Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, today announced a new study that indicates the end of the market for the popular integrated graphics chipset, known as the IGP.

After fifteen years of stellar growth the IGP will cease to exist, replaced by embedded graphics in the processor. Integrated graphics are used in desktop and net top PCs, notebooks, and netbooks, and various embedded systems such as point of sale, set-top boxes, and signage systems.

The European Union trade regulatory body is expected to announce its verdict on the high-profile antitrust case against Intel on Wednesday. The company has been booked under charges relating to market malpractice, by influencing computer hardware manufacturers to postpone and/or cancel launches of their products that use CPUs made by its rival AMD. Intel allegedly abused its market position in the CPU industry, to cripple the growth of AMD in Europe, by offering special rebates to computer hardware manufacturers to restrict or eliminate the use of AMD processors. The company allegedly even influenced retailers by offering inducements to sell computers only with Intel processors installed.

The first violation by Intel is that it allegedly set set percentages of its own chips that it wanted PC makers to use, according to sources. Examples include NEC, which was told that only 20 percent of its products could use AMD processors. All Lenovo-made notebooks use Intel processors, while 95% of HP's product-line features Intel processors, sources said.

Water-cooling specialist Koolance released its first liquid-nitrogen evaporator. An LN2 evaporator, sometimes called "LN2 pot" is a metal flask that makes direct contact with a heat source, and conveys its heat to liquid nitrogen that the user pours into the flask. The heat instantly evaporates nitrogen, and some extremely low temperatures are brought about. Koolance CPU-LN2 measures 6cm x 20 cm x 6 cm (WxHxD) without the support bracket, and weighs in at 1.58 kg (around 3.5 lbs). It is built using nickel-plated copper, with acetal to shroud its upper portion. It supports the entire range of current CPU sockets, that include Intel sockets LGA-1366, LGA-775, LGA-771, s603/4, s478, and AMD sockets AM3/AM2+/AM2, s939/940, and s754. It is available at the company website for US $144.99.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES, the new leading-edge semiconductor foundry company formed by a joint venture between AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), today announced the appointment of Curtis "Mojy" Chian as senior vice president of design enablement.

Chian brings more than two decades of leadership experience in silicon process technologies, most recently at Altera Corporation, where he served as vice president of technology development. At GLOBALFOUNDRIES, he will be responsible for global design enablement and will be the primary technical customer interface-working closely with customers to efficiently bring the world's most sophisticated chip designs to market.

After launching its 45 nm desktop CPU with its high-end CPUs such as Phenom II X4 940 and 955 Black Edition, AMD is preparing two distinct lines of mainstream and value processors: the energy-efficient line denoted by an "e" next to the model number, and the standard variant. Close to a decade into using the "Athlon" CPU brand name, the company finally chose to place a "II" next to it to denote a generation bump. The Athlon II keeps up with the Phenom II line, to make it slightly easier for consumers to discern which generation the processors belong to. The lower-end variants of the K10.5 "stars" core, that lacks L3 cache will be using this brand-name.

Taking advantage of the 45 nm core, Phenom II 900e series processors will operate in clock-speeds between 2.50 and 2.40 GHz, with complete 6 MB L3 cache. The rated TDP for the chips is 65 W. The triple-core Phenom II X3 700e series processors models 700e and 705e will operate in the same clock-speeds, with the same rated TDP. The Athlon II X4 600e and Athlon II X3 400e series processors in the making, 605e, 600e, 405e, and 400e, operate at speeds between 2.20 and 2.30 GHz. With no L3 cache to address and lower clock-speeds by the notch, the rated TDP is even lower, at 45 W.

AMD kept up with the SIMD processing standards Intel set by licensing its popular CPU instruction sets such as MMX, SSE, SSE2, and SSE3. The three were used as is by AMD, except for that AMD chose not to conform completely with Supplemental SSE3, SSE4 and its revisions (SSE4.1, SSE4.2). The company devised the SSE4A instruction set to feature with its K10 micro-architecture. SSE4A is a lighter version that features LZCNT (Leading Zero Count), POPCNT (bit population count), EXTRQ/INSERTQ and MOVNTSD/MOVNTSS (Scalar streaming store instructions). What's more, the company even decided back in 2007 that it would come up with SSE5, that then Intel sought to leave development with AMD.

In due course of time, Intel started development of AVX (Advanced Vector eXtensions) that enhances processing of FPU-intensive workloads. AMD gained interest in this technology, and is looking to make it compatible with the originally-conceived SSE5. The instructions that remain as part of the superset that doesn't include AVX is now referred to by AMD as XOP (eXtended OPerations). In addition to this, AMD will include FMA4 (Floating point vector Multiply-Accumulate). The new instruction sets make it to AMD's next-generation Bulldozer micro-architecture slated for 2011. Meanwhile, Intel's AVX makes it to the Sandy Bridge micro-architecture slated for 2010~11. AMD published the Programmer's Manual document on 128-Bit and 256-Bit XOP, FMA4 and CVT16 Instructions, which can be read here (PDF).

There are overclocked Radeon HD 4890 cards, and then there are overclocked Radeon HD 4890 cards. The difference between the two seems to be that the latter comprises of the "real" RV790OC-class SKU that runs at speeds in excess of 900 MHz, and offers a considerable overclocking headroom. The former, is mainly partners utilizing whatever headroom standard batches of RV790 offer, to come up with factory-overclocked settings that spice up specs-sheets. MSI joined the league of AIBs making a high-end Radeon HD 4890 accelerator, keeping the 1.00 GHz core frequency as a milestone.

Following Sapphire with its Atomic HD 4890 Vapor-X, MSI seems to be readying the R4890 Cyclone. This card uses a cooler similar to what some of its Radeon HD 4870 cousins sport, while using an elaborate, yet standard power circuitry. The cooler consists of a radial heatsink from which 2~4 8 mm heatpipes convey heat to two aluminum fin blocks that are arranged on either sides of the heatsink. A fan nucleates the heatsink, although it didn't make it to the picture. Over to the PCB, MSI does away with the lavish digital PWM circuitry on the reference PCB, and in its place, put a 5+2 phase standard DPAK power circuitry. What's fascinating about this PCB is that it carries the AMD brandmark, leading us to believe that AMD may have come up with a cost-saving PCB design that is available to its AIBs. The R4890 Cyclone is set for launch in the upcoming Computex 2009 event.

A new feature of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system that created a stir is its "XP mode" feature, where the operating system provides the user with a sandbox Windows XP desktop environment, complete with all its features, and application support. What makes the feature even more interesting that documents, settings, and XP-affine applications installed in the environment could be seamlessly integrated with the host Windows 7 environment.

It turns out now that the feature explicitly requires hardware-level virtualization support. AMD and Intel, both have their proprietary virtualization features, although the two chose to make it available only to a few CPU models. Generally, entry-level desktop/mobile CPUs don't carry the feature. For consumer client desktop variants of Windows 7, the "XP mode" feature would require AMD-V feature by the processor. Currently all processors by AMD support this, except those from the Sempron series, according to an AMD spokesperson. For enterprise variants of the OS, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) MED-V 2.0 builds on top of Windows Virtual PC and provides centralized management of Windows XP Mode. MED-V is a virtualization management platform. It will be made available within 90 days of the commercial availability of Windows 7.

AMD announced a new operating model that centers the organization on four equally critical functions: products, technology, marketing and customers. The new structure is designed to better optimize AMD's operations to drive industry-leading performance graphics and microprocessors and further integrate the company's x86 processor and graphics technologies.

"We are tightening our focus on delivering the winning products and platforms our customers want based on AMD's industry-leading microprocessor and graphics technologies," said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and CEO. "The next generation of innovation in the computing industry will be grounded in the fusion of microprocessor and graphics technologies. With these changes, we are putting the right organization in place to help enable the future of computing."

AMD is ready with the industry's first WHQL-certified set of drivers for Microsoft Windows 7. The Catalyst WHQL Windows 7 driver comes as yet another first for AMD, and a first for Microsoft's Windows 7 certification program. Dated 5/5/2009, the drivers carry the version 8.612, feature full support for Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.1 and works with ATI Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000 series. The drivers also provide support for ATI Stream GPGPU technology.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 8.612 WHQL for Windows 7 64-bit, and Windows 7 32-bit.

AMD and Learning Games Network today announced the A-HA Moment video contest, a competition for students to demonstrate how video game play can result in serious learning.
The contest, open to U.S. students age 13 and older in middle school, high school and post-secondary school, consists of two main categories. The "A-ha Moment" category asks contestants to create a video explaining how playing video games reinforced something they had first learned elsewhere. The "My Dream Assignment" category asks them to describe a game that could be "required playing" for a class at school. The contest is open now through May 31.

It is predicted that silicon giant Intel may face the greatest fine for its alleged anti-competitive practices, in a case heard in the European Union. Intel is currently being investigated for irregularities including encouraging hardware vendors not to use AMD products, and offering discounts. Legal analysts estimate the fine to be well over 1,000,000,000 EUR, over double that of what is heading Microsoft's way. In a statement to the New York Times, says Howard Cartlidge, head of the EU competition group at law firm Olswang in London, "I would be surprised if the fine isn't as high or higher than in the Microsoft case. Technology markets are where the European Commission has perceived particular problems due to dominant companies."

The ongoing trial in EU runs parallel to similar anti-competition trials in Japan and Korea, where Intel is found guilty. It is a joint effort between EU and United States Federal Trade Commission investogators. Despite previous convictions, Intel maintains that it has done nothing wrong and is confident of being found innocent. Says Intel spokesperson Robert Manetta, "Overall, Intel's conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers." Naturally, AMD begs to differ. Sources in AMD reveal that Intel conducted anti-competitive practices throughout, to maintain an 80-20 competition. The number took very little change even when AMD was at the peak of technology advancement over Intel.

AMD today kicked off activities to recognize 40 years of innovation in the semiconductor industry and its important role as a catalyst for enabling next-generation solutions. May 1, 2009 will mark the official 40-year anniversary of AMD's founding by Jerry Sanders and seven co-founders in 1969. As part of the year-long anniversary celebration, the company is holding a series of contests in the U.S. and Canada as a gesture of thanks to the dedicated customers who have been, and continue to be, key to AMD's critical presence in the processor industry.
As a central hub for the contests and information about AMD's history, the company also launched a site dedicated to the 40th anniversary, with a complete timeline of AMD milestones and full details about the upcoming contests. In coming weeks the site is also expected to feature employee and customer-generated anniversary content.

Sapphire has a new high-end graphics accelerator in the works for launch next week: the Atomic HD 4890. The card features a blue reference PCB by AMD with a few enhancements, paired with Sapphire's Vapor-X cooler to keep this factory-overclocked card cool, and more importantly, quieter than the reference cooler.

What makes this card even more special is that Sapphire generously overclocked it. The core runs at 1000 MHz, and the 1 GB of GDDR5 memory at 1050 MHz (2100 MHz DDR, 4200 MHz effective). The Catalyst Control Center ATI Overdrive page shows its GPU core overlocking limit upped to 1100 MHz, from the 1000 MHz limit release-drivers were noted to come with. To sustain such high speeds, the card's VRM has been slightly expanded. The card uses an 8-pin PCI-E power connector alongside a 6-pin one. The price of this card is yet to be known.

AMD today released the ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics card. The release marks several milestones for the company, mainly winning the race for the first GPU to be built on the 40 nm process, and the introduction second-generation GDDR5 memory for the mainstream consumer segment.

The brains of this card is the 40 nm AMD RV740 GPU. Its specifications include 640 stream processors that churn out over 900 GFLOPs of shader compute power, 32 texture memory units, and 16 render back-ends. The GPU is aided by 512 MB of fast GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide interface. This provides the same amount of bandwidth as 256-bit GDDR3 commonly found in most graphics card in the range. The card is DirectX 10.1 compliant, and supports the ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU standard.

The card has been launched worldwide, with its initial US price set at $109, and an optional rebate that can send its price further down. In its range, it competes with NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, and AMD's own Radeon HD 4830. TechPowerUp is one of the first technology portals to publish a thorough review of the Radeon HD 4770. Our review can be read here.

AMD today announced the AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition processor, delivering leading technology and strong performance to the mainstream PC user for under $70 MSRP. Focused on designing and developing new products and platforms over the last 40 years, AMD's unique technologies continue to create compelling user experiences at an exceptional value. As part of this anniversary celebration, the newest addition to the AMD Athlon X2 7000 series of processors delivers a superior dual-core, performance-per-dollar PC experience for solutions at home and at play.

Given the current economic environment, consumers are seeking the best computing value without sacrificing the performance required to maintain their digital lifestyle. This new processor enables AMD technology partners and OEMs to address the industry need for affordable, powerful and energy efficient desktop PCs that help consumers to quickly and easily create, enjoy and share their digital world.

Having recently made its plans with the server market public, AMD demonstrated a 4-socket server featuring four 12-core, next-generation Opteron processors. That's 48 cores in all. The company has pulled its six-core Istanbul Opteron processors' launch from H2 2008 to Q2 2008, and is set to launch its Opteron 6000 series processors based on the "Magny Cours" architecture in 2010.

Processors in the series come with 8 or 12 cores. The company seems to be ready with a few of these, enough to put together a 4-socket demo system. While AMD did not run any benchmarks on the system, it managed to draw some attention due to the fact that there hasn't been so much parallelism in a 4-way server till date. On the course of its 2010 launch, the company may hold more demonstrations, perhaps with benchmarks to show how the platform compares to competing solutions from rival Intel. The "Magny Cours" processor will be the first in line for the company's G34 "Maranello" platform for AMD Opteron 6000 series processors with up to 16 cores, 4 sockets, and quad-channel memory interfaces per socket. The 16-core processor in the making is slated for 2011, is based on the Bulldozer architecture, and will be built on the 32 nm process.

AMD finally stepped out of its shell after Intel's launch of its newest line of Xeon processors based on the Nehalem architecture. In an interview with TechPulse 360, AMD's Pat Patla and John Fruehe took on Intel's recent marketing drive for Nehalem Xeon products. The conversation revolved mainly around the issues of platform costs, and the features the new Xeon processors introduce (or reintroduce) to the server/enterprise computing industry, namely the company's proprietary FSB-replacement, QuickPath Interconnect, and HyperThreading.

The two first took on Intel's marketing, particularly on its material that said that the slowest Nehalem Xeon chip was faster than the fastest Opteron chip, saying that Intel's statements weren't backed by real figures. The two also alleged that Intel's server platform was too expensive and delivered lesser value in an ailing state of the economy. Perhaps the most audacious statement from AMD since the somewhat famous "only real men have fabs" statement by Jerry Sanders III, came from this interview, where AMD responded to a question on HyperThreading saying that "real men use real cores". "We've got real cores across our products. HyperThreading is basically designed to act like a core except that it only gives 10 to 15 percent performance bump for real applications workload." they said. Is AMD making a real point, or fighting fire...erm marketing with marketing? Find out in this interview.

Earlier this year, a Korean source had pointed out an easy method to enable a fourth core on the Phenom II X3. This was made possible by the way AMD has been designing its triple-core and dual-core processors based on the K10 "Stars" architecture: by disabling one or two cores on the quad-core die. "Sloppy" BIOS coding lead to the Phenom II X3 anomaly. It looks like a somewhat similar mod enables not one, but two cores on the sub-$100 Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition. A Korean technology website GiggleHD.com has reported a successful unlock of two cores.

The method is similar to that of the Phenom II X3 unlock: using flaws in BIOS code to enable cores, by enabling the "Advanced Clock Calibration" feature in the BIOS setup. The OS, Windows XP SP3, was able to see the processor as a "AMD Phenom(tm) FX-7750", while CPU-Z reads the name string correctly and lists the core count as 4. The motherboard in use is an ASRock A790GX/128M.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announced a powerful addition to the PowerColor HD 4890 series: PCS+ HD 4890. PowerColor's Professional Cooling System PLUS or PCS+, delivers the ultimate overclocking ability with GDDR5 onboard memory, 950MHz core speed and 1100MHz effective memory speed with memory data transmission rates up to 4.4Gbps, offering the power to tackle the most extreme 3D games.

PowerColor's PCS+ HD4890 features ZEROtherm's exclusive cooling system. A 52-piece designed fin and 4 heat pipes brings substance to the stylish black Ni coated surface that enhances hardness and anti-oxidizing. The PCS+ HD4890 also provides an enhanced fan control helping to automatically adjust speeds with different temperatures, allowing a better user experience.

AMD announced a platform refresh today for Dragon platform technology, including the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor. As AMD's fastest ever quad-core processor, it brings all the capabilities gamers, enthusiasts and do-it-yourselfers have come to expect from AMD, including world record setting performance, high-speed DDR3 memory support and AMD OverDrive 3.0 technology, giving users more control over their computing experience.

The Dragon technology refresh consists of the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and award winning ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics. With this platform refresh, AMD is combining its fastest processor with the massive graphics processing muscle of its most powerful GPU to deliver high definition video entertainment and "beyond HD" resolutions3 that allow gamers to take the latest games to the extreme.

Along with the two new Phenom processors, Advanced Micro Devices today releases an updated version of its Overdrive software. That's the company's utility for real-time monitoring, overclocking and tweaking of AMD chipsets. It is incredibly simple and easy to work with. To download the updated AMD Overdrive utility version 3.01, please click here. The link will also lead you to the full changelog.

AMD today announced that its entire line of industry leading ATI FirePro professional graphics accelerators are powering all-new OEM workstations for engineering, digital content creation and science professionals. AMD helps ensure that its ATI FirePro professional graphics accelerators maximize application performance and reliability by performing over 90 certifications with leading application providers such as Autodesk and Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks.

"The Dell Precision T7500, T5500 and T3500 and ATI FirePro graphics deliver an excellent balance of value and performance to workstation professionals," said Greg Weir, senior manager, Dell Product Group. "Dell, the world's leading supplier of workstations, is working with ATI to deliver workstation solutions that are reliable and scalable."

At the AMD Opteron processor Sixth Anniversary event at its Sunnyvale campus, AMD today announced game-changing new additions to its server platform roadmap and a significant acceleration in roadmap execution.

• Months ahead of schedule, AMD plans to deliver the six-core AMD Opteron processor code named "Istanbul" in June this year, with up to 30 percent more performance within the same power envelope and on the same platform as current Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.
• AMD unveiled Direct Connect Architecture 2.0, the next stage of server processor innovation: up to 12 cores initially, with superior memory and I/O capability, near native virtualization performance, and a range of full-featured power bands that continue to place a priority on low power consumption.
• AMD believes a customer value shift is currently underway, transforming the server market, with the high end moving toward performance and expandability and virtualization driving a need for more cores and greater scalability. At the lower end, AMD sees power management and overall value as primary drivers for cloud computing and ultra-dense environments that demand greater energy efficiency.
• In 2010, AMD plans to ship the AMD Opteron 6000 series for 2P and 4P servers that are designed to address the highly virtualized, high performance computing and database markets. The 6000 series will debut on the G34 socket and the "Maranello" platform, with the 8- and 12-core "Magny-Cours" processors.
• The upcoming AMD Opteron 4000 series is also planned for introduction in 2010 for 1P and 2P servers and designed to address virtualized Web and cloud computing environments. The 4000 series will launch with the C32 socket and "San Marino" platform with the 4- and 6-core "Lisbon" processor.
• The "Interlagos" 12- and 16-core processor, based on the "Bulldozer" core and manufactured on 32nm process technology, is planned to ship in 2011 and will also be supported by the "Maranello" platform. The 6- to 8-core "Valencia" processor, also manufactured on 32nm process technology, is planned for shipment in 2011 on the "San Marino" platform.

AMD has extended its 45 nm Opteron processor line-up with new energy-efficient chips fitting within a 40W power envelope, designed for very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing or web serving. Available immediately, the new Opteron EE chips include the 2.1 GHz Opteron 2373 EE with 6 MB L3 Cache and the 2.3 GHz Opteron 2377 EE with the same cache size. Since they are part of the Shanghai Opteron architecture, the new EE chips have the same features as all other Shanghai Opterons and are not cut-down versions.
AMD today also launches a total of ten other Opteron CPUs, that enrich the company's server HE (55W), standard (75W), and high-performance SE (105W) power bands. These are the 2.4 GHz Opteron 2379 HE ($450), the 2.4 GHz Opteron 8379 HE ($1165), the 2.5 GHz Opteron 2381 HE ($575), the 2.5 GHz Opteron 8381 HE ($1514), the standard 2.8 GHz Opteron 2387 ($873), the 2.8 GHz Opteron 8387 ($2149), the 2.9 GHz Opteron 2389 ($989), the 2.9 GHz Opteron 8389 ($2649), and the two Opteron SE 2393 and 8393 SE with 3.1 GHz clock speeds and $1165 and $2649 price tags respectively. All ten CPUs have 6 MB of L3 cache.