Danger Den continues to extend their broad line of full coverage video card blocks with the new ATI 5870 water block. The DD-5870 block is a single slot solution cooling all of the major heat components including the GPU, RAM, power mofsets, and more.

The DD-5870 block is designed to have superior cooling performance while minimizing the pressure loss across the block. This combined with other Danger Den blocks maintains a high flow rate through the entire system maximizing the cooling performance of all the components.

AMD released its fourth beta of the ATI Stream SDK version 2.0, that provides the first complete OpenCL development platform. The release is certified to be fully compliant with OpenCL 1.0 by, the Khronos Group. A wide range of AMD GPUs as well as any x86 multi-core CPU supporting SSE3 instruction set are supported. For more information on this release, and to download, visit this page.

An interesting discovery by TechConnect Magazine shows that in these OpenCL drivers, are identifiers for a yet to be announced "Radeon HD 5900 Series", with the device IDs 689C and 689D, both marked under "Evergreen", like other members of the Evergreen family, such as Radeon HD 5700 and Radeon HD 5800 series. The most plausible explanation for "Radeon HD 5900 Series" could be that it is the name of the graphics cards based on the Hemlock GPU architecture, which pairs two Cypress GPUs onto one board. The driver also gives away device IDs, if not product names of GPUs based on the upcoming entry-level Redwood and Cedar GPUs.

MSI is readying a new socket AM2+ motherboard based on the AMD 790X + SB710 chipset. The MSI 790X-G45 is an ATX motherboard that makes use of the chipset's feature-set. The CPU is powered by a 4+1 phase circuit which makes use of MSI's APS (Active Phase Switching) function that turns of redundant phases when the load is low. Supporting most socket AM3, AM2+, and AM2 processors, the motherboard's four DDR2 DIMM slots support DDR2-1066 memory for the K10 generation of AMD processors, and DDR2-1200 by overclocking. Its two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (electrical x8, x8, when both are in use,) provide support for ATI CrossFireX. The SB710 southbridge takes care of six internal SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, an IDE connector for two devices, 8-channel HD audio, and support for Advanced Clock Calibration. Gigabit Ethernet, six USB ports and a serial port, make for the rest of its connectivity. The MSI 790X-G45 will be available in the weeks to come.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today releases the latest gaming video cards: the HD5700 series. Designed for demanding DirectX 11 games at HD resolutions and high settings, PowerColor HD5700 series offers the intense gaming performance and unrivaled image quality.

PowerColor HD5700 series supports ATI's exclusive Eyefinity Technology, with dual DL-DVI / HDMI / Display Port onboard design, it can run up to three displays from a single card and let all gamers enjoy the "wrap-around" gaming experience like never before. Also, the latest HD5700 series is compatible with ATI Stream technology, enables demanding data parallel compute tasks from the CPU to GPU, accelerate the daily application and do more with your PC.

Following the storming success of the recently introduced SAPPHIRE HD 5800 series, SAPPHIRE Technology now introduces the HD 5700 series, setting new standards for performance, value for money and features.

Only the second product line to fully support the forthcoming DirectX 11 from Microsoft, the new HD 5700 series brings many of the exciting architectural and performance features of the HD 5800 series to users on lower budgets. The HD 5700 series is based on a new GPU from the ATI division of AMD built in low power 40nm technology. This new series includes support for the new instruction set of DirectCompute 11, hardware tessellation, accelerated multi-threading capability, support for ATI Stream and the ability to display across up to three monitors simultaneously with ATI Eyefinity.

AMD today released its ATI Radeon HD 5700 series of mid-range graphics processors aimed to increase the company's competitiveness in the sub-$200 market, and present a mainstream graphics card series compliant with the DirectX 11 API. The series makes use of AMD's 40 nm Juniper graphics processor, that packs 1.04 billion transistors, 800 stream processors, 40 texture units, and 16 raster operation units. The 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface provides up to 76.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

The higher-end product of the two on offer, Radeon HD 5770 is priced around the $150 mark, and has all its 800 stream processors and 40 texture units enabled. It comes with clock speeds of 850/1200 MHz (core/memory), while the Radeon HD 5750 looks to cash in on the $120 point. It has 720 stream processors, 36 texture units enabled from its kitty, with clock speeds of 700/1150 MHz (core/shader). While the Radeon HD 5770 comes with 1 GB of memory, the Radeon HD 5750 comes in variants of 1 GB and 512 MB. Some of the other big selling points of these cards are low rater power consumptions of 16~18 W at idle, and 86~108 W at load. The connectivity options include two DVI-D, and one each of DisplayPort and HDMI. The cards support AMD's Eyefinity technology which allows combining three 2560x1600 pixel display-heads for a single large display head. Each of these can pair with up to three more of its kind for 4-way CrossFireX multi-GPU performance upscaling.

All major AMD board vendors, such as ASUS, Sapphire, HIS, PowerColor, Gigabyte, MSI, VisionTek, XFX, among others, have their offerings based on these GPUs ready to sell from today. Pictured below (in order) are Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5750.

AMD today announced the appointment of Thomas Seifert as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Seifert, 46, will report to Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief executive officer, and will have responsibility for leading the company's global financial organization. Seifert succeeds Robert Rivet, who was previously promoted to chief operations and administrative officer.

"Thomas is a talented industry veteran with a wealth of knowledge and experience managing the operations and finances of companies in the most difficult and competitive sectors of the semiconductor industry," said Meyer. "This knowledge and experience will enable him to further strengthen AMD's financial foundation and help accelerate our transformation into a product design and marketing leader."

Following a recent exposé of pictures and performance figures of the Radeon HD 5750, another one covering that of the ASUS Radeon HD 5770 has surfaced. Using a test bed powered by an AMD Phenom II X4 945, 4 GB of DDR3-1333 memory, and Windows 7 64-bit, a member of the Chinese PC enthusiast portal community MyMyPC.com put an ASUS Radeon HD 5770 accelerator through 3DMark Vantage Performance preset (to yield its GPU score), 3DMark06, and FurMark (to check temperatures). It was compared to other popular graphics accelerators in (or around) the sub-$200 league, including Radeon HD 4890, GeForce GTX 260, and GeForce GTX 275. While in the 3DMark06 test the Radeon HD 5770 edges past the GeForce GTX 260, with 3DMark Vantage (GPU score), it lags behind the rest of the league, by at least around 1000 points. This gives an indication that as far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5770 could be comparable to the Radeon HD 4870, at least in these applications.

The beans are spilled on the final specifications of AMD's "Juniper" mid-range GPU architecture, and the two SKUs based on it, namely the ATI Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5750. Leaked alleged company slides on XtremeSystems Forums, reveal exactly how Juniper is a 50% downsizing of Cypress' machinery, in having half of nearly all its vital-statistics, if you may. Juniper features 10 SIMD engines physically, amounting to 800 stream processors. It holds 40 texture memory units (TMUs), and 16 raster operation units (ROPs). With a 128-bit memory interface churning out up to 76.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth by utilizing 4.8 GT/s GDDR5 memory chips, the fact that Juniper is half of what Cypress stands for specs-wise, becomes clear.

In the next two slides are pictured and detailed the two SKUs based on the GPU. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 is the top-end implementation, which makes use of all the components present on the GPU. With a core clock-speed of 850 MHz, and memory speed of 1200 MHz, the GPU churns out a shader compute power of 1.36 TFLOPs. The idle and max board powers are rated by AMD at 18W and 108W, respectively. It becomes clear that AMD is eying the US $150 price point with this part. The Radeon HD 5750 on the other hand, has one SIMD engine disabled, and eds up with 720 available stream processors. It comes with 1 GB or 512 MB of GDDR5 memory, and clock speeds of 700 MHz core, and 1150 MHz memory (4.6 GT/s). With these, the Radeon HD 5750 manages a shader compute power figure of 1.008 TFLOPs. The rated board power consumption figures have also come down on this one, with 16W idle, and 86W max. This one targets the $109 (512 MB) and $129 (1 GB) price points. Both accelerators are DirectX 11 compliant, and support ATI Eyefinity technology supporting up to three 2560 x 1600 pixel display heads. According to the slides, they should be unveiled this Tuesday the 13th.

Here's the first sighting of what the reference-design AMD Radeon HD 5770 could really end up looking like. Unlike a previous set of pictures of the engineering sample showing a cooler design that resembles that of the Radeon HD 4770 (AMD reference), and Radeon HD 3870, this accelerator by Gigabyte is retail-grade, as it was pictured at a store, and carries an AIB's branding. The card design in many respects looks like a further shortened version the Radeon HD 5800 series owing to essentially the same cooler design. It retains the black PCB pictured earlier, and the connectivity cluster of two DVI, and one each of DisplayPort and HDMI. This picture follows a recent photo-shoot of the Radeon HD 5750, and its reference design, showing a simpler GPU cooler design which is loosely based on that of the Radeon HD 4770 (AIB popular reference design).

Less than a week away from launch, graphics cards based on AMD's newest ATI Radeon HD 5700 series mid-range GPUs have began to surface on European retailers, only to be retracted hours after being listed. Such acts from retailers isn't particularly new, but what it does is give away the price, and sometimes pictures and specifications. One such set of listings from German retailer Mindfactory.de, pits the price of the upper mid-range PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 at 149.99 €, including 19% applicable tax, and the mid-range PowerColor Radeon HD 5750 at 119.99 €, including 19% tax. Both cards, as listed by the retailer, feature 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. AMD is expected to unveil the Radeon HD 5700 series this October 13. With it, it plans to expand its lineup of next-generation DirectX 11 compliant graphics cards, and breach the mainstream market segment. What is also planned is to establish performance leadership over competing products at those price-points.

The Dutch techsite tweakers.net set a new world record for 3Dmark03. While the old record (180,349) was set using four 4890s the new record uses only three 5870s and a Xeon W3540 clocked at 5231 MHz. The 5870s ran at 1200 MHz with only slightly overclocked memory at 4900 MHz.

A Chinese tech community MyMyPC.com member pictured, and tested a Radeon HD 5750 graphics accelerator, which is intended to be AMD's flagship product in the sub $150 market segment. Unlike the Radeon HD 5770, which is pictured with a different cooler that resembles that of the Radeon HD 4770 (AMD reference), and Radeon HD 3870, this card makes do with a GPU cooler essentially similar to that of the more common Radeon HD 4770 cooler design, except for a few changes with the fan and the cooler shroud. Under the black, egg-shaped shroud is a heatsink with radially-projecting fins, in which is nested a red 80 mm fan. Everything else on the card, relies on its air-flow.

Here is what four AMD Cypress GPUs can achieve with some careful overclocking, without needing any third-party cooling. Renowned overclocker Kinc sent us details of his latest achievement using four ASUS Radeon HD 5870 1 GB cards installed in a 4-way CrossFireX setup, all overclocked, and cooled by AMD's reference cooler, taking a shot at 3DMark Vantage (Extreme Preset). The four cards returned a score of X26,332 points, with an average frame-rate of 79.49 fps in GT1, and 74.83 fps in GT2.

To begin with the cards were overclocked to 1035/1290 MHz, up from reference speeds of 850/1200 MHz (core/memory). This was supported by raising the vGPU to 1.330V using GPUTool, from 1.015V. The platform to drive this feat comprised of an Intel Core i7 965 XE processor, cooled by Intel's reference (boxed) cooler, clocked at 4257 MHz. To seat them all was an ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer motherboard. The feat serves as a prelude to what the future holds in two "Hemlock" accelerators, which make use of two Radeon HD 5870 GPUs each.

AMD and Pixelux Entertainment announced a joint development agreement that is part of the AMD effort to greatly expand the use of real-time physics with graphics through the open source Bullet Physics engine. By encouraging development of physics middleware built around OpenCL and Bullet Physics, AMD and Pixelux offer a route toward physics simulation that spans game consoles, PCs and other hardware platforms. The latest graphics technologies, like the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of GPUs, offer incredible visual fidelity and high performance physics simulation by taking the next step in realistically animating how rendered game objects move, deform and break.

"Proprietary physics solutions divide consumers and ISVs, while stifling true innovation; our competitors even develop code that they themselves admit will not work on hardware other than theirs," said Eric Demers, chief technology officer for graphics at AMD. "By working with Pixelux and others to enable open support of physics on OpenCL and DirectX 11 capable devices we are taking the exact opposite approach."

Anti-Aliasing has been one of the most basic image-quality enhancements available in today's games. PC graphics hardware manufacturers regard it as more of an industry standard, and game developers echo with them, by integrating anti-aliasing (AA) features in the game, as part of its engine. This allows the game to selectively implement AA in parts of the 3D scene, so even as the overall image quality of the scene is improved, so is performance, by making sure that not every object in the scene is given AA. It seems that in one of the most well marketed games of the year, Batman: Arkham Asylum, doesn't like to work with ATI Radeon graphics cards when it comes to its in-game AA implementation.

Developed under NVIDIA's The Way it's Meant to be Played program, and featuring NVIDIA's PhysX technology, the game's launcher disables in-game AA when it detects AMD's ATI Radeon graphics hardware. AMD's Ian McNaughton in his recent blog thread said that they had confirmed this by an experiment where they ran ATI Radeon hardware under changed device IDs. Says McNaughton: "Additionally, the in-game AA option was removed when ATI cards are detected. We were able to confirm this by changing the ids of ATI graphics cards in the Batman demo. By tricking the application, we were able to get in-game AA option where our performance was significantly enhanced." He further adds that the option is not available for the retail game as there is a secure-rom.

Slovenian water-cooling components specialist EK Water Blocks is readying one of the first water blocks for the AMD Radeon HD 5870 accelerator. Called EK FCS5870, it is a full-coverage water block from the looks of it, cooling all essential components on the PCB, including the GPU, memory, and VRM. The first picture below shows a CAD drawing of a design candidate. The second one is a picture of the ready copper block sans its top, revealing the water channel, and the heat-dissipation ribs over the GPU area. EK intends to complete the design of the FCS5870 by the end of this month.

Behold AMD's, and soon aimed to be the industry's most powerful graphics accelerator: Radeon HD 5870 X2 "Hemlock". Armed with two "Cypress" Radeon HD 5870 graphics processors, this dual-GPU monstrosity packs twice the shader compute power. From the looks of it, the card is slightly longer than its single-GPU sibling from the series, and is better ventilated, although the cooler design more or less resembles it. It draws its power from one 6+2 pin and one 6 pin PCI-E power connectors, just like two of its ancestors in the R700 and R680. Listed for pre-order on a European online store, a Radeon HD 5870 X2 by Club3D is priced at 677 EUR (incl. applicable taxes, 568.9 EUR excluding).

OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today expanded their lineup of DDR3 to include certified OCZ Black Edition 4GB kits for ultimate compatibility with AMD's next-generation Phenom II processors. These modules excel on Black Edition platforms at ultra-low voltage, an ideal parameter for the latest highly efficient processors. OCZ's unique Black Edition Series is designed to be the ultimate upgrade for users who not only want to reap the benefits of high-frequency DDR3, but want a future-proof choice for their system.

"OCZ is excited to launch our new AMD Black Edition Ready Series which is designed specifically to work with AMD's OverDrive software utility," said Eugene Chang, Vice President of Product Management at the OCZ Technology Group. "The new OCZ Black Edition modules not only interact with AOD to overclock the memory, but also communicate with the BIOS to increase the frequency and performance of the memory controller. The result is a symbiotic relationship between memory and the rest of the system to unleash the full power of the Dragon Platform."

Earlier talked about as being a mere speed bump over RV740 that probably locks horns with Radeon HD 4850 or even HD 4870 512 MB in terms of performance in today's applications, Juniper, codename for AMD's newer mainstream GPU that is looking to handle things under the $200 segment, is looking stronger than thought about before on paper, according to recent publication by Anandtech. Breaking away from the previous conception of a GPU with 800 stream processors, a 128-bit GDDR5 memory, and most other vital-stats resembling its ancestor, the report suggests something that's at least 75% as powerful as Cypress.

It is said to feature 14 SIMD blocks, which going by Cypress' architecture would imply 1120 stream processors (14 x 80 SPs). The report also hints at a stronger memory sub-system to keep up. Instead of a 128-bit wide interface, it hints at 192-bit, GDDR5 at that. This part doesn't seem convincing, as earlier pictures of the card showed it to be holding four memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB, with no fuses to show memory chips that aren't sharing memory channels. Accelerators with 192-bit wide memory interface, should have 6 or 12 memory chips typically. Other numbers include 56 texture memory units (TMUs), and 24 raster operation units (ROPs), if there is a 192-bit memory interface. Two accelerators based on the GPU, Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5750 should be out around the same time Windows 7 hits retail. Both target sub-$200 price points.

VERTEX3D, a new expected brand of AMD graphics card, today launches the next generation video card: HD5800 series. The latest series includes HD5870 and HD5850, clocks at 850MHz and 750MHz (respectively) core and 1200MHz and 1000MHz (respectively) memory. As the most powerful GPU in the world, HD5800 series has more than 2 TeraFLOPs of compute power, delivering the extreme performance like never before.

VTX3D HD5800 series is the first GPU which supports for Microsoft DirectX 11, and enables a complete Windows 7 experience. Not only that, the latest series supports ATI exclusive Eyefinity technology, and allows gamers to extend their visual sensation up to three-screen displays. With multi-output onboard design-dual DL-DVI / HDMI / Display Port, gamers can take an advantage with this latest multi-display capabilities and enjoy the most real-life gaming experience of immersing themselves IN the game.

Less than 24 hours after its launch, one of the first custom design accelerators based on the Radeon HD 5870 have began to surface, one of the first ones made by Sapphire. Whether or not this is a complete custom design (includes custom designed PCB and coolers), Sapphire is ready with at least its Vapor-X cooler designed for the new GPU. This picture found on Xtreme Systems forums shows the cooler fitted on the AMD reference PCB. However, a newly announced contest conducted by Hexus.net shows a CGI drawing of the accelerator in its promotional graphic, which shows the PCB to be slightly shorter, and blue in colour. One can also see from the drawing that the PCI-E power connectors are located at the same spot where they were located on most Radeon HD 4890 accelerators. Hopefully cheaper, or at least factory-overclocked accelerators aren't far away.

As top computer gamers are demanding only the very best hardware, all manufacturers in the industry are constantly striving for the efficiency and performance to fulfill these needs. In order to adequately cater to these ever increasing performance demands, now MSI, leading graphics cards and mainboard manufacturer has joined forces with the renowned graphics chip manufacturer AMD and today officially launch the next generation MSI R5800 series graphics cards. The 40 nm GPU supports DirectX 11 and a variety of AMD-exclusive audiovisual and performance enhancing technologies, creating an entirely new series of performance oriented craftsmanship.

The brand new MSI R5870/R5850 series uses more advanced 40nm GPU to implement decisively more transistors within the same amount of space and thereby reaching a new level of performance. In addition the modern 40nm process reduces power consumption and brings about a more efficient overall electrical utilization. By using the advantages of this innovative 40nm process technology, the next generation MSI R5870/R5850 series offers outstanding performance of a new kind.

SAPPHIRE Technology announces the most exciting development in graphics for several generations - not only the fastest single GPU ever, but also the first video cards to support the advanced graphical features only available in Microsoft DirectX 11 and delivering spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5870 is based on an advanced new graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. This is the very first series of graphics solutions to support the forthcoming DirectX 11, soon to be introduced with Windows 7 and supported in Windows Vista.

AMD today launched the most powerful processor ever created, found in its next-generation graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, and the world's first and only to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11, the new gaming and compute standard shipping shortly with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. Boasting up to 2.72 TeraFLOPS of compute power, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series effectively doubles the value consumers can expect of their graphics purchases, delivering twice the performance-per-dollar of previous generations of graphics products. AMD will initially release two cards: the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and the ATI Radeon HD 5850, each with 1GB GDDR5 memory. With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards, PC users can expand their computing experience with ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, accelerate their computing experience with ATI Stream technology, and dominate the competition with superior gaming performance and full support of Microsoft DirectX 11, making it a "must-have" consumer purchase just in time for Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

"With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cars driven by the most powerful processor on the planet, AMD is changing the game, both in terms of performance and the experience," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. "As the first to market with full DirectX 11 support, an unmatched experience made possible with ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream technology harnessing open standards designed to help make Windows 7 that much better, I can say with confidence that AMD is the undisputed leader in graphics once more."