AMD has updated its Catalyst driver to version 7.12, which supports all ATI Radeon 9500 series and newer graphics cards. The changes in this release include a number of game fixes, a few performance tweaks and enhanced OverDrive support for Radeon HD 2900 cards. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

After the merger between AMD and ATI last year, some doubt was cast upon the relationship between ATI (the firm's graphics division) and major CPU rival Intel. However, it looks like any fears have been put to rest according to DigiTimes, which is claiming that Intel has received a license to support CrossFireX on its upcoming P45 chipsets. Both AMD and Intel have declined to comment.

As expected, AMD has announced the Phenom 9600 Black Edition. The quad-core processor runs at 2.3 GHz, sports 2 MB L3 cache and 512 KB L2 cahce per core. Just like the previous Black Editions, it comes with an unlocked multiplier and Black Edition also means handpicked cores, but since this can't be a B3 stepping it still suffers from the TLB bug. Together with the recommendation from AMD to force the crippling BIOS fix, the Phenom 9600 Black Edition looks anything but lusterous, which is a real shame because the previous Black Editions have been bright rays of light shining through the otherwise dull and gray clouds over AMD's headquarters.

Advanced Micro Devices was once again unsure when exactly it is capable of releasing its highly-anticipated code-named Fusion processor during its meeting with financial analysts on Thursday. Based on the current indications made by the world's second largest x86 chipmaker, the products, which combine general purpose as well as graphics cores, will be delayed to the second half of 2009. The concept chip that combines general purpose as well as graphics computing capabilities, which is usually named Fusion, is now called Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), according to a presentation of Mario Rivas, executive vice president of computing solutions group at AMD. "I am happy to announce the birth of a new category, the Accelerated Processing Units. The 'new AMD' now has access to excellent IP on CPUs, excellent IP on graphics processing units and second to none chipsets. The integration of all these parts and our uniqueness - customer centric innovation - create the APU," said Mr. Rivas.

German hardware site Planet 3D Now! informs us that AMD will cut prices of its Phenom 9000 series processors today. Exact prices weren't mentioned in the statement, but according to AMD the Phenom 9500, 9600 and a new unlocked Phenom 9600 Black Edition will be available today at "dual-core CPU prices". In addition, on January 7th next year, AMD will reduce prices of some dual- and single-core processors.

AMD recently unveiled plans to put out R680, RV635 and RV620 chips, which would power high-end, mid-range and budget cards, respectively. While this is all well and good, AMD said that the anticipated R700 series of graphics chips would not be put out until at least 2009. This decision will hopefully give AMD a chance to return to profitability. The long wait for a new graphics family will also give AMD more time to ensure that they're putting out a high-quality product that will dominate the market. During the event that this was discovered at, AMD also put out some details of the upcoming Leo platform. For more about the Leo platform, please check the source link.

AMD CEO Dirk Meyer had something to say to the press today, and it was something along the lines of bungling (I love that word) the Barcelona launch. As The Inquirer so eloquently puts it, Barcelona "was hyped as the best thing since nylon stockings. In the end it was launched six months late, failed to work then, and is now adrift on high seas, apparently following its arch-competitor's Itanic on a trip to Laughing Stock Island." As far as an official statement goes, Dirk Meyer had this to say regarding Barcelona:

We haven't delivered our quad core product according to plan. We'll make good on our promise to deliver hundreds of thousands of quad core processors, but we're disappointed. We blew it, and we're very humbled by it. And we learned from it, and we're not going to do it again.

If AMD's financial records continue their abysmal performance, and the stock continues sinking below the four-year low it currently is at, AMD may not have too many more chances to redeem their reputation.

After we reported that AMD is starting to produce 45nm chips in 2008, the company is also looking to refresh its line-up with a new generation eight-core CPUs, to be released in distant future. Following the 2008 release of its first 45nm CPUs - Shanghai - AMD will be preparing to introduce octo-core parts. The 8-headed server processors are codenamed "Montreal" and will feature HyperTransport 3 and include 1MB of L2 cache per core and a shared L3 cache between 6 and 12MB. The Montreal line-up will consist of both eight- and quad-core CPUs and will be paired up with boards powered by new chipsets like the AMD RD890S and RD870S. The ETA for the eight-core AMD processors is the first half of 2009.

When AMD released the K10 micro-architecture, which included Phenom and Barcelona, they unfortunately neglected to mention that they had also released an entirely new way to benchmark power consumption and thermal output. AMD's Average CPU Power system, or "ACU" for short, is a new way to measure the amount of power a CPU really requires, and consequently, the heat it puts out. AMD, when asked, claimed that their way of measuring things was comparable to the TDP system. However, independent results reveal otherwise.

AMD's great quad-core Phenom-based Opteron got a reasonable 75W power consumption rating using AMD's system. However, when put under the traditional TDP test, the Opteron quickly heated up to requiring 95W. Stunned, the testers tried again, and the same CPU got a remarkable 115W TDP load. The full version of the chart is available at the source link. For comparison, Intel's biggest and baddest quad-core CPU uses 120W TDP full load.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plans to ramp production of 45-nm chips in the first half of 2008. In an interview Tuesday (Dec. 11) during the International Electron Device Meeting here, John Pellerin, AMD's director of logic technology development and project leader on a joint development effort with IBM Corp., said the company expects to start shipping the new processors in the second half of 2008. AMD's Fab 36 in Dresden, Germany will be the one accountable for the 45nm parts. AMD also expects to begin production of its 32-nm high-k chips sometime in 2010.

AMD Desktop CPUs One of the Most Disappointing Product of 2007

ZDNet blog calls AMD's desktop processors as one of the most disappointing products of 2007:

For the entirety of 2007 I've held the belief that AMD would come out with something worth buying, but that hope is now gone. I'm not sure what's going on at AMD but progress seems to have slowed down drastically and I'm wondering whether my last Athlon 64 X2 processor will have eroded to dust before I buy another AMD branded processor.

Next to AMD according to the writer Adrian Kingsley-Hughes are NVIDIA's graphics card drivers which I think can be hardly defined as product as well as Blu-ray and HD DVD. Continue reading the full story here.

Information coming from DigiTimes, claims that AMD will launch its next-generation performance/mainstream RS780 IGP and value RS740 chipsets in January next year, while in the second quarter, the company will launch the high-end RS780D and mainstream RS780C. RS780 motherboards will be priced around US$90-120, while RS740 motherboards will come for around US$40-60. The RS780 supports AM2+ processors, HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0, while the IGP will support DirectX 10 and UVD (Unified Video Decoder) 2.0 for H.264 and VC-1 decoding. The IGP also supports DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI and HDCP. Hybrid CrossFireX technology, which is a similar to NVIDIA's Hybrid SLI, allowing the IGP to work together with discrete graphics cards for extra performance, will be presented as well.

More bad news for AMD I'm afraid, this time it's in terms of company value. AMD's share price dropped to its lowest for more than four years last week, leaving the company with a total value of $5 billion US - that's $400 million less than it paid for ATI a year and a half ago. To put things into perspective, AMD's main rival Intel is worth $162 billion, which is more than 32 times more than AMD. Meanwhile, graphics card competitor NVIDIA is worth almost four times as much as AMD with a company value of $19 billion. These are tough times for AMD, and it will be hoping its Phenom processors and its HD 3000 series of graphics cards can get it out of trouble, although the former has not been particularly well received so far.

AMD announced respected industry veteran Mike Uhler, former CTO of MIPS, has joined the company as its first vice president of Accelerated Computing. Uhler has extensive experience developing advanced chip architectures and software for designs that combine multiple intellectual property (IP) blocks, as well as a deep understanding of customer requirements across a range of applications.

The lackluster launch of Barcelona earlier this year left us with ambivalent feeling before the launch of Phenom. Up before the launch, numerous rumors of various problems were circulating, and when the launch finally happened and we only had two models to play with, we couldn't help feeling a bit let down. The performance was good and lived up to what AMD had promised, more or less, but since the frequencies were so low and IPC was more or less the same as Core 2, it was still being outperformed by Intel's processors. With the recent unveiling of the TLB bug, the crippling BIOS fix and the seized shipments of quad-core processors, the plans for the future has had to be revised. The earlier announced tri-core series is set for arrival in February 2008, and should be available in decent numbers the following month. Two models are currently planned for launch, Phenom 8700 and Phenom 8600 running at 2.4 and 2.3 Ghz respectively. These are disabled quad-core with 512KB L2 cache per core and a shared 2MB L3 cache, not suffering from the TLB errata (B3 stepping).

ASUSTeK Computer has refuted industry rumors that it is planning to drop the proportion of AMD-based products of total notebook shipments next year. ASUSTeK was reported to be planning to drop the ratio of AMD notebook platforms to 10% while increasing those of Intel. However Jellent Sun, manager of ASUSTeK's notebook division has stated that AMD's proportion will remain at 18-22%. Sun pointed out that both platforms have their own market demand and ASUS will maintain a suitable ratio to meet this demand in the future.

As many readers may be aware, there is an erratum (a mistake in the design) of AMD's recently launched Phenom CPU. Basically it's a problem with the CPU's translation lookaside buffer (TLB) and L3 cache, which can lead to crashes and data corruption. This was quickly discovered, and AMD issued a BIOS fix in response. However, recent tests carried out by The Tech Report found that as a result of this fix, memory bandwidth fell by as much as 38.7% whilst the latency increased by over 50%. When they tested the real world performance hit caused by this, they found it ranged from around 5% to as much as 50% in everyday applications, with an average performance drop of 13.9%. This issue should be fixed in any CPUs manufactured in the future, but things look quite bleak for anyone who has already purchased a Phenom processor, and it would be best not to buy one until all of the 'faulty' processors have either been sold or recalled. This is very bad news for AMD, considering that it has already been struggling to make a profit for quite a few months now.

AMD has just released a statement detailing the latest developments regarding their Quad-Core Barcelona processors.

The topics are regarding:

• For the initial ramp up "hundreds of thousands" processors were promised.
• TLB cache issues
• Quad-Core AMD Opteron availability
• AMD Opteron market share

AMD feels that the K8 architecture still has a little life in it. While Intel is working hard on 45-nm and Quad Core platforms that will cost quite a pretty penny, AMD is working on cost-effective and energy efficient solutions for the dudes that don't need or can't afford 1.21 gigawatts of processing power. To create said solutions, AMD is going to revert to an old favorite: the tried-and-true K8 architecture. After putting the K8 series through a die shrink, AMD plans to bring 11 65nm K8 CPUs to market, under the code-name Brisbane. The new 65nm variants of the K8 architecture will more likely than not require very little power to run, and will even more likely be clocked at high speeds. AMD is putting a large focus on energy efficiency, as the majority of current confirmed CPU models are flagged "Energy Efficient". All of the new 65nm K8 chips will be socket AM2, and will work in an AM2+ motherboard.

Advanced Micro Devices today said it has delayed volume shipments of its quad-core Opteron processors as it fine-tunes the chip. AMD located one bug on the L3 cache of the chip that caused system problems, said Phil Hughes, an AMD spokesman. There are a number of fixes to this problem, including a BIOS fix that AMD has issued, Hughes said. AMD is working with partners to fine-tune the chip to ready it for mass shipment in the first quarter of 2008. The quad-core Opteron, also called Barcelona, is shipping in limited quantities to customers running high-performance computers, Hughes said. The delay will affect AMD, which has already lost ground in the server chip market to Intel Corp. in recent quarters. After months of delays, AMD released the Barcelona processor in September. Intel also took a step ahead of AMD when it launched the 45-nm quad-core Penryn processors last month. AMD still manufactures chips using the 65-nm process.

Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) in the third quarter both managed to gain share in the global microprocessor market due to robust sales of PCs and servers and the cessation of the companies' brutal price war, according to iSuppli Corp.'s final ranking. In the third quarter, Intel accounted for 78.7 percent of global microprocessor revenue, up 0.3 of a percentage point from 78.4 percent in the second quarter. AMD fared even better, with its share rising by more than the twice the level of Intel's to reach 13.9 percent, up 0.6 of a percentage point from 13.3 percent in the second quarter. The two microprocessor suppliers gained at the expense of their smaller rivals, whose collective share of global revenue declined to 7.4 percent in the third quarter, down from 8.2 percent in the second quarter. Please note that this ranking accounts for sales of all types of general-purpose microprocessors, including RISC chips as well as the PC-oriented x86 devices sold by Intel and AMD.

AMD recently notified its partners that it plans to launch two triple-core CPUs (Toliman) in February next year while two dual-core CPUs (Kuma) will appear by the end of the second quarter, according to DigiTimes. The triple-core 7700 and 7600 will have core frequencies of 2.5GHz and 2.3GHz, respectively, and a TDP of 89W. Frequencies for the dual-core 6250 and 6050 have not yet been set, but the CPUs will have a TDP of 65W. In addition, AMD also plans to adjust its entry-level product lines launching the single-core Athlon CPU (Lima) LE-1640 in January of 2008, while higher frequency Lima CPUs will follow in the second quarter. The company will also launch the single-core Sempron (Sparta) CPU LE-1300 with a core frequency of 2.3GHz and TDP of 45W in the first quarter 2008.

AMD, a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets, today announced the opening of a new silicon design and platform research and development (R&D) facility in Bangalore. As India's role and importance in AMD's global R&D network increases, the number of employees in Bangalore continues to grow, requiring a new facility that will accommodate the current team while also providing room for future growth. Employees will move into the new 52,000 square-foot center upon its completion and continue to focus on development of AMD's most advanced, next-generation processing solutions.

More bad news about AMD. According to the research firm iSuppli Intel will increase its market share by the end of 2007 to 12.5 percent, keeping its place as the world's top chipmaker, while rival AMD will drop out of the top 10. Samsung Electronics will remain the world's second-biggest chipmaker with 7.4 percent of the market while Toshiba will rise to third place, pushing Texas Instruments to number four, iSuppli said. Infineon will rise from 15th to 10th place thanks to its wireless business.

Intel successfully defended much of the market share that it won from AMD in the first quarter in the PC microprocessor segment due to the success of its lines of dual- and quad-core chips,

said iSuppli's head of market intelligence, Dale Ford. Read the full report at eWeek.

Scott Wasson is the proud owner of the hardware review site Tech Report. Much like techPowerUp!, the Tech Report seeks to review new hardware for informative purposes. However, he recently had some choice words to say about AMD, and how many product he's allowed to test from them: almost none. Wasson, in an editorial, chastises AMD for not letting review sites get their hands on new products before, or sometimes even after, a hardware launch. Wasson claims that when a company does this to a reviewer, it's "a classic and sure-fire indicator of a poor product." Wasson claimed that even Intel, who certainly had their fair share of not-so-hot products (namely, the Prescott series) was more than happy to provide a review sample of new products. Wasson concludes his editorial by saying AMD "would do well to handle its struggles with similar grace and class". Please follow the source link for the full editorial.