More Tahiti goodness is coming up as PowerColor has confirmed with a nice clear photo that it's working on a watercooled Radeon HD 7970 card. Dubbed LCS (Liquid Cooling System) HD7970, the card comes equipped with a (single-slot) waterblock from Slovenia's own EK team.

PowerColor's watercooled card also features 2048 Stream Processors, a 384-bit memory interface, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, DVI, HDMI and dual mini DisplayPort outputs, plus DirectX 11.1 capabilities, CrossFireX support, and a PCI-Express 3.0 interface. No word on the card's clocks (yet) but they should be higher than on stock models. Expect more info later this month.

Swiftech is almost ready with a high-end, full-coverage water block for AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, which its makers are touting as being a "real" full coverage block, as it's not only making contacts with all critical hot components of the card, but also physically covering the entire area of the PCB, including its reverse side, with a backplate (something that's not part of the AMD reference design). The company released CGI drawings of its product to the web.

Called the Komodo HD 7970, the block confines itself to the size of one expansion slot with an included single-slot bracket. The monolithic black design adds a lot to the aesthetics of the card, including its fittings area. The primary material of the block is nickel-plated copper. The portion of the block over the GPU has a 0.25x0.25 Micro Pin matrix, which maximizes heat dissipation to the coolant. Unlike other full-coverage blocks where a portion of the block that doesn't have flowing coolant makes contact with the VRM, the Komodo HD 7970 has "active" VRM cooling, where the area over the VRM has its own coolant chamber, and is part of the coolant's primary flow.

In its latest round of pre-launch testing of the Radeon HD 7950, DonanimHaber overclocked the GPU to match the clock speeds of the HD 7970, that's 925 MHz core, 1375 MHz (5.50 GHz effective) memory, from its reference clock speed of 800 MHz core, 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz effective), and pitted it against a Radeon HD 7970 reference and GeForce GTX 580 reference. Tests included 3DMark 11 Extreme Preset, and 3DMark Vantage Performance. At the outset these figures establish the HD 7950 to be faster than GTX 580 in the two tests. When overclocked to match the clock speeds of the HD 7970, the HD 7950 on average is 4% slower than it. In related news, DonanimHaber reports that AMD could also be working on affordable variants of the HD 7950 that come with 1536 MB of memory, on the same 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface. That would probably depend on how NVIDIA's lineup stacks up against it.

With the introduction of its Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards, XFX silently discontinued its famous "double-lifetime" product warranty policy, which made XFX graphics cards a worthy buy for overclockers. This warranty policy also added to the resale value of these cards. It allowed buyers to tamper with the supplied cooling solution (heatsink), by replacing them with their own without voiding warranty, it even gave lifetime warranty coverage to the original buyer, as well as to the person buying the product pre-used from an original buyer.

XFX told HardwareCanucks that their Double Lifetime warranty just wasn't sustainable and so they decided against offering it on HD 7900-series cards. This is what the warranty policies of XFX' HD 7900 graphics cards look like:

• Cards with Double Dissipation (Double D) or whose product number ends in "R" get Lifetime warranty if registered within 30 days.
• All other cards (ex: HD 7970 Core Edition; FX797ATNFC) get 2 Year Warranty

AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011 of $1.69 billion, net loss of $177 million, or $0.24 per share, and operating income of $71 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $138 million, or $0.19 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $172 million. Fourth quarter non-GAAP net income excludes an impairment of AMD's investment in GLOBALFOUNDRIES of $209 million, restructuring charges of $98 million, the loss from discontinued operations of $4 million, the amortization of acquired intangible assets of $3 million and a loss on debt repurchase of $1 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2011, AMD reported revenue of $6.57 billion, net income of $491 million, or $0.66 per share, and operating income of $368 million. Full year non-GAAP net income was $374 million, or $0.50 per share, and non-GAAP operating income was $524 million.

At the AMD & HardOCP Game Experience event held in Texas, gamers were asked to participate in a blind test. The test involved gaming on two sets of gaming PCs with two PCs each, in each set is an AMD-powered PC, and an Intel-powered one. Participants weren't disclosed which PC was driven by what, as they were assembled in identical-looking cases (no window), with identical monitors and other peripherals. The first set is of budget single-monitor HD gaming, while the second set is high-end three-monitor gaming.

After gaming on both rigs in each set, respondents were asked to tick on a sheet of paper, which rig gave them a better gaming experience, or if gaming both had no observable difference. AMD went into this exercise expecting that most respondents will select "no difference" as their option, and so that would bring good PR to AMD, but to their surprise, most respondents selected the rigs that was powered by AMD processors.

Sunnyvale-based heterogeneous computing promoter AMD has today made available an updated driver for its recently-released Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. Dubbed 8.921.2 RC11, this fresh driver brings the following:

Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Preview support for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications

- AMD Radeon HD 7900 users can now enable Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications.
- Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications).

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).

Gigabyte Technology has now added to its website a second Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, the (previously-leaked) model codenamed GV-R797OC-3GD which features a dual-slot, triple-fan cooler, a custom PCB, and a GPU clocked at 1000 MHz (the standard frequency is 925 MHz).

Gigabyte's customized HD 7970 also has an Ultra Durable VGA construction (2oz copper PCB, Tier 1 memory, Japanese Solid Capacitor, Ferrite Core Chokes, Low RDS (on) MOSFET), a 384-bit memory interface, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM set to 5500 MHz (no overclock here, unfortunately), DVI, HDMI and dual Mini DisplayPort outputs, and CrossFireX support. The GV-R797OC-3GD's price tag has yet to be revealed.

Aeolus Gamer Storm designed a variant of its Dracula GPU heatsink for AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. The heatsink is designed to handle thermal loads of up to 250W, when outfitted with fans. The heatsink design consists of a nickel-plated copper base (this particular variant has a circular bump where the GPU die makes contact), with the appropriate mount-hole spacing for HD 7970. Through this base, six 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat-pipes pass, the opposite ends of these heat pipes pass through two aluminum fin stacks. Tests show that when fitted with two 80 mm fans spinning at 1,800 RPM, the Dracula keeps load temperatures of the HD 7970 about 35 degrees Celsius cooler than AMD reference fan-heatsink.

After showing to the world its Radeon HD 7970 PCB with all components placed, Yeston disclosed pictures of exactly what it's going to use to cool the beast. Yeston's cooling solution uses two big (probably 120 mm) fans inspired by the design of aircraft turbofans, with 18 blades on its impeller. Such impellers with PC cooling fans aren't new, and have been used in case fans designed by the likes of Cooler Master. However, this could be the first time such fans have been used in a VGA cooler.

Underneath the frame holding the two fans is a large aluminum fin stack-type heatsink that spans almost the entire area of the PCB. A copper base makes contact with the GPU, from it, six copper heat pipes originate, conveying heat to two aluminum fin stacks, which are then ventilated by the two fans. When fully assembled, the cooler is so large that it appears to span across almost four expansion slots. Yeston is reportedly still working on improving the design. Let's hope it gets a lot slimmer than that.

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 seems to have ruffled a few feathers at NVIDIA and it looks like the green team doesn't want too much market exposure for it. A fairly-reliable source at ChipHell learned that NVIDIA's GeForce "GTX 680" part could be launched some time in February. The source says that this part could be competitive with the HD 7970, though not exactly NVIDIA's fastest next-generation GPU in the works. So it has to be something other than the GeForce Kepler 110, that's reportedly slated for March-April. At least the tiny pieces of specifications trickling out seem to reinforce this theory. Graphics cards based on this part apparently have 2 GB of memory, and its core clock speed is reported to be 780 MHz.

Chinese AMD Radeon add-in board (AIB) partner and motherboard major Yeston, displayed a Radeon HD 7970 PCB, which bears the AMD branding, and is reportedly AMD's cost-effective "Tahiti" PCB. It is quite likely that this PCB will be used for Radeon HD 7950, apart from affordable HD 7970 cards. Radeon HD 7950, like its costlier sibling, will have a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

Its designers seems to have done some clever cost-cutting which will make cards based on it more affordable (or at least more profitable), without sacrificing quality much. The PCB uses a 8+1+1 phase VRM, consisting of cost-effective ferrite core chokes, LFPAK MOSFETs, and probably a UPI-made VRM controller. Yeston will most likely use a top-flow cooler, and hence made room for two DVI connectors next to one each of HDMI 1.4a and standard DisplayPort 1.2. The dual-BIOS feature of AMD's high-end reference HD 7970 PCB is blanked out on this PCB.

On Thursday, we got to see the first images of PowerColor's new Radeon HD 7970 Vortex Edition graphics card. At CES we got to take a closer look at its VRM. PowerColor carried forward the VRM design of its Radeon HD 6970 Devil 13 graphics card. At the heart of the VRM is a CHiL CHL8228 VRM controller, which allows software volt-modding using most of the popular tools out there. The card uses an 8+1+1 phase VRM. It uses High Current Power Beat chokes which offers PWM frequency range of up to 3 MHz.

Interestingly, while the HD 6970 Devil 13 itself, like the Radeon HD 7970 AMD reference board, used expensive International Rectifier DirectFETs in typical configuration, the HD 7970 Votex uses cost-effective driver-MOSFET (DrMOS) chips that appear to be made by Renesas. Cost effective doesn't necessarily mean "cheap", these chips, according to PowerColor, offer 93% efficiency with up to 1 MHz switching frequency. On the reverse side of the PCB, we can find the power stage to be complemented with SP capacitors that offer 40% lower ESR with and support higher switching frequencies.

PowerColor is designing a non-reference Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, complete with its own PCB and cooler designs. For the cooler, PowerColor is designing an updated version of its Vortex II cooler featured on some of its older high-end graphics cards based on Radeon HD 6900 series GPUs. The cooler design is your typical aluminum fin-stack heatsink to which heat is fed by four 8 mm thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes. Ventilation is handled by two 80 mm fans, the frames of these fans are threaded and can be twisted to adjust the distance between the fan and the heatsink, adjusting its air-flow.

PowerColor also has a custom-design PCB to go with it, only the prototype pictured has no Tahiti GPU sitting on it, but PowerColor at least has a board design of its own at hand. The PCB draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, a CHIL-made controller handles voltage regulation. The VRM consists of a 9+1 phase design with a few other miscellaneous power domains. Those chokes appear to be slightly more cost-effective compared to the CPL-made ones featured on AMD's reference PCB. IR directFETs are replaced by cost-effective yet durable DrMOS chips.

Today Koolance quietly debuted its latest fray into the water cooling solutions industry. Its called the Koolance VID-AR797. The Koolance VID-AR797 is a full coverage video block for water cooling AMD Radeon HD 7970 cards in single and multi video card configurations. It utilizes a high-performance microfin (0.5mm) design made of solid copper with anti-corrosive nickel plating.

Currently the Koolance VID-AR797 is designed for AMD reference layouts only and has an ETA of Jan 16, 2012. No price has yet been given.

CyberpowerPC Inc., a manufacturer of custom gaming machines, will hit the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at full throttle when it showcases its top-of-the-line Fang III Black Mamba gaming rig; new Xplorer notebooks PCs, and debuts an Intel-powered desktop PCs series based on the new NZXT Switch 810 gaming chassis. CyberpowerPC will also debut new systems that feature AMD's Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, which is PCI express 3.0 ready and is the world's first 28nm GPU.

CyberpowerPC's top-of-the-line Fang III Black Mamba is certain to turn heads at CES. The Black Mamba's performance is maxed with an Intel Sandy Bridge-E i7-3960X CPU and X79 Chipset with quad channel memory support. CyberpowerPC overclocks the CPU an additional 30% with its Venom Boost technology and includes its Advance Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit with all new 480 mm radiator support to keep your Venom Boosted CPU and extreme gaming GPUs cool and running quiet.

Gigabyte hopped into the Radeon HD 7970 launch bandwagon with a base-model graphics card, the GV-R797D5-3GD-B. The custom-design GV-R797OC-3GD isn't launched so far, doesn't feature on the company website, and will probably join its ranks a little later, since it appeared to be using a custom-design PCB, something no card launched so far has. The GV-R797D5-3GD-B sticks to AMD-reference PCB and cooler designs, with red-colored PCB.

We have seen cases where cards with red PCB in their press-shots ended up having black PCBs in the store inventories (and vice-versa), so it looks like the only way you can be sure about the PCB color by looking at what color PCB the online store of your choice is using in its item page when you're placing your order (and return the card if it doesn't match). PCB color has gained importance with enthusiasts that like to peak into the belly of their beasts through case windows. Gigabyte's GV-R797D5-3GD-B also sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 925 MHz core, and 1375 MHz (5.50 GHz effective) memory. The HD 7970 is DirectX 11.1 compliant, packs 2,048 stream processors, and is wired to 3 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface. Expect standard pricing of around $550.

New Year's Eve Fireworks has passed and it is time for Club 3D to introduce another rocket, the all brand new Club 3D Radeon HD 7970. This is the first graphics card using a 28nm GPU and supporting Direct3D 11.1 that will initially ship with Windows 8.

Coming along with 2048 stream processors, a 384 bit GDDR5 memory bus that provides 3.79 TFLOPs of computing performance there are magnificent new technologies introduced with AMD's new high end GPU like AMD Eyefinity 2.0, GCN Architecture, AMD App Acceleration and PCI-Express 3.0 to only name a few.

ASUS-branded reference design graphics cards are often looked forward to by enthusiasts because they feature minimalist AIB-branding stickers. ASUS' Radeon HD 7970 3 GB graphics card launched today (model: HD7970-3GD5) is no exception to that, except it features a red-colored PCB. It otherwise sticks to AMD-reference PCB and cooler design, as well as AMD reference clock speeds of 925 MHz core and 5.50 GHz (1375 MHz actual) memory. It bundles ASUS' GPU Tweak tool that allows easy voltage-assisted overclocking. In all likelihood, it will be priced on par with every other base model Radeon HD 7970 graphics card from other vendors, around $550.

XFX became the first AMD add-in board (AIB) partner to launch a graphics card based on AMD's new Radeon HD 7970 GPU, which features an in-house design. Other graphics cards launched today stick to AMD reference design. Called the XFX R7970 Double Dissipation, the card makes use of AMD reference PCB design (black color) with its own factory-overclocked speeds, but an in-house dual-fan cooling assembly. The cooler uses a large aluminum fin array to which heat from the GPU, memory, and VRM is fed by heat pipes, which is then ventilated by two fans.

The XFX R7970 Double Dissipation comes in two variants, the Black Edition variant features clock speeds of 1000 MHz core and 1425 MHz (5.70 GHz effective) memory; while the base Double Dissipation variant sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 925 MHz / 5.50 GHz. There is also an AMD reference-design "core" version in the works. The card packs 3 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface. It uses the same display output cluster as every other HD 7970, with one dual-link DVI, an HDMI 1.4a, and two mini-DP connectors; but features a custom-designed rear-panel bracket with XFX branding.A video presentation of this card follows.

VERTEX3D, a leading manufacturer of AMD based graphics products, is proud to announce brand-new HD7900 models, VTX3D HD7970, with higher performance and new features. HD7970 is designed to work perfectly with the latest PCI Express 3.0 bus architecture, delivering double bandwidth per lane compares to previous generation. Enhanced DirectX 11.1 version boosts up the speed of tessellation and DirectCompute, brings ultimate gaming performance you never feel before.

Today is launch-day for AIB-branded Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards, also the day you'll be able to buy your card from stores. Sapphire is naturally part of the launch party, with its base-model Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. In the weeks ahead, it will launch the rest of its exhaustive lineup of graphics cards based on this GPU. Sapphire's "Da Original" Radeon HD 7970 graphics card is based entirely on AMD's reference design, with a black-colored PCB. It sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 925 MHz core, and 5.50 GHz memory, packing 3 GB of memory. Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" GPU, the Radeon HD 7970 is a DirectX 11.1-compatible graphics card, packing 2048 stream processors, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. It will be priced at around US $550.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder of custom desktops, notebooks, and workstations, gives PC enthusiasts a reason to grin by offering the new AMD Radeon HD 7950 and AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics solutions on their award-winning desktop systems.

Leading global graphics card and motherboard manufacturer MSI today officially announces the world's first graphics cards equipped with the brand new AMD 28nm Radeon HD 7900 GPU, R7970-2PMD3G5, which is built on the latest PCI Express Gen 3 standard. MSI's R7900 series graphics cards are equipped with 3GB of high speed GDDR5 graphics memory, and also come with MSI's exclusive Afterburner overclocking utility that allows users to adjust the core voltage to increase overclocking potential.

MSI's R7900 series also features AMD's exclusive Eyefinity multi-display technology, and combined with support for next-generation DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a interfaces, stereoscopic 3D capability, and 7.1 channel lossless high quality TrueHD and DTS-HD audio formats, consumers can enjoy the highest quality audio and visual entertainment! MSI's R7900 series graphics cards have also implemented an all-solid capacitor design to guarantee stability even when working under full loads over extended periods of time.