Back in the glory days of ATI Radeon, the XT brand extension denoted the better-endowed variant among two or more graphics card models based on the same silicon, such as the Radeon HD 2900 XT. After AMD's takeover, the XT, Pro, XL, and other lesser used extensions such as XTX and All-in-Wonder were retired in favor of numerical variant numbers, beginning with the HD 3870. The company continued to use "XT" and "Pro" internally to differentiate ASIC variants, although those monikers were seldom if not never used in marketing materials. That's about to change. AMD launched its first overtly XT brand-extended product in close to 15 years, with the China-specific Radeon RX 560 XT, but alas, it's a lousy re-brand.

The RX 560 XT is positioned between the RX 560 4 GB and RX 570 4 GB, and is based on the "Polaris 20" or "Polaris 30" silicon (we don't know which). AMD enabled 28 out of 36 NGCUs on this silicon, resulting in 1,792 stream processors, 112 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The memory is 4 GB across a 256-bit wide memory interface, although the memory clock-speed is dialed down to 6.6 Gbps (211.2 GB/s). What makes the RX 560 XT a re-brand is that AMD launched an SKU with the same exact specifications, called Radeon Pro 570, and there are several odd-ball RX 570-branded cards in the wild with this core-config. There's no reference-design board of the RX 560 XT, and the SKU is entirely in the hands of board partners to come up with custom-designs of their own.

Update: AMD has informed us that the RX 560 XT is based on the 14 nm "Polaris 10" silicon, and not "Polaris 20" or "Polaris 30." Polaris 10 is the first implementation of the "Polaris" architecture.

Club 3D presents today its latest addition to the Radeon HD 7000 series, the Radeon HD 7750 4GB DDR3 and 1GB DDR3 graphic cards. The Radeon HD 7750 4GB DDR3 offers an incredible amount of frame buffer for those budget minded gamers.

Both cards utilize a custom cooler design with a single slot 50mm fan that ensures the card to remain cool at 57 ⁰C on average when gaming, extending the lifespan of the card and operate stable at high speed. The HD 7750 4GB also consumes 3W less power under load and is fully powered through the PCI Express interface, meaning it does not require an external power connector, offering more compatibility with older generation power supplies. Run games at full HD by upgrading from your old onboard graphic card and boost performance by up to 7x compared to previous generation Radeon graphic cards. Add more and faster memory and enhance your internet experience, watching online video's, photo and video editing has never been this smooth and fast, experience true speed with the Club 3D Radeon HD 7750 4GB DDR3.

Over the weekend, Activision released the minimum system requirements (MSR) list of its upcoming AAA title, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, for the PC platform. The publisher maintains that with the new engine being designed for DirectX 11, the game will no longer support Windows XP, yet it can make do with DirectX 10 hardware running on newer operating systems (Windows Vista and above). All you need to run Black Ops 2 is:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 (2.66 GHz) or AMD Phenom X3 8750 (2.40 GHz), processor
• 2 GB for 32-bit, 4 GB for 64-bit environments, memory
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB or ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 MB, video card
• Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7 or above, operating system

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

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."

NVIDIA is reportedly working on a new mainstream GPU for a mid-March launch. The graphics giant is planning to name it GeForce GTX 550 Ti, that's right, "GTX" prefix and "Ti" suffix monikers being extended to the core mainstream, in place of the typical "GTS". The new GPU will be based on the 40 nanometer GF116 silicon. Its exact specifications are not known, except that the GPU will use a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, and will be pin-compatible with GF106, on which is based the GeForce GTS 450. Its performance is estimated to be up to 35% higher than ATI Radeon HD 5770. Due to an electrical redesign over GF106, the GTX 550 Ti is expected to have a TDP of just 110W, nearly the same as that of the GTS 450, except having higher performance. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti is slated for release on 15 March, 2011.

AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 of $1.65 billion, net income of $375 million, or $0.50 per share, and operating income of $413 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $106 million, or $0.14 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $141 million. The non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP operating income primarily excluded a net of tax gain of $236 million, and a pre-tax gain of $283 million, respectively, that the company recognized related to a patent license and legal settlement.

For the year ended December 25, 2010, AMD reported revenue of $6.49 billion, net income of $471 million, or $0.64 per share, and operating income of $848 million. Full year non-GAAP net income was $360 million, or $0.49 per share, and operating income was $553 million.

TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE), has been updated to version 1.27. RBE is our popular AMD/ATI Radeon graphics cards BIOS manipulation utility. This version of RBE refines support for new kinds of voltage controllers, such as the ones found on Radeon HD 6800 series and Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards; improved device ID table of Radeon HD 6900 series, an improved BIOS extraction component, and a better hex-editor UI, among other changes that enhance the application's functionality and stability.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor v1.27A complete list of changes follows.

AMD released the fifth hotfix update for Catalyst 10.10 WHQL. Catalyst 10.10e, like Catalyst 10.10c Hotfix, packs a number of game-specific performance improvements, and extends MLAA (morphological anti-aliasing) support introduced by Catalyst 10.10d Hotfix, to all Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs. The new Catalyst AI controls in control center are extended to Radeon HD 5000 GPUs, these were previously available only to users of Radeon HD 6800 series. Support for new stereoscopic 3D capable hardware was also added.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.10e Hotfix Update

A detailed list of changes follows.

On the occasion of kick-starting its new generation of graphics processors, the Radeon HD 6800 series, AMD backed it up with the launch of [the first] AMD Catalyst, version 10.10 WHQL. The Catalyst software suite installs drivers for installed ATI/AMD Radeon graphics processors, AMD chipsets, as well as installs relevant system software. The major change of course is added official support for Radeon HD 6800 series GPUs, but also a big set of new features, namely support for Blu-ray 3D, Stereoscopic 3D powered by Dynamic Digital Depth (DDD) and iZ3D; AMD Catalyst Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology; added hardware video acceleration for HD WMV, and enahnced Dynamic Contrast video controls. It doesn't stop here, a boat-load of game and GPU-specific performance increments were announced, that covers a number of Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs, which are detailed below.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.10 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

A detailed list of changes follows.

AMD today introduced the next generation of PC gaming, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series, designed to be "perfect graphics cards" for gamers by delivering unprecedented game performance starting at $179 SEP. The new AMD Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards provide more than 30 percent greater game performance than competing products, harnessing AMD's second-generation Microsoft DirectX 11-capable architecture, best-in-class energy efficiency, and an unmatched feature set, including AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology. The AMD Radeon HD 6800 series is available immediately from etailers worldwide.

"AMD is the market share leader by a landslide in DirectX 11 graphics," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD. "Through our sweet spot strategy and our open, industry standards approach, we've worked to deliver the best possible experience for gamers. Today, our laser focus on gamers continues with the introduction of what we think is far and away the best graphics card series today, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series. With exceptional game performance, an unrivaled feature set including breathtaking DirectX 11 gaming, AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology, AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing, and more, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series will have all gamers wanting to get Radeon in their systems."

Acer America, part of the world's second largest manufacturer of notebook PCs, today announced two new models in its Aspire AS8943G notebook line now offer the ATI Mobility Radeon 5850 graphics processor with 2GB of dedicated video memory. The Acer Aspire AS8943G Series of notebooks are first-class multimedia centers that deliver an unparalleled high-definition personal theater experience, and are designed for the most discriminating computing enthusiast. Featuring top-of-the line technologies and usability features, the Aspire Series is designed for creating multimedia content, watching movies or dominating the latest PC games.

AMD released the latest version of the ATI Catalyst software suite. Version 10.9 WHQL comes rather early for this time of the month, when normally it's out towards the end or last week. ATI Catalyst installs drivers and system software for ATI Radeon graphics processors (HD 2000 series and above), AMD chipset integrated graphics, and other ATI multimedia products. Although Catalyst 10.9 does not mention any notable feature changes, it does offer some game-specific performance improvements across the board, as well as CrossFireX profiles that make the graphics driver take advantage of CrossFireX specific to games. Notable improvements include up to 20% in STALKER: Call of Pripyat Benchmark on Radeon HD 5800 series, and up to 6% on The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, when running Radeon HD 5970 single or CrossFireX. A usual load of bug fixes goes with this version.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.9 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

A complete list of changes follows.

AMD today announced its collaboration with Valve to deliver ATI Catalyst graphics driver updates via its Steam platform, a leading platform for PC games and digital entertainment. Steam users can now detect and install the latest ATI Catalyst driver for their ATI Radeon graphics card directly from within Steam. Valve's most recent Steam Hardware Survey shows that fully 87 percent of DirectX 11 gamers are enjoying ATI Radeon or ATI Mobility Radeon hardware.

"Steam represents an evolution for PC and online gaming, and the availability of ATI Catalyst graphics driver updates directly on the Steam platform can help further enhance the PC gaming experience for users of ATI Radeon products," said Ben Bar-Haim, corporate vice president of software for AMD. "AMD Gaming Evolved and Valve share the belief that 'Gamers Come First' - we now have the opportunity to work together to help ensure the best possible experience for PC gamers."

AMD released an untimely Catalyst 10.8b Hotfix driver specifically targeted at users of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and HD 4850 X2 graphics cards on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The new driver claims to improve multi-GPU performance scaling, and improves image-quality in Tom Clancy H.A.W.X. 2 by forcing anisotropic filtering from ATI Catalyst Control Center.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.8b Hotfix

The first official die-shots of the first Bulldozer architecture derivative, the eight-core "Orochi" Opteron die was displayed at Global Technology Conference, by GlobalFoundries, AMD's principal foundry-partner. While AMD did not give out a die-map to go with it, the structures we can make out are four Bulldozer modules holding two cores and a shared L2 cache each, a L3 cache spread across four blocks that's shared between all cores, the northbridge-portion cutting across the die at the center, and the integrated memory controller along its far-right side. Various I/O portions are located along the other three sides.

Next up is the Llano die. This is AMD's very first Fusion APU (accelerated processing unit) die. It is based on the K10 architecture and integrates a graphics processor and northbridge completely into one die. It precedes APUs based on the Bobcat architecture. Fortunately, there is a die-map at hand, which shows four K10 cores with dedicated 1 MB L2 caches per core, no L3 cache, an integrated SIMD array that holds 480 stream processors. The GPU component is DirectX 11 compliant. Other components include an integrated northbridge, integrated memory controller, integrated PCI-Express root complex, and HyperTransport interface to the chipset.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to launch the latest in-house designed GIGABYTE GV-R577SL-1GD, featuring GIGABYTE's own Ultra Durable VGA Technology and silent-cell cooling design. GIGABYTE's GV-R577SL-1GD is built on the highly anticipated ATI Radeon HD 5770 Series GPU, which utilizes the latest 826 million transistors on 40nm fabrication process and GDDR5 memory. GIGABYTE GV-R577SL-1GD is equipped with Microsoft DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity Technology, ATI Stream technology, ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support, UVD 2 and PowerPlay, setting a new standard for HD gaming performance.

The GIGABYTE GV-R577SL-1GD features GIGABYTE's own Ultra Durable VGA Technology, which can provide outstanding overclocking capability, lower GPU temperature, and excellent power efficiency. GIGABYTE's unique technology Ultra Durable VGA features 2 oz copper PCB board, Samsung and Hynix memory, Japanese solid capacitor, Ferrite /Metal Core Chokes, and Low RDS (on) MOSFET. Compared with traditional graphics accelerators, Ultra Durable VGA graphics accelerators can lower GPU temperature by 5%~10%, decrease power switching loss by 10%~30%, and increase overclocking capability by 10%~30%. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA graphics accelerator GV-R577SL-1GD can provide truly "high-performance" and "green" graphic card solutions.

AMD rolled out a reference-design DisplayPort to DVI active adapter today, that lets the masses create Eyefinity setups on existing monitors easier. The adapter plugs into full-sized and mini DisplayPort connectors on ATI Radeon graphics cards, and gives out a single-link DVI signal. The conversion between DP to DVI is active, and conserves video quality, as well as other features such as content protection. This is because when Eyefinity-ready graphics cards with DisplayPorts from AMD came to be, some manufacturers sold cheap $10 DP-DVI dongles that pass DVI signals from the DP directly (passive conversion). Such dongles more often don't work, because Radeon GPUs don't give out DVI signals from DP. Active adapters (those which actively convert DP signals to DVI) were sold at the time in upwards of $100.

AMD has managed to bring the price of such active adapters down to $30. There however, is a limitation. The output is a single-link DVI, meaning that it will support digital resolutions only up to 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz (1080p is supported). It shouldn't matter for the target users, because the DisplayPort on ATI Radeon HD 5000 graphics cards conveys only one TMDS link, so even with a DVI dual-link capable adapter, it would only give out single-link output. At least a bulk of the users are covered, at a very affordable price point. AMD will market this adapter directly, and through its growing network of add-in board partners (in bundles with graphics cards, or directly). PowerColor beat AMD to today's announcement, and released PowerColor-branded AMD-reference DP-DVI adapter last week.

Without making too much noise, PowerColor introduced a pair of new cost-effective ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, the PowerColor HD 5830 V2 (AX5830 1GBD5-DHV2), and PowerColor HD 5850 (AX5850 1GBD5- DH). The two are based on a new common PCB design that's shorter (10.4"), and uses a cost-effective component layout. The cooler also keeps up, it is more compact, and has a simpler heat pipe-based design. Both cards stick to the AMD reference clock speeds: 725/1000 MHz (core/memory) for the HD 5850, and 800/1000 MHz (core/memory) for the HD 5830. As far as connectivity goes, the HD 5830 V2 lacks one DVI. While PowerColor did not give out pricing details of these two cards, one can expect these to be priced on the lower side, with much more flexibility for the company to lower the prices further down in the future.

Even as NVIDIA is taking its own sweet time to complete building its lineup of DirectX 11 compliant GPUs to target all market segments, AMD, which got a 6 months' headstart into releasing its lineup, which ended up targeting all market segments in a span of 5 months, is readying the Radeon HD 6000 series for launch well within this year. Just as the Radeon HD 5000 series GPU family was codenamed Evergreen with its members codenamed after evergreen trees (such as Cypress, Juniper, Redwood, Cedar), the Radeon HD 6000 is codenamed "Southern Islands", with its members codenamed after islands in the Caribbean (not islands in the Mediterranean).

"Bart" (after Saint Barthélemy island) is the codename for the performance/upper-mid segment GPU, a successor to the "Juniper" Radeon HD 5700 series. "Cayman" (after Cayman Islands) is the enthusiast GPU, successor to Cypress, and will go into making SKUs that succeed the Radeon HD 5800 series. Finally, the king of the hill is codenamed "Antilles" (after Antilles Islands), it is the dual-GPU SKU that makes use of two Cayman GPUs, successor to the Radeon HD 5970 "Hemlock". AMD partners will be in a position to sell graphics cards based on these by November 2010. The Radeon HD 6970 "Antilles" should be out by December 2010. The lower-half of the family will likely release next year.

Come this Winter, and things will heat up once again in the graphics card industry, with GPU vendors battling it out for the crucial Holidays shopping season. While AMD did not introduce any new GPUs after completing its ATI Radeon HD 5000 series launch itinerary, it did manage to grab significant amount of sales from its graphics rival NVIDIA. For this Winter, AMD and its partners will be in a position to launch the ATI Radeon HD 6000 series graphics processors, according to DigiTimes, citing sources from graphics card vendors.

It is also said that the Radeon HD 6000 series, codenamed "Southern Islands" (members of which are codenamed after islands in the Mediterranean Sea), will be built on TSMC's 40 nm manufacturing process. AMD had originally planned to build Southern Islands on TSMC's 32 nm process, but with the foundry skipping 32 nm bulk for 28 nm which will start operations only by the end of the year, AMD redrew its plans and stuck to the now-mature (stable) 40 nm process. Perhaps AMD learned a thing or two from a wide range of teething problems that plagued the 40 nm production line.

If you absolutely need 2 GB of video memory to talk about in your rig, Club3D developed an easy means to get there. Its latest ATI Radeon HD 5550 variant boasts of 2 GB of DDR3 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface, and some out of the box overclocked speeds. The single-slot full-height card uses an active GPU cooler, and draws all its power from the PCI-E slot. The DirectX 11 compliant Radeon HD 5550 GPU has 320 stream processors, and a 128-bit wide memory interface, with clock speeds of 650 MHz core, 1200 MHz (2400 MHz effective) memory. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, D-Sub, and HDMI. Club3D did not give out a price.

The latest edition of Jon Peddie Research covering the PC graphics industry indicates that shipments of GPUs in Q1 2010 increased 44.3% over Q1 2009. There are increases in market shares of both AMD and NVIDIA, year over year, this time at the expense of Intel. The highlight for this quarter, however, has been the significant increase in market share of AMD. The company behind ATI Radeon clocked a 96.3% growth year-over-year. Despite taking a cut, Intel continues to to have the highest market share. With the introduction of Intel's Clarkdale and Arrandale processors that have embedded graphics processors, JPR demarcated these into a new entry called integrated processor graphics (IPG), from chipset graphics. With the propagation of the platform, it is predicted that chipset graphics will diminish in market share.

At Embedded Systems Conference today, AMD announced two new complete platforms for the embedded market, the compact ASB2 platform and the high-performance AM3 platform, that offer myriad combinations of power and performance with up to 74 percent improvement in performance-per-watt over previous generations. AMD's new flexible embedded platforms consist of chipset and graphics solutions along with high-performance CPUs as low as 8W TDP for the ideal solution based on application requirements. System designers focusing on their next-generation products can see immediate benefits commonly associated with industry-standard x86 processors, including streamlined design and development, a large software ecosystem, and fast time-to-market.

"The barriers to widespread adoption of x86 in the broad embedded market have traditionally been a combination of power, price and the physical footprint of the silicon," said Buddy Broeker, director, Embedded Solutions Division, AMD. "AMD's embedded solutions have been steadily driving down those barriers while adding enterprise-class performance and features that may not have been readily available to designers in the past. Our commitment to the embedded market grows stronger as we look to a future introduction of AMD Fusion technology products into the embedded space."

Club 3D rolled out a new silent graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5550, what it calls the "Noiseless Edition". The Club 3D HD 5550 Noiseless Edition is based on the 40 nm "Redwood" GPU, packs 320 stream processors, is DirectX 11 compliant, and carries 512 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface. The card is full-height, and its silent GPU heatsink spans across two expansion slots. The cooler is made of an aluminum fin block to which heat is conveyed by heat pipes. The GPU is clocked at 550 MHz, and memory at 1600 MHz DDR. Connectivity includes DVI-D, D-Sub, and HDMI with on-chip 7.1 HD audio with DTS, and Dolby Digital. Like every other card based on Redwood, it draws all its power from the PCI-Express slot. The Club 3D HD 5550 Noiseless Edition is expected to be priced around the $70 mark.