Gigabyte introduced a new Radeon HD 5670 based graphics card that is intended to be cost-effective. Carrying the model number GV-R567D3-1GI, it makes use of 1 GB of DDR3 memory instead of GDDR5. The 1 GB of memory is clocked at 800 MHz (1600 MHz DDR), installed across a 128-bit wide memory interface. The standard HD 5670 features 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1000 MHz (4000 MHz GDDR5 effective). The HD 5670 GPU is clocked at 775 MHz. Based on the 40 nm Redwood core, it features 400 stream processors. Other features specific to Gigabyte's design include a silent double-slot cooler that makes use of an 80 mm fan, and display connectivity that includes one each of DVI, D-Sub, and a gold-plated HDMI port. Gigabyte did not give out a price, though one can expect it to be a little lower than that of the standard HD 5670.

AMD today released its latest version of the AMD Catalyst software suite, Catalyst 10.2 WHQL, as well as unveiled a Catalyst 10.2 Preview driver that lets you use the latest version Catalyst Control Center (CCC) that features a more functional user interface. The new CCC features a reworked UI that allows easier adjustment of 3D settings and image quality; makes setting up multiple displays easier; and helps adjust power settings to optimize battery life (on notebooks).

Apart from that, Catalyst 10.2 introduces DivX Accelerated support for AMD Radeon HD 6800 series GPUs; support for OpenGL 4.1, including new ARB extensions introduced with OpenGL 4.1; and an updated AMD Stream v2.3 API.

DOWNLOAD:AMD Catalyst 10.12 for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit
A complete list of changes follows:

Originally poised for a November 22 launch, and plagued by reported delays, the Radeon HD 6900 series from AMD is indeed staring down at a three-week delay. According to a new release by AMD circulated to press sites, AMD is pinning the new launch date to be "in the week of" December 13, 2010. AMD tried to explain that the Radeon HD 5800 series is still in strong demand, and the Radeon HD 5970 is still maintaining performance leadership, perhaps blaming congestion in inventories for the delay, and not anything to do with manufacturing.

The first part of the explanation is unconvincing. If AMD did not want to disturb Radeon HD 5800 series sales, there wouldn't be Radeon HD 6800 series, which was launched with the idea of giving HD 5800-like performance at more affordable prices. The second part, however, is hard to dispute. AMD signed off its release saying that enthusiasts will find the products worth the wait. December 13, however, could disturb some gifting (or self-gifting) plans for Xmas. Given the swamped courier and logistics services at that time, it will be tough to get a Radeon HD 6900 series product in time for the celebrations.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, adds its own cooling solution to the HD6850 series: PCS+ HD 6850. This powerful upgraded edition embraces the PCS+ series features which equips with superior factory overclocked setting and excellent cooling solution, unlimited the ultra gaming potential in the coolest working environment.

PCS+ HD6850 clocks at 820 MHz core speed, while memory clocks at 1100 MHz. The factory overclocked setting ensures gaming efficacy can effortlessly go beyond the standard version, delivering the out of box gaming performance which will easily blow up gamers' mind.

AMD today introduced the next generation of PC gaming, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series, designed to be "perfect graphics cards" for gamers by delivering unprecedented game performance starting at $179 SEP. The new AMD Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards provide more than 30 percent greater game performance than competing products, harnessing AMD's second-generation Microsoft DirectX 11-capable architecture, best-in-class energy efficiency, and an unmatched feature set, including AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology. The AMD Radeon HD 6800 series is available immediately from etailers worldwide.

"AMD is the market share leader by a landslide in DirectX 11 graphics," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD. "Through our sweet spot strategy and our open, industry standards approach, we've worked to deliver the best possible experience for gamers. Today, our laser focus on gamers continues with the introduction of what we think is far and away the best graphics card series today, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series. With exceptional game performance, an unrivaled feature set including breathtaking DirectX 11 gaming, AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology, AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing, and more, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series will have all gamers wanting to get Radeon in their systems."

Specifications of the upcoming Radeon HD 6800 series GPUs have already been doing rounds for the last couple of days, and ChipHell.com finally managed to leak an alleged press-deck of the HD 6800 series that discloses the GPUs' specifications and some key features that AMD will introduce with this generation. What can be said looking at the slides is that AMD seems to have stepped up performance/die-size big time (up to 35% increase in performance per mm²), with some reconfiguring of key components. It also redesigned the GPUs to have up to 100% increase in tessellation performance, new image-quality enhancements, a new video acceleration engine (UVD 3), and a redesigned display IO with 2nd Gen. Eyefinity technology that can let users of standard variants drive up to six displays with a single card.

Specifications of the HD 6870 are: 1120 stream processors, 32 ROPs, 56 TMUs, 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 1 GB, clock speeds of 900/1050(4200) MHz core/memory(effective), and idle/max board power of 19W/151W. For the HD 6850, it's 960 stream processors, 32 ROPs, 48 TMUs, 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 1 GB, clock speeds of 775/1000(4000) MHz, idle/max board power of 19W/127W.

ViewSonic has launched its first 24" 3D-LED monitor, the V3D241wm-LED, giving people the opportunity to watch 3D content in full HD. The monitor has been certified by AMD for use with its Radeon range of graphics cards, ensuring maximum compatibility and ease of use. The monitor includes a set of wired active shutter glasses, allowing users with a compatible computer to get started right out of the box.

Using the included 3D glasses, the V3D241wm-LED can display 3D games and movies without any loss of quality by taking advantage of the monitor's 120Hz frame rate and ultra-fast 2ms response time. The ultra-responsive LED screen has a brightness level of 300 nits and a contrast ratio of 20,000,000:1, providing a high level of detail and colour reproduction.

AMD has reportedly delayed the launch of its much talked about Radeon HD 6000 series graphics processors from its expected date of October 12, to November, 2010. Whatever be the company's motive behind this delay, it creates room for NVIDIA to release new lower-mainstream and entry-level products. Perhaps AMD wants to make sure media-attention isn't split between HD 6000 series launch, and those of NVIDIA's GeForce 400 series spread throughout October.

These include the GeForce GT 430. Apart from new GPUs, NVIDIA is also said to be lowering the prices of some of its key SKUs, including the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB, and previous-generation GeForce GT 220. Meanwhile, it is increasingly looking like the first Radeon HD 6000 series SKUs will be based on the "Barts" die, these SKUs will succeed the Radeon HD 5700 series, and restore competitiveness against key NVIDIA SKUs.

Barely a week after pictures of AMD's "Barts" prototype surfaced, it wasn't long before a specifications sheet followed. The all-important slide from AMD's presentation to its add-in board partners made it to sections of the Chinese media. "Barts" is a successor to "Juniper", on which are based the Radeon HD 5750 and HD 5770. The specs sheet reveals that while indeed the GPU looks to be larger physically, there are other factors that make it big:

Memory Controller
Barts has a 256-bit wide memory interface, which significantly increases its pin-count, and package-size. The "Pro" and "XT" variants (which will go on to be HD 6x50 and HD 6x70, respectively), have memory clocked at 1000 MHz and 1200 MHz, respectively, so that's nearly 100% increase in memory bandwidth .

The first official die-shots of the first Bulldozer architecture derivative, the eight-core "Orochi" Opteron die was displayed at Global Technology Conference, by GlobalFoundries, AMD's principal foundry-partner. While AMD did not give out a die-map to go with it, the structures we can make out are four Bulldozer modules holding two cores and a shared L2 cache each, a L3 cache spread across four blocks that's shared between all cores, the northbridge-portion cutting across the die at the center, and the integrated memory controller along its far-right side. Various I/O portions are located along the other three sides.

Next up is the Llano die. This is AMD's very first Fusion APU (accelerated processing unit) die. It is based on the K10 architecture and integrates a graphics processor and northbridge completely into one die. It precedes APUs based on the Bobcat architecture. Fortunately, there is a die-map at hand, which shows four K10 cores with dedicated 1 MB L2 caches per core, no L3 cache, an integrated SIMD array that holds 480 stream processors. The GPU component is DirectX 11 compliant. Other components include an integrated northbridge, integrated memory controller, integrated PCI-Express root complex, and HyperTransport interface to the chipset.

AMD rolled out a reference-design DisplayPort to DVI active adapter today, that lets the masses create Eyefinity setups on existing monitors easier. The adapter plugs into full-sized and mini DisplayPort connectors on ATI Radeon graphics cards, and gives out a single-link DVI signal. The conversion between DP to DVI is active, and conserves video quality, as well as other features such as content protection. This is because when Eyefinity-ready graphics cards with DisplayPorts from AMD came to be, some manufacturers sold cheap $10 DP-DVI dongles that pass DVI signals from the DP directly (passive conversion). Such dongles more often don't work, because Radeon GPUs don't give out DVI signals from DP. Active adapters (those which actively convert DP signals to DVI) were sold at the time in upwards of $100.

AMD has managed to bring the price of such active adapters down to $30. There however, is a limitation. The output is a single-link DVI, meaning that it will support digital resolutions only up to 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz (1080p is supported). It shouldn't matter for the target users, because the DisplayPort on ATI Radeon HD 5000 graphics cards conveys only one TMDS link, so even with a DVI dual-link capable adapter, it would only give out single-link output. At least a bulk of the users are covered, at a very affordable price point. AMD will market this adapter directly, and through its growing network of add-in board partners (in bundles with graphics cards, or directly). PowerColor beat AMD to today's announcement, and released PowerColor-branded AMD-reference DP-DVI adapter last week.

The enthusiast community witnessed the sad "demise" of BFG Tech, as it categorically announced an exit from graphics cards business, and then unofficially left other businesses such as PSUs and PCs. It has come to light, however, that BFG Tech did in fact toy with the idea of doing what XFX did, and become an AMD add-in-board partner. Pictures surfaced that showed a Chinese OEM had made samples of ATI Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards carrying the BFG Tech name, and other things BFG has been known for - such as free 24/7 tech-support, lifetime warranty, and other tiny BFG-esque details.

Under a partnership with that company, BFG would just have to market the cards and run support, while everything from manufacturing to packaging would be carried out by the OEM (earlier BFG, like EVGA, would package, market, and run support for the products). The company while working with BFG did produce a batch of ATI Radeon graphics cards to supply to BFG. When inquired by AMD about who these cards were being made for, the company mentioned BFG Tech. AMD responded saying that BFG Tech wasn't an authorized board partner, and would not be allowed to sell ATI Radeon graphics cards. This sent the OEM into panic, which got back to BFG only to find out that the marketing staff there had been let go of. The company now has with it a batch of "BFG Tech" labelled graphics cards it can't sell. It plans to rebadge and exhibit them at the China Sourcing Fair later this October, to exhibit its capabilities and possibly find a buyer for those cards.

Come this Winter, and things will heat up once again in the graphics card industry, with GPU vendors battling it out for the crucial Holidays shopping season. While AMD did not introduce any new GPUs after completing its ATI Radeon HD 5000 series launch itinerary, it did manage to grab significant amount of sales from its graphics rival NVIDIA. For this Winter, AMD and its partners will be in a position to launch the ATI Radeon HD 6000 series graphics processors, according to DigiTimes, citing sources from graphics card vendors.

It is also said that the Radeon HD 6000 series, codenamed "Southern Islands" (members of which are codenamed after islands in the Mediterranean Sea), will be built on TSMC's 40 nm manufacturing process. AMD had originally planned to build Southern Islands on TSMC's 32 nm process, but with the foundry skipping 32 nm bulk for 28 nm which will start operations only by the end of the year, AMD redrew its plans and stuck to the now-mature (stable) 40 nm process. Perhaps AMD learned a thing or two from a wide range of teething problems that plagued the 40 nm production line.

Fujitsu Japan developed an AMD-powered variant of its LifeBook PH520, marked with /1A in the model name. The 11.6-inch notebook features an LED-backlit display with 1366x768 pixels resolution, weighing 1.4 kg, and powered with 6.2 hours of juice on a full charge. Under the hood is where all the changes lie, with an AMD Athlon II Neo K125 1.70 GHz dual-core processor, and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics. The system is aided by 2 GB of DDR3 memory, 320 GB storage, and includes connectivity and utilities that include 1.3 MP webcam, 801.11 b/g/n wireless network, Bluetooth, and gigabit Ethernet. Windows 7 Home Premium comes pre-installed. The LifeBook PH520/1A will be priced at US $870 in Japan.

AMD today rolled out this month's release of its ATI Catalyst software, which provides drivers and essential system software for ATI Radeon graphics processors, AMD chipsets, and other ATI multimedia products. The WHQL-signed version 10.5 brings a few feature updates, along with a list of important bug fixes. To begin with, Catalyst 10.5 gives 120 Hz display support for ATI Radeon HD 4000 and HD 3000 series graphics processors (helpful with stereoscopic 3D), and ATI Overdrive enhancements which allow full control over ATI Radeon GPUs that are connected to multiple displays, eliminating a limitation.

Following on with Catalyst 10.4, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 doesn't take unusually long to load maps, while a stability issues connected to IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, Mass Effect 2 (where display goes blank if you switch to desktop in the middle of a game), Empire: Total War, Napoleon: Total War got a fix which allows AA settings with Volumetric effects, while Unigine Heaven 2.0 in wireframe mode doesn't crash. For more details, refer to the release notes document.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.5 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

Shortly after the Khronos group announced the OpenGL 4.0, the newest version of the multi-platform graphics API, AMD is out with a preview graphics driver for its ATI Radeon, FireGL, FirePro, and Mobility Radeon graphics accelerators, which includes the OpenGL 4.0 ICD (installable client driver). The driver is available for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux. OpenGL 4.0 is comparable and up to times with Microsoft's DirectX 11 API, it makes use of hardware features such as tessellation on the GPU, per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions, 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations, etc., and has no restrictions on which later version of Windows it can run on. With OpenGL 4.0 for example, one can expect 3D graphics with the complexity comparable to DirectX 11 on Windows XP.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst OpenGL 4.0 Preview Driver for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP, and Linux.

A little later this week, NVIDIA will release two of its front-line GPUs that are compliant with the latest industry standards, notably Microsoft DirectX 11. This brings competition to AMD's high-end Radeon HD 5800 series and Radeon HD 5970 graphics cards, or does it? Competition often tends to have a pro-consumer effect out of price-wars. Sources indicate that AMD is not inclined to cut prices of its products after NVIDIA's launch of GeForce GTX 400 series. A few factors we think could prevent a price-war:

• AMD could have a fair idea about how GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs compete with its GPUs, and given that their estimated performance levels and estimated target prices (estimated US $499 for GTX 480 and $349 for GTX 470), the performance/price equation for AMD's Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs iron out, with HD 5870 at around $400, HD 5850 at around $325, and HD 5830 at $240, barring HD 5970, which is being priced at a premium for its premium performance levels.
• Although NVIDIA and its partners officially launch their GeForce GTX 400 series products on the 26th of March, market availability, backed by sizable inventories could just take some time, allowing AMD to maintain its prices.
• AMD is introducing newer variants of its HD 5800 series GPUs, namely HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2GB, and allowing AIB partners to come up with 2 GB models of Radeon HD 5800 series cards.

A couple of months after releasing the VRM-R3 and VRM-R4 VRM heatsinks for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, Thermalright is back with yet another HD 5800 series VRM heatsink, the VRM-R5. The new heatsink offers passive or fan-assisted cooling dedicated the the graphics card's VRM chips - major heat-producing components next to the GPU and memory chips. Cooler VRM chips could mean better electrical stability, affecting overclocking headroom.

The VRM-R5 makes the main block portion of the heatsink elaborate, with complex, branched metal ridges. From here two 6 mm aluminum heat pipes conduct heat to a block of aluminum fins. The fins are punched to improve heat dissipation. An 80 mm fan can be attached to this block for active cooling. The heatsink measures 118 x 117 x 122 mm, and weighs 140 g. The heatsink is compatible with some VGA coolers by Thermalright, notably Spitfire. It will reach stores next week at a price of 23 EUR.

Many of you have probably read the press release of the Radeon HD 5750 from Powercolor without the usually required PCI-E power connector. The card runs at the exact same specs as a reference card of the same model, but lacks both the additional power requirements and active cooling. Powercolor has placed a dual slot, passive cooling solution with copper heatpipes and aluminum heatsinks unto the graphic card. The DVI connectors are of black color and Powercolor has also kept the additional DisplayPort and HDMI connectivity we have seen on reference models of the graphic card. Here are some close-up pictures of the card:

Lenovo today unveiled 11 new IdeaPad laptops and IdeaCentre desktops at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show that demonstrate the company's re-energized commitment to personal computing design and engineering specifically for consumers. The new IdeaPad laptop PCs - S10-3t, S10-3, Y460, Y560, G460, G560, V460 and V360 and IdeaCentre desktop PCs - A300, C310 and K320 - include industry leading design and technology that will help enhance performance, style and entertainment capabilities across Lenovo's consumer products lineup.

"Our new Idea PCs are the next step in our exciting new worldwide product portfolio designed with the consumer in mind," said Liu Jun, senior vice president, Idea Product Group, Lenovo. "These additions to our Idea portfolio demonstrate Lenovo's commitment to giving our customers the capabilities they expect, at prices they can afford, while showcasing our forward-thinking innovations."

Club 3D, European market leader for graphics cards, today announced the release of its new 40nm process technology based HD5970 graphics card. Equipped with two ATI Hemlock graphics processing units. The fastest graphics card on the planet has been developed.

Engineered for speed, the Club 3D HD5970 delivers an unrivaled HD gaming experience so you can play the latest, most demanding HD titles like never before. Featuring cutting-edge graphic, display and memory technology, this next-generation powerhouse delivers unprecedented performance straight out of the box. Unlocked, this graphics card has massive headroom, so you can take control and push your hardware to its full potential!

AMD published its near-monthly installment of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite, which provides essential drivers for the company's ATI Radeon graphics processors, AMD 7-series chipset IGPs, ATI multimedia products, and the AMD FireStream GPGPU processors. Version 9.11 announced today, comes with the same hardware support base as the older version, includes two new features, and carries the usual application-specific fixes.

New features include GPU Acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta, and High Quality downscaling for video transcoding MSE. The release of ATI Catalyst, according to AMD, supports the new Hardware Acceleration features of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta for video encoded in the H.264 format. Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth video playback, reduce system resource utilization, and preserve battery life. Hardware acceleration is supported on all existing Radeon HD 5000 and HD 4000 series graphics processors. The release of ATI Catalyst includes an enhancement for the ATI Video converter for users transcoding high quality interlaced content (1920x1080i @60i videos) down to small resolution progressive content (320x240 @30p - iPod videos as an example), by maintaining high visual quality when down-scaling by a significant amount and converting interlaced video content to progressive. For a list of minor issues fixed in the release, refer to the Release Notes document.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.11 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announces a new flavor to HD5700 series: PLAY! HD5770. PLAY! HD5770 features full digital output solution with Display Port / HDMI/ DVI onboard design; delivers an incredible visual performance at all resolutions. And with the support of ATI Eyefinity technology, PLAY! HD5770 can run up to three displays from one single card and give all gamers a surreal gaming experience.

PowerColor PLAY! HD5770 clocks at 850MHz core speed and 1200MHz of memory speed; with an ultra 92mm cooling fan, PLAY! HD5770 is able to increase air flow in low fan speed, yet still dissipates heat easily from the cooper base, which covers the GPU entirely. This cooler also reduces fan noise and enhances cooling ability to deliver the ultimate gaming performance in a low-noisy, and cool operating environment.

AMD released the latest version of its ATI Catalyst software suite. Version 9.10 WHQL brings with it official support for the company's newest ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics processors, adds features that enhance usability under Windows 7, along with the usual list of bug fixes. The driver also adds support for Super Sample Anti-Aliasing, for Radeon HD 5800 GPUs. A complete list of changes can be read in the release notes document. The most important of them are listed below:

• ATI Catalyst 9.10 now includes full GPU support for the award winning ATI HD Radeon 5800 series GPUs.
• Provides support for a new Anti-Aliasing method on the ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series. Users can now experience the high level of anti-aliasing image quality using Super Sampling anti-aliasing while maintaining good performance levels
• Adds GPU acceleration for the Windows 7 Drag and Drop video converting application

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.10 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

Introducing the newly arrived High-end VGA Graphics Array cooler, Slimod. This cool VGA Card cooler is brimming with technology and innovation. Applicable to the latest NVIDIA GeForce and ATI Radeon GPUs, the Slimod will deliver optimum cooling for today's hot GPUs.

Equipped with 3 all copper 6mm Direct Touch heat-pipes for swift and efficient heat transport to the 30 aluminum, nickel coated heat-sink fins which are cooled down by two silent and PWM controlled 8mm DC fans.