and the 13.4-inch X-Slim X370. Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, explains that these lean, mean machines are the ideal choice for active individuals. They include the Wind U270 ,X-Slim X370 ,and CR650 laptops, which pack AMD's landmark dual core E-350 processor which incorporates the AMD Radeon HD 6310 Discrete-Class Graphics chip which supports DirectX 11, greatly enhancing processing performance and battery life. With these portable laptops, you can enjoy multimedia entertainment outside all day.

Club3D announced its Radeon HD 6950 1 GB graphics card (model no.: CGAX-69524F). Making use of a completely in-house design by Club3D, the card uses a red PCB that is 10.5 inches long, and a custom-design cooling assembly that uses a large aluminum fin heatsink to cool the GPU, ventilated by two 80 mm spinners. The card uses 1 GB of memory over a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. It uses AMD-reference clock speeds of 800 MHz core and 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz effective) memory. Like every other HD 6950, it features 1408 stream processors. Display outputs are standard, two each of DVI and mini-DisplayPort 1.2, one HDMI 1.4a. Club3D did not give out pricing information.

After having swept through the global market with the dominating N460GTX Hawk, world-renowned graphics card and mainboard manufacturer MSI announces the next-generation Hawk series, the R6870 Hawk graphics card. Equipped with the advanced Twin Frozr III thermal design, the all new R6870 Hawk is the world's first graphics card to use propeller blade technology. When compared to traditional fans, the air flow is increased by 20%, allowing the GPU temperature to be up to 21 degrees lower. Furthermore, it uses the 8+2 phase PWM design to provide the GPU with 2 times the power supply, along with triple overvoltage functions that allow further evolution of R6870 Hawk's overclocking capability. The R6870 Hawk has the most perfect performance blend of cooling, power components, stability, and high performance found on a graphics card today.

Leading graphics card supplier, SAPPHIRE Technology has just launched a new TV tuner card with a difference - the SAPPHIRE HD 5570 XtendTV card. The SAPPHIRE HD 5570 XtendTV card is a single slot PCI-Express graphics card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and HDMI and DVI outputs - and a built in programmable TV tuner. Connected to a standard TV antenna signal, it will receive and decode all of the local free to air TV and radio stations*. Just as with a regular TV tuner, the user can watch TV on the host PC using Media Center - record, save and playback programs at will.

But XtendTV does more. Installing the FlexiStream software on the PC in which the card is installed enables the PC as a streaming server and users can watch all of their home TV programmes anywhere in the world using the XtendTV client on a remote PC or laptop.

HP today revealed a redesigned consumer notebook PC portfolio that enhances the user experience with sleek looks and the latest technologies. With updates across the HP Pavilion line, the new notebooks draw inspiration from culture, art and fashion, and build on HP's MUSE (materials, usability, sensory appeal and experience) design philosophy. Introduced last May, MUSE includes a mix of materials such as metals, alloys and plastics; easy-to-use features for improved usability; a blend of artisan elements for sensory appeal; and intuitive features for simple experiences.

The new notebooks also can be personalized with a choice of 17 exclusive wallpapers designed by six artists from around the world. These wallpapers and more are now available to download from HP's Facebook page. "HP's new Pavilion notebooks provide world-class audio, stylish metal and gloss finishes, and advanced cooling technology", said Stacy Wolff, director, Notebook Design, Personal Systems Group, HP. -The result is a line of notebooks that provide the best combination of power, entertainment and style available.

AMD released the entire entry-mid portion of the Radeon HD 6000 series overnight, for OEMs only. The cards won't be available to consumers (retail) as yet, but does give away specifications of two new GPUs that AMD is carving these SKUs out of, Turks and Caicos. Built on the 40 nm process, Turks packs 480 VLIW5 stream processors, is DirectX 11 compliant, and sports a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory controller that supports GDDR3 on lower SKUs. Radeon HD 6670 and HD 6570 are based on Turks. Both have all 480 stream processors enabled, differ in memory type/amount and clock speeds. The HD 6670 carries clock speeds of 800 MHz core, 1000 MHz (4.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory, and is available with memory amounts of 512 MB or 1 GB. The 128-bit wide memory interface churns out bandwidth of 64 GB/s.

The HD 6570 is also based on Turks, but features clock speeds of 650 MHz core, and two different memory clock speed specifications based on the memory type opted for by the manufacturers. If a manufacturer chooses GDDR3, it's clocked at 900 MHz (1.80 GHz GDDR3 effective), with a memory bandwidth of 28.8 GB/s. If it's GDDR5, it's clocked at 1000 MHz (4.00 GHz effective), 64 GB/s bandwidth. Up to 2 GB of memory can be opted for GDDR3 designs, while up to 1 GB can be opted for GDDR5-based ones. While the HD 6670 reference board uses a full-height design with a single-slot fan-heatsink, HD 6570 is designed for low-profile cards, best suited for HTPCs or SFF PCs.

TSMC reiterated that it will be ready with a 28 nanometer manufacturing process by Q4 2011. The semiconductor company handles manufacturing of graphics processors for both AMD and NVIDIA. After the current 40 nm process, 32 nm, the next milestone process, was canceled for GPU makers to leap to 28 nm, this caused the foundry transition to the next process to take longer than usual. The current 40 nm process already seems to be saturated by GPUs with over 3 billion transistors, which are barely able to maintain acceptable thermal specs without using some sort of power-load throttling mechanism.

TSMC Chairman and CEO, Morris Chang, confirmed that tape-outs will be starting as early as in Q3, and production of 28 nm chips will start in Q4. Chang expects that up to 3% of TSMC's revenues will be made from 28 nm chips by the end of the year. "We plan to have around 2% or 3% of our total revenue in the fourth quarter [to] be 28nm. The tape-outs of the 28-nanaometer will start to ramp in the second half, starting in the third quarter and then more in the fourth quarter. But the real momentum [for 28nm], we believe, will be next year," Chang said. Apart from GPUs, the 28 nm process will also benefit ARM processors, with multi-core ARM chips clocked at 3 GHz being on cards. The 28 nm bulk process will also dish out AMD's next generation accelerated processing units (APUs).

ASUS has launched an entire range of DirectCU II-enhanced graphics cards that include the latest technologies from both AMD and NVIDIA GPU rosters. On the AMD side, ASUS offers the HD 6970 and HD 6950 graphics cards with DirectCU II while for NVIDIA, the GTX 580, GTX 570 and new GTX 560 Ti all ship with the advanced cooling technology.

Based on ASUS DirectCU, which uses copper heat pipes in direct contact with the GPU core for up to 20% cooler performance, DirectCU II adds a custom cooler that uses twin 100mm fans for a massive 600% increase in airflow on HD 6970, HD 6950, GTX 580, and GTX 570 DirectCU II cards. ASUS has also launched the GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP graphics card with dual 80mm fans for the best performance in its segment through doubled air power.

Market research firm Jon Peddie Research gave out PC graphics shipments figures for Q4 2010. PC and related products sales overall were lower than usual in 2010 as the industry saw propagation of ULPCs, netbooks, and tablets propagate, hence PC graphics sales, too, were lower by as much as 7.8% down compared to the same period in 2009. Sales of GPUs and processor-embedded GPUs in Q4 stood at 113 million units, 432.2 million in all of 2010. Intel continues to be the dominant player, though its market share was lowered by competitors AMD and NVIDIA. Intel's market share was lowered in 2010, to 52.5%, from 55.2% in Q3 2010. AMD/ATI is at the second spot with a market share of 24.2% (up, from 23% in Q3); and NVIDIA at the third spot at 22.5% (21% in Q3). Other smaller GPU vendors, VIA and Matrox, stood at 0.8%, and 0.1%, respectively.

After the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti, AMD made it easier for partners to release overclocked and custom-design Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards. Partners seem to be responding to this. HIS released two new custom-design Radeon HD 6870 graphics card models, based on the Barts IceQ X board design the company implemented on its HD 6850 IceQ X series. Like with the HD 6850, there's the base model that sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 900/1050 MHz (core/memory), and a Turbo-X model that uses overclocked speeds of 975/1150 MHz. The "X" in Turbo-X denotes that it's faster than the Turbo model based on AMD's reference design board, by HIS. The cooler makes use of a slightly large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes, which is centrally ventilated by a 92 mm fan. The cooler is covered by a frosty-looking shroud. Like with every other HD 6870, the card features 1120 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. HIS did not give out pricing details.

AMD today introduced the AMD FirePro 2270 and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI professional graphics cards. AMD designed these new offerings for professionals in the medical, financial, design and engineering fields who require the ability to view and interact with multiple applications simultaneously.

"Because of their superior power consumption and multi-display capabilities, solutions based on the AMD FirePro 2270 and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI deliver strong value for financial, medical and corporate workstation environments," said Janet Matsuda, general manager, AMD Professional Graphics. "With the AMD FirePro family, we continue to demonstrate our focus on enhancing productivity through an enhanced visual experience."

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards, today expands its award-winning PCS+ series into the HD6970 series with the PowerColor PCS+ HD6970. Featuring all the latest technology, the PowerColor PCS+ HD6970 clocks in at 940MHz core speed and 1425MHz memory speed, easily accelerating gaming machines with nearly 2.9 teraFLOPs of computing power and delivering amazing gaming performance.

The PowerColor PCS+ HD6970 is equipped with a unique dual fan cooling solution; built with two large 92mm cooling fans, heat is easily dissipated from the 3x 8 ø large heat pipes and copper base which fully cover's the GPU. Temperatures are cooled up to 20% when compared to reference boards. The advantage of the dual fan cooling design is optimization of the air flow in a using a lower fan speed, providing a quieter working environment and better a user experience.

AMD today announced availability of the updated AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Software Development Kit (SDK) v2.3 with full support for the first AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), OpenCL 1.1 and AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series graphics. AMD APP technology enables AMD GPUs and CPUs to work together to run many demanding computing tasks faster than possible with just the CPU alone.

AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing SDK v2.3, previously known as the ATI Stream SDK, empowers software developers to write new applications that can take full advantage of the parallel processing power of heterogeneous computing platforms, such as those based on new AMD E-Series and C-Series APUs that combine a multi-core CPU and DirectX 11-capable GPU on a single die.

Scythe Corporation, a renowned cooling manufacturer, today announced the release of its third version of the Universal Retention Kit. This enhanced version comes with several improvements and wide multi-socket compatibility for both AMD and Intel sockets. The list of compatible sockets contains Intel Socket T / LGA775, LGA1156 LGA1366 and the brand-new socket LGA1155. It furthermore supports the AMD Sockets 754, 939, AM2, AM2+, AM3 and 940. Universal Retention Kit 3 is once again based on a backplate mounting system and allows firm contact pressure as well as secure mounting of even big and heavy CPU Coolers.

Commonly supplied retention bracket of AMD Mainboards are made of plastic which has a downside of giving risk of breaking when using with an on-market High-End CPU Cooler. This problem doesn't accrue with the supplied retention bracket of the Universal Retention Kit 3 which is made of solid steel and thereby provides the necessary sturdiness even for big High-End CPU Coolers. For Intel architecture this kit allows pushpin mounting to be converted to backplate mounting, thereby providing high mechanical stability hence also providing the necessary sturdiness even for big High-End CPU Coolers with a pushpin solution. In order to ease the detachment process of Push-Pins, a convenient Push-Pin Removal Tool is supplied along in the accessory.

AMD today formally introduced Catalyst 11.1 WHQL software suite and Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix update. AMD Catalyst installs drivers and system software for ATI/AMD Radeon graphics processors (HD 2000 series and above), AMD chipset integrated graphics, and other ATI multimedia products. The Catalyst 11.1 WHQL finalizes the new Catalyst Control Center (referred to so far as CCC2), as the default control center, which simplifies control for mainstream and advanced users. It also formally introduces support for OpenGL 4.1. Catalyst 11.1 WHQL adds performance updates to F1 2010 and Left 4 Dead 2, the performance increments are more for the HD 6000 series GPUs. Next up is the 11.1a Hotfix update, which packs all the features of 11.1, plus performance improvements for Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs. It also adds new tessellation level controls. A number of Catalyst AI texture filtering updates are also added.

DOWNLOAD:
AMD Catalyst 11.1 WHQL
Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update

A list of changes follows.

Here's the Radeon HD 6990 up close. The HD 6990 is AMD's new dual-GPU graphics card that extends the performance leadership held by Radeon HD 5970. The pictures put rest to some speculation surrounding the cooler design. It now appears that the cooler design is similar to that of the GeForce GTX 295 single-PCB, as far as air-flow is concerned. A single long PCB holds two GPU systems on either sides, a centrally-located blower pushes air on either sides. The exhaust from one GPU is sent out of the case, while that from the other is pushed out of the card from its rear portion.

The Radeon HD 6990 uses two 40 nm Cayman GPUs, it packs a total of 3072 stream processors, and 4096 MB of memory between the two GPU systems. It also features a new kind of display output that consists of one dual-link DVI and four mini-DP 1.2. Power is drawn in from one 6-pin and an 8-pin PCIe connector. The card can pair with another of its kind for 4-GPU CrossFireX. It is expected to be released a little later in this quarter.

TechPowerUp introduced version 0.5.1 of GPU-Z, our lightweight graphics sub-system information and monitoring utility. GPU-Z provides you with technical details of your installed graphics processors, and lets you monitor clock speeds, voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. This month's release adds support for new GPUs, improves stability, and corrects some minor bugs. To begin with, detection for the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics processor is added, alongside GeForce GTX 480M, and GeForce GTX 485M. Detection was improved for GeForce GTX 460M, GT 445M, and GT 435M. Early support for AMD's Fusion Llano, Ontario, and Zacate-embedded APUs were also added.

With the latest driver, NVIDIA had blocked our power-throttling disable parameter. We found our way around it, and using a new method, fixed the "/GTX500OCP" parameter using which you can override NVIDIA's power throttling feature. Support for new voltage controllers used by the latest batches of Radeon HD 6800/HD 6900 series graphics cards were also added. A number of stability improvements were made, and bugs fixed. The updates notifier is less pesky, it checks for timely updates in the background when GPU-Z is launched (according to update check frequency defined by user), and appears to users only if it finds that new updates are available.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v0.5.1

A complete list of changes follows.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just added two new models to its FleX family of graphics cards that can support three screens in Eyefinity mode, out of the box, without the need for DisplayPort monitors or active adapters. The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 FleX is the highest performing card with this feature, allowing gamers to use low-cost DVI monitors for all three screens. The new SAPPHIRE HD 5670 FleX delivers a cost-effective Eyefinity solution for increased productivity in tasks such as editing or business applications.

Both the SAPPHIRE HD 6870 FleX and the HD 5670 Flex can support three DVI monitors in Eyefinity mode and deliver a true SLS (Single Large Surface) work area without the need for costly active adapters. With the SAPPHIRE FleX solution, the first two monitors are connected to the DVI outputs, as usual. A third DVI monitor can be connected to the HDMI output with the passive cable adapter supplied. Thus three DVI monitors can be used in Eyefinity mode without any additional investment.

AMD finalized its recalibrated product pricing of Radeon HD 6800 and Radeon HD 6900 series products in the wake of NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti later today. NVIDIA's new GPU is expected to revive the green giant's competitiveness at a key sub-$300 price-point, which could destabilize AMD's SKUs in the price-proximity. Without many options left, AMD is setting the following new prices (EUR and USD):

• Radeon HD 6870 1 GB: 189.99€, $219
• Radeon HD 6950 1 GB: 225.00€, $259
• Radeon HD 6950 2 GB: 239.99€, $269~289

The prices should be in effect very soon. Prices apart, AMD will also release a new driver that will bring about considerable performance improvements to all Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs.

Close to two weeks ago, reports surfaced about AMD claiming that its upcoming "Zambezi" 8-core desktop processor based on the company's new Bulldozer architecture is expected to perform 50% faster than Intel's Core i7 and its own Phenom II X6 processors. The slide forming the basis for the older report surfaced, and it's a little more than a cumulative performance estimate.

Slide #14 from AMD's Desktop Client Solutions presentation to its industry partners reveals that the company went ahead and provided a breakdown on which kinds of applications exactly does its new 8-core chip perform better compared to present-generation processors. The breakdown provides an interesting insight on the architecture itself. To begin with, AMD's 8-core Bulldozer "Zambezi" processor is 1.5X (50%) faster overall compared to Intel Core i7 "Bloomfield" 950, and AMD Phenom II X6 1100T. Breaking down that graph, the processor performs similar to the other chips in media applications, but features huge gains in gaming and 3D rendering, which is where most of its gains are coming from.