MSI's iconic Hydrogen series of graphics cards are making a comeback. According to the latest Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) listings, we have information about the latest addition to MSI's lineup of graphics cards. For starters, MSI has filled EEC reports about its upcoming GeForce RTX 3060 LHR variants, which feature an updated GA106-302 GPU. The new cards will carry the LHR name as a part of the official product name, to be easily separated from non-LHR variants, so buyers know exactly what model they are getting.

Additionally, MSI is seemingly making a comeback of its Hydrogen series. Hydrogen lineup used to be popular with GeForce GTX 580 Hydrogen card, which delivered awesome overclocking performance enabled by a water block strapped onto the card. If MSI brings the series back, it will come in the form of the GeForce RTX 3090 Hydrogen model, which could represent the highest-end RTX 3090 design from the company. It remains to be seen what MSI does with it, and if we are getting it at all, so we have to wait for more information.

AVADirect, a leading custom computer integrator, has begun offering the AMD HD 7970 mobile graphics card for sale on their website. AVADirect is one of the first outlets to offer the AMD HD 7970M in Clevo P150EM and P170EM gaming notebook models. AVADirect has already begun taking pre-orders and plans to ship out the notebooks with dedicated AMD HD 7970M graphics cards to expecting customers within 2-3 weeks.

As mobile graphics cards continue to shape the way gamers look at mobile solutions, such as NVIDIA's mobile GTX 670 and 675 graphics cards, AMD closely follows with the HD 7970 mobile graphics card solution. As it appears, from data previously leaked and officially released by AMD, the HD 7970 provides a considerable amount of performance over an NVIDIA GTX 580M SLI setup; this is an unbelievable increase in performance, especially with the 7970M being $120+ more expensive than a single GTX 675M. Cost to performance ratio is exactly where an enthusiast wants, and makes it easy to consider over current mobile NVIDIA solutions. Specifications for the AMD HD 7970M can be seen below.

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.

NVIDIA today launched the first model in the GeForce Kepler GPU family, the GeForce GTX 680. Based on the spanking new "Kepler" architecture, and a high-performance chip derived from it, GK104, and built on the 28 nm fab process at TSMC, the GeForce GTX 680 is NVIDIA's fresh bid for single-GPU performance supremacy. The new chip packs a staggering 1536 CUDA cores (three-fold increase over GTX 580), 2 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface, and staggering clock speeds of 1006 MHz (core base), 1056 MHz (core boost), and 1502 MHz (memory, 6.00 GHz effective), with a memory interface bandwidth of 192 GB/s.

It doesn't stop there. NVIDIA introduced a clever new technology called GPU Boost, which makes the GPU self-aware of parameters such as load, voltages, temperatures, and auto-tunes clock speeds, to deliver the best performance per Watt ratio. NVIDIA also introduced Adaptive V-Sync, which smooths transition between lower than refresh-rate frame-rates, and V-sync rate, attempting to eliminate lag, and naturally prevent page-tearing. NVIDIA also introduced the new TXAA anti-aliasing algorithm, which is a performance-efficient image quality enhancement. To top it all off, the chip has a TDP of just 195W. Available today, though leading retailers in mature markets, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 is priced at US $499 (MSRP).

For skeptics who refuse to believe randomly-sourced bar-graphs of the GeForce GTX 680 that are starved of pictures, here is the first set of benchmarks run by a third-party (neither NVIDIA nor one of its AIC partners). This [p]reviewer from HKEPC has pictures to back his benchmarks. The GeForce GTX 680 was pitted against a Radeon HD 7970, and a previous-generation GeForce GTX 580. The test-bed consisted of an extreme-cooled Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor (running at stock frequency), ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, 8 GB (4x 2 GB) GeIL EVO 2 DDR3-2200 MHz quad-channel memory, Corsair AX1200W PSU, and Windows 7 x64.

Benchmarks included 3DMark 11 (performance preset), Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Lost Planet 2, and Unigine Heaven (version not mentioned, could be 1). All tests were run at a constant resolution of 1920x1080, with 8x MSAA on some tests (mentioned in the graphs).More graphs follow.

To pave the way for the GeForce GTX 680, which will arrive later this month in small but sizable quantities, with wide availability in the months to come, NVIDIA is cutting the prices of its GeForce GTX 580 graphics card. The GF110-based behemoth of 2011, will now start at 339.8 EUR, according to European price-aggregators such as Geizhals.at. The new price makes GeForce GTX 580 1.5 GB cheaper than the Radeon HD 7950, and having a slightly improved price-performance ratio. The 3 GB variants of GeForce GTX 580 are priced similar to the HD 7950. The GTX 570 starts at 249 EUR.

Here are the first pictures of ASUS' premium DirectCu II graphics card designed around AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GPU. The design is based on giving the GPU a powerful cooling solution, backed by a custom-design PCB. Since its cooling solution spans across three expansion slots, one of the three expansion slot brackets is productively used to provide additional display connectivity. To begin with, the PCB uses a 10+1+1 ASUS Digi+ VRM that draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. It supports heavy overclocking, and provides several voltage tuning features.

A common metal heatsink spans along the length of the card, making contact with VRM and memory components. On top of this sits the DirectCu II heatsink. This heatsink uses a large aluminum fin-stack heatsink to which heat from the GPU is conveyed by six heat-pipes, which make direct contact with it. The heatsink itself isn't very thick, but what makes the card span across three slots are its two 100 mm fans. The GPU is clocked out of the box at 1000 MHz (vs. 925 MHz reference), and 5.60 GHz/1400 MHz actual memory (vs. 5.50 GHz/1375 MHz actual reference).

ORIGIN PC starts off 2012 with three major announcements. The award-winning GENESIS desktop has been overclocked to a record 5.7GHz with the exclusive new ORIGIN PC Phase Change cooling system. The Phase Change cooling system will be available in late Q1. ORIGIN PC launches free U.S. based lifetime 24/7 technical support on all desktops and laptops starting today. The award winning EON17-S and EON15-S laptops both receive an upgrade with the new exclusive ORIGIN PC design.

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.

In Japan, Epson does more than selling printing and imaging devices. It sells pre-built PCs. Its latest creation is the Endeavor Pro 750, a gaming PC based on Intel Sandy Bridge-E platform. The Endeavor Pro 750 is housed in an airy aluminum-built case. The case has two permanently-fixed handles on top, and its 3.5/2.5-inch drive bay stack can be access from the front-panel, to give it some hot-plugging capabilities. The front-panel also has two USB 3.0 ports next to audio I/O. It's the insides that are more interesting.

The Endeavor Pro 750 is driven by an Intel Core i7-3930K, though an i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor can be opted for, the CPU is cooled by a custom air-cooler. The processor sits on a custom OEM motherboard labelled Epson, but in all likelihood, it may have been built by any of the major motherboard ODMs, such as Foxconn. There are a variety of memory options, starting from 4 GB, all the way up to 32 GB, with DDR3-1600 MHz being the standard memory type. The base model ships with an AMD Radeon HD 6450 graphics card, but it can be configured all the way up to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580. Storage options, too, are configurable, with various HDD RAID and SSD (Intel 510 series) available.

Welcome to the TechPowerUp 2011 PC technology Christmas special. We hope that you will enjoy reading it while tucking into your turkey, Christmas presents and a little too much wine... In this article, we go through the technology of 2011 that has had the most significance, the most impact and was generally the most talked about. It's not necessarily the best tech of 2011 which is the most significant though, since lemons can be just as significant as the ground-breakers in how they fail to deliver - and the backlash that goes with it.

January: Intel Sandy Bridge i5 & i7

Released on January 9th, the new Intel Core i5 & i7 processors were based on Intel's second generation Core architecture built on a 32 nm production process (HEXUS review). They included an IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) physically on the same piece of silicon along with HyperThreading. These new dual and quad core processors soundly beat all previous generations of Intel processors in terms of processing performance, heat, power use, features and left AMD in the dust. Therefore, Intel badly needed some competition from AMD and unless you have been living under a rock, you will know how that turned out in October with the launch of Bulldozer. Sandy Bridge was a sound win and is generally considered to be the only architecture worth considering at this point. The i5-2500K is currently at the sweet spot of price/performance. It comes at a stock speed of 3.3 GHz, but typically overclocks to an amazing 4.5 - 5 GHz with a decent air cooler and without too much difficulty in getting there. Models in the budget i3 range were released at various times later. See this Wikipedia article for details.

KFA2, the European premium NVIDIA brand, announced today the GTX 580 MDT X4 EX OC, the latest in the line of MDT series multi-display performance gaming graphics cards. The KFA2 GeForce GTX 580 MDT X4 is designed to be the flagship product within our MDT range, offering unparalleled performance in the latest DirectX 11 games in full 1080p.

Whilst the KFA2 GeForce 580 MDT X4 supports up to 4 monitors for multi-display, its main feature includes 'Virtual single monitor mode' which shares one desktop across 3 screens, producing surround HD game play (50Mhz compatible monitors needed for this feature). This myriad of features and unrivaled performance is complimented by a KFA2 custom designed LED chassis and high efficiency triple fan cooling solution.

AMD is on course to releasing its latest "Southern Islands" GPU family, and a fleet of desktop graphics card SKUs based on it, which will be led by a new high-performance GPU, codenamed "Tahiti", which will make up Radeon HD 7900 series; followed by performance GPU "Pitcairn", on which HD 7800 series will be based; "Thames" and "Lombok" making up the rest of the lineup. According to a report by DonanimHaber, HD 7970 (working name) is expected to be competitive with (or outperform) GeForce GTX 580, and priced at US $499. The HD 7950 will be competitive with (again, or outperform) GeForce GTX 570, being priced at US $399.

Things get interesting with Pitcairn, which is the successor of "Barts". This performance GPU is designed for sweet-spot SKUs, such as HD 7870 and HD 7850, which will be competitive with GeForce GTX 560 Ti / GTX 560, and priced at US $299 and $199, respectively. The Radeon HD 7670 will be particularly expensive, priced at US $179, followed by HD 7650 at $119. Further, it was reported that HD 7970 and HD 7950 will have a standard memory size of 3 GB.

NVIDIA today announced that system builders worldwide are now shipping the fastest PC gaming platforms ever built, thanks in part to NVIDIA SLI technology and the just-released Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and X79 chipset-based motherboards.

The combination of NVIDIA SLI technology -- which allows for multiple GPUs to run on a single PC -- and new X79-based motherboards allow gamers to customize their PC experience with up to four NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570, the world's fastest DX11 GPUs. Licensed by the world's leading motherboard manufacturers -- including Intel, ASUS, ASRock, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI, SLI technology is crucial for playing this year's hottest graphics-intensive games, such as the recently released Battlefield 3 and upcoming Batman: Arkham City with detail, resolution and immersion settings cranked up.

EVGA has just announced a new dual GPU card based on the GF114 GPU - check out the product launch page here and the product page here. If their performance graph on that launch page is accurate, then the card is around 30% faster than a GTX 580 when running the Unigene Heaven benchmark. The output panel contains three DVI connectors for NVIDIA 3D Surround, along with a mini HDMI port. The cooler has three fans, which should make for a well-cooled and reasonably quiet card. The marketing blurb says:

Introducing the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win
It may not be called a GTX 585, but it's the next best thing. This card harnesses the power of two EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU's for blistering fast DirectX 11 performance, including tessellation performance that destroys the competition. Experience a whole new level of interactive gaming and combine up to three displays off a single card for the ultimate in 3D entertainment, or disable Surround and combine up to four displays for maximum productivity. With these features and more, the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win gives you double the GPU's and double the win!

Translated, this means that your life isn't worth living without one of these babies in your rig. Apparently.