After having swept through the global market with the dominating N460GTX Hawk, world-renowned graphics card and mainboard manufacturer MSI announces the next-generation Hawk series, the R6870 Hawk graphics card. Equipped with the advanced Twin Frozr III thermal design, the all new R6870 Hawk is the world's first graphics card to use propeller blade technology. When compared to traditional fans, the air flow is increased by 20%, allowing the GPU temperature to be up to 21 degrees lower. Furthermore, it uses the 8+2 phase PWM design to provide the GPU with 2 times the power supply, along with triple overvoltage functions that allow further evolution of R6870 Hawk's overclocking capability. The R6870 Hawk has the most perfect performance blend of cooling, power components, stability, and high performance found on a graphics card today.

AMD today introduced the AMD FirePro 2270 and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI professional graphics cards. AMD designed these new offerings for professionals in the medical, financial, design and engineering fields who require the ability to view and interact with multiple applications simultaneously.

"Because of their superior power consumption and multi-display capabilities, solutions based on the AMD FirePro 2270 and ATI FirePro V5800 DVI deliver strong value for financial, medical and corporate workstation environments," said Janet Matsuda, general manager, AMD Professional Graphics. "With the AMD FirePro family, we continue to demonstrate our focus on enhancing productivity through an enhanced visual experience."

AMD today announced availability of the updated AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Software Development Kit (SDK) v2.3 with full support for the first AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), OpenCL 1.1 and AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series graphics. AMD APP technology enables AMD GPUs and CPUs to work together to run many demanding computing tasks faster than possible with just the CPU alone.

AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing SDK v2.3, previously known as the ATI Stream SDK, empowers software developers to write new applications that can take full advantage of the parallel processing power of heterogeneous computing platforms, such as those based on new AMD E-Series and C-Series APUs that combine a multi-core CPU and DirectX 11-capable GPU on a single die.

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.

Gigabyte introduced a new Radeon HD 5670 based graphics card that is intended to be cost-effective. Carrying the model number GV-R567D3-1GI, it makes use of 1 GB of DDR3 memory instead of GDDR5. The 1 GB of memory is clocked at 800 MHz (1600 MHz DDR), installed across a 128-bit wide memory interface. The standard HD 5670 features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1000 MHz (4000 MHz GDDR5 effective). The HD 5670 GPU is clocked at 775 MHz. Based on the 40 nm Redwood core, it features 400 stream processors. Other features specific to Gigabyte's design include a silent double-slot cooler that makes use of an 80 mm fan, and display connectivity that includes one each of DVI, D-Sub, and a gold-plated HDMI port. Gigabyte did not give out a price, though one can expect it to be a little lower than that of the standard HD 5670.

AMD's next-generation PC processor architecture that seeks to challenge the best Intel has, codenamed "Bulldozer", is set to make its desktop PC debut in 2Q next year, with a desktop processor die codenamed "Zambezi". AMD is seeking to target all market segments, including an enthusiast-grade 8-core segment, a performance 6-core segment, and a mainstream 4-core segment. The roadmap reveals that Zambezi will make its entry with the enthusiast-grade 8-core models first, starting with 125W and 95W models, trailed by 6-core and 4-core ones.

Another couple of architectural details revealed is that Zambezi's integrated memory controller (IMC) supports DDR3-1866 MHz as its standard memory type, just like Deneb supports DDR3-1333 MHz as its standard. DDR3-1866 MHz, or PC3-14900 as it's technically known, will churn out 29.8 GB/s in dual-channel mode, that's higher than triple-channel DDR3-1066 MHz (25.6 GB/s), which is Intel Core i7 LGA1366 processors' official memory standard. The 8-core and 6-core Zambezi models feature 8 MB of L3 cache, while the 4-core ones feature 4 MB. Another tidbit you probably already knew is that existing socket AM3 processors are forwards-compatible with AM3+ (Zambezi's socket), but Zambezi processors won't work on older AM3/AM2(+) socket motherboards.

AMD is teasing us with its latest Catalyst driver suite. Catalyst 10.11 WHQL from AMD has come after no less than five hotfix updates to the previous version Catalyst 10.10. The new version of Catalyst is reported by many to have been added to Windows Update late yesterday (11/16), but wasn't backed by any release notes document then. The driver is now uploaded on AMD's Game website. AMD Catalyst software suite includes drivers for all current ATI/AMD Radeon GPUs, AMD integrated graphics, and other ATI multimedia products. This version of AMD Catalyst brings a small number of game-specific performance enhancements, as well as fixes a few bugs. To begin with, performance is expected to go up by 3% for Battleforge, on Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs, both single and CrossFire, with AA disabled. Up to 5% performance increase can be expected for STALKER: Call of Pripyat benchmark.


DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.11 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

Highlights 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 eve of a big development in the GPU industry, TechPowerUp introduced the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem diagnostic utility that provides you with detailed tech-specs of your installed graphics processors, and lets you monitor clock speeds, voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. Version 0.4.8 features support for new GPUs, most notably, full support for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, support for some upcoming GF104-based consumer SKUs, and some handy stability updates.

Apart from the GeForce GTX 580, GPU-Z 0.4.8 supports GeForce GT 420 and GT 440 (which are currently OEM-only products). It also features an updated TMU and texture fill-rate calculation method, and updated reliability on ATI cards using certain unsupported kinds of voltage controllers.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.4.8

A complete list of changes by the developer 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."

AMD today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2010 of $1.62 billion, a net loss of $118 million, or $0.17 per share, and operating income of $128 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $108 million, or $0.15 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $144 million.

"AMD's third quarter performance was highlighted by solid gross margin and a continued focus on profitability, despite weaker than expected consumer demand," said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and CEO. "Our strategy to deliver platforms with superior visual experiences continues to resonate. We look forward to building on this momentum when we begin shipping our first AMD Fusion Accelerated Processor Units later this quarter."

Here it is, the AMD Radeon HD 6870, all dressed up to go to work. There has been quite some speculation surrounding the naming scheme AMD is going to adopt with the HD 6000 series, but fresh information suggestively lays some of that to rest. Firstly, Radeon HD 6800 series is built around the "Barts" GPU, not "Cayman". Barts is a new performance GPU, though isn't the highest-end single GPU from AMD (which is reserved for Cayman). Barts "XT" is Radeon HD 6870, and Barts "Pro" is HD 6850. Pictured below is the HD 6870. At a purely subjective glance, the HD 6870 reference design card seems to be as long as the HD 5850 reference.

The new Radeon logo has been Photoshopped on to the fan, so the products in market will definitely do away with the older ATI logo. The rear panel resembles that of the Radeon HD 5800 series, except that the exhaust grille seems slightly wider, there are two DVI-I connectors, one standard HDMI, and two mini DisplayPort connectors for a change. The connector output sharing scheme isn't known right now, it could be 3 or 4 head Eyefinity, or all-out 5 head Eyefinity, a yet to be detailed "Eyespeed" feature is mentioned. We will definitely know more about this card in the weeks to come.

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.

Less than a day after releasing the ATI Catalyst 10.9 WHQL driver suite, AMD rolled out the Catalyst 10.9a Hotfix driver for users of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics accelerators. Applicable for Windows Vista and Windows 7, Catalyst 10.9b Hotfix improves performance of the said graphics cards, eliminating a bug that lets the OS make use of only one of the two GPUs.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.9a Hotfix

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 the FirePro V9800 professional graphics card. This is the company's top professional offering, based on the 40 nm Evergreen architecture. The GPU features 1600 stream processors, 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface connecting to 4 GB of memory, and display outputs that include six mini-DisplayPort connectors. The card supports the latest industry-standard 3D APIs including Microsoft DirectX 11, OpenGL 4, and includes support for OpenCL GPU-compute API. The card is meant for mission-critical environments such as oil and gas exploration, 3D medical imaging, design and engineering, and 3D content production. Apart from supporting the ATI Eyefinity6 technology, it also packs support for stereoscopic 3D technologies. The card will be sold directly under the AMD brand by board partners, it is priced at US $3,500.

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.

AMD kept up with its monthly driver update cycle, and released the ATI Catalyst 10.8 software suite. The software installs the latest WHQL-signed drivers for ATI Radeon GPUs, AMD Chipsets, and other ATI Multimedia products. The new version packs a set of game-specific performance improvements, and a few feature updates. To begin with, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Stormrise, each got GPU configuration specific, mostly single-digit performance increments.

New features include full-support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 API, greater control over video quality by means of a checkbox control from Catalyst Control Center. This is particularly of importance, as AMD seems to have taken notes from the press coverage, such as our Video Enhancement Quality Tests. There are image-quality improvements for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, that includes anti-aliasing support. An update also claims to greatly improve overall performance of Eyefinity setups that use 4-way/Quad CrossFireX (or CrossFire involving four GPUs).

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.8 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

A detailed list of important updates follows.