BIOSTAR has released an AMD socket AM3+ motherboard, the TA970 Plus with AMD OverDrive and the ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) feature. This AMD 970 chipset board supports AMD multi-Core (x8, x6) and Socket AM3 processors including the AMD FX/ Phenom II and Athlon II versions. This is a powerful platform for gamers and enthusiasts.

The TA970 Plus is a full sized ATX board with 4 DDR3 DIMM slots and mSATA/Mini PCI-E combo connector. It supports SATA 6Gb/s speeds, which are two times the speed of current SATA 3G. Of course there is USB 3.0 support as well. Powerful graphics are supported with AMD's CrossfireX capability. To get every power advantage the TA970 Plus features the AMD OverDrive and the ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) function. This allows power users to overclock their system by precisely calibrating the clock timings between the processor and RAM chips. These timings are critical in maintaining system stability when overclocking, otherwise you will end up with a system that crashes often. As they say, "Timing is Everything" and the TA970 Plus allows you to get it right.

AMD is apparently working on its second CPU for extreme overclocking, since the nearly four-year old Phenom II Black Edition TWKR 42. Being referred to as "Centurion FX," the chip is said to be based on the eight-core FX "Vishera" silicon, featuring an unlocked multiplier, but born out of some extremely careful chip selection by AMD. How careful you ask? For starters, these chips should be capable of running at 5.00 GHz with just air-cooling, with potential for more, on better cooling.

If the TWKR 42 is anything to go by, Centurion FX should be made specifically for extreme overclockers looking for clock-speed and multi-core performance records, the chip should come with rather low clock speed, and unlocked multiplers, so overclockers could tweak it themselves. The chips should cost four times the average FX-8350, nearing $800, which is "affordable," considering the four-figure prices some of the golden Core i7 K-series Ivy Bridge chips command on online marketplaces.

Despite losing in market share to Intel, AMD has reason to cheer as its APU gambit is beginning to pay off. According to the latest architecture- and core count-specific sales figures for AMD given out by Mercury Research detailing Q3-2013 in context of two preceding quarters, APUs make for nearly 75% of AMD's processor sales, and the company's recently-launched "Trinity" line of desktop and mobile APUs are off to a flying start.

The most popular chips in AMD's stable are its "Bobcat" Zacate series low-power APUs, which are being built into entry-level computing devices such as netbooks, nettops, and all-in-one desktops. The chips make up 39 percent of AMD's sales in Q3, followed by another APU line, the A-Series "Trinity", which is available in desktop and mobile variants, offers a combination of a fast integrated graphics processor with up to four CPU cores, and makes up 26.1 percent of AMD's sales. AMD's A-Series "Llano" can still be bought in the market, and makes up 7.4 percent of AMD's sales in Q3.

It has been known since Computex that AMD plans to synchronize launch of its second-generation "Trinity" desktop APUs and second-generation "Vishera" desktop CPUs, in late-Q3 or early-Q4, 2012. In likely preparation for that, and to step up price-performance of its current lineup, AMD cut prices of its desktop CPUs and APUs across the board. These include price-cuts for Phenom II AM3 series, FX-series AM3+, and A-series FM1 CPUs and APUs. Some of the prices as down by as much as 22.9%. The Phenom II series chips are the ones with the biggest price-cuts. Find a list of chips with old and new pricing, and differences, compiled by CPU World, below.

AMD reportedly deferred the launch of its next-generation "Trinity" A-series accelerated processing units (APUs) for desktops, to October, 2012. The products were originally slated for August. The delay affects launches of most APUs in the socket FM2 package, including the A10-5800K, a top-performing part in the series.

Launches of the A-Series "Trinity" APUs appear to have been clubbed with those of the FX-Series "Volan" (Vishera silicon, Piledriver micro-architecture) processors, including the FX-8350 and FX-6300. Meanwhile, AMD is in the process of phasing out its low-cost socket AM3 processors (such as Athlon II AM3, and Phenom II AM3), replacing them with Athlon II FM2, Phenom II AM3+, and mid-range FX-Series AM3+.

AMD today announced an agreement with GameFly, Inc., to give gamers who leverage the quality and performance of AMD CPUs and APUs easier access to GameFly's leading online video game rental and PC download services for a limited time. Gamers purchasing select AMD A-Series APUs, AMD Athlon II CPUs, AMD Phenom II CPUs or AMD FX Series CPUs in regions where GameFly is accessible receive a free, 30-day GameFly membership as well as a 20 percent discount on a new PC game purchase via the new GameFly PC store.

"AMD draws inspiration from gamers, game developers and the PC gaming industry," said John Taylor, director of Global Product and Technology Marketing at AMD. "Hand-in-hand with the AMD Gaming Evolved program, we continue to listen to gamers and fulfill our 'Gamers Come First!' pledge. AMD's close affiliation with GameFly shows our gratitude to gamers and to GameFly for recognizing how AMD represents best-in-class PC gaming experiences."

AMD has really went on a slashing spree this week as in addition to making the FX-6100 and FX-8120 cheaper, it also updated (read lowered) the pricing of nine Phenom II processors. As seen in the chart below, the Phenom cuts range from 2% to 15%, the biggest drop being seen on the Phenom II X4 965 which went from $135 to $115.

Double-digit cuts were also made for the X4 955 (10.3%), X4 975 (11.4%) and X4 980 (10.8%) while the X6 1055T and X6 1075T went down by 6.1% and 8.8%, respectively.

Besides the fact that they are carved out of the same piece of silicon by disabling components, all AMD FX series processors, from the quad-core FX-4000 series, to the eight-core FX-8000 series have one thing in common: they're all "unlocked", meaning they have an upwards-unlocked base-clock multiplier, which makes overclocking them a whole lot easier. Take that away and what do you get? A new Phenom II processor line. That's right, it is learned that AMD has a new line of Phenom II processors, eight-core for now, that are being carved out of the 32 nm Zambezi silicon.

Intuitively branded within the new Phenom II X8 and existing Phenom II X6 markers, these chips feature relatively lower clock speeds, meaning they will be priced low, competitive with Intel's sub-$200 Core i3 and Core i5 processors. AMD will also tinker with Zambezi's caches. The new chips came to light when some motherboard manufacturers leaked them on CPU support lists of certain motherboards, on their websites. For now we're getting to hear about two eight-core models, the 2.40 GHz Phenom II X8 2420, and 3.00 GHz Phenom II X8 3020; and two six-core models, the 2.50 GHz Phenom II X6 2520, and 2.80 GHz Phenom II X6 2820. Relevant details are tabled below. It beats us why AMD didn't take the opportunity (new silicon) to label these "Phenom III".

AMD's new flagship Bulldozer "FX" series of processors have turned out to be mediocre performers in almost every review and benchmark going, sometimes even getting bested by the existing Phenom II and certainly no match for their Intel competition. To add to this tale of fail, it now turns out that AMD didn't even know how many transistors they have! Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech received an email from AMD's PR department and this is the revelation he had to share with us:

This is a bit unusual. I got an email from AMD PR this week asking me to correct the Bulldozer transistor count in our Sandy Bridge E review. The incorrect number, provided to me (and other reviewers) by AMD PR around 3 months ago was 2 billion transistors. The actual transistor count for Bulldozer is apparently 1.2 billion transistors. I don't have an explanation as to why the original number was wrong, just that the new number has been triple checked by my contact and is indeed right. The total die area for a 4-module/8-core Bulldozer remains correct at 315 mm².

AMD's new Bulldozer "FX" series of processors may be very lacklustre performers in reviewer's benchmarks and have garnered considerable scorn in enthusiast circles, but they're a very good performer for AMD's bottom line. Incredibly, they are selling out as soon as shops get them in stock - and they are not even priced very competitively against Intel's offerings, so perhaps the "It's an 8 core CPU!!" marketing is working well on the uninformed "enthusiast" after all? Mind you, what enthusiast, however uninformed, wouldn't know exactly how these products perform? Every tech website and computer magazine has covered these chips by now. The mind boggles.

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.

It's been in the works for over three years now. That's right, the first we heard of "Bulldozer" as a processor architecture under development was shortly after the launch of "Barcelona" K10 architecture. Granted, it wasn't possible to load close to 2 billion transistors on the silicon fab technology AMD had at the time, but AMD had a clear window over the last year to at least paper-launch the AMD FX. Delays and bad marketing may have cost AMD dearly in shaping up the product for the market.

After drawing a consensus from about 25 reviews (links in Today's Reviews on the front page), it emerges that:

• AMD FX-8150 is missing its performance expectations by a fair margin. Not to mention performance gains in its own presentation, these expectations were built up by how AMD was shaping the product to be a full-fledged enthusiast product with significant performance gains over the previous generation
• AMD ill-marketed the FX-8150. Hype is a double-edged sword, and should not be used if you're not confident your offering will live up to at least most of the hype. AMD marketed at least the top-tier FX-8000 series eight-core processors as the second coming of Athlon64 FX.

BIOSTAR Group, a world famous manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, industrial computing systems and computer peripherals, proudly announces the TA990FXE motherboard aimed at the most demanding overclockers and gamers.

The TA990FXE is made in the ATX form-factor on the flagship AMD 990FX chipset in combination with the most advanced SB950 Southbridge which guarantees the support of the latest technologies and ensures the unprecedented performance. The board supports all Socket AM3+ based Phenom II X6, Phenom II X4, Phenom II X3, Phenom II X2, Athlon II X4, Athlon II X3, Athlon II X2 and Sempron CPUs including top 6-core and 8-core AMD FX, AMD Phenom II and AMD Athlon II chips with the maximum thermal design up to 140W.

Gigabyte unveiled a new socket AM3+ motherboard targeting a price-point sweetspot, the 990FXA-UD3 1.2. The board is based on the AMD 990FX + SB950 chipset, and supports the upcoming AMD FX processors apart from socket AM3 processors in the Phenom II and Athlon II series. As a new revision, the board supports AMD FX processors out of the box. The AM3+ socket is powered by an 8+2 phase VRM. The board is constructed according to the UltraDurable 3 Classic specifications, with 2 oz copper-layer PCB, 50,000+ hours capacitor durability, and DualBIOS. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-2000 MHz memory with overclocking.

There are four PCI-Express x16 slots on this board, however, only two of them are wired to the AMD 990FX northbridge, both run at full PCI-Express 2.0 x16 bandwidth at all times. The other two are electrical PCI-Express x4, wired to the SB950 southbridge. The board supports both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, though it's likely that it will ship with just the 2-way SLI bridge cable.

Weeks ahead of its market launch, AMD pulled off a nice PR feat by setting making its trusty squad of overclockers, Sami Mäkinen, Brian Mclachlan, Pete Hardman, and Aaron Schradin set a new clock speed world record (as in Guinness World Record). With just one of its four modules enabled, the eight-core FX-8150 engineering sample was overclocked to a stunning 8429.38 MHz. The chip was able to tolerate a brutal core voltage of 2.016V. Even for a one-in-a-million cherry-picked chip, those are staggering numbers.

8429.38 MHz was achieved using a base clock of 271.92 MHz, with 31.0X multiplier. The memory used was a Corsair Dominator GT single module, which apparently tolerated 3:10 DRAM ratio and timings of 2-16-2-22. That's right, 2-16-2-22. ASUS Crosshair V Formula seated the platform. Cooling was care of a custom liquid-nitrogen evaporator setup. The team used liquid nitrogen as its cooling medium, and switched to liquid helium halfway, which has a lower boiling point. The team cherry-picked chips from the best lots on-site.A video of the feat follows.

Here is a tasty scoop of benchmark results purported to be those of the AMD FX-8130P, the next high-end processor from the green team. The FX-8130P was paired with Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 motherboard and 4 GB of dual-channel Kingston HyperX DDR3-2000 MHz memory running at DDR3-1866 MHz. A GeForce GTX 580 handled the graphics department. The chip was clocked at 3.20 GHz (16 x 200 MHz). Testing began with benchmarks that aren't very multi-core intensive, such as Super Pi 1M, where the chip clocked in at 19.5 seconds; AIDA64 Cache and Memory benchmark, where L1 cache seems to be extremely fast, while L2, L3, and memory performance is a slight improvement over the last generation of Phenom II processors.

Biostar is keeping a low profile with high-end motherboards, these days. It's been a long while since the company released its last TPower-branded motherboard, but has been pushing its 'value' TSeries motherboards into every segment. One such offering for the AMD socket AM3+ platform is the Biostar TSeries TA990FXE. Based on the AMD 990FX + SB950 chipset, this board packs a lot of high-end styling with its heatsinks and components load-out. It packs a 4+1 phase VRM to power the AM3+ socket, and dual-channel DDR3 memory. Current generation Phenom II, and future FX Series processors are supported.

Expansion slots include four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x16/x4/x16/x4), and two PCI. There are five internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, with the sixth one being assigned as eSATA. Most other connectivity is fairly standard for this category, you've got 8-channel HD audio, four USB 3.0 ports (two by header), and gigabit Ethernet. The board features standard AMIBIOS, and some overclocker-accessible features such as power/reset switches and diagnostic LED.

With the obvious intention to clear out higher-end Phenom II series processors from the market, and to make room for the new upcoming FX-series "Bulldozer" CPUs, AMD introduced a chain of price-cuts affecting all price-points. This comes after the introduction of the new Phenom II X4 980 BE part, earlier this week. The X4 980 BE pushes down prices of nearly all Phenom II X4 and X2 parts, while pulling down six-core models with it.

The six-core X6 1090T Black Edition with unlocked multiplier is priced on par with it, while the 1075T, 1065T, and 1055T are below it. The Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition continues to be the fastest AMD has to offer, and it's just a little over $200, at $205, making it a heck of a deal against Intel Core i5-2500K. All the prices are tabled below.

Here are the first performance projections of the AMD FX-series processors. FX-series is the market name of the latest line of 8-core, 6-core, and 4-core processors by AMD, based on its new Bulldozer architecture. The performance projections come from AMD's internal presentations to its industry partners, which was leaked to sections of the media.

In the performance projection, a compound bar graph, an AMD platform comprising of an 8-core FX series processor (unknown model, clock speed) with AMD Radeon HD 6670 discrete graphics, was pitted against its main competitor, Intel Core i7-2600K with its integrated Intel HD graphics. Perhaps AMD is suggesting that FX 8-core model used here along with a HD 6690 graphics card costs the same as a Core i7-2600K.

Today AMD released to market its latest quad-core processor, the Pheonom II X4 980 Black Edition. The new, faster SKU was first reported to be taking shape back in March. Based on the 45 nm "Deneb" silicon and K10.5 architecture, the X4 980 BE is yet another speed-bump, clocked at 3.70 GHz (18.5 x 200 MHz), with room for some overclocking thanks to its unlocked BClk multiplier.

The Deneb die packs four x86-64 cores with 512 KB caches each, and a shared 6 MB L3 cache. Despite its high clock speed, the processor maintains TDP of 125W. Its IMC supports dual-channel DDR3/DDR2 memory, and is backwards compatible with AM2+ socket apart from its native AM3 socket. HyperTransport 4 GT/s is its chipset interconnect. The new processor is priced at US $195.

It could be curtains down for NVIDIA nForce SLI chipset for AMD platform, as the GPU giant formally announced its intentions to license NVIDIA SLI technology for use on AMD chipset-based motherboards starting from AMD's upcoming 9-series chipset. Rumors about this development started trickling in around late March. NVIDIA's public release confirms most of what was outlined in the leaked company slide in the older article, that licenses will be only offered to 9-series (and later) chipset-based motherboards, and that only those motherboard manufacturers that are licensed by NVIDIA for SLI on their Intel platform motherboards will be given licenses. NVIDIA specifically mentions ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, and MSI as qualifying partners.

The more interesting part of the release, however, was the box-art of ASUS' upcoming high-end socket AM3+ motherboard, the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Crosshair V Formula. Its salad of product logos is what is most fascinating. For one, it confirms the product name and logo of AMD's new high-end desktop processors to be "FX", as revealed by the box designs. The next logo is of Phenom II, and as we know, AM3+ gives backwards compatibility to older AM3 processors. Next up is the AMD 9-series chipset logo, another Radeon-like logo by AMD. Next to it is the logo of the moment: NVIDIA SLI, and lastly ATI CrossFireX. There is a newer rectangular logo of "AMD CrossFire" that succeeds the ATI CrossFireX logo, but maybe ASUS, like many, found it too hideous. You can probably make a better one on MS Paint.

AMD is looking to give its Phenom II series a finale, with a new quad-core Phenom II X4 model, the Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition. The new chip will be clocked at 3.70 GHz out of the box (18.5 x 200 MHz). It achieves this speed while staying within the 125W TDP envelope. Based on the 45 nm "Deneb" silicon, the X4 980 BE features four x86-64 cores with 512 KB dedicated L2 cache each, and a 6 MB shared cache. Compatible with AM3 and AM2+ sockets, the chip packs a dual-channel memory controller that supports DDR3-1333 MHz or DDR2-1066 MHz memory standards. AMD will unveil the new chip soon, as the company gears up to launch next-generation chips in June.

AMD rolled out three new processors today, the six-core Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition, Athlon II X3 455, and the Phenom II X2 565 Black Edition. The new flagship of AMD's processor lineup, the Phenom II X6 1100T, is based on the AM3 socket, supporting DDR3 and DDR2 memory on older AM2+ motherboards. It carries a nominal clock speed of 3.30 GHz, is based on the 45 nm "Thuban" silicon, features 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 6 MB of L3 between all six cores. It features the TurboCore technology, which bumps clock speed by a few hundred MHz when it senses high load. As a Black Edition chip, it features an unlocked bus multiplier. Despite its increased clock speed, the 1100T has a TDP of 125W. This chip goes for US $265.

Next up, is the Phenom II X2 565 Black Edition. Clocked at 3.40 GHz, the X2 565 is based on the Callisto silicon (which is Deneb with two cores locked), featuring 512 KB of cache per core, and 6 MB shared L3 cache. This one has a TDP of 80W, and is priced at US $115. Lastly, there's the Athlon II X3 455, a triple-core chip based on the "Rana" silicon (which is Propus with one core locked), it lacks an L3 cache, but features 512 KB L2 per core. With a TDP of 95W, this one goes for $87.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs, today unleashes a duo of mini-ITX platforms designed for optimal energy-efficiency, home theatre PC and powered by AMD 800 series chipsets - including the world's first AMD mobile-on-desktop platform - the new ZOTAC M880G-ITX WiFi - and the socket AM3 compatible 880G-ITX WiFi.

Powered by AMD 800 series chipsets, the ZOTAC M880G-ITX WiFi and 880G-ITX WiFi platforms deliver a premium AMD experience in a mini-ITX form factor with USB 3.0, SATA 6.0 Gb/s and 802.11n WiFi technologies. High-performance integrated ATI Radeon HD 4200 series graphics processor enables stunning visuals with Microsoft DirectX 10.1 technology.

After AMD's recent mass-release of Athlon II and Phenom II series processors that included the Phenom II X6 1070T Black Edition priced at around $250, AMD is working on a new flagship processor that's even faster than the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition (the current flagship), given the model number Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition (surprise!), and as always, it's yet another speed-bump. This chip is based on the 45 nm Thuban die, and is clocked a whole 100 MHz faster, at 3.30 GHz, with a Turbo Core frequency of 3.70 GHz. Surprisingly, it retains its TDP rating of 125W. As with every other chip based on this die, it features six cores with 128 KB L1, 512 KB L2 dedicated caches, and 6 MB L3 shared cache, it comes in the AM3 package and is backwards compatible with AM2+, supporting dual-channel DDR3-1333 and DDR2-1066 memory standards.

The 1100T Black Edition isn't the only new Phenom II series member down the line, there's the Phenom II X6 1065T (2.90 GHz, non-BE, 3.40 GHz Turbo); the slower Phenom II X6 1045T (2.50 GHz, non-BE, 3.20 GHz Turbo), and the company's next fastest quad-core chip, the Phenom II X4 975 (3.60 GHz, Deneb). It's not known whether the X4-975 is a Black Edition SKU.