Posted 11/03/09 at 11:00:44 AM by Paul Lilly

Intel hopes to eventually make a thunderous entrance in the discrete graphics market with its upcoming GPGPU chip codenamed Larrabee, and to do that, the company needs to line up some chip partners willing to jump on board. Intel CEO Paul Otellini set out to do that recently, talking privately to several China-based videocard makers.

According to what un-named sources have been whispering in DigiTimes' ear, Intel plans to offer preferential pricing for just the GPU by itself, as well as when bundled with other Intel products. This is a similar strategy to what Intel has been doing with its Atom platform, and it remains to be seen how many graphics partners will warm to Larrabee in this manner.

As it stands, some first-tier graphics card vendors are a bit leary about Larrabee on fears that the first release may end up buggy. But within the next couple of years, vendors expect Larrabee will be able to hold its own against what AMD and Nvidia have to offer.

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Posted 11/01/09 at 04:24:58 PM by Justin Kerr

Last month we posted a link to some early spy shots of the Radeon HD 5850 X2 & 5870 X2, but aside from the pictures, the post was a bit short on details. The card which still hasn’t been officially unveiled by AMD is still somewhat of a mystery, but the gang over at Alienbabeltech.com got a hold of some new photos and information that answers some, but not all of the questions we have about the new design.

Based on the reference card shown in the pictures, it appears as though this monster will require two power connections, one 8-pin and one 6-pin which are located just above the fan. Even if the power requirements of this beast don't shock you, the overall length of the card just may. Measuring in at a whopping 13.5 inches long, most enthusiasts without a full tower case will have a hard time fitting this into their machines. AMD responded quickly by stating that the photos were of an engineering sample, leading us to wonder if the card won’t shrink an inch or two prior to release.

The other big change since our last update is the new naming conventions. It now appears as though AMD will be dropping the “X2” designation and the cards will be known as the Radeon HD 5950 (Dual 5850’s), and the Radeon HD 5970 (Dual 5870’s). Questions remain, but hey, its better then nothing right?

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Posted 10/23/09 at 08:45:40 AM by Paul Lilly

AMD's latest graphics drivers -- ATI Catalyst 9.10 -- are now available for download, and it appears that most of the attention was placed on squashing bugs.

On the performance side, AMD claims the latest release adds GPU acceleration for the Windows 7 Drag and Drop video converting application, and super anti-aliasing for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series has been tossed into the mix as well. And that's it, at least according to the release notes.

Bug fixes are another story. Catalyst 9.10 resolves several issues, some of which include:

• Video preview in Avivo Video - Basic Quality page no longer flickers while playing SD/HD Blu-ray titles
• Switching profiles in Avivo Video - Basic Quality now works as it should
• Ghostbusters game no longer flickers between desktop and game play when AA is set to 8X and game resolution set to 2560x1600 in under Windows 7 
• Combat Mission Shock Force no longer fails after a duration of game play (Vista)
• Intermittent flashing no longer visible in Windows with ViewSonic VE150m displays (Vista)
• No more corruption during Blu-ray DVD H.264/VC-1 content playback (XP)

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Posted 10/22/09 at 08:45:04 PM by Paul Lilly

Ghosts and goblins aren't the only things you'll see this Halloween. According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, EVGA and Nvidia have joined forces to launch a hybrid graphics card on October 31st.

It's mostly speculation at this point, but the card is rumored to combine GT200b and G92b GPUs onto a single PCB. Why the mix? The GT200b will be responsible for rendering all those pretty graphics while you're saving the universe, and the GT92b will flex its PhysX muscle.

Fudzilla says the hybrid card will most likely sport a GTX 275 and GTS 250, which would give the card 240 stream processors and 896MB of memory for rendering, and 128 stream processors and 512MB of memory for PhysX duties. Not a bad idea to combine the two on a single piece of hardware, albeit it could be somewhat risky this close to the launch of Fermi.

No word yet on price.

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Posted 10/05/09 at 01:54:56 PM by Paul Lilly

One surefire way to egg on the hacking community is to place ever increasing restrictions on your product, essentially daring black hat coders to find a back door. Nvidia is finding this out the hard way, after the GPU maker modified its latest PhysX drivers to prevent any non-Nvidia GPU from working, says news and rumor site The Inquirer.

And if that weren't enough, the latest version of PhysX also prevents physics processing unit (PPU) cards from working if it detects a non-Nvidia card in the system. That may have been the proverbial straw that broke the hacking community's back, and a hacker who goes by the handle GenL has put together some experimental code that stops Nvidia's drivers from shutting everything down when it detects a Radeon card.

We haven't tried it ourselves, but if you're feeling adventurous, rebellious, or both, you can grab the code here.

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Posted 10/02/09 at 11:15:14 AM by Paul Lilly

Just in case laying claim as the fastest single-GPU videocard on the planet wasn't enough of a selling point for AMD's recently released HD 5870 videocard, Asus has added a twist that it claims will boost performance by up to 38 percent: Voltage Tweak Technology.

According to Asus, owners of its newly launched EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5 and EAH5850/2DIS/1GD5 videocards will be able to crank up GPU voltages through its SmartDoctor application. On the HD 5870, end users can raise the volts from 1.15V to 1.35V, boosting GPU and memory clockspeeds from 850MHz and 4800MHz (effective) to 1035Mhz and 5200MHz. On the HD 5850, gamers can up the volts from 1.088V to 1.4V, which is enough to overclock the GPU and memory from 725MHz and 4000MHz to 1050MHz and 5200MHz.

By doing so, Asus' own benchmarking noted a 17 percent performance gain in 3DMark Vantage Extreme on the 5870, and an impressive 38 percent jump on the 5850.

Get the full scoop here.

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Posted 09/28/09 at 12:40:07 PM by Paul Lilly

In Act I of the modern-day GPU wars, AMD lit up the scene by releasing the ATI Radeon HD 5870, the fastest single-GPU videcoard money can buy. In Act II, AMD will hope to also claim the dual-GPU crown with its upcoming HD 5870 X2.

The latest rumor pegs the beastly dual-GPU videocard for an October release, though AMD hasn't said anything official yet. Nevertheless, to satisfy power users with deep pockets who are chomping at the bit, leaked pics of the 5870 X2 have hit the web.

Not just one leaked pic either, but several of them, each one showing the 5870 X2 in its massive glory. The X2 appears to trump the 5870 in length, which already measures about 11 inches long. While it's hard to determine exactly how long the X2 will be, it looks to be about a half-inch longer.

Get your fill of fuzzy GPU porn here, then hit the jump and sound off!

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Posted 09/23/09 at 12:15:40 PM by Paul Lilly

AMD is back in the high-end graphics game with the release of its ATI HD Radeon 5870, the fastest single-GPU videocard anywhere on the planet (see our review and benchmarks here). And now that it's been released, we expect no shortage of system vendors to step up to the plate with new rigs build around the potent GPU.

One of the first to announce immediate availability of the new cards is Maingear. The boutique system vendor says the HD 5870 can be configured with the company's Ephex, F131, Prelude, and X-Cube (SFF) systems.

"We're proud to feature the AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics processor in our award-winning custom PCs," says Wallace Santos, CEO and found of Maingear. "It's only fitting that the world's fastest GPU find its way into what has been hailed by editors all over America as the fastest gaming computers on the market."

For those of you needing to push pixels at ultra-high resolutions with all the eye candy cranked up, Maingear says its ePhex supports up to three HD 5870 cards in CrossFireX, and up to two in the Prelude and X-Cube.

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