Ahead of its June 23 release, the minimum- and recommended-system requirements of Rocksteady's next installment to the super-hit Batman: Arkham franchise, Arkham Knight, was disclosed by NVIDIA. The PC version appears to have some clear visual benefits over the console variants of this game, given its steep storage requirements. Given that it will get an NVIDIA GameWorks varnish, PC gamers can expect eye-candy that won't make it to the console versions, including support for high-resolution display standards, such as 4K Ultra HD.Without further ado, the system requirements lists.

In what could explain the rather large die-size and transistor-count of AMD's "Tonga" silicon, compared to "Tahiti," it turns out that the silicon features a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, and not the previously thought of 256-bit wide one. The die is placed on a package with pins for just 256-bit, on the Radeon R9 285, but it can be placed on a bigger package, with more pins, to wire out the full width of the memory bus, in future SKUs. This isn't the first time AMD has done something like this. Its "Tahiti LE" chip was essentially a "Tahiti" die placed on a smaller package with pins for just a 256-bit wide memory bus, on the oddball Radeon HD 7870 XT.

What this means is that AMD's next performance-segment graphics card based on the "Tonga" silicon, could feature 50% more memory bandwidth than the R9 285. The stream processor count is still 2,048, but these are more advanced Graphics CoreNext 1.2 stream processors, compared to first-generation ones on "Tahiti," offering more performance per Watt. The TMU count remains 128, although there's no clarity on the ROP count. Estimates are split between 32 and 48. The R9 285 has 32, and so does "Tahiti."

AMD announced market availability of several of its new Radeon R9 and Radeon R7 series discrete graphics SKUs. Leading the pack for today's launch is the Radeon R9 280X. Heavily based on the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the card is priced at $299, and is designed to offer an interesting price-performance combination. In raw performance, it competes with the now $410 GeForce GTX 770, yet it's priced just $50 more than the $249 GeForce GTX 760. Based on the same 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon as the HD 7970 GHz Edition, it features clock speeds of 1000 MHz core, with 6.00 GHz memory. It features 2,048 stream processors, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 3 GB of memory.

The next card on AMD's block is the Radeon R9 270X, which is designed to strike a price-performance sweet-spot at $199. Essentially an overclocked Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, the card is based on the 28 nm "Pitcairn" silicon, featuring clock speeds of 1050 MHz core, and 6.40 GHz memory. It features 1,280 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. Lastly, there's the Radeon R7 260X, an interesting sub-$150 product, priced at $139. Based on the same "Bonaire" silicon as the Radeon HD 7790, it features higher clock speeds, and double the standard memory amount. It features clock speeds of 1100 MHz, and 6.50 GHz memory. The chip features 896 stream processors, 56 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. The three cards will launch through the various AMD add-in board (AIB) partners, in their non-reference designs.

AMD's performance-segment Radeon R9 270X could prove to be a winning sub-$200 product for the company. Sources affiliated with a leading online retailer revealed that the SKU could greatly resemble the limited edition Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE," possibly with higher clock speeds and stream processor count. "Tahiti LE" is a major variation of "Tahiti," which features not just lower numbers of stream processors and TMUs, but also a narrower 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The die is mated with a more compact BGA package that has lower pin count, thanks to the narrower memory interface, and probably fewer power/ancillary connections. Sources reveal the R9 270X to be "a crippled HD 7950," which could indicate a stream processor count of 1792, higher than the 1536 of Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE." The TMU count could be proportionately higher due to the way they're structured on the GPU; at 112, compared to 96 on "Tahiti LE." The clock speeds are still under the wraps. AMD set an SEP price of the Radeon R9 270X at $199.

Here's a quick recap of AMD's updated product stack, spread between the R9 and R7 series. This article can help you understand the new nomenclature. AMD's lineup begins with the Radeon R7 250 and Radeon R7 260X. The two are based on the 28 nm "Curacao" silicon, which is a variation of the "Pitcairn" silicon the previous-generation Radeon HD 7870 was based on. The R7 250 is expected to be priced around US $89, with 1 GB of RAM, and performance rated at over 2,000 points by 3DMark Firestrike benchmark. The R7 260X, features double the memory at 2 GB, higher clock speeds, possibly more number crunching resources, Firestrike score of over 3,700 points, and a pricing that's around $139. This card should turn up the heat against the likes of GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost.

Moving on, there's the $199 Radeon R9 270X. Based on a chip not much unlike "Tahiti LE," it features 2 GB of memory, and 3DMark Firestrike score of over 5,500 points. Then there's the Radeon R9 280X. This card, priced attractively at $299, is practically a rebrand of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition with. It features 3 GB of RAM, and over 6,800 points on 3DMark Firestrike. Then there are the R9 290 and R9 290X. AMD flew dozens of scribes thousands of miles over to Hawaii, and left them without an official announcement on the specifications of the two. From what AMD told us, the two feature 4 GB of memory, over 5,000 TFLOP/s compute power, and over 300 GB/s memory bandwidth. The cards we mentioned are pictured in that order below.More pictures follow.

FinalWire Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of AIDA64 Extreme Edition 2.80 software, a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking tool for home users; and the immediate availability of AIDA64 Business Edition 2.80 software, an essential network management solution for small and medium scale enterprises.

The new AIDA64 update offers optimized benchmarks for Intel Atom Z2760, implements support for OpenCL 1.2 Update and OpenGL ES 3.0, and provides GPU details for the latest AMD Radeon and nVIDIA GeForce graphics accelerators.DOWNLOAD: FinalWire AIDA64 v2.80 Installer (EXE), ZIP package

TechPowerUp released version 0.6.7 of GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility. The new release brings some feature-additions, support for more graphics processors, and stability improvements. To begin with, we made room in the GPU-Z window to display TMU (texture memory unit) count. Support for a large number of recently-launched GPUs, including Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE," mobile GeForce 600 series MX, and from Quadro family, were added.

TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.7 also brings a few UI enhancements. To begin with, GPU-Z remembers window position from its previous session, cutting you time for positioning it right for screenshots. Next up, when minimized, its tray icon does more than just show you the app is running. Its tooltip (visible when hovered), displays some important sensor data. A new "-tab" command line parameter allows proverclockers to script-launch GPU-Z showing a specific tab. Among the bugs fixed are one related to a crash occurring on CrossFire setups (a Catalyst-related bug), another crash occurring on NVIDIA setups when updating sensor data (GeForce driver-related bug), temperature reading on AMD "Llano" APUs is improved.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.7, TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.7 ASUS ROG Themed

The change-log follows.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new graphics card in its HD 7000 series - the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 XT with Boost. Like the other cards in the HD 7000 series, the new card is based on the highly acclaimed Graphics Core Next architecture from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7870 XT with Boost delivers a new price : performance point to the series. It is based on AMD's Tahiti architecture with its 256-bit memory interface, and 1280 stream processors and 80 Texture units, unlike the remainder of the HD 7800 series that uses the Pitcairn architecture. Configured with 2 GB of high speed GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz (6 GHz effective) the SAPPPHIRE HD 7870 XT has a core clock of 925 MHz which dynamically rises to 975 MHz with PowerTune Boost, AMDs dynamic performance enhancement for games.

While testing Club 3D Radeon HD 7870 jokerCard, one of the three Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" graphics cards you can buy, we discovered that it can pair with Radeon HD 7900 series cards in CrossFireX. Our VGA testing lab, which has battened down the hatches for winter (lack of VGA launches), spent a lot of time toying with Club 3D's card and while brainstorming for the review's conclusion, it came up that HD 7870 Tahiti LE is "bad" because it can't pair with common HD 7870 or HD 7850 "Pitcairn" graphics cards. A bulb supernova just went off over our heads: "...sure Tahiti LE won't pair with Pitcairn, but will it pair with HD 7900 series "Tahiti", which have more stream processors, and more memory?" The answer turned out to be yes!

We successfully managed to pair the Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard with a Radeon HD 7950 and HD 7970 (reference). We casually put it through 3DMark 11 and Sleeping Dogs, and found the contraptions to scale fairly well. We noticed some micro-stutter in 3DMark 11, but Sleeping Dogs felt smooth. This could be great news for current HD 7900 series owners who can upgrade to CrossFire for a modest $249~269. We even tried our luck at unlocking disabled shaders (stream processors), which didn't work. AMD used the mod-proof fuses method to lock the shaders. Check out our Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard review.

Sapphire launched its Radeon HD 7870 Toxic 2 GB graphics card, based on the 28 nm "Tahiti LE" Pitcairn silicon. The card uses a swanky new dual-fan cooler that features a design unlike anything launched by Sapphire so far. It uses a single aluminum fin stack that spans the entire length of the card, to which heat is conveyed by four 8 mm-thick heat pipes that make direct contact with the large die. The card also features a back-plate. It appears to use a high-grade VRM with DirectFETs. The HD 7870 Toxic from Sapphire packs 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. According to our Sapphire contact, the card is exclusive to the Chinese market.Update 28/11
It turns out this card is a damp squib for two reasons:

• It's still based on Pitcairn and not the superior Tahiti LE chip
• It's exclusive to the Chinese market

A renowned brand of graphics card maker - VTX3D, unfolds a might weapon to HD7870 series with VTX3D HD7870 Black Edition. The VTX3D HD7870 Black extends the benefits of VTX3D HD7870 series, but taking advantage of progressive GPU design, showing extraordinary performance than before.

The new model consists of ground-breaking feature which runs at a clock of 925MHz, and 6.0 Gbps for memory, even allowing higher frame rates in games by using AMD PowerTune with boost which overdrives core frequency to dynamically overclock up to 975MHz. Also, VTX3D HD7870 Black features 92mm ultra large fan and 3 heat pipes design, which can significantly reduce heats and keep the temperature low.

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

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards, added a new flavor into award-winning PCS+ HD7870 series: the PowerColor PCS+ HD7870 Myst. Edition. As an advanced version of PCS+ series, the latest graphics solution is introduced with evolution GPU design and solid-built "Gold Power Kit" onboard, enabling stable power efficiency even at load.

The PCS+ HD7870 Myst. Edition clocks at 925 core speed and 6.0 Gbps memory speed, by taking advantage of AMD PowerTune with boost, allowing the core frequency dynamically overclocked up to 975 MHz, maximizing the platform setting to tackle all the demanding titles. Moreover, the latest graphics equipped with 92 mm ultra large fan design, easily taking away the excessive heat from SSU-shape heat pipes fully covers the GPU, delivering the coolest entertainment experience.

According to industry sources we spoke with, multiple leading AMD add-in board partners lack plans to launch Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" graphics cards. The new performance segment SKU is slated for November 27, and already lacks an AMD reference design. The new SKU is being designed as a limited-edition model, targeting limited markets, to help AMD score big on the winter shopping season. Earlier this week, Club 3D defied the November 27 launch date to release the HD 7870 jokerCard, which is believed to stick to the final specifications of "Tahiti LE." Since TUL is the contract manufacturer for Club 3D, one can safely confirm that two AIB brands owned by it, PowerColor and VTX 3D, will announce HD 7870 "Tahiti LE." Incidentally, the three are also among the only AIBs with a Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card, apart from HIS.

Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, the limited edition Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" is configured with 1,536 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory, and clock speeds of 925 MHz core, 975 MHz PowerTune boost, and 6.00 GHz memory (192 GB/s). It is said to be priced competitively with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660, while being allegedly 15% faster.

Club 3D unveils today its brand new Radeon HD 7870 jokerCard graphic card, the new premium graphic card of the acclaimed Club 3D Radeon HD 7870 Poker Series. The Club 3D Radeon HD 7870 jokerCard graphic card features the highly awarded CoolStream high performance cooling design, a Limited Edition of the Radeon HD 7870 GPU powered by 1536 Stream Processors and the memory running at an amazing clock speed of 6000 MHz. Prepare to be blown away by the incredible speed of the Radeon HD 7870 jokerCard in the hottest DirectX 11 and DirectX 11.1 games and Microsoft Windows 8 WDDM 1.2. Experience amazing graphics with Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA 2.0) and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing technologies that help smooth out jagged edges without compromising performance.

AMD is planning to officially launch its new performance-segment SKU codenamed "Tahiti LE" on November 27. According to a new HT4U report, there won't be an AMD-reference design, and its AIB partners will be free to use their existing HD 7900 series boards to carve out the new SKU. We know from slightly older reports that "Tahiti LE" is being designed to occupy a price point between the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and the Radeon HD 7950, and will be a limited edition, launched in select markets, to cash in on the winter shopping season.

AMD is reportedly working on a new performance-segment GPU in the Radeon HD 7800 series, based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon (which goes into making HD 7900 series products). The so-called "Tahiti-LE" silicon could help AMD plug a hole between the HD 7870 GHz Edition and HD 7950, getting close to the performance-level of GeForce GTX 660 Ti, at a lower cost. According to a HT4U.net report, AMD is deciding against referring to the new chip as "HD 7930," since the 7900 series is already crowded with five models, and would rather name it something along the lines of "HD 7870 OC."

A similar approach was adopted by NVIDIA in the recent-past, when it created the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-cores, using higher-end GF110 silicon to create an SKU traditionally based on GF114. At this time, one can only speculate what the new HD 7870 specifications sheet could look like. Since "Pitcairn" already achieves clock speeds in the 1 GHz range, AMD is left with other features to tinker with. 1536 GCN stream processors seem like a middle ground between the 1280 SP-laden HD 7870 "Pitcairn," and 1792 SP HD 7950. Memory bus width is another component. The new desktop SKU could launch in mid-November. The new SKU could even be a "limited-edition" for the winter shopping season, much like the GTX 560 Ti 448-core.

Sapphire announced a new Radeon HD 7870 GHz graphics card based on a compact PCB, and its Dual-X cooling solution that features on some of its higher-end HD 7770 graphics card models. Not to be confused with the HD 7870 FleX with Dual-X, the new card features a standard display output layout, a cost-effective PCB, and a noise-optimized dual-fan cooling solution. The card packs 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface, and sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 1000 MHz core, and 4.80 GHz memory. The card draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors, display outputs include two DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort. Expect the card to be priced at US $230.

According to an investigative report by BeHardware, some Sapphire-made Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition graphics cards may be affected by a "black screen" issue. Some Sapphire HD 7870 users could notice random screen blackouts. A collaboration with AMD unveiled the cause of the screen blackouts to be caused due to a "noisy" GPU electrical signal (voltage is controlled by pulse-width modulation). The cause for GPU electrical signal noise is found to be bad quality ceramic capacitors responsible for conditioning power to the GPU.

AMD has been investigating the issue for months, and had already informed its add-in board partners (AIBs) about components responsible, and to take steps to correct the issue. BeHardware, however, was able to reproduce the problem in recent batches of Sapphire-made HD 7870 cards bought from stores. Following the investigation, Sapphire corrected the issue at their production lines, recalled inventories from French retailers, and relaxed its RMA policy towards existing users of its HD 7870 cards.

With NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 threatening to make things messy in the sub-$250 market, and competitive pricing between NVIDIA partners with high-end SKUs, AMD is preparing yet another round of price cuts to its Radeon HD 7000 GPU series. Its last round followed the launch of GeForce GTX 660 Ti. According to the source, this is what AMD's lineup could look like, when it's done resetting prices:

• Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition - starts at $430
• Radeon HD 7970 standard - starts at $410
• Radeon HD 7950 Boost - starts at $300
• Radeon HD 7950 standard - starts at $290
• Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition - starts at $240
• Radeon HD 7850 2 GB - starts at $200

ASUS announced a trio of DirectCu V2 series graphics cards, the Radeon HD 7950 DirectCu II V2 TOP (HD7950-DC2T-3GD5-V2), the Radeon HD 7870 DirectCu II V2 TOP (HD7870-DC2TG-2GD5-V2), and Radeon HD 7870 DirectCu II V2 (HD7870-DC2-2GD5-V2). The three cards feature slightly modified cooler and PCB designs over the originals. In case of the HD 7950 DCU2 V2, the cooler is compacted with a denser heatsink, and the PCB reduced in length. In case of the HD 7870 cards, the cooler uses a denser heatsink.

The HD 7950 DCU2 V2 TOP ships with 900 MHz core, and 5.00 GHz GDDR5-effective memory. It packs 3 GB of memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface. The HD 7870 DCU2 V2 TOP ships with 1100 MHz core, and 5.00 GHz memory, while the HD 7870 DCU2 V2 ships with 1000 MHz core and 4.80 GHz memory. The two pack 2 GB of memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface.

AMD is working on a new set of price-cuts for its performance-thru-enthusiast lines of GPUs, following the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 Ti. The new pricing will take effect by the end of this week. The $299 GeForce GTX 660 Ti, as reviews show, offers higher performance per Dollar than Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, and punches above its weight, at the $349 Radeon HD 7950, prompting AMD to change its specifications by increasing core clock speed, and augmenting it with PowerTune with Boost. The resulting HD 7950 with Boost is bound to replace the older HD 7950.

When AMD's new pricing scheme takes effect, this is how the performance-enthusiast segment will shape up:

• Prices of Radeon HD 7950 Boost will go down from US $349 to $319,
• Prices of Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition will go down from $299 to $249,
• Prices of Radeon HD 7850 2GB will go down to $209, and HD 7850 1GB to $189.

Samsung, in its latest company blog post, unveiled plans to refresh the specifications of its first gamer-centric notebook, the Series 7. The new specs sheets shows NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M replaced with AMD Radeon HD 7870M graphics processor, and a new 14.3-inch SuperBright 3D LED screen, with a maximum brightness of 400 nit. The notebook's two 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s drive bays are occupied by a 128 GB SSD and 1 TB HDD. Slated for Tuesday (14th Aug), the new Series 7 Gamer notebook will be available in Korea for 2.99 million Won (US $2,643).

AMD is preparing a wave of price-cuts for Radeon HD 7800 series and HD 7900 series products, to make them competitive against NVIDIA's offerings, and to prepare for a new bunch of performance-segment GPUs from its competitor (such as the GTX 660). The new pricing looks like this:

• Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: US $499
• Radeon HD 7970: US $429
• Radeon HD 7950: US $349
• Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition: US $299
• Radeon HD 7850: US $249

The most significant set of price cuts concern HD 7950 and below, which are now more affordable in the price-performance "sweetspot" segment, which targets a bulk of PC gamers. The new prices will take effect later today.

Colorful's AMD Radeon-centric graphics card brand, ColorFire, is out with a new graphics card which keeps in tune with the design principle of backing a performance-segment GPU with preposterous amounts of features (VRM, cooling, OC features, etc.) The company showed off its Radeon HD 7870 XStorm graphics card at this year's Computex event in Taipei, though it is only now that we're seeing pictures of the card taken apart. Pictured below is the card of the hour. This Radeon HD 7870 graphics card is so long, that it comes with a support brace for workstation cases and Apple Mac Pro.

The card powers the otherwise cool and quiet "Pitcairn" GPU with an 8+1+1 onboard VRM, which can be expanded by a 4-phase VRM card that supports higher power draw. The card draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Despite a VRM design that's fit to condition power for the HD 7970 GHz Edition (or jump-start an SUV), the ColorFire HD 7870 XStorm ships with mildly-overclocked speeds of 1050 MHz core and 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz effective) memory. It packs 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface.