Next month Asus is set to add a new member to its Eee PC line, the Eee PC 1225B which runs Windows 7 Home Premium, features an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) LED-backlit display, and is powered by an AMD Brazos APU, either the 1.0 GHz C-60 or the much more enticing 1.65 GHz E-450.

The incoming netbook weights 1.4 kg and also has 2/4 GB of RAM, up to a 750 GB hard drive, integrated DirectX 11 graphics (Radeon HD 6290 for the C-60 version, Radeon HD 6320 for the E-450 unit), a 0.3-megapixel webcam, LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 (this is optional), stereo speakers, an SD/MMC card reader, D-Sub and HDMI outputs, and a 6-cell battery allowing for up to 7 hours of operation per charge.

The Eee PC 1225B will be available in five color versions - gray, red, silver, black and white, and is supposed to start at 349 Euro.

AMD today updated its A-Series line-up of desktop and notebook Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), further improving its top-performing family of dual- and quad-core APUs. Along with speed and performance improvements, AMD Steady Video update make this unique feature more compelling than ever. For desktop users, AMD extends its overclocking pedigree to the APU; for the first time users can tune both x86 and graphics settings in a single processor for boosted performance.

The updated AMD A-Series APUs combine up to four x86 CPU cores with up to 400 Radeon cores, delivering powerful DirectX 11-capable, discrete-level graphics and dedicated HD video processing on a single chip. These new APUs increase performance and deliver a richer feature set than existing AMD A-series APUs. Plus, only AMD APUs offer AMD Dual Graphics for an up to 144 percent visual performance boost when a select APU is paired with a select AMD Radeon HD 6500 Series graphics card.

TechPowerUp today released GPU-Z version 0.5.7, the latest version of our popular graphics system information and diagnostic utility. This release of GPU-Z comes just in time for the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series. It packs tested support for Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7350. It packs an updated PCI Express 3.0 detection routine, with better detection reliability. It fixes a bug related to "APIC counter broken" on AMD Fusion APU platforms. Detection is improved for some rare GPUs, such as HD 6450A, HD 6470M, and the more popular HD 5570.

Several reliability updates were introduced. This includes fixed (improved) fillrate calculation on Fermi architecture, fixed ROP count on GT 420, GT 520, HD 5450, HD 6450; fixed random values showing as default clocks on some NVIDIA cards; fixed random value showing as shader clock on NVIDIA cards without shader clock; and addition of process size, die size, transistor count for Radeon E6760.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.7 and TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.7 ROG-Themed

December thru January looks to be a busy time for AMD. Along with a few new graphics products, AMD will launch new CPUs and APUs. The company has chosen December 26 to launch its A8-3870K and A6-3670K Black Edition "Llano" accelerated processing units (APUs) in the FM1 package, which feature unlocked base clock multipliers for the processor component, making overclocking a breeze. In two of its presentation slides to distributors, it unveiled the swanky new box art of these unlocked APUs.

These chips pack four x86-64 cores based on the "Stars" K10.5 architecture with 1 MB dedicated L2 cache per core, dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz integrated memory controller, PCI-Express 2.0 root complex, and a "discrete-class" graphics processor that packs 400 VLIW5 stream processors, DirectX 11 support, and the ability to pair with similarly specc'd discrete GPUs. The A8-3870K Black Edition features x86 core clock speed of 3.00 GHz, and Radeon HD 6550D graphics that features all 400 of those stream processors, with 600 MHz GPU clock speed. The A6-3670K Black Edition, on the other hand, has its x86 component clocked at 2.70 GHz, it features Radeon HD 6530D graphics that has 320 out of the 400 stream processors enabled, and a GPU clock of 433 MHz.

Sapphire is working on two new entry-level motherboards for AMD FM1 and Intel LGA1155 platforms. The FM1 board, called the Pure White A55, is a budget micro-ATX board based on the AMD A55 FCH; while the LGA1155 board is the Pure Platinum H61P, an ATX board based on the Intel H61 chipset. The Pure White A55 uses a simple 5+1 phase VRM to power the AMD A-Series APU or Athlon II FM1 CPU. The FM1 socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory. The "Memory Free" feature stabilizes memory clock speeds, voltages, and timings if wrong settings make the system fail POST, at the push of a button.

Expansion slots of the Pure White A55 include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, two PCIe 2.0 x1, and a legacy PCI. All six SATA 3 Gb/s ports of the A55 FCH are assigned as internal ports. Display outputs include HDMI, DVI, and D-Sub. Other connectivity features include 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board uses redundant BIOS on separate ROM chips, that protect it against bad BIOS updates. The Pure Platinum H61P uses a 6 phase VRM to power the LGA1155 processor. The socket is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory.

In addition to introducing the 'new' Radeon HD 7000M mobile GPUs, AMD has this week updated its A-Series family of APUs (accelerated processing units) by adding to it no less than seven models specifically targeting the mobile segment. All seven chips are manufactured using 32nm process technology and should keep laptops makers (relatively) happy until Trinity lands in the first half of 2012.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that AMD Fusion '12 will be held June 11-14, 2012 in Bellevue, Washington. The company's annual developer summit will return to the Meydenbauer Center and the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue.

This event will build on the success of AMD Fusion '11, where more than 700 leaders from industry, academia, and government converged on the forefront of heterogeneous computing. The summit offers an engaging opportunity to learn more about next-generation software development and AMD Fusion System Architecture (FSA), Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) technology, central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) processor technologies, and programming methods using industry-standard application programming interfaces (APIs) such as OpenCL, OpenGL, Microsoft DirectCompute and C++ AMP.

Later this month, AMD will finally launch its much overdue unlocked A8 and A6 series APUs in the FM1 package, that are geared for overclocking. The A8-3870K is clocked at 3.00 GHz, and the A6-3670K at 2.60 GHz. The two are quad-core APUs, and differ by the core clock speeds and integrated GPUs. While the A8-3870K packs Radeon HD 6550D graphics with 400 stream processors, the A6-3670K has Radeon HD 6530D graphics with 320 stream processors. The two were listed for pre-order on ShopBLT, with the A8-3870K priced at US $143.77, and the A6-3670K at $121.50. It is expected that prices of A8-3850 and A6-3650 will drop after the launch of these two chips.

"Trinity" is the codename of AMD's next-generation performance accelerated processing unit (APU) family. Based on the new socket FM2 package, these chips will take advantage of AMD's next-generation Piledriver processor core architecture and VLIW4 GPU stream processor architecture. Together, Trinity promises increased general, visual, and parallel compute performance. Some of the slides detailing AMD's own performance estimates were put up by DonanimHaber in their recent video bulletin. We screen-grabbed the performance graphs from the low-resolution video, hence the grainy images.

To begin with, AMD is promising noticeable performance improvements over the current "Llano" APU. It spread its benchmarks across three categories: visual performance (using 3DMark Vantage), general performance (using PCMark Vantage), and parallel compute (GPGPU) performance (calculated CTP SP GFLOPs). With 3DMark Vantage, Trinity A8 (quad-core), A6 (triple-core), and A4 (dual-core) APUs are seeing a roughly 32% improvement over their respective Llano-based counterparts; with general performance, the improvement is a candid 13.8% on average; but with GPGPU performance, the improvement is a massive 56.3% on average. This could be attributed to the VLIW4 architecture. Lastly, there are notable CrossFire dual-graphics performance improvements.

AMD, along with launching several new Opteron processors, retouched prices of its socket FM1 accelerated processing units (APUs), across its A-Series. These include tiny price hikes for its lower-end APUs, A4-3300 and A4-3400; a minor price cut for the A6-3500; a price-cut for the FX-6100; and introduction of the new Athlon II X4 651. To begin with, the dual-core A4-3300 and A4-3400 got hiked by $2, sending their prices from $64 and $69, respectively, to $66 and $71, respectively.

On the other hand, the price of A6-3500 is cut from $89 to $85. The six-core FX-6100 socket AM3+ processor saw a $10 price-cut, sending its price down from $165 to $155. Lastly, AMD introduced a new Athlon II processor in the FM1 package, the Athlon II X4 651, AMD's second, after Athlon II X4 631. This quad-core chip has 1 MB L2 cache per core, and is clocked at 3.00 GHz, 400 MHz higher than the Athlon II X4 631.

Well, this 11.11 release doesn't list any performance improvements unfortunately. It contains just one new unexciting feature and a few fixes, but still has quite a long list of known issues. The new feature is Adobe Flash Player 11 hardware accelerated graphics support, including the A-series and E-series APUs. Fixes include things like Rage texture corruption, bezel compensation working correctly in Far Cry 2 and a screen tearing fix for displays in clone mode. Therefore, if your setup is working fine, there's no rush to update to this driver in case it breaks something. Note the following CAP 1 profile updates added to this release:

- Battlefield 3: Tweaks to the CrossFire profile
- Global Ops: Commando Libya: Improves CrossFire performance
- Driver San Francisco: Disables CrossFire

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 11.11 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

DOWNLOAD: Release Notes

Here is the first picture of AMD accelerated processing units in the existing FM1 package and future FM2 package on which the next-generation Trinity APU will be based on. Both packages are very similar, follow AMD's favourite yet archaic PGA design. The pins are physically arranged in a mostly similar fashion, though we don't have a pin map at hand. The difference comes with some of the blanked pins in the sub-central portion of the pin array. The FM2 package has 904 pins, compared to 905 on FM1. One pin is blanked, while a pair of blanked pins are arranged further away from the central cutout.

This makes FM1 and FM2 clearly incompatible. Neither will you be able to use today's A-Series APUs in the FM1 package on future socket FM2 motherboards, nor will you be able to run future FM2 APUs on today's FM1 motherboards. Yet, AMD will port the A75 FCH chipset to the next-generation "Virgo" platform. The FCH or Fusion Controller Hub, like Intel's PCH (Platform Controller Hub), is not much more than a glorified southbridge, and is portable between Fusion platforms as it's essentially a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 device. In the picture below, "Llano" FM1 APU is on the left, and "Trinity" FM2 on the right.

AMD today released its latest official version of Catalyst, a software suite that provides drivers for AMD/ATI Radeon graphics processors, A-Series APUs, 7-series and 8-series integrated graphics, and related system software. Catalyst 11.10 WHQL launched today has essentially the same change log as the 11.10 Preview 3 driver, except that it's WHQL-signed. Catalyst 11.10 WHQL is the driver to have when playing some of the latest titles such as Battlefield 3 and Rage.

Catalyst 11.10 WHQL brings in a few new features, too, such as support for 5x1 Eyefinity, with maximum resolution increased to 16000 x 16000 pixels on Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs, and in DirectX 11 applications, and improved Vision Engine Control Center / Catalyst Control Center applications (VECC is installed for A-Series APUs and Chipset IGPs, CCC is installed for discrete Radeon GPUs).

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 11.10 WHQL for Windows 7 and Vista 64-bit | Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit

AMD today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2011 of $1.69 billion, net income of $97 million, or $0.13 per share, and operating income of $138 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $110 million, or $0.15 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $146 million.

"Strong adoption of AMD APUs drove a 35 percent sequential revenue increase in our mobile business," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "Despite supply constraints, we saw double digit revenue and unit shipment growth in emerging markets like China and India as well as overall notebook share gains in retail at mainstream price points. Through disciplined execution and continued innovation we will look to accelerate our growth and refine our focus on lower power, emerging markets, and the cloud."

Gigabyte released its newest premium HTPC motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor, the A75N-USB3. As the name might suggest, this is a socket FM1 motherboard based on the AMD A75 chipset, and features USB 3.0 connectivity. Despite its compact dimensions, the board crams in everything a HTPC can benefit from. First, the FM1 socket seats AMD A-Series accelerated processing units (APUs), which pack up to four x86-64 cores with up to 4 MB cache, dual-channel DDR3-1866 integrated memory controller, and more importantly, a very powerful integrated graphics processor in the Radeon HD 6500 class. The FM1 socket on this board is powered by a 3+1 phase VRM that makes use of driver-MOSFETs. Power is drawn by a 24-pin ATX and a 4-pin CPU power connector.

The lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The CPU is wired to two full-length DDR3 DIMM slots, which can take in up to 32 GB (that's right, future 16 GB DIMMs are supported) of dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory. The AMD A75 chipset gives out four internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one eSATA 6 Gb/s port on the rear panel. Display outputs include HDMI 1.4a and DVI. Analog outputs are done away with. Audio is handled by a high-quality Realtek ALC889 HD audio codec. Although this codec supports 8+2 output channels, it is wired to a 5.1 channel shared audio jack cluster, apart from the internal HDA_FP header. Those needing 7.1 channel output can still use the TOSLINK connector, that supports 7.1 channel output with 24-bit, 192 kHz resolution and Dolby Home Theater support. If even that's not enough, the HDMI connector gives you 7.1 channel HDMI audio with Dolby Prologic support.

AMD detailed its upcoming "Virgo" PC platform that consists of next-generation "Trinity" APU (accelerated processing unit), and current-generation AMD A75 "Hudson-D" chipset. A notable revelation here is that the next-gen APUs will be compatible with AMD A75, although it will be designed for a new socket called FM2. It remains to be seen if FM1 and FM2 are pin-compatible.

"Trinity" packs four x86-64 cores based on the next-generation "Piledriver" architecture, arranged in two Piledriver modules. A module is a closely-knit group of two cores, with certain shared and dedicated resources. Each Piledriver module has 2 MB of L2 cache shared between the two cores. In all, Trinity, with its two modules, has 4 MB of L2 cache without any L3 cache.

AMD today announced an investment in BlueStacks, a venture-backed firm developing innovative software. BlueStacks has introduced a solution to enable Android applications to run fast and full-screen on Windows-based devices.

AMD and BlueStacks are collaborating to optimize the BlueStacks App Player for Windows software for use with tablet and notebook PCs powered by AMD APUs with AMD VISION technology. With this combination of BlueStacks software and AMD technology, consumers will be able to access their favorite Android apps on virtually any AMD-powered Windows-based device, including more than 200,000 apps currently available in the Android Market.

AMD is rumored to be seeking ties with TSMC, Taiwan's premier semiconductor manufacturing foundry, for future manufacturing of its "Bulldozer" architecture processors, according to a report by DonanimHaber. This has two very distinct implications: first, AMD could be facing issues with GlobalFoundries 32 nm HKMG node, its de facto foundry for CPU manufacturing, and second, this could just be an obvious development of future low-power APUs based on the new x86 architecture being manufactured at TSMC, much like how current E-series and C-series APUs are.

Then again, AMD doesn't exactly have any APUs in works that use "Bulldozer" architecture for the x86 cores, rather, its successor codenamed "Piledriver". Another couple of important things to note here are that TSMC does not have a 32 nm bulk node (it was scrapped with the transition to 28 nm bulk), and its HKMG (high-K metal gate transistor) manufacturing technology is deployed rather recently. It would be interesting to follow this development.

Sapphire announced its second motherboard based on the AMD A75 chipset, the Pure Platinum A75P. This is the slightly more cost-effective A75-based socket FM1 motherboard by Sapphire compared to the Pure Platinum A75. It uses a more compact PCB, does away with features such as mSATA, features just two DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory, and the open PCIe x4 slot making way for a longer PCI-Express x16 slot, which still runs at x4 speed.

Sapphire does seem to have improved the processor VRM design, it's likely that the board continues to use an 8-phase VRM, but features better power conditioning components. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 wired to the APU, one PCI-Express x16 (electrical x4) wired to the A75 FCH, three PCI-Express x1, and two legacy PCI. Display outputs include DVI, HDMI, and D-Sub. Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. There is 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. Apart from UEFI, this board features redundant ROM chip technology, that protects against failed BIOS updates. We expect the Pure Platinum A75P to be one of the more affordable FM1 motherboards in the ATX form-factor.

Acer's first Aspire One 522 netbook powered by AMD's low-power C-60 accelerated processing unit hit shelves in Europe. The Aspire One 522 was released in January, powered by other AMD APUs that aren't as power-efficient as the C-60. The AMD C-60 features two x86-64 cores clocked at 1.00 GHz, which can jump up to 1.33 GHz with TurboCore, and a Radeon HD 6290 graphics core that runs at 276 MHz, that can run at 400 MHz with TurboCore.

The Aspire One 522 is a 10.1-inch netbook with all the essentials you'd expect from a netbook from this category, plus the performance advantage AMD's APUs bring to the table over Intel Atom. Its LED-backlit screen features 1280 x 720 pixels resolution, the APU is backed by 1 GB of DDR3 memory, and storage is care of a 320 GB hard drive. Connectivity includes a web-cam, 10/100 Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, and a 5-in-1 card reader. Display connectivity includes D-Sub and HDMI. A 6-cell battery powers the machine. It comes with Windows 7 Starter pre-installed. The new Aspire One 522 is priced at €279.

Today at Embedded Systems Conference East, AMD introduced the AMD Radeon E6460 discrete graphics processor as AMD's next generation entry-level embedded graphics processor, complementing the previously announced AMD Radeon E6760. With support for up to four simultaneous displays and more than double the 3D graphics performance of the ATI Radeon E2400 GPU1, the AMD Radeon E6460 GPU sets a new bar for features and performance in an entry-level embedded GPU. With five years of planned supply availability and with the graphics memory included in the same package, the AMD Radeon E6460 GPU delivers the longevity, small footprint, and ease of design demanded by embedded system designers.

"The AMD Radeon E6460 GPU provides the high value, small footprint, and long supply demanded by embedded customers," said Richard Jaenicke, director of Embedded Client Business for AMD. "With a footprint-compatible subset of the high-performance AMD E6760 GPU, the new AMD Radeon E6460 GPU enables broadly scalable graphics and multimedia performance in a single board design."

The latest AMD 2012 market outlook slides disclosed by DonanimHaber reveal that AMD will have a brand new lineup of processors and APUs by the third quarter of 2012. In the second quarter, AMD will begin with new accelerated processing units (APUs) that succeed the current A-Series "Llano" APUs, codenamed "Trinity". Trinity APUs will make use of next-generation "Piledriver" architecture x86-64 cores, as well, as next-generation Radeon HD 7000 series graphics.

Then in the third quarter, AMD will release its next-generation "Vishera" processors that succeed "Zambezi" AMD FX processors. Vishera will make use of next-generation "Piledriver" modules, and increase IPC (instructions per clock) beyond its predecessor "Bulldozer" architecture. In the interim, AMD will update its A-Series and AMD FX processor lines with new models. These include a new high-end processor, the AMD FX-8170, and two new A-Series APUs, the A8-3870K, and A6-3670K, both of which are unlocked for overclocking.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs, today announces the A75-ITX WiFi platform that enable users to embrace the power of AMD accelerated processing units, or APUs, in a compact mini-ITX form factor to form the perfect gaming capable home theatre PC.

The ZOTAC A75-ITX WiFi features an FM1 socket to take advantage of the latest AMD A8, A6, A4 and E2 series APUs with AMD Radeon HD 6000 series graphics processors for the perfect synergy of CPU and GPU performance power. Two memory slots enable users to install up to 8GB of high-speed DDR3 memory with speeds up to 1866 MHz, depending on the APU installed, for maximum system responsiveness for media playback, gaming and every-day use.

AMD showed off a notebook powered by its next-generation "Trinity" A-Series accelerated processing unit (APU). Trinity makes use of the Piledriver x86-64 micro-architecture (a more evolved version of Bulldozer), packs two Piledriver modules (four cores), and a faster DirectX 11 compliant Radeon graphics component. AMD displayed a Trinity-powered notebook running Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Trinity will be built on the 32 nm process, and will make use of the new socket FM2 platform. There's no word so far pointing that FM2 will be incompatible with FM1.

AMD announced today that it has created drivers to enable support for the upcoming Windows 8 operating system on AMD-based tablets, netbooks, PCs and servers. Continuing a long history of collaboration, AMD is working closely with Microsoft to empower a new generation of innovative PCs and small form factor computing devices.

Currently available Windows 7-based PCs powered by AMD VISION technology deliver multi-core processing for amazing performance, discrete-level graphics for brilliant HD experiences, and AMD AllDay Power for entertainment on the go. Furthermore, AMD VISION Engine Software is uniquely tailored to unlock visual computing with AMD Radeon Cores and video accelerators that enable vivid HD, AMD Steady Video software and accelerated applications like blazing fast Internet browsing.