NZXT announced the HALE90 V2 line of premium full-modular PSUs. The 80 Plus Gold-qualifying PSUs come in three variants, 1200W, 1000W, and 850W. As mentioned before, the three feature completely modular cabling, IC-assisted DC-DC switching, a powerful 5VSB rail to help the growing demand for USB-charging, a single 12V rail topology, and a 135 mm fan. The 1200W model has enough PCIe cabling for quad-SLI/CrossFireX setups, 1000W for triple-SLI/CrossFireX, and 850W for dual-SLI/CrossFireX. The 1200W, 1000W, and 850W models are priced at $270, $230, and $190, respectively.

A recent press-release by Lenovo announcing the Erazer X700 gaming desktop may not have sounded like much, but it turns out the company is enthused by AMD, particularly AMD CrossFireX, because it is an early design win for AMD's next-generation Radeon HD 8000 series family. The specifications sheet of the Erazer X700 blurts out the graphics subsystem to consist of "up to dual Radeon HD 8950 3GB" as a graphics option next to dual- GeForce GTX 660 SLI. Given that Lenovo chose not to wait until any of the other big tech trade-shows of the year to announce this, it wouldn't be far-fetched to imagine a new AMD Radeon family launch within Q1, 2013. The other more obvious explanations are that Lenovo committed a brutal typo, or it plans to re-brand the Radeon HD 7950, an act that should be made a human-rights violation.

AMD today announced its collaboration with Ubisoft to support the highly anticipated next chapter in the "Far Cry" franchise, "Far Cry 3," launching today in North America. Developed in conjunction with the AMD Gaming Evolved program, "Far Cry 3" is fully optimized for a premium PC gaming experience, harnessing the power of AMD Radeon graphics including native support for AMD Eyefinity and AMD CrossFire technologies, enabling industry-leading multiscreen experiences and high-performance gaming. By working closely together, AMD and Ubisoft have enhanced the "Far Cry 3" experience, allowing gamers to become fully immersed in an epic struggle to survive in one of the most lawless and challenging PC gaming environments to date.

"AMD and Ubisoft have worked together to make 'Far Cry 3' a state-of-the-art gaming experience on the PC, the world's most powerful gaming platform," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. "The AMD Gaming Evolved program aims to put gamers and developers first, and we're making sure we deliver on our promise. By working with industry-leading developers like Ubisoft, we're not only helping to develop cutting-edge titles, we're also advancing the state of PC graphics for gamers."

Club 3D, a worldwide supplier of high performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, unveils today its new Crossfire bundles. To meet the demands of the most fanatic gamers, Club 3D has assembled 3 crossfire bundles. These bundles are cherry picked to bring you the best games, the best performance and the most fun. The crossfire bundles are:

• The 2x Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition
• The Radeon HD 7850 royalKnights
• The Radeon HD 7870 royalKnights

Gigabyte launched the Z77X-UD4H, a new socket LGA1155 motherboard model designed to fill the gap between the $155 Z77X-UD3H and $190 Z77X-UD5H. It is built with Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 4 construction, featuring 2 oz copper layer, temperature, humidity, and electrostatic protection features. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 11-phase VRM that draws power from an 8-pin EPS connector. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, and three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (electrical x16/NC/NC, x8/x8/NC, x8/x4/x4, depending on how they're populated). 3-way NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX are supported. Other expansion slots include three PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and a legacy PCI.

Straightaway, you'll notice that Gigabyte did away with the mSATA slot featured on the Z77X-UD3H and Z77X-UD5H. In addition to the two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s ports that the Z77 PCH provides (all of which are wired as internal ports), Gigabyte added two additional 2-port SATA 6 Gb/s controllers, which provide two each of internal SATA 6 Gb/s, and eSATA 6 Gb/s. The board features a total of eight USB 3.0 ports, six on the rear panel, and two by headers. In addition to the four ports the Z77 PCH provides, a 4-port VLI-made host controller is used.

AMD released Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7 software suite. The release is specifically designed to improve CrossFire scaling for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. It includes all changes of older Beta releases, and is based on the "Never Settle" Catalyst 12.11 driver, which is proven to improve performance on Radeon HD 7000 series graphics processors based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7

AMD rolled out two successive quick fixes to issues related to Medal of Honor: Warfighter, when running its performance-optimized Catalyst 12.11 "Never Settle" drivers. An application crash was observed when Medal of Honor: Warfighter is run on systems with Radeon HD 7000 GPUs running in CrossFire configurations, with anti-aliasing enabled at the same time. The company pulled Catalyst 12.11 Beta 3 from its websites, AMD Support and AMD GAME, replacing it with the new Beta 4.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 4

In addition to delivering the Catalyst 12.10 and Catalyst 12.11 Beta drivers, AMD has today rolled out an updated Catalyst Application Profiles (CAP) package, known as the 12.10 CAP 1. This release features the following profiles:

- Crysis 2: Resolves performance issues seen in CrossFire mode
- Darksiders 2: Resolves screen flickering seen in CrossFire mode
- Max Payne 3: Resolves Menu flickering when Anti-Aliasing is enabled through the Catalyst Control Center
- FIFA 13: Improves CrossFire performance, and improve single GPU performance
- Project C.A.R.S.: Resolves screen flickering seen in CrossFire mode
- Natural Selection 2 - Resolves Menu flickering when Anti-Aliasing is enabled through the Catalyst Control Center

The 12.10 CAP 1 can be downloaded from this page.

AMD today announced retail and distribution channel availability of its second generation AMD A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) for desktop, small form-factor and home theater PCs. These new APUs target do-it-yourself (DIY) PC builders, mainstream gamers and value-added resellers who want to upgrade their PC infrastructure with affordable performance, discrete-level graphics, multiple cores and fast processing for outstanding responsiveness.

The second generation desktop AMD A-Series APU is available at prices ranging from $53 to $122 USD. Compared to similarly priced competitive offerings, the new APUs offer more cores, more speed, best-in-class entertainment experiences and an easy upgrade path based on a stable socket infrastructure. AMD APU users also gain access to the AMD AppZone and a comprehensive list of accelerated applications that leverage the full compute power of the APU. With hardware-accelerated support for DirectX 11 on AMD Radeon graphics and AMD Eyefinity technology delivering a more immersive experience, the AMD A-Series APUs are the ideal solution for systems running the highly-anticipated Microsoft Windows 8 and today's Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems.

CrossFire users can now get their hands on a new pack of Catalyst Application Profiles, courtesy of AMD of course. This fresh release is called 12.9 CAP 1 and brings the following updates:

- World of Warcraft - Mist of Pandaria (DX11, DX9): Fixes texture flickering observed when enabling high graphics settings with CrossFire enabled
- World of Warcraft - Mist of Pandaria (DX9): Resolve corruption when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center (Anti-Aliasing should be enabled through the applications settings)
- World of Warcraft - (DX9): Resolves performance issues observed with the 64-bit variant of the client
- Tribes Ascend: Improves CrossFire performanceen running in CrossFire mode
- F1 2012: Improves CrossFire performance, resolves texture flickering in reflections

The 12.9 CAP 1 can be downloaded from this page.

While working away on a new driver release (the Catalyst 12.9 beta which is expected next week) AMD has made available a fresh batch of Catalyst Application Profiles. The 12.8 CAP 3 can be found here and features the following:

- Borderlands 2 - New CrossFire profile
- Guild War 2: Resolves grass texture corruption observed when changing graphics settings in a CrossFire configuration
- World of Warcraft(DX9): Fix the flickering observed when view distance is changed to fair in graphics settings when CrossFire is enabled
- Depth Hunter: Resolves shadow flickering seen when running in CrossFire mode
- Dirt Showdown - Resolves flickering seen in CrossFire mode
- Stalker Call of Pripyat - Resolves flickering seen in CrossFire mode
- War of Roses - Fixes flickering seen in CrossFire mode

Today AMD launched the world's fastest graphics processing unit (GPU), the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition uses AMD's innovative Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture to deliver astonishing performance and breathtaking image quality, providing world-class gameplay at the highest resolutions in the most demanding games such as Battlefield 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and DiRT Showdown.

"The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition rounds out our award-winning GCN family, providing world-class gameplay thanks to the industry's fastest single GPU," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD. "Gamers have been hungry for our AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series since our launch last December. We have been able to meet that growing demand as we expanded our AMD Radeon HD 7000 offerings and brought the industry's most advanced graphics across a complete family of leading-edge desktop and notebook graphics cards."

We knew back in May, that PowerColor isn't the only AMD AIB partner with a custom-design dual-HD 7970 graphics card (≠ HD 7990) in the works, and that other partners are also attempting high-end dual-GPU designs. We got to see one of those at Computex, courtesy of HIS. Called the HIS HD 7970 X2 IceQ X2, is a 100% custom-design (cooler and PCB) dual-GPU graphics card, which makes use of two 28 nm "Tahiti" GPUs in an internal CrossFire configuration.

Like the PowerColor HD 7970 X2 Devil 13, the HIS HD 7970 X2 IceQ X2 draws power from three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and packs two "Tahiti" GPUs with all components enabled. The two GPUs could have clock speeds higher than even single-GPU HD 7970, although HIS did not finalize them. HIS implemented a super-sized triple-slot variation of its otherwise dual-slot IceQ X2 cooler. Its card has a different display output configuration from PowerColor's, with one dual-link DVI, and four mini-DisplayPorts. Earlier today, we confirmed that PowerColor's card will reach the market only by late-July. HIS, on the other hand, wants to beat PowerColor to it, and is confident of launching the industry's first HD 7970 X2.

A star attraction at the motherboard section of ASUS booth was its ZEUS Dual-GPU X79 concept motherboard. We got a chance to talk at lengths with people at ASUS about the exhibit, and learned a few details beyond what we already know. To begin with, ASUS is likely using a pair of "Southern Islands" family discrete mobile GPUs, not desktop ones. Further, it's likely that the GPUs are 28 nm "Pitcairn" based. The two GPUs are installed in CrossFire configuration. The next big detail is that the design focus on [evidently] isn't the integrated dual-GPU, but to demonstrate the first Thunderbolt-equipped X79 motherboard. The ZEUS has not one, but two Thunderbolt ports. The third (and most depressing) detail is that it's "highly unlikely" that the ZEUS will ever make it to the market. Think of it as yet another tradeshow concept by a big company. Perhaps ASUS doesn't want the ZEUS to end up like the ROG GSurf-365, its first off-beat ROG motherboard, which went beyond the show-floor but didn't have market-success.

Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself markets, is taking the opportunity provided by Computex 2012 to unveil a new PSU as well as a series of elegantly-designed lifestyle products intended to keep up with our increasingly social and mobile lives.

First up, Antec is showcasing its new high-performance enthusiast PSU guaranteed to take power supplies to the max. Designed with high-power users in mind, the HCP-1300 Platinum is meant to complement its 'little' brother the HCP-1000 Platinum. The HCP-1300 Platinum is sleeved, Stealth Wire cables integrate seamlessly in your setup while a plethora of available connectors enable users to set up a 4-way SLI or CrossFire in no time. With Platinum-rated efficiency, ErP Lot 6:2013 and all the strict energy standards already implemented in Antec's other HCP Platinum units, the HCP-1300 Platinum offers the perfect foundation for those who want to build an environmentally-conscious setup that still goes easy on your wallet when it comes time to pay your electric bill.

As promised, Walton-Chaintech made a comeback to the PC motherboard and graphics card markets, by partnering with Colorful. The duo launched a full-fledged lineup of motherboards across various sockets (including LGA1155, AM3+, FM2), and graphics cards. Leading the lineup on the motherboard front are the Z77 X5 and X990FX X7.

Based on the Intel Z77 chipset, supporting the Core "Ivy Bridge" and "Sandy Bridge" processors, the Z77 X5 makes use of the entire feature-set of the platform. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 8-phase VRM with special branding "Smart Power Engine 3," which gives user. fine control over the VRM via BIOS. Expansion slots include two each of PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (red, x8/x8, when both are populated), PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and legacy PCI. AMD CrossFireX is the only multi-GPU technology supported. 8-channel HD audio, 802.11 b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, 2x SATA 6 Gb/s + 4x SATA 3 Gb/s, are among its features.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced the SAPPHIRE HD 7950 Flex Edition brining the company's unique solution for multi-screen gaming to the highly acclaimed HD 7000 series of graphics cards based on the Graphics Core Next architecture from AMD.

Most graphics cards based on AMD technology require the third monitor in an Eyefinity set-up to be a DisplayPort monitor, or connected with an active DisplayPort Adapter. The SAPPHIRE FleX family can support three DVI monitors in Eyefinity mode and deliver a true SLS (Single Large Surface) work area without the need for active adapters. The first two monitors are connected to the two DVI ports and the third to an HDMI to DVI cable (supplied) with no extra hardware required.

Super Flower launched its second high-performance 650W (continuous, peak output is 750W) modular PSU after the SF-650P14PE, the SF-650P14XE. The new model packs a ton of new features such as PFC + LLC, half-bridge resonant topology, DC-to-DC output, and synchronous rectification. Although it qualifies for 80 Plus Gold, its makers claim efficiency levels as high as 90%.

The SF-650P14XE incorporates Japanese capacitors, Infineon-made MOSFETs, and double vertical transformers. The unit is cooled by a 140 mm Yate Loon-made fan, which is LED-lit (red or blue). Another striking feature is its so-called avionics-grade modular cabling couplings, which ensure good contact. Similar solutions have been implemented previously, on some ABS-Tagan PSUs.

Last week, we were teased with the first picture of PowerColor's Vortex III cooling solution. A little later that week, we also got reports that AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners are working on off-spec dual-GPU graphics accelerators, calling them "Radeon HD 7970 X2", even as AMD's own HD 7990 is on course. It turns out that the card the Vortex III is designed to cool is PowerColor's newest high-end creation, the Radeon HD 7970 X2 Devil13.

Decked in red and black, the card is a custom-design dual-GPU graphics card from PowerColor, which incorporates two 28 nm Tahiti GPUs in CrossFire configuration. The GPUs have all their components enabled, and clocked on par with single-GPU Radeon HD 7970. The two GPU systems cumulatively hold 6 GB of GDDR5 memory (3 GB per GPU, over 384-bit wide interface). The card draws power from three 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors, and has a rated TDP of 525W. The card will be exhibited at Computex, where it will be further detailed.

It turns out that the "third" long (physical x16, electrical x4) PCI-Express slot on most higher-end Z77 chipset-based motherboards, across vendors, are wired to the CPU, and not the Z77 PCH, as the media assumed. Early buyers of these motherboards were greeted by an informative sticker stuck to the third slot, which tells them that to use the third slot, a 3rd Generation Core "Ivy Bridge" processor must be installed, although the motherboard very much supports 2nd Generation Core "Sandy Bridge" processors.

This can be explained by taking a close look at the block diagram of Intel Z77 Express system. Z77, in combination with "Ivy Bridge" processors, allows the CPU root complex to drive three devices. Its single PCI-Express x16 link can be arranged in three ways: x16/NC/NC; x8/x8/NC; and x8/x4/x4. As you can see, the third long slot is taken into the configuration. Intel figured out that since PCI-Express 3.0 x4 offers bandwidth comparable to PCI-Express 1.0 x16 to gen 3-compliant graphics cards, it's wise if the third electrical x4 slot is also wired to the CPU's PCIe root complex. This renders most high-end LGA1155 motherboards with such CPU-driven third x16 (x4) slots 3-way SLI/CrossFireX-capable. Sweet.

As the month of March is drawing to a close, AMD has decided to release a fresh batch of Catalyst Application Profiles that should go great with the latest Catalyst release. The 12.3 CAP 1 package weights in 0.5 MB and includes the following profiles:

- FireFall: Resolve corruption when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center on single GPU configurations
- Test Drive Unlimited 2: Improves CrossFire performance
- Ridge Racer Unbounded: Fixes full screen corruption for single GPU configurations
- Stacking: Resolved image quality issues when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center on single GPU configurations
- Dirt 3: Fixes corruption found in particular scenes when CrossFire is enabled

The 12.3 CAP 1 can be downloaded from this page.

Eurocom has unleashed the beast, the Panther 4.0 is here! The most powerful mobile computer ever conceived. It is powered by the Intel X79 Sandy Bridge-E Core Logic and Core i7 3960X Processor Extreme; RAID 0/1/5/10, with NVIDIA GeForce SLI and AMD Radeon CrossFireX support. The Eurocom production team has recently finished the EUROCOM Panther 4.0 teaser video, with information about the specs, innovations and technologies, along with a look inside the beast.

In anticipation of the official launch, PowerColor has served up a fresh batch of pictures depicting its Radeon HD 7970 Vortex II Edition graphics card. Besides providing fresh photos, PowerColor has also confirmed that this new Tahiti-powered card will have its GPU set to 1100 MHz (up from the stock 925 MHz) and the 3 GB of on-board GDDR5 memory clocked at 5700 MHz (5500 MHz stock).

In addition to higher clocks, the HD7970 Vortex II features a dual-slot cooler with two fans (allowing for a little airflow adjustment) and three heatpipes, a backplate to speed up heat dissipation, 2048 Stream Processors, a 384-bit memory interface, a PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface, CrossFireX and Eyefinity support, and five display outputs (DVI x 2, HDMI x 1, mini DisplayPort x 2).

The HD7970 Vortex II Edition is expected to become available next month. Its price tag is still unknown.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just release a new factory overclocked version of its high end graphics card based on the highly acclaimed graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7970 OC Edition features SAPPHIRE's new dual-extractor technology - Dual-X - a highly efficient multi-heatpipe cooler with dual fans providing quiet and very cool operation during normal operating conditions, and superb cooling performance even under extreme load. The HD 7970 from AMD is the most powerful single chip GPU ever built - it has a new internal structure with 32 compute units and a total of 2048 Stream processors. The SAPPHIRE HD 7970 OC Edition ships with a raised core clock speed of 950MHz, and 1425MHz for the memory. Its Dual BIOS switch allows users to select the higher performance settings of 1GHz core and 1450MHz memory, making the fastest card in its class. This setting also uses a more aggressive fan profile and raises the limits for maximum overclocking.

While rival manufacturers flooded CeBIT with their Z77 motherboards, EVGA has been rather low key and only today decided to give us a look at what it's preparing for next's month's Ivy Bridge launch. Seen below is one high-end LGA 1155 board EVGA is currently working on. There's no name to go with the image (best guess is Z77 FTW) but plenty of specs can be identified like, well, the Ivy-ready LGA 1155 socket, four DDR3 memory slots, 10-phase power, two 8-pin power connectors to 'feed' the processor plus two 6-pin PCIe plugs catering to graphics cards, a PCIe bridge chip (likely made by PLX), and five PCI-Express x16 slots (at least two should be PCIe 3.0) providing SLI and CrossFireX capabilities.

EVGA's incoming motherboard also includes PCIe disable switches, a debug LED, an angled 24-pin ATX power connector, four SATA 6.0 Gbps and four SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, Gigabit Ethernet, an undetermined number of USB 3.0 ports, Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, 7.1 channel audio, and it seems even a Thunderbolt port. Now where's that 'Like' button?