Ground stores almost all over have begun decking up their shelves with Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards, disregarding launch dates set by AMD. Earlier today, an enthusiast from Germany showed off pictures of Radeon HD 6970 graphics card made by PowerColor that he bought off a store. A more recent set of pictures show a ground store in Asia decked up with XFX Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards, ready to sell. Perhaps stores feel that the launch date is a couple of days too late to have much impact on X'mas sales, and that it's better to sell stock as it comes. XFX has Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6950 2 GB graphics cards up for sale, both cards stick to the AMD reference design, except a small aesthetic change, the rear panel sports an XFX-designed air exhaust vent.

XFX' in-house design AMD Radeon HD 6850 accelerator, was released to the markets, carrying a price tag of US $195. The card uses a custom high-performance dual-fan GPU cooler that makes use of a large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick copper heatpipes. The card also makes use of AMD reference speeds: 775 MHz core, and 1000 MHz (4000 MHz GDDR5 effective) memory. It draws power from one 6-pin PCI-E power connector, can pair with another HD 6800 series graphics card over CrossFireX, and includes display outputs of two DVI, an HDMI, and a DisplayPort.

Industry leader XFX has added a new dimension to gaming with its XFX AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 graphics cards. This latest series of AMD Radeon graphics cards is AMD's first introduction of a 3-D gaming and multi-media solution for desktop computers, plus one of the first HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2 solutions for Stereoscopic 3-D on the market.

This advance into Stereoscopic 3-D ushers in a new era of gaming that takes it to the next level. With up to 120 Hz active shutter technology, the quality of 3-D achievable with the AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 is unprecedented in comparison to previous 3-D solutions created by other manufacturers. The AMD 3-D experience is truly immersive and seamless.

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."

After a recent exposé of the XFX Radeon HD 6870, DonanimHaber scored a few pictures of its next HD 6000 series card, the XFX Radeon HD 6850. Unlike the HD 6870 card, the HD 6850 from XFX makes use of XFX' own design for both PCB and cooler. The card is shorter than the HD 6870 by a fair bit, and makes use of typical XFX styling on the cooler shroud and rear panel. The cooler seems to be a circular fan-heatsink over the GPU, it's not known whether the memory and VRM have heatsinks too. Display connectivity includes two DVI, and one each of HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2.

The card carries 960 stream cores, contradicting an older report, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. The core is clocked at 775 MHz, and memory at 1000 MHz (4 GHz GDDR5 effective). Expect it to be out on the 22nd of this month, at a highly competitive price for its performance level.

XFX is ready with the first AIB-branded Radeon HD 6000 series graphics card to be caught on camera. Its Radeon HD 6870 graphics card bears a racy-looking AMD reference-design blower-type cooling solution, with its own company sticker. The company has opted for the AMD-branded Radeon logo. It draws power from two 6-pin power connectors, has no backplate on the PCB's reverse side, and sports a custom-design rear-panel on which the XFX logo is etched on the exhaust. Display connectors include two DVI, an HDMI, and two mini-DisplayPort. Radeon HD 6870 is intended to be a successor to the Radeon HD 5700 series, a performance segment product targeting a price sweet-spot. Radeon HD 5800 series successors are Radeon HD 6900 series.

XFX announced its new, more affordable, high-wattage PSU series, the Pro Series Core Edition. These are non-modular, single 12V rail design PSUs which feature what XFX refers to as "EasyRail" technology, that ensures all components get to draw their required amount of power since a single-rail design is more accommodating compared to a multi-rail design. It is available in 650W, 750W, and 850W models. The company did not detail the connector layout of each model in detail, but we can tell that all models are SLI and CrossFire certified, and going from bottom up, support 2-way and 3-way multi-GPU configurations.

Seen on numerous occasions and teaser videos as in either its prototype form or just plain CGI drawings, XFX seems to have finally made a working, ready for release iteration of its HD 5970 Black Edition 4 GB graphics card in its wacky retail packaging, which it hype-marketed through teaser videos. TweakPC got to lay its hands on one of these limited edition packages, and went ahead un"boxing" it. The package is actually a bag meant to carry small sniper-rifles (good luck getting it through customs). Inside, the actual graphics card is enclosed inside a case shaped somewhat like a Belgian P90 submachine gun. If that wasn't enough, the magazine pockets on the bag contain accessory boxes that look like magazines.

The card itself has a redesigned cooling assembly, that looks different from what the first iteration looked like. It has grooves on its top, and a badge with a limited edition serial number. Internally, the GPUs are pushed far apart, each has its own heatsink. The fan is located in the middle, it blows air to those heatsinks located on either sides. Power is drawn in from two 8-pin PCI-E power connectors. Display connectivity includes 6 mini-DP (DVI adapters included), supporting Eyefinity6. Each GPU carries the same clock profiles as the Radeon HD 5870, 850 MHz core, 1200 MHz (4800 MHz effective) memory, but addresses 2 GB of memory each. XFX seems to have commenced selling, expect it to be priced over $1000.Pictures of the card follow.

There seems to be a single-slot ATI Radeon HD 5700 series trend going on, with XFX designing two single-slot ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics cards, a base model (HD-577X-ZMF3), and an Eyefinity-5 model (HD-577X-Z5F3). Both cards use PCB and cooler designed by XFX. The cooler particularly looks familiar in design to the countless single-slot GeForce graphics cards designed by the company, one of the recent ones being a GeForce 9800 GT. The cooler makes generous use of copper.

Both cards stick to the reference AMD clock speeds, 850 MHz core and 1200 MHz (4800 MHz effective) memory, and feature 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface. Power is taken in from a single 6-pin PCI-E input. While the base model has display outputs which includes two DVI and one mini-DisplayPort, the Eyefinity-5 model features five mini-DisplayPort connectors. The cards will be released around the middle of this month, and Japan prices (which tend to be higher than US/EU prices) indicate 17,500 JPY (US $202) for the base model, and 18,000 JPY ($208).

XFX today releases their first salvo from their Eyefinity 6 series - The new Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition - which facilitates massive visual real estate with the first-ever "wrap-around" 6 screen in-picture experience.

• 2 GB DDR5 memory
• 6 mini DisplayPort outputs
• Connect up to 6 displays, Up to 2560 x 1600 per output
• Supports up to 7680 x 3200 with 6 displays in Eyefinity

XFX is getting cozier with AMD by the day, which is an eyesore for NVIDIA. Amidst the launch of GeForce GTX 400 series, XFX did what could have been unimaginable a few months ago: abandon NVIDIA's high-end GPU launch. That's right, XFX has decided against making and selling GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, saying that it favours high-end GPUs from AMD, instead. This comes even as XFX seemed to have been ready with its own product art. Apart from making new non-reference design SKUs for pretty-much every Radeon HD 5000 series GPU, the company is working on even more premium graphics cards targeted at NVIDIA's high-end GPUs.

The rift between XFX and NVIDIA became quite apparent when XFX outright bashed NVIDIA's high-end lineup in a recent press communication about a new high-end Radeon-based graphics card it's designing. "XFX have always developed the most powerful, versatile Gaming weapons in the world - and have just stepped up to the gaming plate and launched something spectacular that may well literally blow the current NVIDIA offerings clean away," adding "GTX480 and GTX470 are upon us, but perhaps the time has come to Ferm up who really has the big Guns." The move may come to the disappointment of some potential buyers of GTX 400 series, as XFX's popular Double Lifetime Warranty scheme would be missed. XFX however, maintains that it may choose to work on lower-end Fermi-derivatives.

First spotted at the CeBIT event, the XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 4 GB graphics card is taking a new shape with the company redesigning its cooler. The older design borrowed heavily from AMD's reference cooler design. Its CGI drawings were released to the press, although the real card with its older cooler was shown off at CeBIT. The HD 5970 Black Edition from XFX sports two AMD Cypress GPUs with 1600 stream processors each, 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across 2x 256-bit memory interfaces, clock-speeds on par with single-GPU Radeon HD 5870 (850/1200 MHz, core/memory), and added overclocking potential. It uses Eyefinity6 display outputs, to single-handedly run six full-HD displays, and multiple Eyefinity display groups.

"XFX have always developed the most powerful, versatile Gaming weapons in the world - and have just stepped up to the gaming plate and launched something spectacular that may well literally blow the current NVIDIA offerings clean away," said XFX, in a statement to Nordic Hardware. "GTX480 and GTX470 are upon us, but perhaps the time has come to Ferm up who really has the big Guns." XFX is targeting high-end consumers, the HD 5970 Black Edition is to be made in Limited Quantities, though available shortly. It is expected to be priced at US $1000.

Here they are folks, pictures of the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 complete with partner branding. These come from XFX, both sticking to NVIDIA's reference design. The XFX GeForce GTX 480 comes with the usual feature set of 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory, 480 CUDA cores, and a broad feature set that includes support for DirectX 11, CUDA, PhysX, 3D Vision Surround, and 3-way SLI. The GeForce GTX 470 retains this feature set, albeit with 448 CUDA cores, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory. The two will be released on the 26th of March.

It looks like Sapphire and ASUS will not be the only AMD board partners out with a custom design Radeon HD 5970 graphics accelerator that has higher clock speeds and twice the amount of memory. XFX seems just about ready with what it calls the XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 4GB. This limited edition graphics card borrows heavily from AMD's reference design, but adds some changes:

• The leaf-blower is centrally located, with a GPU system on its either sides.
• GPUs use higher clock speeds of 850 MHz (core), 1200 MHz (memory).
• Twice the amount of memory, 2 GB per GPU, 4 GB total.
• ATI Eyefinity6 display output configuration: 6 mini-DisplayPort connectors to support six physical displays (dongles may be included for DVI users).
• Power is drawn from two 8-pin PCI-E power connectors.

XFX may manufacture upto 1500 pieces in all, and could price each piece around US $1000, with sales starting later this month.

The XFX ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card offers everything you need for gaming and HD home entertainment in one package. Available in multiple low profile configuration options, including DisplayPort or HDMI, and passive or active cooling. Choose the model that's right for you. Enjoy the array of features the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5450 Graphics Card offers.

Do more on your PC with ATI stream technology, which accelerates even the most demanding applications. See more with ATI Eyefinity technology, providing the ultimate gaming experience by allowing up to three displays from a single graphics board.

AMD today announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card, the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series graphics cards. The ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card delivers a state-of-the-art HD multimedia and game experience at a value price. Sharing the same leading edge features found in the critically-acclaimed ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series - support for DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology and ATI Stream technology - the ATI Radeon HD 5450 provides an uncompromising Microsoft Windows 7 experience.

All gamers were not created equal - until now. XFX is pleased to introduce the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5670 Graphics Card, offering the latest technology at a price that is transforming not only how the game is played, but who's playing it.

Designed for power users who want an immersive 3D gaming experience, as well as powerful content and entertainment capabilities, the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5670 Graphics Card delivers the ultimate work/play punch. Capable of supporting the latest DirectX 11 games, users enjoy significant gains in gaming potential over DirectX 10.1. And, with Microsoft 7 support, users enjoy fast and easy video playback, editing and content transfer.

XFX takes technology for a trip down the fast lane with the debut of The XFX ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card. The fastest dual GPU-on-a-PCB card on the planet, in addition to the base powerhouse, this card also comes in an "I've-never-seen-that-kind-of-performance-before" Black Edition with an exclusive performance enhancing Overvolt Tool.

Created for the true performance enthusiast, this card offers the ultimate in speed, with the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5970 scoring in excess of X10000 in 3DMarkVantage v. 101, the highest single graphics card score achieved to date. It also features all of the latest, state-of-the-art technologies that hardcore gamers want, including ATI Eyefinity technology, ATI Stream technology and full DirectX 11 support.

AMD today announced the flagship installment in the award-winning line of graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5970, the fastest card ever created. The new ultra high-end model joins a growing list of the world's first and only graphics cards to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11 technology and ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology.

Designed to support the most demanding PC games at ultra-high resolutions and image quality settings, the ATI Radeon HD 5970 has unlocked overclocking potential, granting access to every bit of power the card has to offer through ATI Overdrive technology. Now shipping from retailers and available in the channel, the ATI Radeon HD 5970 also launches today in new Alienware Area-51, Area-51 ALX and Aurora desktop PCs.

Punch up your digital experience with a blast of power. The XFX NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 graphics card gives you an across-the-board speed and performance boost that takes you from "mundane" to "insane". NVIDIA PhysX technology adds speed to your game, so that you can play Batman: Arkham Asylum or Darkest of Days 2X faster than the competition. Transform it into a dedicated PhysX card by pairing it with another NVIDIA based graphics card and enjoy up to 50% pop in performance.

Ninety-six NVIDIA CUDA cores enable you to run the latest GPU-accelerated applications, many at speeds 50% faster than prior generation. Maximize your YouTube- and Hulu-viewing experience in full HD with new GPU-accelerated Adobe Flash 10.1. Enjoy all of the great Microsoft Windows 7 features, including drag and drop video conversion, as well as full support for DirectCompute, OpenGL 3.2 and PC Express 2.0. Available in a 1 GB GDDR5 or 512MB DDR3, put the power of the XFX NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 graphics card at your fingertips.

AMD today released its ATI Radeon HD 5700 series of mid-range graphics processors aimed to increase the company's competitiveness in the sub-$200 market, and present a mainstream graphics card series compliant with the DirectX 11 API. The series makes use of AMD's 40 nm Juniper graphics processor, that packs 1.04 billion transistors, 800 stream processors, 40 texture units, and 16 raster operation units. The 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface provides up to 76.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

The higher-end product of the two on offer, Radeon HD 5770 is priced around the $150 mark, and has all its 800 stream processors and 40 texture units enabled. It comes with clock speeds of 850/1200 MHz (core/memory), while the Radeon HD 5750 looks to cash in on the $120 point. It has 720 stream processors, 36 texture units enabled from its kitty, with clock speeds of 700/1150 MHz (core/shader). While the Radeon HD 5770 comes with 1 GB of memory, the Radeon HD 5750 comes in variants of 1 GB and 512 MB. Some of the other big selling points of these cards are low rater power consumptions of 16~18 W at idle, and 86~108 W at load. The connectivity options include two DVI-D, and one each of DisplayPort and HDMI. The cards support AMD's Eyefinity technology which allows combining three 2560x1600 pixel display-heads for a single large display head. Each of these can pair with up to three more of its kind for 4-way CrossFireX multi-GPU performance upscaling.

All major AMD board vendors, such as ASUS, Sapphire, HIS, PowerColor, Gigabyte, MSI, VisionTek, XFX, among others, have their offerings based on these GPUs ready to sell from today. Pictured below (in order) are Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5750.

Gamers are always pushing for the ultimate realistic gaming experience, and the XFX Radeon HD 5870 graphics card brings them three enormous steps closer to their ideal. First, ATI Eyefinity Technology enables gamers to see things like never before, with the ability to spread out across three displays at resolutions of up to 1080 pixels. Offering the first-ever "wrap-around" in-picture experience, gamers can surround themselves in the digital world, or, if productivity is the goal, maximize workspace with the ability to see more windows simultaneously.

Second, ATI Stream Technology ensures that today's demanding games play faster at higher resolutions. This state-of-the-art technology boosts systems performance by offloading tasks that were previously sent to the CPU to the GPU. The result? A more evenly balanced platform that can handle greater capacities at faster speeds.

AMD today launched the most powerful processor ever created, found in its next-generation graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, and the world's first and only to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11, the new gaming and compute standard shipping shortly with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. Boasting up to 2.72 TeraFLOPS of compute power, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series effectively doubles the value consumers can expect of their graphics purchases, delivering twice the performance-per-dollar of previous generations of graphics products. AMD will initially release two cards: the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and the ATI Radeon HD 5850, each with 1GB GDDR5 memory. With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards, PC users can expand their computing experience with ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, accelerate their computing experience with ATI Stream technology, and dominate the competition with superior gaming performance and full support of Microsoft DirectX 11, making it a "must-have" consumer purchase just in time for Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

"With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cars driven by the most powerful processor on the planet, AMD is changing the game, both in terms of performance and the experience," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. "As the first to market with full DirectX 11 support, an unmatched experience made possible with ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream technology harnessing open standards designed to help make Windows 7 that much better, I can say with confidence that AMD is the undisputed leader in graphics once more."

In its continuing quest to bring gaming enthusiasts the ultimate in performance, XFX now adds "power" to its lineup with the introduction of the XFX 850W Black Edition Power Supply Unit (PSU). Designed specifically for the high performance gamer, the 850W Black Edition PSU supports multiple high-end graphics cards cards (NVIDIA SLI-Ready and ATI CrossfireX-Ready). Within the sleek black case are an array of industry-leading unparalleled features and performance enhancements that will appeal to gaming enthusiasts.

"The new XFX 850W PSU is a logical progression to the XFX line of graphics cards and motherboards," explains Eddie Memon, vice president, marketing, XFX. "XFX is known worldwide for its dedication to the gaming community, and adding a superior power supply that targets the unique needs of gamers enables us to further reinforce that relationship."

Following the likes of Sapphire, HIS, and PowerColor, XFX unveiled a Radeon HD 4600 series accelerator based on ye olde AGP-8X interface, its first ATI GPU based graphics card on the interface. The XFX Radeon HD 4650 sticks to the trademark XFX-ATI color scheme, with a black PCB and heatsink, with red-colored connectors. The cooler design confines the card to a single-slot space, and consists of a fan nested into the heatsink.

The card features 320 stream processors, a GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 128-bit DDR2 memory running at 800 MHz. It comes in two variants: 512 MB and 1 GB. The usual output configuration of dual DVI-D and HDTV connectors is in place. The latest Radeon HD 4000 series feature-set is in place, including DirectX 10.1 support, UVD 2.0, and AvivoHD. The 1 GB variant is priced at US $90, so expect the 512 MB one to be priced lower.