AMD released its latest Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta drivers in the run up to its major Radeon Software Crimson Edition launch. One of the last drivers to bear the name "Catalyst," these drivers come with performance optimization for all of the season's biggest releases - Star Wars Battlefront, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Fallout 4, and Assassins Creed: Syndicate. These optimizations could include CrossFire profiles on games that support it. Grab them from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta 32-bit | AMD Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta 64-bit

In this episode of TechPowerUp News, we talk a little bit about the big week it's been for AMD - with its massive Radeon Software Crimson Edition announcement, someone taking issue with the way AMD counts its cores, and GlobalFoundries announcing it's ready with its 14 nm node for Zen. Then there's the epic fail of the week - Batman Arkham Knight for PC, with its second misfire.

AMD posted what could be its final release of Catalyst, before the company switches drivers over to the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition, with a slick new configuration utility. Dubbed Catalyst 15.11 Beta, these drivers come with optimization for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, besides game-specific bug fixes for Star Wars: Battlefront, and Ashes of the Singularity.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.11 Beta for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

In the beginning, there were NVIDIA Detonator and ATI Catalyst. Detonator made way for GeForce Software, but Catalyst pulled through for another decade. These are the brand names GPU makers use to label their drivers, because GPUs are devices that warrant frequent driver updates to keep up with new software and performance improvements. AMD, after consolidating most of its visual computing divisions into the Radeon Technologies Group under technocrat Raja Koduri, made its first major announcement, re-branding AMD Catalyst as Radeon Software. Its first release gets a special name - Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.11.

AMD's new nomenclature for its drivers involves firmly placing the Radeon brand name, replacing "Catalyst," followed by "software," indicating that these are not just drivers, but a suite of applications designed to give you control over your visual computing experience; with "Crimson Edition" being the major version for the year 2015-16, and 15.11 denoting November 2015, retaining the date-based version numbering scheme. These could come with extensions such as "WHQL" or "Beta." The first Crimson Edition drivers will be WHQL-signed.

AMD is planning a major driver update for its Radeon GPUs this November, under its Catalyst Omega moniker. These WHQL-signed drivers, which made their debut in 2014, are expected to come with massive performance optimizations across the board, and in a large selection of new and existing games. It will also present AMD with the opportunity to introduce new software features to their drivers, bringing about value-addition to existing machines running Radeon GPUs.

The 2014 release of Catalyst Omega, besides offering significant performance updates, also introduced major new features such as 4K Virtual Super Resolution (VSR), TressFX 3.0, 5K display support, and various image quality improvements. The new drivers are expected to have an equally exhaustive list of new features, performance- and stability updates, that level the features and performance playing field between AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. Below is the feature-set of the 2014 release.

AMD today announced new AMD Embedded R-Series SOC processors that establish performance leadership across a targeted range of embedded application market requirements for digital signage, retail signage, medical imaging, electronic gaming, media storage and communications and networking. Designed for demanding embedded needs, the processors incorporate the newest AMD 64-bit x86 CPU core ("Excavator"), plus third-generation Graphics Core Next GPU architecture, and state-of-the-art power management for reduced energy consumption. Combined, these AMD innovations and technologies provide industry-leading graphics performance and key embedded features for next-generation designs.

The single-chip system-on-chip (SOC) architecture enables simplified, small form factor board and system designs from AMD customers and a number of third party development platform providers, while providing astounding graphics and multimedia performance, including capability for hardware-accelerated decode of 4K video playback. With a robust suite of peripheral support and interface options, high-end AMD Radeon graphics, designed for the industry's first Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) 1.0 certification, and support for the latest DDR4 memory, the new AMD R-Series SOC addresses the needs of a wide range of markets and customers.

AMD today announced a collaboration with Oculus and Dell to equip Oculus Ready PCs with AMD Radeon GPUs, starting at $999 USD. The powerful PCs are designed to deliver stunning gaming performance and enable spectacular VR experiences for consumers around the world by leveraging AMD VR leadership with LiquidVR and Graphics Core Next architecture.

"It's an exciting time to be at the heart of all things Virtual Reality," said Roy Taylor, corporate vice president, Alliances and Content, AMD. "I'm confident that with Dell and Alienware, we can enable a wide audience of PC users with extraordinary VR capabilities powered by AMD Radeon GPUs."

AMD released a quick follow-up to its recent Catalyst 15.9 Beta drivers, to address a major video memory leak bug that caused the company to pull 15.9 Beta from its download servers. The new Catalyst 15.9.1 Beta drivers address that issue, and carry over the feature-set from 15.9 Beta, including optimization for Star Wars Battlefront Beta, and Fable Legends. It also addresses a bug that caused DirectX Diagnostics (DXDIAG) to not display Direct3D feature-level 12_0 from correctly displaying for Radeon GPUs that support DirectX 12, on Windows 10. Grab the driver from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.9.1 Beta for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

AMD today introduced its most powerful line of AMD PRO A-Series mobile and desktop processors (formerly codenamed "Carrizo PRO" and "Godavari PRO") to deliver exceptional value and performance for today's challenging workloads. The new line of AMD PRO A-Series processors offer enhanced performance, reliability and opportunity to business users and IT decision makers and are designed for the future with Microsoft Windows 10. With its AMD PRO mobile processors, AMD powers some of the first-to-market Windows 10-enabled commercial notebook systems for those looking to upgrade.

"The innovative architecture of new AMD PRO processors delivers compelling performance to stay ahead of the evolving demands of business today," said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, computing and graphics, AMD. "Going PRO with AMD means unmatched dependability with platform stability, processor longevity and an opportunity for richer system configurations. AMD gives its customers choice and affordability to meet specific business needs, without compromising the ability to manage and maintain a secure, stable, and reliable environment."

AMD today announced multiple new discrete AMD Embedded Radeon graphics options suitable for multiple form factors. The suite of products is specifically designed to advance the visual and parallel processing capabilities of embedded applications. The graphics cards represent continued AMD commitment to embedded market innovation, providing engineers with more choices to achieve their design goals, from leading performance to energy efficiency.

The new offerings cover a broad range of needs, from 192 GFLOPS to 3 TFLOPS of single precision performance, and from 20 to less than 95 watts of thermal design power. The products are offered as a Multi-Chip Module (MCM), Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) and PCIe options, with AMD offering the only MCM solutions. All of these products offer extended support and longevity. The new discrete graphics cards offer the right balance of performance, power and graphics memory size, to meet the needs of most customers.

"The demand for rich, vibrant graphics in embedded systems is greater than ever before, and that demand is growing," said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Solutions. "Our latest additions to the embedded product lineup help designers build mesmerizing user experiences with 4K multi-screen installations and 3-D and interactive displays. In addition, the powerful capabilities of our GPUs can address the toughest parallel compute challenges."

AMD released its latest Catalyst software update. Version 15.9 Beta brings you game optimizations for Star Wars Battlefront Beta, and Fable Legends. It also resolves an issue where DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0) support was not being reported by DXDIAG on supported Radeon graphics cards; a Dragon Age: Inquisition related bug in Mantle API mode; and frame-stutter in Assassin's Creed Unity, in CrossFire mode. Some issues related to BenQ's 144 Hz FreeSync monitors were also fixed.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.9 Beta for Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit

AMD this Wednesday, announced a major internal re-organization, with the merger of its various visual computing divisions as a monolithic entity, called Radeon Technologies Group. It will be led by Raja Koduri as Senior Vice President. Koduri served as VP of the company's visual computing division. He will now report directly to CEO Lisa Su, and the various other graphics-related divisions (eg: professional graphics business, led by Sean Burke), will report to him. AMD's lucrative semi-custom business - the one responsible for SoCs that drive popular game consoles such as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 - will also come under the unified Radeon Technologies Group.

"We are entering an age of immersive computing where we will be surrounded by billions of brilliant pixels that enhance our daily lives in ways we have yet to fully comprehend," said Lisa Su. "AMD is one of the few companies with the engineering talent and IP to make emerging immersive computing opportunities a reality," said Koduri, adding "Now, with the Radeon Technologies Group, we have a dedicated team focused on growing our business as we create a unique environment for the best and brightest minds in graphics to be a part of the team re-defining the industry."Many Thanks to Dorsetknob for the tip.

With AMD unifying the driver between the R9 300 series and the older R9 200 series GPUs, it's now possible to pair a Radeon R9 300 series graphics card with one based on a similar-spec chip from the R9 200 series. At launch, the R9 300 series and R9 Fury series had a separate driver branch from the remaining lineup, which was unified with Catalyst 15.7 WHQL. Now, you may pair an R9 390 or R9 390X, with an R9 290 or R9 290X.

You may even create a 4-way CrossFire setup with one each of the four cards. You should even be able to combine R9 380 with R9 285. AMD allowed similar cross-generation pairings in the past, such as those between the R9 280 series and HD 7900 series, and between the R9 270 series and HD 7800 series. The company's newer GPUs feature XDMA CrossFire, which does away with bridge cables, for increased flexibility.

AMD released the Catalyst 15.7 WHQL driver suite, its first WHQL-signed Catalyst driver in 212 days (since 14.12 Omega). These drivers add official support for all the new AMD Radeon R9 300 series and R9 Fury series graphics processors launched in the past two months, and comes with a ship load of new features and game optimizations. They also include WDDM 2.0 support, letting you use them with Windows 10.

To begin with, Catalyst 15.7 WHQL adds support for AMD FreeSync in CrossFire setups, on DirectX 10 and higher 3D applications. Features such as VSR (virtual super-resolution) and FRTC (frame-rate target control) are now official. CrossFire profiles have been added/improved for over a dozen games since 14.12 Omega. Frame-rates have been increased for Far Cry 4 and Tomb Raider.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.7 WHQL for Windows 8.1/10 64-bit | Windows 8.1/10 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

AMD released Catalyst 15.6 drivers, with optimizations for Batman: Arkham Knight. These Beta drivers, meant for Radeon R9 200 series, HD 7000 series, and HD 6000 series;(there are separate upcoming drivers for R9 300 and R9 Fury series); include performance optimizations, stability improvements for Batman: Arkham Knight, this week's big game release. The game itself has been causing problems to PC gamers, with a 30 fps cap, which can be disabled using a config file edit, but yielding stuttering and frame-skipping on both Radeon and GeForce video cards; and is expected to see a launch-day patch.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.6 for Batman: Arkham Knight, for Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit

One of the three unexpected products based on the "Fiji" GPU, which AMD announced at its E3 event, Project Quantum, or the quest to design a 4K-worthy SFF gaming PC, which runs two "Fiji" GPUs in CrossFire, had the press assume that the rest of the system could be AMD-based, such as AMD-branded (albeit Patriot Memory manufactured) memory, AMD-branded (albeit OCZ manufactured) SSD; and importantly an AMD-made CPU or APU. Given its liquid-cooling, the prospect of a 95W "Godavari," or even upcoming "Carrizo" APU didn't seem far-fetched. Even a 95W FX CPU could have been deployed, since AM3+ on mini-ITX is not impossible.

When taken apart, Project Quantum was shown to be running an Intel Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" CPU, on an ASRock-made mini-ITX motherboard, with its non-essential parts soldered out. The i7-4790K is neighbored by a pair of half-height Crucial Ballistix memory modules, which is excusable, since there are no half-height AMD Radeon memory modules, yet. The SSD is AMD-branded. The unit features a unified liquid cooling solution that's custom-made for AMD, by Asetek. A large (200 mm?) radiator, with a single fan, cools the CPU, the PCH, as well as the two "Fiji" GPUs.

Here is the first reasonably detailed PCB shot of the dual-GPU graphics card based on "Fiji," which AMD announced at its E3 conference. The card is an inch taller than standard, but surprisingly short, for a dual-GPU board. This is thanks to the memory being relocated to the GPU package. All that's left on the PCB, besides the two GPUs, are the PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express gen 3.0 x48 bridge chip, and the 12-phase VRM, which draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include one HDMI 2.0, and three DisplayPort 1.2a connectors.

AMD announced significant energy efficiency gains for "Fiji" over "Hawaii," and so this card could have a much lower than expected power-draw. The reference board could come with AIO liquid-cooling, much like the single-GPU Radeon R9 Fury X, some AIBs could even release cards with air-cooling solutions. The yet unnamed dual-GPU "Fiji" based graphics card could be available in Autumn 2015.Image Credit: Anshel Sag (Twitter)

AMD CEO Lisa Su announced the company's latest super high-end graphics card, the Radeon R9 Fury X. The company claims this graphics card will be your gateway to 5K (that's four times 1440p) gaming. The card leverages AMD's new "Fiji" silicon, featuring stacked HBM (high-bandwidth memory), which offers significant performance and performance-per-Watt improvements over the previous generation. The company also announced the Radeon R9 Fury, the company's second-best card based on "Fiji," and the R9 Nano, the third-best product. The R9 Nano is about the size of an ASUS DirectCU Mini, is air-cooled, with performance significantly higher than the R9 290X, and half its power draw.

The Radeon R9 Fury X could be priced around the $650 mark, and will be available in mid-July. The Radeon R9 Fury, on the other hand, could be priced around the $550 mark, and come out a little sooner. The R9 Nano is the dark horse here, and could be AMD's most important product among the three, since it could go head on against the GeForce GTX 970 in both pricing and performance. Its biggest feature over the GTX 970 is 4096 MB of usable memory at half-a-terabyte per second speeds. The R9 Fury could seat itself in an interesting price-performance position between the GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti; while the R9 Fury X could go head on against the GTX 980 Ti, and GTX Titan X. There's a dual-GPU product based on the "Fiji" silicon, which AMD is trying to launch very soon. There's nothing from NVIDIA's current product lineup that can match that.

Since March, we've been hearing whispers that AMD could give the topmost tier SKU based on its swanky new HBM-equipped "Fiji" silicon a fancy name, just as NVIDIA names its top-dog the GTX TITAN. That name could be the AMD Radeon FURY. A similar name to the brand that launched the erstwhile ATI, with its Rage series, Radeon FURY will be AMD's (and probably the industry's) fastest GPU, and will compete with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN X.

The card itself is quite diminutive, but that's because of two reasons - with memory being moved to the GPU package, a large amount of PCB real-estate is saved, and so the card can make do with a smaller PCB; and because the rear-end of the card is where the fittings for its AIO liquid-cooling solution are located. These tubes lead to a 120 x 120 mm radiator, with a single 120 mm PWM fan. Given that such a contraption could cool the dual-GPU R9 295X2, it should be effective with the Radeon FURY, just as well. The card will draw power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs will include three DP 1.2a and one HDMI 2.0. The brand naming indicates that AMD wants to change the terms on which its top-end product competes with NVIDIA's. Low noise and high-performance will be the focus, not power draw. Nobody buys an Aventador for its MPG.

AMD is preparing to time the launch of its next-generation Radeon R9 300 series with that of Computex 2015, in early June. The company had earlier planned to launch some products that are essentially price-adjusted rebrands of existing ones, such as the R9 380 series (being rebrands of R9 290 series on a slightly improved silicon), and the R9 370 series (being based on the "Tonga" silicon); but has decided to launch the two along with its flagship R9 390 series, based on a brand new silicon, around the same time. AMD's answer to the GTX TITAN-X from NVIDIA, the R9 390X will feature around 4,096 stream processors based on the Graphics CoreNext 1.3 architecture, and will implement an HBM (high-bandwidth memory) interface, with bandwidths in excess of 600 GB/s.

In a response to a question on its Facebook page on whether AMD's next-generation Radeon 300 series comes out before GTA V PC launch (March), the company responded, stating that it's giving finishing touches to its new lineup. "We're still putting finishing touches to the 300 series, to make sure they live up to expectation," the reply from AMD's official Facebook handle stated. In its recent Q4-2014 and FY-2014 results investors' call, AMD CEO Lisa Su stated that her company will launch its next-generation GPU and CPU/APU products only in Q2-2015.

AMD is working on a new software feature for its Radeon graphics cards, which it calls "Dynamic Frame Rate Control." Revealed informally to the web, by AMD director of PR Chris Hook, who goes by the handle "AMD_Chris" on various forums, Dynamic Frame Rate Control, or DFRC, is a frame-rate limiter, which gives you power savings when you reduce frame-rates. This probably works by reducing clock speeds to achieve the desired frame-rates.

Sounds a lot like V-Sync? Well the way AMD describes it, DFRC is a frame-rate limiter with a slider. Whereas V-Sync makes the GPU spit out frame-rates to match the monitor's refresh-rate. When a game runs, say, 100 FPS, and you enable V-Sync to bring that down to 60 FPS, your GPU is still running at 3D-performance clocks, unless the 3D load is way too low, and the driver decides to change the power state altogether. DFRC probably achieves lower frame-rates by underclocking the GPU, and increasing the clocks, whenever the scene gets more demanding, and the output FPS drops below the target. Hook describes the energy savings with DFRC as "mind blowing." This peaks our curiosity.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today at its Future of Compute event announced the addition of its first high performance system-on-a-chip (SoC), codenamed "Carrizo", and a mainstream SoC codenamed "Carrizo-L" as part of the company's 2015 AMD Mobile APU family roadmap. In collaboration with hardware and software partners, these new 2015 AMD Mobile APUs are designed as complete solutions for gaming, productivity applications, and ultra high-definition 4K experiences. With support for Microsoft DirectX 12, OpenCL 2.0, AMD's Mantle API, AMD FreeSync and support for Microsoft's upcoming Windows 10 operating system, the 2015 AMD Mobile APU family enables the experiences consumers expect.

"We continue to innovate and build upon our existing IP to deliver great products for our customers," said John Byrne, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics business group, AMD. "AMD's commitment to graphics and compute performance, as expressed by our goal to improve APU energy efficiency 25x by 2020, combines with the latest industry standards and fresh innovation to drive the design of the 2015 AMD Mobile APU family. We are excited about the experiences these new APUs will bring and look forward to sharing more details in the first half of next year."

NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology is rivaled by AMD's project Freesync, which is based on a technology standardized by the video electronics standards association (VESA), under Adaptive Sync. The technology lets GPUs and monitors keep display refresh rates in sync with GPU frame-rates, so the resulting output appears fluid. VESA's technology does not require special hardware inside standards-compliant monitors, and is royalty-free, unlike NVIDIA G-SYNC, which is based on specialized hardware, which display makers have to source from NVIDIA, which makes it a sort of a royalty.

When asked by Chinese publication Expreview on whether NVIDIA GPUs will support VESA adaptive-sync, the company mentioned that NVIDIA wants to focus on G-SYNC. A case in point is the display connector loadout of the recently launched GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970. According to specifications listed on NVIDIA's website, the two feature DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, and not DisplayPort 1.2a, a requirement of VESA's new technology. AMD's year-old Radeon R9 and R7 GPUs, on the other hand, support DisplayPort 1.2a, casting a suspicion on NVIDIA's choice of connectors. Interestingly, the GTX 980 and GTX 970 feature HDMI 2.0, so it's not like NVIDIA is slow at catching up with new standards. Did NVIDIA leave out DisplayPort 1.2a in a deliberate attempt to check Adaptive Sync?

AMD is apparently working with its add-in board manufacturers and retailers to bring down prices of its flagship single-GPU graphics card, the Radeon R9 290X. The card can now be had for as low as $449, non-reference design, factory-overclocked cards starting at a $50 premium. Prices could settle down somewhere between $450 and $500. This closely follows AMD's move to bring down price of its dual-GPU flagship Radeon R9 295X2 by a whopping 34 percent, down to $999, offering performance competitive to the $2999 GeForce GTX TITAN-Z. NVIDIA is preparing two new graphics cards competitive in performance to the Radeon R9 290 series, the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980. The two are based on the company's new 28 nm "GM204" silicon, implementing the "Maxwell" GPU architecture.