GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced official support for soon to launch 4th Gen Intel Core Processors and select unlocked 4th Gen Intel Core Processors.

Wanting to ensure compatibility for upcoming 4th Gen Intel Core Processors, GIGABYTE has enabled support across the entire range of GIGABYTE 8 series motherboards, including Z87, H87, Q87, B85. and H81 chipset based motherboards. By installing the latest BIOS for their 8 series motherboard, users can be assured they are ready to take advantage of all the performance improvements that Intel's upcoming CPUs have to offer.

ASUS today announced that all 8 Series motherboards offer support for new 4th-generation Intel Core processors, assuring a quick, safe, and smooth upgrade - immediately. A simple BIOS update is all that's required to enable users to enjoy the great performance of the latest CPUs.

Just one click for instant compatibility with new 4th-generation Intel Core Processors
All ASUS 8 series Intel motherboards support new 4th-generation Intel Core Processors, and the necessary BIOS update takes just one click in an easy-to-use application, which can be downloaded from the ASUS website. Users keen to take advantage of the power of the latest CPUs can visit the ASUS website, at www.asus.com, and download the relevant BIOS version - today!

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced that it is releasing a performance enhancing BIOS for the recently introduced SAPPHIRE R9 290 graphics card.

Based on the latest GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD, the new SAPPHIRE R9 290 introduced enthusiast level performance and some exciting new features at a more affordable price point than the flagship R9 290X model.

The industry's leading brand, MSI, has officially released a new BIOS that allows its X79 chipset motherboards to support Intel's newest 22 nm LGA2011 processors (codename: Ivy Bridge-E) today. Users can experience the powerful performance from the newest 22 nm LGA2011 processors immediately by simply updating the BIOS from MSI's official website.

The world-renowned motherboard manufacturer MSI announces that its 990FXA-GD80 motherboard supports AMD's new FX-9590 processor. With the MSI 990FXA-GD80 motherboard everyone can enjoy the excellent performance of the new AMD FX-9590 processor simply by updating the BIOS. The 8-core AMD FX-9590 processor is the first commercially available 5 GHz processor and designed to power next-gen Gaming.

The MSI 990FXA-GD80 is equipped with Military Class components and provides a long lifespan, unparalleled quality, extreme performance and ultimate efficiency. As a testament, the MSI 990FXA-GD80 set several world records for highest CPU speed, an assurance to run the world's fastest retail CPU rock stable. For further BIOS information, please visit this page.

AMD is preparing to update the specifications of its Radeon HD 7950 graphics processor to make it more competitive in the sub-$400 market segment, particularly against NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics processor. The update is much like that of the Radeon HD 7750, which got its core frequency increased from 800 to 900 MHz in a specifications update. The company released a new BIOS ROM image file which works on all AMD reference design Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards, which implements the new specifications.

The new specifications sees the GPU core frequency increased to 850 MHz (from 800 MHz), and introduces PowerTune with Boost, which sends the GPU clock speed up to 925 MHz, when applications demand it. The memory frequency stays unchanged, at 1250 MHz, and so do the physical specifications of the GPU, such as stream processor, TMU, and ROP counts. All Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards manufactured from mid-August will feature the new specifications, prices will remain unchanged. If you're familiar with manually updating the BIOS, you can check it out (at your own risk) from our VGA BIOS Database. Set your card's BIOS selector switch to "1" (if available), and update the BIOS. It works only with AMD reference-design HD 7950 cards.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon HD 7950 Specifications Update BIOS

Welcome to the first TechPowerUp news post of 2012! Read on for a couple of impressive overclocking feats with the HD 7970 graphics card.

It looks like the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 could be a bit of a dark horse and a lot more potent than its stock specifications would suggest - excellent for creating a competitive graphics card market. The reviews at stock speeds show the flagship HD 7970 to be around 10-15% faster than NVIDIA's flagship GTX 580, which doesn't seem all that impressive since the GTX 580 has been on the market for over a year now. However, what the reviews haven't really shown, is what kind of an overclocking monster the HD 7970 is. It definitely looks like AMD could have easily beaten the GTX 580 by a much bigger margin than they did, had they wanted to and it makes one wonder why they didn't.

VR-Zone have spent the New Year weekend overclocking this beast, having reached a whopping 1.26 GHz core clock speed with their HD 7970 - and decent benchmark improvements to go with it. Also, with the fan at 100%, the card never got above a very comfortable 68 degrees centigrade while running Furmark, which is amazing considering how this test is specifically designed to heat a graphics card to the max - but please see the update at the bottom of the article. The stock cooler may be noisy, but it's certainly very effective: an excellent result which will prolong the working life of the card.

Intel's Ivy Bridge line of processors are not due for release until spring 2012, but it looks like Chinese website Coolaler has scored a sneak peak at the performance level of Intel's 22 nm Ivy Bridge platform by testing an engineering sample of a quad core CPU. The screenshot shows CPU-Z & Task Manager (no HyperThreading) readouts, while the AIDA64 Cache & Memory benchmark has been run. The CPU used is a 2 GHz sample as shown by the photo, which CPU-Z reports as running at its 2.4 GHz turbo boost speed (20% overclock) on a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 motherboard. Rough and ready verdict: about the same speed as the current Sandy Bridge, but with a significantly enhanced northbridge and graphics core. The AIDA64 scores are actually slightly lower than the current SB scores, but this is likely because the CPU is running unsupported and unoptimized due to a mobo BIOS that's not made for it and a benchmark that cannot measure its true performance. Note the memory speeds, which were run fast at 2134 MHz 6-9-6-24 CR2, further indicating lack of optimization, since these timings suggest somewhat better performance than what was measured.