AMD announces availability of a new server platform featuring the world's first 8- and 12-core x86 processor for the high-volume 2P and value 4P server market. The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform addresses the unmistakable needs of server customers today - workload-specific performance, power efficiency, and overall value - while delivering more cores and more memory for less money. Leading OEMs including HP, Dell, Acer Group, Cray, and SGI are introducing new systems based on this highly scalable and reliable platform.

"As AMD has done before, we are again redefining the server market based on current customer requirements," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Divisions, AMD. "The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform signals a new era of server value, significantly disrupts today's server economics and provides the performance-per-watt, value and consistency customers demand for their real-world data center workloads."

ASUS today announced a full range of motherboards that are ready to support the upcoming six-core AMD Phenom II X6 processors to herald a new era in ultra-powerful personal computing. The AMD six-core processor-ready ASUS M4 Series motherboards deliver maximum performance on a mainstream platform. Joe Hsieh, General Manager of ASUS Motherboard Business, said, "Besides being ready to support six-core processors, the ASUS M4 Series gives users of every level the best performance and value with its Core Unlocker feature. This has received notable recognition from many of the world's top media organizations for delivering a phenomenal boost in performance." M4 Series motherboards with the exclusive Core Unlocker technology have also garnered global media accolades for being the best motherboard for AMD processors.

ASUS' M4 Series motherboard is ready for the AMD Phenom II X6 processors. To enable six-core CPU and achieve maximum performance, users simply need to update the BIOS of their existing M4 Series.

Shortly after the Khronos group announced the OpenGL 4.0, the newest version of the multi-platform graphics API, AMD is out with a preview graphics driver for its ATI Radeon, FireGL, FirePro, and Mobility Radeon graphics accelerators, which includes the OpenGL 4.0 ICD (installable client driver). The driver is available for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux. OpenGL 4.0 is comparable and up to times with Microsoft's DirectX 11 API, it makes use of hardware features such as tessellation on the GPU, per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions, 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations, etc., and has no restrictions on which later version of Windows it can run on. With OpenGL 4.0 for example, one can expect 3D graphics with the complexity comparable to DirectX 11 on Windows XP.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst OpenGL 4.0 Preview Driver for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP, and Linux.

A set of new slides by AMD to sections of the industry spills the beans on AMD's processor offer outlook for perhaps the rest of the year. It shows AMD to maintain focus on value-oriented models that etch away Intel's market share on grounds of price/performance, while the higher-end of the spectrum keeps up with the latest technologies including the industry-wide advent of the six-core processor era, as well as new power-state management technologies such as TurboCore, which steps up clock speeds of certain cores of the processors while powering down others, which the load is low or less-parallel.

Front-line processor lineups include the Phenom II X6, and Phenom II X4, including a new T X4 series that includes TurboCore support. AMD's transition towards these chips from the existing Deneb-based quad-core ones starts within this quarter lasting throughout Q2 and part of Q3 2010. It includes Phenom II X4 960T, a 3.00 GHz (3.40 GHz turbo) chip based on the Zosma die. It goes up with the Phenom II X6 1035T, a six-core chip clocked at 2.60 GHz (3.10 GHz turbo). A notch higher up is the Phenom II X6 1055T, clocked at 2.80 GHz (3.30 GHz turbo), which comes in 95W and 125W variants. At the top is the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, an overclocker-friendly chip that runs at 3.20 GHz (3.60 GHz turbo). A little later in Q3, AMD will add in the Phenom II X6 1075T, clocked at 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz turbo).

A little later this week, NVIDIA will release two of its front-line GPUs that are compliant with the latest industry standards, notably Microsoft DirectX 11. This brings competition to AMD's high-end Radeon HD 5800 series and Radeon HD 5970 graphics cards, or does it? Competition often tends to have a pro-consumer effect out of price-wars. Sources indicate that AMD is not inclined to cut prices of its products after NVIDIA's launch of GeForce GTX 400 series. A few factors we think could prevent a price-war:

• AMD could have a fair idea about how GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs compete with its GPUs, and given that their estimated performance levels and estimated target prices (estimated US $499 for GTX 480 and $349 for GTX 470), the performance/price equation for AMD's Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs iron out, with HD 5870 at around $400, HD 5850 at around $325, and HD 5830 at $240, barring HD 5970, which is being priced at a premium for its premium performance levels.
• Although NVIDIA and its partners officially launch their GeForce GTX 400 series products on the 26th of March, market availability, backed by sizable inventories could just take some time, allowing AMD to maintain its prices.
• AMD is introducing newer variants of its HD 5800 series GPUs, namely HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2GB, and allowing AIB partners to come up with 2 GB models of Radeon HD 5800 series cards.

AMD released the ATI Catalyst 10.3 WHQL driver suite. Catalyst provides drivers and related system software for ATI Radeon, ATI FirePro, graphics processors, AMD 7-series and 8-series integrated graphics, AMD chipset system software, and drivers for ATI multimedia products. Version 10.3, like 10.2 promises to bring a series of significant additions to the feature-set, along with a long list of application-specific performance improvements.

Catalyst 10.3 introduces a set of additions to the ATI Eyefinity technology, such as display bezel compensation, per-display colour adjustments, multiple Eyefinity groups (which allows multiple Eyefinity display heads over available graphics cards and displays), and improvements to the display configuration switching. ATI hardware now supports stereoscopic 3D display over third-party middleware from the likes of iZ3D, DDD, etc., for output of stereoscopic L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye). A number of bugs were also fixed. For more details refer to the Release Notes document.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.3 for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

Game-specific performance increment figures follow.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, announces new mainstream products added to the Go! Green series: the PowerColor Go! Green HD5670 and Go! Green HD5570. Both new graphics cards take advantage of the Go! Green series features inclyding stealth like silence and low power consumption. The cards feature no external power connectors, enabling a power efficient and silent gaming and entertainment solution.

Both the Go! Green HD5670 and Go! Green HD5570 features an ultra-efficient passive cooling solution dissipating excessive heat with minimal noise. With extremely thin cooling fins that fully cover the GPU and memory, it can reduce the temperature efficiently through the added copper heat pipes.

Following AMD's launch of the 890GX chipset which marked the entry of certain new features native to the chipset, the company is readying a slightly scaled-down version of it aimed at more mainstream consumers, business PC users, as well as HTPC and home PC users. The AMD 880G succeeds the 780G is being a mid-range integrated graphics chipset that supports a range of new features using the SB800 series southbridge chips.

While the 880G is based on essentially the same chip (RS880) as the 890GX, certain features such as ATI CrossFire are disabled, and board makers are directed to use this chipset on micro-ATX form-factor designs. The 880G northbridge packs an RV620-core based ATI Radeon HD 4250 IGP which supports DirectX 10.1, with 40 stream processors, and DDR3 SidePort memory support apart from the usual UMA. The IGP supports native HD video decode features, as well as HDMI with on-chip 7.1 channel audio. While the chipset supports one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 link for discrete graphics, it also gives out PCI-Express 2.0 x1, x4 lanes from the northbridge. Additional controllers such as USB 3.0 can benefit from a direct PCI-E 2.0 path. The SB800 class southbridge has a native 6 channel SATA 6 Gb/s controller complete with RAID support.

In a few weeks' time, AMD will be releasing its brand new set of six-core Phenom II X6 processors. These processors are based on the "Thuban" core, which is a socket AM3 implementation of the Istanbul six-core architecture. Along with as many as four Phenom II X6 models including a high-end Black Edition part, AMD will be introducing new quad-core processors under the Phenom II X4 T series. Some of the first two models in this series includes the Phenom II X4 960T and Phenom II X4 940T.

The Phenom II X4 960T operates at 3.30 GHz, while the 940T runs at 3.00 GHz. What makes these chips different from existing chips based on the Deneb die is that it is in fact based on the Thuban die with two cores disabled. The resulting quad-core chip is codenamed Zosma. The other characteristic feature about not only Zosma, but also Thuban in general, is the introduction of a feature called "Turbo Core". The feature senses performance needs and steps up clock speeds of some cores, while powering down others. The stepping up of clock speed happens on the fly, and using a jump in BClk multiplier by a few units. The new chips also come with the unofficial incentive of being able to unlock the two disabled cores to turn it into a six-core chip. Unlocking may not work in all cases.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new version of its successful HD SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition with a larger frame buffer size of 2GB. The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC series are SAPPHIRE original designs based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. They feature 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units delivering the fastest performance in class as well as supporting ATI Stream technology.

Designed for the enthusiast or demanding user, the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 2G TOXIC Edition is factory overclocked to 765MHz core and has 2GB of high speed DDR5 memory clocked at 1125MHz (4500MHz effective). SAPPHIRE's World leading Vapor-X technology not only allows the cards to run as much as 15 degrees C cooler and 10dB quieter than the standard models, it provides additional headroom for further performance tuning (overclocking).

AMD's lineup of six-core desktop processors under the Phenom II X6 banner indeed includes a high-end part. A Bahrain-based etailer disclosed prices of some of the models, which includes a Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition. This chip operates at 3.20 GHz, with a TDP of 125W. Being a Black Edition part, it sports an unlocked BClk multipler that helps overclocking. AMD plans to sell this chip at US $295. The Phenom II X6 1055T is the other part with a price-tag. This 2.80 GHz chip also has its TDP at 125W, although we've lead to believe that AMD will release a 95W variant, too. The 1055T goes for US $199. Both chips are based on the "Thuban" core, which feature six cores on a monolithic die, with 9 MB of total chip cache (512 KB L2 per core, and 6 MB L3 shared).

Scythe announces its newest high-end CPU cooler, named "Yasya" to the market. Yasya CPU Cooler is the first cooler from Scythe equipped with the newly developed T.M.L.F. (Trident Multi Layer Fin) structure. This special design maximizes the cooling surface to provide the best cooling result of the heatsink. By placing the heatsink fins as well as total of 6 copper heatpipes in unparallel design, static pressure loss is minimized and heat transfer is maximized. New 120 mm "Slip Stream 120 Adjustable PWM" case fan is supplied for optimized airflow. Although the fan supports the PWM feature user can manually adjust the speed between 470 to 1,370 rpm and 740 to 1,900 rpm.

Easy mounting is available by the famous V.T.M.S. (Versatile Tool-Free Multiplatform System) which requires no motherboard removal for the heatsink mounting. Yasya CPU Cooler is compatible to all current sockets, including the new socket LGA 1156. Scythe Yasya will be available worldwide from early March 2010 at the price of 57 US$ (excl. Tax) / 35,90 Euro (Excl. VAT).

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today introduces the first and only graphics solution on the planet: the HD5770 Eyefinity 5. The HD5770 Eyefinity 5 features multi-display eyefinity technology, enables up to 5 monitors to be operated from one card through its five mini displayport onboard design. Gamers can easily make use of this unique feature and have different display configurations to enjoy a wider field of view and get more done at the same time.

This unparalleled graphics solution takes advantage of the HD5770 series features, clocking in at 850 MHz core speed and 1200MHz memory speed, the card is ready to tackle all the latest game titles and enable a superior gaming experience. With support for Microsoft's DirectX 11, the HD5770 Eyefinity 5 provides the most vivid gaming experience like never before. Compatible with ATI Stream technology, the card enables demanding data parallel compute tasks from the CPU to GPU, accelerating daily applications.

AMD's much talked about six-core processors, the Phenom II X6 series, consists of three models for what we know in good detail: model numbers 1075T, 1055T, and 1035T at the bottom. But what remained a mystery were their clock speeds. A leak by one of the motherboard manufacturers who recently released supportive BIOS updates reveals the clock speed for the entry-level Phenom II X6 1035T to be 2.60 GHz, that of the 1055T to be 2.80 GHz, and of the high-end 1075T to be 3.00 GHz. As revealed earlier, the 1035T has a TDP of 95W, while the 1055T has both 125W and 95W variants in the making, and the 1075T has a TDP of 125W.

With so many motherboard vendors specifically designing their upcoming products to be ready for "140W TDP", it isn't hard to guess that there could be a higher-end part in the making, which is probably clocked even higher, and comes with the Black Edition branding. All Phenom II X6 processors are based on the "Thuban" core, a port of the Istanbul six-core architecture to the AM3 package. There are six cores with dedicated 512 KB of L2 caches and a shared 6 MB L3 cache (total cache being 9 MB). The new chip will be announced in the weeks to come.

Do you desire for a free CPU upgrade? Of course, you do! ASRock Inc. today launched the UCC [Unlock CPU Core] Series motherboard that delivers added core processing power by enabling the ASRock exclusive UCC function of the AMD CPUs. Unprecedentedly integrated with ASRock exclusive UCC Chip, ASRock UCC function is well-designed to provide extra performance boost on ASRock UCC Series motherboards. In conjunction with AMD's 8XX Series chipsets, ASRock 890GX Extreme3 motherboard, the first UCC series motherboard, comes with unique UCC feature and supports both advanced rendering from HD 4290, DX10.1 graphics technology and ATI Quad CrossFireX, 3-Way CrossFireX technologies.

Equipped with an exclusive ASRock UCC Chip, ASRock 890GX Extreme3 is able to support the excellent UCC function. ASRock UCC feature allows users to enjoy an instant performance boost by simply tuning on the UCC switch on BIOS. ASRock 890GX Extreme3 is the ASRock True 333 series motherboards. The board offers the latest SATA3 6.0Gb/s and USB 3.0 5.0Gb/s technologies from the industry-leading NEC support. The real I/O includes 1 x external SATA3 connector through the Bundled eSATA3 Bracket and 2 x USB 3.0 ports for 10X faster data transfer speed. For memory part, it supports 4 X DDR3 1800(OC), Hyper Transport Bus 5200 MT/s, ATI Quad CrossFireX and 3-Way CrossFireX. For audio aspect, it features 7.1 CH, VIA 2020 audio codec with Premium Blu-ray audio support. Combined with advanced rendering from AMD Radeon HD 4290, DX10.1 graphics, ASRock 890GX Extreme3 offers the spectacular visual output (output options include: D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI) as well.

A list of new Phenom II series processors were tabled in a company road map. The road map confirms AMD's naming scheme for the Phenom II X6 brand, and also sheds light on a new line of quad-core processors. In the second quarter of this year, AMD will introduce Phenom II X6 six-core models 1075T, 1055T, and 1035T. While the 1075T has a TDP of 125W, the 1055T comes in 125W and 95W variants (likely one following the other), and 1035T is the slowest model with 95W TDP. All Phenom II X6 models are based on the Thuban core (a desktop, socket AM3 implementation of the Istanbul die). Each of the six cores has 128 KB of L1, 512 KB L2 caches, and a 6 MB L3 cache is shared between all cores. The HyperTransport 3.0 interconnect operates at 4.8 GT/s.

The new line of quad-core processors here, is the Phenom II X4 900T series. The first member in this series is the Phenom II X4 960T. These processors are created using Thuban dies by disabling two cores. It helps AMD salvage its foundry produce with minor defects, and also target lower price points. The resulting die is codenamed "Zosma". Zosma in X4 960T has a TDP of 95W. Probably it has a lower clock speed than the "Deneb" Phenom II X4 965, but is placed in the same league, in terms of performance. One of its biggest "unintentional" unique selling points is that since it's based on a die that has six physical cores, some customers could get lucky by unlocking them to a six-core processor, at a much lower price-point. Even as several motherboard manufacturers have innovated ways to unlock disabled cores, and are advertising their unlocking features, it is not guaranteed that a Zosma would unlock into Thuban, just as Callisto/Heka to Deneb unlocking doesn't always work out. Going by AMD's road map, these processors will be released some time in May.

The Khronos group, at the Game Developers Conference, announced the OpenGL 4.0 API specifications. OpenGL 4.0 is set to rival DirectX 11 in being able to make use of hardware tessellation offered by this generation's GPUs, drawing of data generated by OpenGL, OpenCL, or other external APIs without any intervention from the CPU, support for 64-bit Double Precision Floating Point shader operations, and a number of performance improvements. OpenGL is a multi-platform API that can run on operating environments such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, certain gaming consoles, as well as a low-resource API for mobile devices. A list of main feature changes in OpenGL 4.0 are as follows:

• Two new shader stages that enable the GPU to offload geometry tessellation from the CPU
• Per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions for increased rendering quality and anti-aliasing flexibility
• Drawing of data generated by OpenGL, or external APIs such as OpenCL, without CPU intervention
• Shader subroutines for significantly increased programming flexibility;
• Separation of texture state and texture data through the addition of a new object type called sampler objects
• 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations and inputs/outputs for increased rendering accuracy and quality
• Performance improvements, including instanced geometry shaders, instanced arrays, and a new timer query

Following the success of the original DT heat-pipe TherMax series, we're proudly introducing the TherMax Eclipse II. Powered by Innovation and with awesome looks this CPU Cooler is one supreme performer. Equipped with five 8mm Direct Touch U-Shaped sintered powder heat-pipes combined with black-nickel coated stamped heat-sink fins to best preserve killer looks. The TherMax Eclipse II is ready to best cool the extreme hot 130W to 150W Micro-processors made by Intel and AMD.

Universally compatible with the Intel 1156/1366/775 platforms in combination with the AMD AM3/AM2/940/939 platforms giving professionals and gamers a huge scope to utilize this impressive Diablo. Another welcome new feature are the possibility of mounting two fans simultaneously for even better cooling results. Simply installed with the included Anti-vibe rubber fan mounts installation is made tool-free and easy. This towering cooler is build to deliver the best thermal performance - guaranteed.

AMD today announced that, along with partners Pixelux Entertainment and Bullet Physics, it has added significant support to the Open Physics ecosystem by providing game developers with access to the newest version of the Pixelux Digital Molecular Matter (DMM), a breakthrough in physics simulation. In addition, to enabling a superior development experience and helping to reduce time to market, Pixelux has tightly integrated its technology, DMM, with Bullet Physics, allowing developers to integrate physics simulation into game titles that run on both OpenCL- and DirectCompute-capable platforms. And both DMM and Bullet work with Trinigy's Vision Engine to create and visualize physics offerings in-game.

"Establishing an open and affordable physics development environment is an important accomplishment for both game developers and gamers, signaling a move away from exclusionary or proprietary approaches," said Eric Demers, chief technology officer, AMD Graphics Division. "Not only does the integration of Bullet Physics into partner middleware help drive broader adoption of physics in games, it ensures that when those games are released, all gamers, regardless of the hardware in their PC, can benefit from the more realistic experience enabled by those effects."

At the ongoing CeBIT event, Gigabyte showed off its latest offer of motherboards including an interesting one based on AMD's upcoming 890FX chipset. Made for socket AM3 processors from AMD, the GA-890FXA-UD5 is based on the AMD 890FX chipset with SB850 southbridge. It expands a little on the chipset's features. The CPU is powered by a 10-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 memory slots that are powered by a 2-phase VRM. The AMD 890FX drives four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (electrical x8 when all are populated, x16 on alternate slots otherwise). There are two PCI-E x1 and one PCI. All six of the SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the southbridge are internal, while an additional GSATA2 controller gives out two SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and drives the IDE connector. Connectivity options include 8+2 channel audio with Dolby Home Theater, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, FireWire, and two USB 3.0 ports, apart from a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board is expected to release later next month.

ASUS has been readying its Republic of Gamers (ROG) Matrix HD 5870 graphics card. Earlier, the card was pictured fully assembled. Sources shared pictures of the card taken apart, showing its PCB and cooling assembly from the inside, which tells us a lot about this card. To begin with, ASUS engineered this card from scratch, with its own PCB and cooler designs, and choice of components. The card comes overclocked out of the box, and also promises overclocking headroom higher than the reference design. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. The PCB reveals a strengthened VRM. There is a 10-phase vGPU and 2-phase vMem, with independent voltage controllers. Power is drawn in from two 8-pin power inputs.

Gaming has evolved into a leading growth industry and dynamic motivator for the technology sector, as CeBIT 2010 further illustrates. It's a massively popular pastime drawing people, all united through thrilling entertainment. ASUS shares the passion, maintaining a tradition of ingenuity aimed at meeting the needs of gamers both with the hardcore Republic of Gamers brand (ROG) and powerful mainstream solutions. It seeks to innovate and introduce new exciting ways to enjoy gaming, believing it should be natural to take up rather than complicated.

The clear highlight here seems to be the MSI 870A-GD60 Hydra. It comes with Lucid Logix's prominent Hydra feature, using a different chip than on the Big Bang Fuzion by the way. It promises to let you combine GPUs from NVIDIA and ATI in a CrossFire/SLI like fashion for increased performance. Even though it does not deliver the most amazing scaling numbers just yet we are told that the driver "improves weekly".

It looks like Sapphire and ASUS will not be the only AMD board partners out with a custom design Radeon HD 5970 graphics accelerator that has higher clock speeds and twice the amount of memory. XFX seems just about ready with what it calls the XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 4GB. This limited edition graphics card borrows heavily from AMD's reference design, but adds some changes:

• The leaf-blower is centrally located, with a GPU system on its either sides.
• GPUs use higher clock speeds of 850 MHz (core), 1200 MHz (memory).
• Twice the amount of memory, 2 GB per GPU, 4 GB total.
• ATI Eyefinity6 display output configuration: 6 mini-DisplayPort connectors to support six physical displays (dongles may be included for DVI users).
• Power is drawn from two 8-pin PCI-E power connectors.

XFX may manufacture upto 1500 pieces in all, and could price each piece around US $1000, with sales starting later this month.

MSI has undertaken a very interesting project: to use the Lucid Hydra chip on an AMD platform motherboard, its second design with Lucid Hydra. The 870A-GD60 Hydra is a socket AM3 motherboard based on the AMD 870 + SB850 chipset. The AMD 870 chipset succeeds the AMD 770, in being suited for single discrete-graphics setups. The chipset packs no PCI-Express external switching, and hence there is only one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 link it can give to a graphics card. MSI connected this link to a Hydra Engine chip, to give out two full-bandwidth PCI-Express 2.0 x16 links. "Why not simply use the 890FX?" could be a question for many, but its answer lies in Hydra's advantage over it: it allows you to pair two NVIDIA graphics cards, two ATI graphics cards, or even mix an NVIDIA and an ATI card in a mixed multi-GPU array, as has been demonstrated with MSI's P55 Big Bang Fuzion motherboard.

The AM3 socket is powered by a 10-phase DrMOS based VRM. The CPU connects to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory. It connects to the AMD 870 northbridge over the HyperTransport 3.0 interface. Its lone PCI-E 2.0 x16 port is taken up by the Hydra Engine chip located between the two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots. Other expansion slots include three PCI-E x1, and one PCI. The SB850 southbridge gives out six internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Connectivity includes 8 channel HD audio with SPDIF connections, eSATA by an additional controller, FireWire, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The 870A-GD60 Hydra could be released late next month.