Marked by the launch of a multi-million dollar global marketing campaign, Lenovo today announced the worldwide availability of its coveted IdeaPad U310 and U410 Ultrabooks. Powered by the 3rd generation Intel Core processors, Lenovo's new U Series Ultrabook devices take the era of thin, lightweight and ultra-responsive mobile computing to a new level of affordability, without compromising quality or style. To showcase the benefits and features unique to its new Ultrabooks, Lenovo's multi-faceted, global "Book of Do" advertising campaign highlights how the combination of innovative thinking and IdeaPad Ultrabooks empower people-the world's tinkerers, creators and builders-to make great things happen.

Sapphire's newest motherboard is the Pure Platinum A75 (model: PT-ABA75). Although based on the previous-generation AMD A75 FCH, the board supports AMD A-Series "Trinity" APUs in the FM2 package. The board is a bundle of simplicities. The APU is powered by a 5-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory; and a single PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, without any lane switches en route. Two each of PCI-Express 2.0 x1, legacy PCI, and a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 make up the rest of the expansion slot area.

The AMD A75 FCH gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, five of which are assigned as internal ports, and one mSATA. Display outputs include DVI and HDMI. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, and two USB 3.0 ports make up the rest of the connectivity. The Pure Platinum A75 will be part of the first wave of FM2 motherboards.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced the SAPPHIRE HD 7950 Flex Edition brining the company's unique solution for multi-screen gaming to the highly acclaimed HD 7000 series of graphics cards based on the Graphics Core Next architecture from AMD.

Most graphics cards based on AMD technology require the third monitor in an Eyefinity set-up to be a DisplayPort monitor, or connected with an active DisplayPort Adapter. The SAPPHIRE FleX family can support three DVI monitors in Eyefinity mode and deliver a true SLS (Single Large Surface) work area without the need for active adapters. The first two monitors are connected to the two DVI ports and the third to an HDMI to DVI cable (supplied) with no extra hardware required.

Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X OC Edition is the first card based on the revolutionary new graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD to feature the SAPPHIRE exclusive and world acclaimed Vapor-X cooling technology.

The Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X OC Edition is the first card in this generation to use the Sapphire exclusive implementation of Vapor chamber cooling technology. Previous products with Vapor-X have received world wide acclaim for delivering very efficient cooling that allows the card to run at higher speeds but with very low noise levels. Based on the latest GPU technology from AMD, the Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X OC Edition has 1 GB of the latest DDR5 memory, and is factory overclocked with core clocks of 1100 MHz and memory clocks of 1300 MHz (5.2 GB/s effective) to deliver excellent performance.

Sapphire launched a new graphics card that combines the Dual-X cooling solution, which was first featured on a high-end Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, with the more affordable Radeon HD 7950. The company launched two models, the Sapphire HD 7950 Dual-X OC, and a base model. The Dual-X OC is shown with a black-colored PCB, and GPU clock speed of 950 MHz with 5.00 GHz effective GDDR5 memory; whereas the base model utilizes a more cost-effective blue-colored PCB, and sticks to 810 MHz core with 5.00 GHz memory clock speeds. Pricing and availability information is awaited.

SAPPHIRE Technology, a leading manufacturer and global supplier of graphics, mainboard and multimedia solutions has just announced a new mainboard developed to support the latest family of CPUs from Intel.

The SAPPHIRE Pure Platinum Z77/K is a full ATX sized board that supports the latest generation Intel i7/i5/i3 processor family using socket LGA1155. It includes full implementation of the chipset features, including multiple PCI-Express 3.0 Gen3, USB 3.0, SATA 6G and extensive I/O support. Four dual channel memory sockets are provided, supporting up to 16 GB of DDR3 memory with current technology (32 GB max when suitable modules become available).

When we saw glimpses of Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Toxic 6 GB graphics card, we knew Sapphire was prioritizing on aesthetics a lot. That turns out to be the case, as the first pictures of this monstrosity reveal. The PCB and cooler are designed from scratch, by Sapphire. The PCB accommodates 6 GB of memory in 24 GDDR5 memory chips, 12 on each side. To power the factory-overclocked 28 nm "Tahiti" GPU and 24 GDDR5 7 GT/s memory chips takes some really strong VRM. Sapphire implemented an 8+3 phase power supply, that makes use of solid-state chokes (don't whine under stress), and International Rectifier DirectFETs. The VRM draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.More details, and a benchmark follow.

Sapphire is ready with a high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard based on Intel Z77 chipset, the Pure Platinum Z77. This is Sapphire's second Z77 motherboard disclosed so far, after the Pure Black Z77 it showed us, at CES. Sapphire is offering 3-way multi-GPU support in a very unique way. Three of its four PCI-Express x16 (long) slots are wired to the CPU, all three of them PCI-Express Gen 3.0. The topmost slot is x16 and x8 capable (x8, if any of the other two slots are populated); the middle slot is x8 and x4 capable (x4, if the bottommost blue slot is populated); while the bottommost slot is x4 capable. PCI-Express 3.0 x4 offers bandwidth comparable to PCI-Express 2.0 x8 (or PCI-Express 1.1 x16), which doesn't heavily bottleneck today's graphics cards. An ingenious slot layout, made possible by inexpensive PCIe lane switches, instead of expensive bridges.

Sapphire released the new Pure Platinum A55V motherboard to the market. The board offers a value socket FM1 platform based on AMD A55 FCH chipset, in the ATX form-factor. The motherboard supports AMD A4, A6, A8, and Athlon II "Llano" APU/CPUs in the FM1 package. This model is not exactly designed to be "no-frills", as it does pack an interesting mix of features that could help it grab a comfy price-point in the market.

The FM1 socket is powered by a 6-phase VRM, which uses a simple whine-free choke + DPAK MOSFET design, but throws in a heatsink to cool the MOSFETs. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, with speeds of over DDR3-1600 MHz with overclocking. The APU is also wired to a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots. Apart from these, you get three legacy PCI slots, wired to the FCH.

Speaking at a conference of AIC partners, ZOTAC (China) General Manager Mr. Kwai claimed that his company was working on a "Godly" GeForce GTX 680 non-reference design graphics card, with 2 GHz core clock speed. The card will be designed to demonstrate ZOTAC's engineering potential with non-reference designs. It will be ready by mid-April, 2012. Then again, there could be a catch. ZOTAC China has, in the past, designed certain bleeding-edge graphics cards exclusively for the Chinese market, which never made it to Europe and the US. ZOTAC is an NVIDIA-exclusive brand backed by OEM Goliath PC Partner, which also holds AMD-exclusive brand Sapphire Technology.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just release a new factory overclocked version of its high end graphics card based on the highly acclaimed graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7970 OC Edition features SAPPHIRE's new dual-extractor technology - Dual-X - a highly efficient multi-heatpipe cooler with dual fans providing quiet and very cool operation during normal operating conditions, and superb cooling performance even under extreme load. The HD 7970 from AMD is the most powerful single chip GPU ever built - it has a new internal structure with 32 compute units and a total of 2048 Stream processors. The SAPPHIRE HD 7970 OC Edition ships with a raised core clock speed of 950MHz, and 1425MHz for the memory. Its Dual BIOS switch allows users to select the higher performance settings of 1GHz core and 1450MHz memory, making the fastest card in its class. This setting also uses a more aggressive fan profile and raises the limits for maximum overclocking.

The fact that Sapphire has been working on a Radeon HD 7970 graphics card with an obscene 6 GB of memory has been known since the end of 2011. The said card, the Sapphire Toxic HD 7970 6GB, has already taken shape, and was spotted running at CeBIT. Such as it is, AMD utilizes 2 Gbit GDDR5 memory chips in numbers of 12 to achieve 3 GB of memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface, on its HD 7970. Higher density GDDR5 chips are not available, at least not in bulk. So the only way Sapphire is doing 6 GB is by piggy-backing two 2 Gbit chips across 32-bit wide paths, each. As a result, these cards have memory chips on both sides of the PCB, obverse and reverse, and require a metal back-plate to keep the chips on the reverse side cool. The only reason we see consumers needing 6 GB of video memory today, is multi-monitor gaming. Even there, the impact of the increase to 6 GB memory (from 3 GB) is debatable.

A Sapphire-branded CPU cooler was spotted at CeBIT. The unnamed cooler bears a conventional tower-type heatsink design, but sports a fan shroud holding two 120 mm blue LED-lit fans in place. The buzzword here is Vapor Chamber. We already know how Sapphire has been using Vapor Chamber technology on some of its higher-end graphics cards. Sapphire's tower-type cooler is said to incorporate this technology to help transfer heat from the base to the aluminum fin stacks. That, however, doesn't mean the cooler is devoid of heat-pipes. It appears to have over four of them, about 8 mm thick. The source mentions the cooler as having a thermal load capacity of up to 200W.

The new SAPPHIRE HD 7800 series of graphics cards is based on the third family of GPU's from AMD built in its new 28nm process and featuring the highly acclaimed GCN graphics processing architecture. The new HD 7870 and HD 7850 GPUs have an optimised internal structure sharing many of the features of the high performance HD 7900 series already released but with fewer Stream processors and a new high speed 256-bit memory interface to the latest DDR5 memory types. It is aimed at mainstream gamers looking for excellent performance together with good value and all the latest features.

Two models of the HD 7870 are being introduced by SAPPHIRE at launch. The first is the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 which will ship with a core clock speed of 1GHz, and will be known as the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 GHz Edition. It is equipped with 2GB of the latest DDR5 memory clocked at 1200MHz (4.8Gb/s effective). At the same time SAPPHIRE is introducing a higher performance model, the SAPPHIRE HD 7870 GHz OC Edition, in which both core and memory are factory overclocked and the PowerTune limits are raised to allow even further performance tuning. Both models are equipped with SAPPHIRE's new dual-extractor technology - Dual-X - a highly efficient multi-heatpipe cooler with dual fans providing quiet and very cool operation during normal operating conditions, and superb cooling performance even under extreme load.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just introduced a passively cooled card in its new HD 7700 series - the SAPPHIRE HD 7750 ULTIMATE is the first totally silent card to embody all the features of this new generation of products based on the revolutionary new graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7750 ULTIMATE is the first card in this generation to use a passive heatpipe and heatsink cooler to deliver totally silent cooling, and increased reliability as it has no mechanical moving parts. It shares all the features of the HD 7700 series and the highly acclaimed GCN graphics processing architecture making it ideal for HTPCs and any general purpose PC where operational noise needs to be kept to a minimum.

Building on the success of its first Mini PC, hailed as the smallest PC in the world, SAPPHIRE Technology - a world leading manufacturer and supplier of PC graphics cards, mainboards and multimedia solutions has just introduced a new model - the SAPPHIRE EDGE-HD3 based on industry leading APU technology from AMD.

The SAPPHIRE EDGE-HD3 shares the same slim, stylish outline as the earlier models but delivers increased graphical capability and higher core performance as a result of incorporating the latest E450 APU technology from AMD. At less than half a litre in volume, it is slimmer and smaller than most wireless access points - in fact around the size of a paperback book! Its stylish design and simple pedestal mount make it equally at home next to a TV or a business monitor whilst occupying the minimum of desk or shelf space.

Sapphire kicked off its Radeon HD 7700 series lineup with a trio of graphics cards, the HD 7700 OC, the Radeon HD 7700 (stock frequencies), and a Radeon HD 7750. All three are based on Sapphire's custom designs. The Radeon HD 7770 cards use a custom-design fan-heatsink with an AMD reference-design PCB that's colored Sapphire's signature shade of blue; while the HD 7750 card uses a fan-heatsink originally designed by Arctic Cooling, which Sapphire used on several mid-range cards in the past. The HD 7770 OC features clock speeds of 1150 MHz core, and 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz effective) memory. The stock-frequency HD 7770 sticks to AMD reference speeds of 1000 MHz core, and 1125 MHz (4.50 GHz effective) memory. The HD 7750 sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 800 MHz core and 1125 MHz (4.50 GHz effective) memory. Expect most common prices of $159 for the HD 7770 with a small premium for the OC model, and $109 for the HD 7750.

Sapphire today launched its Radeon HD 7950 lineup, consisting of two models, the base-model single-fan, and a dual-fan OC model. The base-model sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 800 MHz core with 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory, while the OC model features clock speeds of 900 MHz core and 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory. The base-model features a simple single-fan heatsink without heat pipes, while the OC model uses a more complex aluminum fin-array heatsink to which heat is fed by copper heat pipes, ventilated by two fans. Interestingly, Sapphire did not release an AMD reference design model. The base model is expected to be priced at US $449, and the OC model about $20 more.

A little earlier this month, we were treated to pictures of Sapphire's dual-fan Radeon HD 7950 OC graphics card. It appears that the card pictured earlier is not the only non-reference design HD 7950 from Sapphire, as it has a slightly more affordable single-fan model in the works. This model likely sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 800 MHz core, 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) out of the box.

The single-fan HD 7950 appears to have a blue-colored PCB that is likely to be AMD's cost-effective reference design. The cooler appears to have a compact heatsink that is cooled by a single central fan. Display outputs include two mini-DisplayPort, and one each of HDMI and DVI. We're also hearing from the source that 900 MHz core with unchanged (1250/5000 MHz) memory will be the maximum factory-OC permitted by AMD to AIB partners. That is not to say that the HD 7950's OC potential beyond that will be limited in any way.Update: Augmented with more images from Expreview.

Pictures of the Sapphire HD 7950 3 GB graphics card have been leaked on the Guru3D forum by user asder00. No further details or specifications were given other than "Product name: Sapphire HD7950 3G GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI/DVI-I/DUAL MINI DP OC VERSION".

As can be seen by the cooler, this is a non-reference design - at least for the cooler. The cooler is coloured black, has a very modern, sharp, angular and somewhat futuristic look to it and sports two large Sapphire-branded fans. Of course, it has heatpipes and five are visible. The design of this cooler suggests that it should work quietly and cool efficiently. Connectivity is aided and abetted by one DVI port, one full size HDMI port and two mini-DisplayPorts, like on its bigger brother the HD 7970. Moving on to the box, one can see that it has a 384-bit bus and 3 GB GDDR5, again like the HD 7970. The box also shows a logo with "OverClock" written boldly in white on it. The inevitable attractive lady box art in this instance has her wearing a grey top, a partial face mask and a helmet from what looks like the wars of yesteryear, plus she is carrying a rifle over her shoulder.

After releasing two versions based on Intel Atom processors, Sapphire is now preparing an Edge HD nettop/mini PC which is based around an AMD APU (accelerated processing unit). Showcased at CES 2012, the AMD-flavored Edge HD3 is equipped with an E-450 chip (boasting two 1.65 GHz Bobcat cores and Radeon HD 6320 graphics), 4 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, D-Sub and HDMI outputs, and USB 3.0 connectivity.

Reportedly, the Edge HD3 will become available on February 1st, priced at $300.

Here is the first picture of Sapphire's socket LGA1155 motherboard in the works, based on Intel Z77 "Panther Point" chipset. Carrying the model number PT-CI7Z77, the board will probably carry the company's "Pure Black" branding. Its chipset and VRM heatsink designs have not been finalized, yet. To begin with, the LGA1155 socket, which supports upcoming "Ivy Bridge" processors out of the box, is powered by a 10-phase VRM. This VRM uses ferrite-core chokes, Driver-MOSFETs, and a secondary NEC-TOKIN multi-phase capacitor to condition power. Three other phases handle memory and miscellaneous power domains on the board.

The processor is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory. It is also wired to two PCI Express 3.0 long slots, which are auto-configured as x16/NC or x8/x8, depending on the second slot being populated. Other slots include a PCI Express 2.0 x1, and a PCI Express 2.0 long slot (gray), which is electrically PCIe 2.0 x4, and wired to the Z77 PCH. There are two legacy PCI slots, driven by an ASMedia-made bridge chip.

Sapphire Technology, a leading manufacturer and global supplier of graphics, mainboard and multimedia solutions has just announced a new mainboard developed to support the latest family of CPUs from Intel, the Sapphire Pure Black X79N.

The Sapphire Pure Black X79N is a full ATX sized board that supports the latest generation Intel processor family using socket LGA 2011. It has 4 DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB of quad channel memory, including the latest high speed types.

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.

So you thought the 1.26 GHz core - 6.30 GHz memory feat was quite something, considering that Sapphire already has a card in the works that does 1.33 GHz core 5.73 GHz memory out of the box? Wait till you see the numbers an overclocker for the MyDrivers community achieved. With the right voltage assistance, coupled with the right kind of cooling (liquid nitrogen), the overclocker achieved a Radeon HD 7970 overclocked speed as high as 1700 MHz core, and 2000 MHz (actual) or 8.00 GHz effective GDDR5 memory speed, churning out memory bandwidth of exactly 384 GB/s. The best part is that this wasn't a hit-and-run feat, the setup was able to run 3DMark 11 and 3DMark Vantage. The scores are pictured below. Details of the volt-mod can be found at the source.