Albatron, an official NVIDIA partner, has gently started producing cards from the red camp without making any announcements. So far Albatron was NVIDIA exclusive, but a few more cards in the portfolio, no matter NVIDIA or ATI, won't hurt much. The first ATI card from Albatron is a Radeon HD 4890 named Radeon HD 4890-1G. This model will be all-stock, clocked at 850 MHz for the GPU, with 256-bit memory interface and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 3900 MHz. The card should hit the market any time soon with a suggested retail price under $250. Later Albatron plans to release more products from the Radeon HD 4000 series.

AMD today announced the availability of GPU PerfStudio 2.0, a free, platform-agnostic, next-generation AMD graphics application development tool for game developers, obtainable through a closed beta program. GPU PerfStudio 2.0 has been designed from the ground up to easily integrate with existing projects, and help to identify and resolve performance issues early in the development cycle. With these tools, AMD is bringing its unparalleled understanding of 3D graphics technology and the leadership of its line of ATI Radeon graphics cards to bear on the development process.

"The GPU PerfStudio 2.0 suite of tools is extensive, customizable and, most importantly, based on open standards, which is critical for developers looking to integrate them into their existing workflows," said Neal Robison, director, Developer Relations, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "AMD is committed to arming developers with a full complement of hardware and development tools that help increase their development efficiency and improve 3D performance quality."

TechPowerUp today introduced GPU-Z version 0.3.3, our graphics sub-system diagnostic utility that provides information on the computer's installed graphics hardware, their various specifications, and provides real-time updates on their parameters such as clock-speeds, temperatures, and fan-speeds. GPU-Z is backed by our overclock validation system and an extensive video card BIOS database.

With version 0.3.3, the application expands its support base to some popular upcoming products, namely ATI Radeon HD 4700 desktop series, Radeon HD 4890, and GeForce GTX 275. Some common bugs found with previous versions, notably GT200 process size calculation, and G98 SP counts, have been fixed.

For more information and to download, please visit the download page.

MSI on Friday launched a total of five graphics cards that include native HDMI support. Among the new cards are the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and Radeon HD 4650 models: R4670-MD1G, R4670-512, R4650-MD1G, R4650-512, and R4650-MD512Z. For detailed information on each of the cards please click here.

BenQ is in the expansion mode with its all-in-one PC lineup. Almost a month ago, the company's nScreen i91 surfaced, characterized by the AMD "Yukon" ULV platform that drives it. The company's Japanese division is out with another such PC: the nScreen i221. This model is the larger model, with a 21.5-inch HD LCD display, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. On the inside, the hardware remains the same as with the nScreen i91: an AMD Sempron 210U 1.50 GHz CPU that's non-upgradable, 1 GB of DDR2 memory, AMD 690E core-logic with ATI Radeon X1200 integrated graphics, and 160 GB of storage. On the peripherals front, it features a 1.3 MP web camera, 4-in-1 digital card reader, and connectivity that includes WiFi, and Ethernet. The nScreen i221 is expected to be launched globally by October.

Taiwan-based English tech website OC Heaven has disclosed some performance figures of the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 4890 1 GB graphics accelerator. The tests run are two of the most popular synthetic benchmarks: 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark06. Also disclosed, rather verified, are the card's clock speeds as read by ATI Catalyst Control Center and GPU-Z. The test bed, from what the 3DMark06 window shows, consists of an Intel Core i7 920 CPU running at 2.66 GHz, coupled with 3 GB of system memory. In 3DMark06, the HD 4890 accelerator secured a score of 16,096 points, with SM 2.0 score of 6155, HDR/SM 3.0 score of 7521, and CPU score of 4836. In 3DMark Vantage, it secured a score of P10996. Catalyst Control Center reveals the card's memory bandwidth to be 124.8 GB/s, up from the 111 GB/s on its predecessor, the HD 4870. The early driver in use makes provides "RV790" as the device string to GPU-Z.

Update (03/19):Ukrainian website Overclockers.com.ua has come up with a more comprehensive 3DMark shootout between cards in this segment. Radeon HD 4890 and HD 4890 CrossFireX are part of the comparison. The testers used an Intel Q6600 CPU running on an X48 motherboard with 4 GB of memory. The article can be read (Google-translated to English) here.

TechPowerUp today released Radeon BIOS Editor version 1.20, our popular ATI Radeon graphics card BIOS manipulation utility. The newest version of the software brings about some important feature-additions, along with improved stability and minor bug fixes. Changes in this version, as listed in the software's changelog is as follows:

• Added hex editor
• Added alternative BIOS extraction method
• (Hopefully) fixed the 3650 Device-ID-bug for good
• Fixed a bug concerning weird 4670 fan settings

For a complete version history, and to download the software, please visit this page.

Barely months into being an ATI add-in board partner, XFX refuses to be a newbie to the scene. After starting off the proceedings with non-reference designs for most of its initial product lineup, XFX adds yet another of its own designs to its small yet formidable ATI Radeon HD 4000 series: a passive-cooled design for an HD 4650 model.

Pictured by ATI-Forum at the ongoing CeBIT event, the XFX Radeon HD 4650 silent keeps up with XFX' black and red colour scheme. The PCB stays black, so does the heatsink over the GPU. Two heatpipes convey heat from the heatsink to a dense array of aluminum fins at the back of the card. One can expect reference clock-speeds for the card, considering its USP mainly is its silent cooling, and not exactly its cooling efficiency to aid overclocking. XFX may announce this card shortly.

AMD's graphics product group, the core division that handles the company's ATI graphics and AMD chipset product lines, is said to be engaging in a reshuffling of its add-in board partners (AIBs). These are companies that manufacture and/or sell ATI Radeon-based graphics cards. With the recent success of the Radeon HD 4000 series graphics processors, the company added two more popular AIBs: Pine Group (XFX Graphics) and Gainward, a subsidiary of Palit.

Inter-AIB competition meant that a few weaker, non-performing AIBs have come to light, which AMD is reportedly contemplating breaking partnership with. GeCube is the first brand. GeCube is the channel-vendor brand for InfoTek Corp, a manufacturing partner for AMD GPG. Speculation is rife about hardware giant ASUS also being in the league. The most plausible explanation is poor sales figures.

On the other hand, a Chinese company that is relatively unknown to the Western markets yet not new to selling graphics cards, Colorful is joining AMD's league as an AIB.

AMD today announced the world's first graphics processors to harness 40nm process technology: the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830. These feature-rich graphics processors redefine mobile PC entertainment with advanced capabilities including support for the latest Microsoft DirectX 10.1 games, a home theater-quality HD multimedia experience, and energy-efficient features for long battery life at work, at home or at play.

Global graphics card leader, MSI International, has unveiled the R4870-MD1G and R4870-MD512 graphics cards. MSI designed these two cards to be perfect for gamers demanding performance, quality, and low-temperature operation by equipping them with an extra large fan, an extra cool cooling system, and extra long lifespan components. The entire card features best class solid capacitors and SSC (solid-state chokes) built-in to the design that helps to smoothly handle high-power levels and punch-out amazing performance. The solid design also helps to extend the cards total lifespan. Featuring all three - HDMI, DVI and D-Sub (VGA) - major display output, these two cards are sure to please those looking for big-screen LCD monitor or LCD TV display.

Some of the first batches, rather iterations, of RV790 and RV740 engineering samples have begun surfacing. Sources reveal bits and pieces of the new GPUs' specifications to Hardware-Infos. Being some of the first samples, these are merely iterations en route the development of the final product, though trend has it that preliminary information about AMD GPUs have a tendency of turning out true. We will exempt the RV770's final stream processor count from these.

The RV740, a mainstream GPU from AMD, is on course of becoming the first GPU in production, to be built on the 40nm manufacturing node. It carries 640 stream processors and a core clock speed of 700 MHz. It features a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory bus, churning out bandwidth that rivals equally clocked GDDR3 with double the bus width. The memory bus will be clocked at speeds between 800 and 900 MHz (3.2 GT/s and 3.6 GT/s). Products will carry 512 to 1024 MB of memory. The GPU houses 32 texture memory units (TMUs) and 8 raster operations pipelines (ROPs).