Apple gave its flagship desktop computer, the iMac a healthy specifications update that warps the iMac right back into competing with the PCs of this generation. The update involves introducing two new models, a 21.5-inch one, and another massive 27-inch model, to replace the existing 20 and 24-inch offerings, respectively. The major update aims to achieve giving the iMac a true widescreen display that is at least full HD capable, powerful hardware including the advent of quad-core processors to the iMac, and a host of changes to the hardware and peripherals. Prices start at $1199.

To begin with, the 21.5-inch model features a 16:9 full HD display with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, while the 27-inch model comes with 2560 x 1440 pixels resolution. The displays on both use IPS panels that provide a viewing angle as wide as 178°, with high color fidelity. The displays use LED backlit for uniform, instant-on illumination. Such technologies we previously found on Apple's high-end Cinema displays. Both feature enclosures that are distinctively "wide-screen", and slim at that. Both feature all-aluminum backs.

Less than a week away from launch, graphics cards based on AMD's newest ATI Radeon HD 5700 series mid-range GPUs have began to surface on European retailers, only to be retracted hours after being listed. Such acts from retailers isn't particularly new, but what it does is give away the price, and sometimes pictures and specifications. One such set of listings from German retailer Mindfactory.de, pits the price of the upper mid-range PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 at 149.99 €, including 19% applicable tax, and the mid-range PowerColor Radeon HD 5750 at 119.99 €, including 19% tax. Both cards, as listed by the retailer, feature 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. AMD is expected to unveil the Radeon HD 5700 series this October 13. With it, it plans to expand its lineup of next-generation DirectX 11 compliant graphics cards, and breach the mainstream market segment. What is also planned is to establish performance leadership over competing products at those price-points.

The Dutch techsite tweakers.net set a new world record for 3Dmark03. While the old record (180,349) was set using four 4890s the new record uses only three 5870s and a Xeon W3540 clocked at 5231 MHz. The 5870s ran at 1200 MHz with only slightly overclocked memory at 4900 MHz.

AMD and Pixelux Entertainment announced a joint development agreement that is part of the AMD effort to greatly expand the use of real-time physics with graphics through the open source Bullet Physics engine. By encouraging development of physics middleware built around OpenCL and Bullet Physics, AMD and Pixelux offer a route toward physics simulation that spans game consoles, PCs and other hardware platforms. The latest graphics technologies, like the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of GPUs, offer incredible visual fidelity and high performance physics simulation by taking the next step in realistically animating how rendered game objects move, deform and break.

"Proprietary physics solutions divide consumers and ISVs, while stifling true innovation; our competitors even develop code that they themselves admit will not work on hardware other than theirs," said Eric Demers, chief technology officer for graphics at AMD. "By working with Pixelux and others to enable open support of physics on OpenCL and DirectX 11 capable devices we are taking the exact opposite approach."

Anti-Aliasing has been one of the most basic image-quality enhancements available in today's games. PC graphics hardware manufacturers regard it as more of an industry standard, and game developers echo with them, by integrating anti-aliasing (AA) features in the game, as part of its engine. This allows the game to selectively implement AA in parts of the 3D scene, so even as the overall image quality of the scene is improved, so is performance, by making sure that not every object in the scene is given AA. It seems that in one of the most well marketed games of the year, Batman: Arkham Asylum, doesn't like to work with ATI Radeon graphics cards when it comes to its in-game AA implementation.

Developed under NVIDIA's The Way it's Meant to be Played program, and featuring NVIDIA's PhysX technology, the game's launcher disables in-game AA when it detects AMD's ATI Radeon graphics hardware. AMD's Ian McNaughton in his recent blog thread said that they had confirmed this by an experiment where they ran ATI Radeon hardware under changed device IDs. Says McNaughton: "Additionally, the in-game AA option was removed when ATI cards are detected. We were able to confirm this by changing the ids of ATI graphics cards in the Batman demo. By tricking the application, we were able to get in-game AA option where our performance was significantly enhanced." He further adds that the option is not available for the retail game as there is a secure-rom.

TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE), has been updated to version 1.22. RBE is our popular ATI Radeon graphics cards BIOS tweaking manipulation utility. One of the main highlights of this release is early support for the Radeon HD 5870 graphics accelerator, among other changes that enhance the application's functionality and stability. The following changes are listed by its developer:

• Added clock tuning wizard.
• Changed fan controller bug workaround settings' description to point out what it does a little better.
• Improved program's startup routine.
• Fixed "GetClockPos reported 0"-error that came up on loading several 4xx0-BIOSes.
• Added preliminary support for Radeon 5870. Note that I'm still not sure about 5850's DeviceID and that signature saving and loading will most likely not work properly on 5xx0s with this version. Furthermore, VT1165 programming is not functioning yet.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor

AMD today launched the most powerful processor ever created, found in its next-generation graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, and the world's first and only to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11, the new gaming and compute standard shipping shortly with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. Boasting up to 2.72 TeraFLOPS of compute power, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series effectively doubles the value consumers can expect of their graphics purchases, delivering twice the performance-per-dollar of previous generations of graphics products. AMD will initially release two cards: the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and the ATI Radeon HD 5850, each with 1GB GDDR5 memory. With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards, PC users can expand their computing experience with ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, accelerate their computing experience with ATI Stream technology, and dominate the competition with superior gaming performance and full support of Microsoft DirectX 11, making it a "must-have" consumer purchase just in time for Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

"With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cars driven by the most powerful processor on the planet, AMD is changing the game, both in terms of performance and the experience," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. "As the first to market with full DirectX 11 support, an unmatched experience made possible with ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream technology harnessing open standards designed to help make Windows 7 that much better, I can say with confidence that AMD is the undisputed leader in graphics once more."

The X-Slim series 14" ultra thin notebook family introduces a new member, the X-Slim X410 notebook computer with AMD's 2nd Generation Ultrathin Platform that supports 1080i high resolution and provides outstanding display quality. With AMD's PowerNow! technology, it is even more eco-friendly with reduced battery consumption and lower voltage requirements. It also lasts longer, with over twice the battery life of traditional 14" notebooks. The X410 design stays consistent with the X-Slim series' beauty and ultra-thin design with a thickness of merely an inch and 1.5 kg weight with battery. With an attractive price and full set of features, the X410 is a stunning and fashionable ultra-thin notebook.

AMD released version 9.9 of its ATI Catalyst driver suite that provides drivers and related essential software for ATI Radeon graphics processors, AMD 7-series core-logic, and ATI Multimedia products. This release mainly intends to fix application-specific issues, and features related to Catalyst Control Center application. For more details, refer to the Release Notes document. Highlights include:

• Anti-Aliasing support for Ghostbusters
• ATI CrossFireX support for Resident Evil 5
• Graphics corruption fix for Sims 3
• Catalyst Control Center - Basic now responds properly after exiting Quick Adjust Video Settings
• Edge enhancement and de-noise sliders in Catalyst Control Center no longer lags or appears out of sync with mouse movement
• Launching Hotkeys Manager in Catalyst Control Center no longer causes an unhandled exception error
• The "Desktop Rotation" page in Catalyst Control Center no longer shows additional information for the second display when the secondary adapter is connected
• HDMI is now detected properly as DTV (HDMI) instead of DTV (DVI) when the HDMI display is hotplugged for the first time
• Catalyst Control Center no longer displays error message when specific HDMI displays are hot unplugged and hotplugged back
• Intermittent failures no longer occur with MediaShow Espresso once a transcoding process has been completed

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.9

At "experience events" on three continents this week, AMD and its industry partners introduced ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, a revolutionary feature in the upcoming next generation ATI Radeon family of DirectX 11 enabled graphics processors.
This unique AMD innovation gives PCs the ability to seamlessly connect up to six ultra high definition displays in a variety of portrait and landscape configurations giving viewers a stunning new perspective on their PC experience. ATI Eyefinity is powered by one AMD graphics card for up to 12 times 1080p high-definition resolution, which approaches eye-definition optical clarity. ATI Eyefinity technology brings AMD closer to delivering true eye-definition experiences, where the display of a virtual environment is so detailed that it seems optically real to the human eye. Using ATI Eyefinity technology in a single PC, it is now possible to power displays with a combined theoretical resolution of 268 megapixels, roughly equivalent to the resolution of a 90 degree arc of what the human eye sees. For reference, today's average 19 inch LCD display typically has an image quality of only slightly more than 1 megapixel.

The new ASUS EeeTop PC ET20/22 Series is a range of touch-enabled, all-in-one PCs that provides users with the fundamentals of everyday computing and multimedia entertainment in an elegant space-saving design. Its forte lies in its ability to provide users with the ultimate home entertainment experience. The EeeTop PC ET22 and EeeTop PC ET20 feature a flushed 22-inch and 20-inch touch-enabled display respectively that provides high definition images through the use of state-of-the-art graphics processors. The resulting visual spectacle is complemented by a surround sound experience delivered by the Dual Hi-Fi speakers with SRS Premium Sound. The ASUS EeeTop ET20/22 Series also lets users communicate via the easy-to-use Eee Cam, while the Eee Bar gives them access to their commonly-used applications. Users can also organize their photographs with FotoFun, and leave notes for their family and friends with Eee Memo. Simply put, the new ASUS EeeTop PC ET20/22 Series is the ideal all-in-one communications and entertainment PC for the family.

PowerColor expanded its energy efficient lineup of entry-thru-mainstream graphics cards which it calls Go! Green, with two passively-cooled graphics cards based on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and Radeon HD 4350. The PowerColor Go! Green SCS3 HD 4670 uses a large passive cooler which uses heat-pipes to convey heat to a aluminum fin array. This extends the card's footprint to around two expansion slots. The card maintains ATI reference core clock speeds of 750 MHz, and makes use of 1 GB of memory across a 128-bit GDDR3 memory interface, clocked at 1600 MHz. Output connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Like every other HD 4670 accelerator, it relies entirely on the PCI-Express slot for its power. Hardware CrossFireX connectivity isn't provided.

PowerColor's second offering, the HD 4350 Go! Green HDMI, unlike most other Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards, is a full-height card, with a monolithic aluminum heatsink that cools the GPU and some of the memory chips. The heatsink, although fit for most half-height cards, spans across two expansion slots. Its USP is the onboard HDMI connector, which neighbours DVI and D-Sub ports. Its core is clocked at 600 MHz, with its 64-bit DDR2 memory at 800 MHz. There are three sub-variants based on memory amount: 256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB. PowerColor maintains that these graphics cards offer up to 38 percent energy savings compared to standard versions. Other models in this series are the Go! Green HD 4650 SCS, and Go! Green HD 4350 (non-HDMI).

Thermalright is readying a couple of VRM area coolers for the AMD reference design ATI Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4890 graphics accelerators. The Thermalright VRM-R1 and VRM-R2 work in conjunction with the company's T-Rad series GPU coolers, and strive to provide a high level of cooling that allows better overclocking.

The cooler consists of an a heatsink that covers the VRM area of the accelerator. From this heatsink arise two nickel-plated copper heatpipes that convey heat to a small but dense aluminum fin block. This block is big enough to let you latch an 80 mm fan onto it for active cooling. Both VRM-R1 and VRM-R2 are essentially similar in size and shape of the components, except for that the two differ in the positioning of the aluminum fin block. For VRM-R1, the block propagates perpendicular to the plane of the motherboard, while that of the VRM-R2 propagates parallel to the plane. Both coolers weigh 160 g. They are compatible with most Thermalright GPU coolers, namely HR-03 Rev.A, HR-03 GT, HR-03 GT V2, T-Rad2, and T-Rad2 GTX. They will hit stores very soon.

Our colleagues at Expreview report that XFX is trying to work out its way to the Chinese market by launching a spin off company that will sell ATI Radeon based cards there. XFX is no longer NVIDIA exclusive and there's nothing bad in such an action. The new XFX brand will be called "Jing Tai". That's all the info we got for now.

Popular memory manufacturer Mushkin, which is also known for power supply units and until last year, for video cards, plans to resume being a video card manufacturer, and an add-in card partner for NVIDIA. The company just announced plans on an entire lineup of products based on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series, called Mushkin UltimateFX. It includes products starting from the GeForce GTX 260 896 MB base model, going all the way up to GeForce GTX 285 2048 MB, with models carved out based on clock speeds and memory sizes.

For the most part, it looks like Mushkin will use non-reference designs which we may be familiar with. One of their products resembles a similar design by Sparkle, while another bears resemblance with the reference NVIDIA design, albeit a green PCB (something PNY has opted for). The cards will be shipped in an a classic wooden jewel case, similar to to the "WoodBox" it shipped with its older products. Here's what the lineup looks like:

Acer America announced U.S. availability of new Acer Aspire notebooks offering exceptional price/performance and cinematic high-definition entertainment to anyone on-the-go, including students and small business professionals.

These systems boast a dynamic multimedia experience with cinematic HD, 16:9 widescreens and Dolby surround sound audio in a visually appealing sapphire design known as Gemstone Blue. The Aspire notebooks are engineered to suit the needs of users desiring an affordable mobile workhorse for being productive and enjoying digital life at school, on the road or at home.

Korean cooling specialist Zalman introduced the ZM-RHS90 heatsink specially designed for ATI Radeon HD 4890, and HD 4870 reference-design PCB. The heatsink is made of anodized aluminum. It measures 93.4 x 36.5 x 23 mm (LxWxH), and weighs 55 g. Due to the large number of Radeon HD 4890/HD 4870 graphics cards in the market using the reference AMD PCB design, Zalman expects a good compatibility range. The heatsink is mounted behind the VDDC chokes, and covers the most significant set of MOSFETs on the card. It uses push-pin retention mechanism. The use of this heatsink is recommended by Zalman, when users opt for their compatible GPU heatsinks that don't cover the card's VRM area. It will arrive at stores very soon.

AMD announced the availability of ATI Catalyst version 9.6 driver suite, that provides driver support for ATI Radeon series graphics processors (driver version 8.62), Hydravision, AMD Southbridge/Chipset driver, and Catalyst Control Center (version 8.62). The new version brings along the following application-specific performance increments:

• Company of Heores - performance gains of up to 25% for the ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series, and performance gains of up to 10% for the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series.
• Crysis Warhead - performance gains of up to 11% for ATI CrossFireX configurations.
• Crysis - performance gains of up to 13% for ATI CrossFireX configurations.
• World in Conflict - performance gains of up to 30% for settings are were previously CPU limited.

The Linux version of this driver suite adds production support for SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) and SLED 11. It also provides early support for RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.8.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.6 for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows 7/Vista 64-bit

Release Notes can be read here

AMD is expected to introduce a series of price-cuts next month, for its ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics products. The price-cuts may amount to as much as US $50, perhaps taking advantage of the low manufacturing costs. The cuts also come ahead of the time-frame in which the company will introduce a DirectX 11 compatible future-generation of ATI Radeon, to sync with the commercial launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.

When implemented, the price of the high-end Radeon HD 4890 is expected to be $199, down $50 from its current price of $249. Radeon HD 4870 will sell for $149 from its current listing price of $199, although there needs to be some clarity on how the 1 GB and 512 MB variants are positioned. Finally, the Radeon HD 4850 will enter the $100 realm, to substitute the Radeon HD 4770, which seems to be suffering an acute stock shortage.

AMD announced the ATI Radeon E4690 graphics processor unit (GPU) designed to enable a whole level of new reality for embedded graphics applications with more than triple the 3D graphics performance of prior AMD embedded products. Arcade system manufacturers will appreciate the long term support and lower cost of placing the GPU chip directly on the motherboard instead of a separate add-in graphics card. This product will enable digital signage manufacturers to decode and play multiple high-definition videos in hardware, offloading all the decoding from the CPU. Casino system manufacturers will be amazed by triple the graphics performance to help attract players while increasing overall entertainment value with incredibly realistic 3D graphics, plus two-monitor support.

Less than a year ago, Palit-owned Gainward, a premium graphics card manufacturer, signed a contract with AMD/ATI and began to manufacture graphic accelerators with AMD/ATI Radeon chips. However, it now seems that Gainward will end its relationship with AMD/ATI and return to being an NVIDIA-only board partner. This is further backed by the fact that Gainward has not released any Radeon HD 4890 or HD 4770 cards and apparently it has already notified some distributors about ending its AMD/ATI line-up.

AMD is dressing up a new ATI Radeon SKU to go to office soon. The Radeon HD 4730 beats our guesswork, and wits both in one shot. The new SKU is not based on a scaled-down 40 nm RV740 GPU the HD 4770 is based on, but rather on a new RV770 variant, dubbed the RV770CE. This GPU is physically identical to the RV770, and has part of its configuration identical to the RV770LE (Radeon HD 4830), while its memory interface is 128-bit GDDR5 instead of 256-bit GDDR3.

The only explanation we have in store is that perhaps AMD is looking to save on using lesser number of memory chips per board (while not crippling the memory interface), and that RV770 is in healthier stock than the RV740. Pictured below is the PowerColor Radeon HD 4730 PCS, one of the first cards based on the GPU. Other important specifications, such as stream processor count, and clock-speeds are yet to surface. Ideally it should cash-in on a price-segment below that of the Radeon HD 4770.

Akasa is readying a new graphics card cooler for the consumer segment, this time touting support for almost all current single-GPU graphics cards. The Akasa Freedom Force was first pictured at the CeBIT event. It measures 190(L) x 107.5(W) x 55(H), and weighs in at 440 g. Its design consists of a GPU contact block that doubles up as a heatsink, from which four aluminum heatpipes convey heat to two aluminum fin blocks on either side of the GPU block. Each block is subject to air-flow by its own white LED-lit fan that spins at 2200 rpm. The GPU block has mount holes for 43.2 mm, 53.2 mm, and 61.5 mm cooler mounts. Also bundled are nine memory chip heatsinks. The cooler supports one of the broadest range of GPUs, including NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 (GTX 260, 275, 280, 285), ATI Radeon HD 4000/3000/2000, GeForce 9/8/7 series, etc. A word of caution however, would be that the cooler doesn't pack VRM heatsinks, or heatsinks for NVIO display processors featured on G200(b) and G80 based graphics cards. It will reach retail in about a month's time, and is expected to be priced at 30 EUR (US $40.5).

Building on the success of the recently launched ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card - driven by the world's most powerful graphics processor - AMD today announced availability of a factory overclocked graphics processor that is the first to break the 1 Gigahertz (GHz) barrier using standard air-cooling solutions.

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.