As proponents of the DirectX API, which single-handedly shaped consumer 3D graphics market for the past decade and a half, it shouldn't come as a shocker, that Microsoft's next-generation entertainment platform, the Xbox One, will not support AMD's ambitious Mantle project, a 3D API that's tailor-made for the company's Graphics CoreNext GPU micro-architecture, on which the GPU driving the Xbox One is based. The company released a statement to that effect mentioning that "other APIs" such as OpenGL and AMD Mantle won't be supported on Xbox One. Says Microsoft;

We are very excited that with the launch of Xbox One, we can now bring the latest generation of Direct3D 11 to console. The Xbox One graphics API is "Direct3D 11.x" and the Xbox One hardware provides a superset of Direct3D 11.2 functionality. Other graphics APIs such as OpenGL and AMD's Mantle are not available on Xbox One.

The Xbox One will support DirectX 11.2, an evolution over DirectX 11, which adds support for a new feature called "Tiled resources," which lets 3D apps more efficiently manage available hardware resources, by streaming portions of single large textures as a 3D scene being rendered demands it. It heralds a kind of virtual memory system for the GPU, and Microsoft could encourage game developers to take advantage of it, for their Xbox One titles. Such a feature already exists with OpenGL.

Club 3D launches Radeon R9 280X and 270X graphics cards. Since their introduction almost two years ago the HD 7970 and HD 7950 have been on top of the GPU food chain and, as a result of the recent price repositioning, are still very capable performers offering great value for money. But now it's time to announce their successors in the high end, enthusiast segment. A new era in gaming has begun and gamers who demand the best deserve a new class of GPU's. These GPU's will carry the R9 label from now on. When you see an R9 card you can easily distinguish it as an enthusiast product.

Disappointed at the $729.99 Newegg.com pricing of the Radeon R9 290X? No worries. AMD's second SKU based on the "Hawaii" silicon could be lighter on the wallet. Japanese retailers leaked the specifications sheets of both the upcoming R9 290X, and its lighter sibling, the R9 290 (non-X). Specifications of the R9 290X match rumors. The chip features 2,816 stream processors, up to 1000 MHz of GPU clock, single-precision floating point performance of 5.16 TFLOP/s, and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 512-bit wide memory interface, clocked at 5.00 GHz, yielding 320 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The R9 290, on the other hand, features 2,560 stream processors, up to 948 MHz GPU clocks, 4.9 TFLOP/s single-precision floating point performance, and the same memory subsystem as the R9 290X. Both cards feature an identical combination of power connectors, 8-pin PCIe and 6-pin PCIe. Both feature hardware support for DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3, and Mantle.

NVIDIA has just made available a new graphics driver, the beta-tagged GeForce 331.40 which includes support for the GeForce 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, and 700-series desktop GPUs and the ION desktop GPUs. This new build is claimed to deliver a performance boost (compared to the GeForce 327.23 drivers) for the GeForce 400/500/600/700 Series GPUs and implements Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion plus (HBAO+) for DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 applications.

GeForce 331.40 Beta Download Links
Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 32bit / Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 64bit / Windows XP 32bit / Windows XP 64bit

Schenker Technologies UK Ltd, subsidiary of Schenker Technologies GmbH, today announced their XMG C703 super thin 17" gaming laptop. Housed within its sleek black aluminum chassis is a 4th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA Geforce GTX 765M graphics making the C703 one of the most powerful laptops in its class; and at only 22mm thin and weighing just 2.6kg, it's the worlds thinnest and lightest too at this specification. "The C703 has to be our most stylish laptop yet" remarked Neil Richards, Managing Director, Schenker Technologies UK, "Not only does it look and feel beautiful; the sheer power under the hood, light-weight design and up to 6 hour battery life makes it extremely versatile."

Graphics processors based on first-generation Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture, slotted inside the "Southern Islands" and "Sea Islands" families, and branded under Radeon HD 7000 and Radeon HD 8000 (OEM) series, don't fully support Microsoft DirectX 11.2 API. Exclusive with the upcoming Windows 8.1 operating system, the Direct3D component of DirectX 11.2 introduces a handful of revolutionary consumer 3D features, such as "D3D tiled resources," which is analogous to OpenGL mega-textures; HLSL shader linking, frame-buffer scaling, etc.

In an interview with German publication c't Magazin, AMD engineer Laylah Mah pointed out that a feedback routine Microsoft deployed in the final specification of DirectX 11.2 turned out different from the one AMD anticipated. Mah stressed that the incompatibility is not at the level of the hardware, but the driver. The GPUs inside next-generation consoles like Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 aren't fundamentally different from current AMD GPU micro-architecture, and at least one of the two, Xbox One, will leverage the latest DirectX.

Schenker Technologies UK Ltd, subsidiary of Schenker Technologies GmbH today announced their most powerful 13.3" HD portable laptop to date. The XMG P303 packs a punch with a top of the range 4th gen Intel Core i7 2.80 - 3.80 GHz quad core processor, three storage drives and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5 memory, NVIDIA's best in class gaming graphics available for a laptop of this size. Under a year ago, the sheer performance of the P303 was physically impossible in a chassis so small, the P303 is a breakthrough for laptops" remarked Neil Richards, Managing Director, Schenker Technologies UK.

In the run up to the big Catalyst driver update AMD promised, that fixes frame latency issues on Graphics CoreNext-based GPUs, AMD posted Catalyst 13.8 beta, which addresses frame-pacing issues on CrossFire configuration, which minimizes the micro-stuttering issues some CrossFire configurations are notorious for. The driver includes a fix that ensures frames generated by member GPUs of a CrossFire configuration are displayed in an even and regular pace, so there's no micro-stuttering. This fix can be enabled through Catalyst Control Center, on a per-application basis. It supports games that use DirectX 11 and DirectX 10 APIs, running at resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels.

Next up, Catalyst 13.8 beta includes full support for the OpenGL 4.3 API. You can now create application profiles within Catalyst Control Center for OpenGL applications, and CAP updates will now be issued for such apps. The only performance-improvement you get with this driver, are for Metro: Last Light. Radeon HD 7000 series GPUs get up to 7 percent performance improvement on the game. Lastly, a nifty new feature addition for Enduro shows which apps are active on the discrete-GPU, and which on the integrated/low-power GPU.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 13.8 Beta

Cyberpower Inc., a manufacturer of custom gaming machines, notebook systems, and high performance workstations, today announced its Power Mega III series - a family of Intel 4th Generation Haswell or Xeon-based professional workstation PCs with NVIDIA Quadro K series or AMD FirePro graphics that set the bar for high-performance workstations.

Power Mega III workstations offer precise, professional performance to tackle the most demanding CPU and GPU-intensive applications out of the box. Offered in six configurations, the Power Mega III series is powered by the latest 4th Generation Intel Core Haswell processors with Z87 Express chipset for supreme multi-tasking and content creation. For those who demand extreme processing power, Intel Xeon processors are also offered in several models in single or dual CPU configurations. These advanced performance workstations are perfect for applications such as 3D rendering/modeling, sciences and medical imaging, engineering and earth sciences, matte painting, compositing, and CAD/CAM.

NVIDIA followed up on Monday's OpenGL 4.4 API launch with its first preview driver that includes GL 4.4 ICD (installable client driver). Unlike Direct3D, which comes included with Windows, OpenGL is distributed by GPU driver vendors. The OpenGL 4.4 Preview driver from NVIDIA bears the canonical version numbering "GeForce 326.29," is dated 18/07/2013, and supports GeForce GPUs from GeForce GTX 400 series onwards; and Quadro K600 onwards. NVIDIA's OpenGL 4.4 Preview driver adds an increasing number of GL extensions and features, with increase in GL version number hardware support.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA OpenGL 4.4 Preview driver (desktop v326.29) for Windows 8/7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 8/7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Linux 64-bit | Linux 32-bit

Details follow.

Our recent editorial on adoption of Windows 8.1 by PC enthusiasts concluded saying "...and Microsoft isn't stopping with its innovations that will get increasingly out of reach for Windows 7 users." It looks like the first of such innovations is DirectX 11.2. Microsoft revealed that the latest version of its multimedia API will require Windows 8.1 on the PC, and comes built into its next-generation Xbox One console. With this, Microsoft established that you will need Windows 8.1 or later, to access future versions of DirectX.

Microsoft has often used the tactic of limiting DirectX versions to certain versions of Windows, often citing driver-model changes, to force PC enthusiasts to either upgrade, or lag behind in PC technology, and in the past it worked. Windows XP capped out at DirectX 9.0c, forcing gamers to upgrade to Windows Vista, to experience cutting-edge games of the time, such as "Crysis," with new visual effects that DirectX 10 brought to the scene. DirectX 11.0 had the unique distinction of spanning across Windows Vista and Windows 7. DirectX 11.1 was exclusive to Windows 8 and above, as it required WDDM 1.2 (Windows display driver model). The Direct3D component of the API didn't bring anything substantial to the scene. With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is introducing DirectX 11.2, it requires WDDM 1.3, which the operating system introduces. Since Windows 8.1 will be offered as a free upgrade to current Windows 8 users, it's effectively the Windows 7 user-base, that's being asked to take a hike.

After a successful collaboration with AMD over the past two years to leverage open standards to drive amazing quality, scalability, and performance for our customers - Adobe has just released Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Now users can get the production releases of these flagship products which have been optimized to the massive compute power of AMD APUs, AMD Radeon HD graphics and AMD FirePro professional graphics to enable GPU-accelerated performance across a broad range of form factors through the OpenGL and OpenCL open standards. As highlighted in recent blogs, these optimizations are significant because, not only do they result in faster final render times, but more importantly, they enable users to apply effects and preview their edits in real-time, enabling greater productivity. This is great news for end-users everywhere, who now have unprecedented choice in using the hardware that best suits their needs. AMD-based systems coupled with Adobe's shift to the affordable and innovative Adobe Creative Cloud model for managing licenses and software updates can now put these latest Adobe creative tools in the hands of more users than ever.

The EUROCOM X5 has been stress tested and benchmarked with an Intel Core i7-4930MX processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M graphics with extreme results. "Eurocom created the X5 gaming laptop so our gaming warrior clients could discover their dark side, the performance and design are unmatched" Mark Bialic, Eurocom President. The EUROCOM X5 will be equipped with high resolution 17.3" 1920x1080 IPS and 3D displays, upgradeable extreme processors, next generation NVIDIA GTX 700M graphics, multiple storage options (up to 5 physical drives) and up to 32 GB of DDR3-1600 memory.

Personalize your own Eurocom laptop weapon with a custom backlit keyboard, with 7 colours, 3 zones and 8 modes to dominate and stand out. To store the latest games and software the X5 can support up to 5 storage drives, with 2 mSATA solid state drives for fast boot up times and blazing responsiveness. The following 4th gen CPUs will be available: Intel Core i7-4930MX with 4 cores and 8 threads running at 3 GHz with 8 MB L3 cache, Intel Core i7-4900MQ, Intel Core i7-4800MQ and Intel Core i7-4700MQ.

Although NVIDIA's Tegra line of SoCs are among the best performing there are on the market; the high-end SoC market is dominated by Qualcomm and Samsung. These chips are built from scratch by the companies, but the underlying CPU and GPU architectures are licensed from ARM, and the likes of Imagination Technologies, respectively. Imagination's PowerVR graphics cores make up over 80 percent of the embedded GPU market-share. There's a big change of plans at NVIDIA. The company is beginning to think that its expertise in GPU is better proliferated in the mobile SoC space not by waiting for Tegra to gain a foothold, but by licencing its GPU IP (intellectual property) to whoever is willing pay up, much in the same way ARM and Imagination do.

NVIDIA spokesperson David Shannon, in a recent blog post, wrote: "our next step is to license our GPU cores and visual computing patent portfolio to device manufacturers to serve the needs of a large piece of the market... We'll start by licensing the GPU core based on the NVIDIA Kepler architecture, the world's most advanced, most efficient GPU. Its DX11, OpenGL 4.3, and GPGPU capabilities, along with vastly superior performance and efficiency, create a new class of licensable GPU cores. Through our efforts designing Tegra into mobile devices, we've gained valuable experience designing for the smallest power envelopes. As a result, Kepler can operate in a half-watt power envelope, making it scalable from smartphones to supercomputers."

After bagging chip supply deals for all three new-generation consoles -- Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U, things are looking up for AMD. While Wii U uses older-generation hardware technologies, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 use the very latest AMD has to offer -- "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 CPU micro-architecture, and Graphics CoreNext GPU architecture. Chips that run the two consoles have a lot in common, but also a few less-than-subtle differences.

PlayStation 4 chip, which came to light this February, is truly an engineer's fantasy. It combines eight "Jaguar" 64-bit x86 cores clocked at 1.60 GHz, with a fairly well spec'd Radeon GPU, which features 1,156 stream processors, 32 ROPs; and a 256-bit wide unified GDDR5 memory interface, clocked at 5.50 GHz. At these speeds, the system gets a memory bandwidth of 176 GB/s. Memory isn't handled like UMA (unified memory architecture), there's no partition between system- and graphics-memory. The two are treated as items on the same 8 GB of memory, and either can use up a majority of it.

AMD today announced at Adobe MAX new and improved accelerated features for Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. The introduction of the all-new Smart Sharpen feature and recently updated Blur Gallery and Liquify effects reinforces the collaboration between Adobe and AMD to provide high-quality, impressive performance to creative professionals everywhere by fully tapping into AMD compute and graphics processing leadership through cross-platform open standards like OpenCL and OpenGL.

"AMD and Adobe are working together to help provide powerful solutions that enable creative professionals to speed workflows and increase throughput, boost productivity and creativity, and fully realize their creative vision," says Neal Robison, senior director, Software Alliances at AMD. "AMD APUs and graphics coupled with Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Premiere Pro CC push the boundaries of what's possible and help artists of virtually all talents and disciplines make the imagined real."

SAPPHIRE Technology has just added a 2 GB model to the recently introduced HD 7790 series of graphics cards. Like the other members of the series, the SAPPHIRE HD 7790 2 GB OC is based on the latest Bonaire chipset featuring the highly acclaimed graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD and sets a new standard for performance in mainstream graphics.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 2 GB OC Edition has 2 GB of the latest DDR5 memory and is factory overclocked, with core clocks of 1050 MHz and memory clocks of 1600 MHz (6.4 GT/s effective), to deliver new levels of performance in its price segment. Performance is optimized with the latest version of AMD's PowerTune technology.

ACROSSER launches a new All-in-One Gaming Board, the AMB-A55EG1. AMB-A55EG1 features AMD Embedded G-Series T56N 1.65GHz dual-core APU, two DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM, which provides great computing and graphic performance is suitable for casino gaming and amusement applications. It is designed to comply with the most gaming regulations including GLI, BMM, and Comma 6A. AMB-A55EG1 is specifically designed to be a cost competitive solution for the entry-level gaming market.

AMB-A55EG1 utilizes the functions of an X86 platform, 72-pin Gaming I/O interface, intrusion detection and also various security options, and a complete line of Application Programming Interfaces to create smoother gaming development.

Get to the next level with the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition. This card delivers truly game-changing performance that taps into the powerful new GeForce architecture to redefine smooth, seamless, lifelike gaming. It offers brand new, never before seen features that will redefine the way you think about performance graphics cards. Expect more from your graphics card than just state-of-the-art features and technology; get faster, smoother and a richer gaming experience with the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition.

UNIGINE Corp. has released a new, enhanced version 4.0 of Heaven Benchmark, the GPU intensive benchmark that gained massive popularity among overclockers and hardware manufacturers for hammering their graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Heaven Benchmark immerses a user into a magical steampunk world of shiny brass, wood and gears. Nested on flying islands, a tiny village with its cozy, sun-heated cobblestone streets, an elaborately crafted dirigible above the expanse of fluffy clouds, and a majestic dragon on the central square gives a true sense of adventure. An interactive experience with fly-by and walk-through modes allows for exploring all corners of this world powered by the cutting-edge UNIGINE Engine that leverages the most advanced capabilities of graphics APIs and turns this benchmark into a visual masterpiece.DOWNLOAD: Unigine Heaven 4.0 for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

A little later this week, Unigine Corp. will be announcing two new GPU benchmark apps, the Valley 1.0, and Heaven 4.0. The two apps are cross-platform, in that they support both Windows and Linux (x86/x64). On Windows, the two can max out feature-sets of the latest DirectX 11.x APIs, while on Linux, the two take advantage of the latest OpenGL 4.x. Valley uses an entirely new test scene that's a beautiful springtime depiction of a valley. Distant snow-capped peaks, a treeline, and dense foliage, the scene's got it all, coupled with lighting, and depth of field effects. Definitely something we'd like our GPUs to trip on.

Moving on, Unigine's second benchmark suite for the season is Heaven 4.0, while builds on the current Heaven 3.0 benchmark. It adds SSDO (scene-space dimensional occlusion), improved lens flare, a rendered starscape at night time, GPU temperature and clock monitoring, improved multi-GPU detection, and various bug fixes. The two should be released some time around Thursday (14/02).

MSC Embedded Inc., manufacturer of highly integrated standard board level products and customer-specific boards and systems, today introduced a powerful, new COM Express Type 6 module family. This family, called MSC C6C-A7, is based on the AMD embedded R-Series processors also known as accelerated processing units (APUs). MSC C6C-A7 members are compact form factor computer-on-modules characterized by very powerful graphics and high parallel computing performance with low power dissipation.

The MSC C6C-A7 module family integrates AMD R-460L 2.0 GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo) or AMD R-452L 1.6 GHz (2.4 GHz Turbo) quad-core processors. The thermal design power (TDP) levels are 25 W and 19 W, respectively. The two dual-core versions are populated with the AMD R-260H 2.1 GHz (2.6 GHz Turbo) processor or the AMD R-252F 1.7 GHz (2.3 GHz Turbo) processor -- each featuring 17 W TDP. The processors support the AMD64 technology and the AMD-V virtualization technology. The AMD Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) A75 chipset was also selected. The main memory can be expanded to 16 GB DDR3-1600 dual-channel SDRAM via two SO DIMM sockets.

EUROCOM Panther 4.0 supercomputer laptop delivers unmatched 2D/3D capabilities for heavy duty 3D and 2D applications, like CAD (Computer-Aided Design), CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering), DCC (Digital Content Creation), visualization, and simulation. It is ideal for Engineering on the Go, Rapid Engineering Deployment Teams and for Server on the Go applications.

It takes MSI a while to determine to enter Workstation market. MSI felt compelled to expand product line, base on users' daily usage requirements. Thus after focus on developing quite a range of gaming notebooks for casual and hardcore gamiers for years, MSI GT60 Workstation will be arriving in December 2012. MSI created a professional tool for engineers, designers, scientists, and a lot more professional users ; helping them achieve their ideas, creations into tengible products or virtual artworks.

Intel has made available the new HD Graphics driver version 15.28.7.2867, which includes support for Microsoft Windows 8, OpenGL 4.0 and Ultra HD video playback & display (4K resolution). Additionally, this driver improves the gaming fun delivered on dozens of recent PC game titles including Runic Games' Torchlight 2, Arkane Studios' Dishonored, and EA's Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes. With support for Ultra HD resolution, 3rd generation Intel Core based PCs can support playback of content at resolutions beyond 1080p up to 4096x2048 on Ultra HD displays. This driver supports both Windows* 7 and Windows* 8 and be downloaded from these links:

DOWNLOAD: Intel HD Graphics Driver for Windows 8 32-bit and 64-bit