AMD’s latest roadmap focuses primarily on the desktop processor market. AMD is looking to speed up the launch of its desktop processors to catch up with Intel. It plans to continue with the current line up until the end of March this year. From March onwards AMD will press ahead with the launch of some new Bulldozer models for the rest of Quarter 2 up until the end of June. From July onwards AMD is planning to introduce “Bulldozer/Zambezi version two” which will be known as Piledriver/Vishera and is still based of 28nm architecture. It will be a refinement of Bulldozer and will probably bring 15% more performance over the current generation and will come with a FX x3xx branding with the first X representing the number of cores and the last two representing the strength of the clock speeds.

A bit more is revealed on the Trinity APUs but most of this we already knew from the previous AMD roadmap that was released last week:

The fastest “Trinity” APUs will get a new brand identifier, the A10-5000 series. These APUs will pack next-generation “Piledriver” modular cores and Radeon HD 7600D series graphics. Around this time, AMD will also launch the Brazos 2.0 low-power APU for netbooks, nettops, and embedded computing devices. Brazos 2.0 will get the E2-1000 series branding. The big change is reserved for the third quarter of 2012, when AMD launches the successor of its less-than-lucky AMD FX “Bulldozer” processor family.

Codenamed “Vishera”, AMD’s new FX-x300 family (where x = 8 in case of eight-core, 6 in case of six-core, and 4, in case of quad-core), will likely be built on the same AM3+ platform, but based on the “Piledriver” core architecture, which brings in about 15% IPC increase over Bulldozer. The roadmap slide talks about FX-8350 being the top-end part, followed by FX-8320, FX-6300, and FX-4320. Around that time, AMD will replace its A6 and A4 “Llano” parts with new A6 and A4 “Trinity” ones. The A6-5400 APU features Radeon HD 7540D graphics, while the A4-5300 features Radeon HD 7480D.

Source: DonanimHaber, TPU

As we all know last Tuesday was the official release date for AMDs 7950 graphics cards. We’ve already taken a look at one of the offerings from XFX, but now its Sapphires turn to take centre stage and show us what they can do to spice up the reference design to their tastes.

The 7950 that Sapphire have sent us to tinker with is their Radeon HD 7950 Overclocked Edition. Fresh out of the Sapphire factories, we see this card launched with a 100Mhz overclock on the GPU core, giving it the right to display the OC label, but more crucially we see a remake of a heatpipe cooler design rather than a vapour chamber arrangement that is appearing more and more from other manufacturers.

With the 7950 OC coming to us at a slightly closer reference level when comparing to the XFX Black Edition Overclocked that we looked the other day, naturally we expect it to perform in a similar manner and being very close to reference point, which we can get a feel for what a more stock like card can do in rivalry to its bigger brother; the 7970.

Overclocking and processing performance aside, the basis behind this card is to do with the cooler and how it performs under load and more so when the end user takes it and overclocks it themselves to the next level. Its how it will perform then that matters. And that is what we are hoping to see as we go through our testing.

With the 7950 official launch day being yesterday, we made sure to have a look at at least one card for launch to get the juices flowing, and now we can sit back and figure out how we can show different angles of this new GPU with its new technology.

This includes seeing how far things overclock, and of course obtaining more cards to show off the potential behind the 7950 cards in CrossFireX.

This will all come in due course, but for now, we were more interested to see what some of AMD’s other partners have come up with in terms of a custom 7950 and our prayers were answered when the Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC landed with us. With an overclocked core clock speed of 900MHz and a custom cooler design, we’re very hopeful that this card can compete with the already mind-blowing XFX 7950 Black Edition that we already looked at.

For now, we thought that we’d give you a brief look at the card and its design and aesthetics, before we delve in and show you some of the performance figures behind it.

For more information, we will be publishing a fully written review showcasing the extensive benchmarks and tests, whilst looking at the card in a lot more detail, but for now; enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With the release of the 7970 now passed and the cards making their way out into the big wide world, now is time for AMDs partners to release the slightly toned down version of their jaw dropping card. When we took a look at the 7970 reference card, we was astounded by the power that had been laid in front of us in the form of a single GPU format. The card took all of our test methodology in its stride and barely showed strain at any point – and this was purely a reference card before any of the partners were able to get their labs on the case and tweek them to their own recipes.

The 7950 is built around the same ‘Tahiti’ core as the 7970 but mainly its clocks speeds will be lower at stock. With the 7950 now though the workshops of AMDs partners, now we can really get a feel of what this card can do. XFX have made the push and have made it first to the eTeknix test bench, but with no standard card by far. What we have here to play with is their 7950 Black Edition Overclocked 3Gb card.

The 7950 as one would guess is at the more eco and budget friendly end of the spectrum in comparison to the 7970 and the 7990 when it comes to launch, so is there a huge compromise to be made by saving money or is it still going to thrash the pants off the 6950 and even dare I say it the GTX 580 as well? Well rumour has it that with the right tweeks, the 7950 will easily overclock to and perform at 7970 levels. So would this card be a timely investment or should we still look at the 7970 for its pure processing power?

With AMD releasing the Radeon HD 7950 today, we all knew that things would go a bit differently from when the 7970 launched back in December. The 7970 saw a reference launch with partners bringing out refreshed cards later down the line. The 7950 however was destined to see specialist models being released at launch including custom coolers and overclocked editions.

Today we take a look at the XFX Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition Overclocked 3GB graphics card which offers up a double dissipation cooler which XFX are famous for, as well as being overclocked past its stock speeds and being included in the Black Edition range of products.

Black Edition allows the components to be of the very best quality including a hand-picked custom GPU that is known to surpass certain limits in terms of overclocking.

Whilst this video review offers more of an aesethicc look at the card, we have all of the benchmarks in our full written review which offers a more technical look at things, and in a bit more detail. The video review gives a further look into the styling and design behind the card with our personal opinion on the card from a first glance.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The latest driver (code)named 8.921.2 RC11, is all fresh and brings support, performance and solutions to issues.

Starting with the support, the new driver brings the Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Preview support for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications:

• AMD Radeon HD 7900 users can now enable Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications.
• Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications).

Performance has been perfected for some games in order to provide the best of the best:

• 8% (up to) performance improvement in Aliens vs. Predator
• 15% (up to) performance improvement in Battleforge with Anti-Aliasing enabled
• 3% (up to) performance improvement in Battlefield 3
• 3% (up to) performance improvement in Crysis 2
• 6% (up to) performance improvement in Crysis Warhead
• 10% (up to) performance improvement in F1 2010
• 5% (up to) performance improvement in Unigine with Anti-Aliasing enabled
• 250% (up to) performance improvement in TessMark (OpenGL) when set to “insane” levels

And finally some issues have been resolved with the following highlights:

• Folding@Home: intermittent stability issues have been resolved for the OpenCL version of Folding@Home
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 no longer experiences minor flickering with Tri CrossFireX configurations
• Dragon Age 2 no longer experiences minor flickering with Tri CrossFireX configurations
• StarCraft 2 no longer encounters issues when quitting campaign with Tri and Quad CrossFireX configurations
• BattleForge stability has been improved with Tri CrossFireX configurations
• Improved stability when enabling / disabling CrossFireX and installing the AMD graphics driver on AMD CrossfireX configurations

That’s it for now, you can download the driver now for Windows 7 and Vista here.

Source: HardwareHeaven

Makeup? Make that a workout, Asus took out the DirectCu II treatment for this occasion, and the first pictures have emerged including some specifications.

Once again, this new product takes quite a nice amount of space, three expansion slots are needed to fit the beast inside the computer. The cooling is taken care of by a large aluminium fin-stack heatsink covering the various hotspots of the card to which the heat from the GPU is directed by six heat pipes making direct touch with the GPU itself. Two 100 mm fans make sure to evacuate the most heat possible, all of this covered by the stylish and recognizable DirectCu II cover. As an additional treatment, a backplate is also equipped giving it even more style.

Going back on the PCB, we can see that it uses a 10+1+1 ASUS Digi+ VRM drawing power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Staying true to its branding, it supports heavy overclocking and provides several voltage tuning features.

Specification wise, this HD 7970 features a nice little factory overclock with 1000 MHz clock speed and 1400 MHz memory speed (5.60 GHz effective) right out of the box against the reference 925 MHz and 1375 MHz (5.50 GHz effective).

This new product is also equipped with the “VGA Hotwire” feature, allowing advanced users to eliminate the need for variable resistors and use the motherboard’s voltage controller to tune come key voltage domains of the graphics card as if it were the motherboard’s. This connection is made between the card and a special header on the ROG Rampage IV series motherboards, with one side being soldered onto the graphics card while the 2-pin cable connects to the board.

Display outputs are populated by two dual-link DVI and four full size DisplayPort 1.2 connectors. The card is 27.94 cm long, and is about as big as the previous generation of DirectCu II cards.

Although no price and release date have been given, it goes without saying that you’ll pay for the features, and even though Asus proved itself countless times, it won’t stop us from reviewing it and having a look of our own.

Source: TPU

Originally expected for a February launch, it later moved back to January, the second entry in the 28 nm GPU section from AMD, as well as the second product from the 7900 series, the Tahiti based Radeon HD 7950 today sees more specifications revealed from no other than DonanimHaber.

The HD 7950 will be clocked at 800 MHz while the memory will be clocked at 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective). For comparison, the HD 7970 boasts 925 MHz for the core and 1375 MHz for the memory (5.50 GHz effective).

This promises the HD 7950 to be a good overclocker when you think about the speeds it features, you’ll most probably see some factory-OC products from a few partners.

Price wise, DonanimHaber reveals that the HD 7950 will cost around $100-150 less than the more expensive HD 7970 listed around $400-$450.

Source: DonanimHaber

While most cards we have seen so far from AMD’s partners have been reference cards with different stickers on, there has been some exceptions including Gigabyte and XFX. It appears that PowerColor is also planning on being added to the list.

A couple of pictures of their upcoming product reveals that the non-reference HD 7970 will make its entry in the Vortex series. When looking at the PCB, few features give away what it will offer except for the beefier VRM and the power drawn from two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This suggests the possibility of a factory overclock.

With the Vortex cooler providing efficient cooling, the card should also allow more overclocking headroom compared to the reference.

Display output also reveals two DVI, one HDMI and two mini-DisplayPort.

Date of release and its price are still unknown.

Source: Fudzilla

GV-R797D5-3GD-B

Two products were presented, one being a reference card, the GV-R797D5-3GD-B, using the same reference cooler with different stickers, while the second one is the GV-R797OC-3GD and presents some more interesting features.

GV-R797OC-3GD

Starting with the most evident change is the cooler, featuring WINDFORCE 3X Cooling Technology and ”Triangle Cool” Technology, both work in conjunction to provide around 15% of cooling improvement over the reference cooler.

WINDFORCE 3X Cooling Technology is Gigabyte’s new innovative new generation triple-fan solution featuring patented anti-turbulence inclined fans and three 8mm pure copper heat pipes. Both of these help to reduce excessive heat and minimizes the flow of turbulence between fans.

The ”Triangle Cool” Technology (patent pending) uses fin with clip modules in a special triangle shape which, in conjunction with the anti-turbulence fans, enhances the efficiency of heat dissipation.

In addition to the cooler, the GV-R797OC-3GD is equipped with Eyefinity 2.0 and HD3D technology in order to provide gamers the best multi-display and 3D experience. The HD 7970′s DirectX 11 support and large high-speed memory allows for maximum image quality for the best gaming experience.

None can be enjoyed without the right connectivity, both of these new products feature one DVI port, one HDMI 1.4a with support for Blu-ray 3D as well as two mini DisplayPorts.

Pricing for the GV-R797OC-3GD hasn’t been mentioned, the GV-R797D5-3GD-B hasn’t been given a ‘fully official’ price either, however a simple look around revealed the price to be going between $560 and $600 so far.

Source: Press Release

This week saw the kick off of the next generation of GPUs, AMD entering first with the Radeon HD 7970. This is only the beginning, as more are coming including the Radeon HD 7950, but also planned are 28 nm mobile chips.

While the HD 7950 will see the light of day some time during this quarter, the mobile 28 nm GPUs for notebooks will have to wait longer and won’t come out until Q2.

The mobile chips from AMD will be based on the GCN architecture and will bring DirectX 11.1 support along with power, image quality and display output enhancements.

Although still unconfirmed, there is a very high chance for the 28 nm mobile GPUs to be introduced in the Radeon HD 7000M series, which already includes 40 nm-based cards previously released (including 7600M, 7500M, 7400M, 7300M). As for the 28 nm mobile GPUs, these chips will be branded starting from Radeon HD 7700M.

Source: ComputerBase

With the 7000 series due to launch soon, and due to us having our hands tied, we can only say soon, meaning sometime in the next 365 days, but it could be sooner rather than later. With this new released eventually coming, we still find that the 6000 series is remaining steady and still going strong with the main contenders really being the Radeon 6850 and 6950 and of course not forgetting the 6970 flagship single GPU card.

With these cards being out a while now, a lot of manufacturers have been giving them a bit of a refresh by adding in extra features and added functionality. We saw this with the Sapphire 6970 FleX BF3 edition card that we looked at recently, which included a variety of technologies directly from Sapphire themselves. One of these technologies involved their fantastic cooling solution, which utilised a vapor chamber design known as the patented Vapor-X technology that has over time made Sapphire famous.

Today we find ourselves with another similar card that’s had the Vapor-X treatment, as well as a nice overclock. We introduce you to the Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Vapor-X OC graphics card, which gives a slightly faster clock and memory speed and improved cooling to handle the overclock in a quiet and effecient manner as we’d expect from a market leader such as Sapphire.

With that all taken care of, let’s get straight into the packaging to see what’s on offer, as Sapphire usually take care of you when it comes to the bundled accessories, so let’s see if the 6850 Vapor-X OC sticks with that philosophy.

As of the 22nd of December, AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 is official and will become available in the retail channels by the 9th of January, next Monday. Prices were mentioned, the retail FOB price was initially of $525, but according DonanimHaber and its market sources, that price had been cut down to $475.

The FOB price refers to the freight-onboard price, in other words the price at which each ships from its place of origin, which in this case is Hong Kong, China. This specific price however doesn’t necessarily reflect the retail price.

As was mentioned in previous reports, the target price for the HD 7970 is of $550, and it will be up to the distributors and retailers to decide whether they will lower the price as well or keep the bigger “cut” for themselves.

This presents a major competition to Nvidia, who, according to various reports, should present their GT 600 generation Kepler GPU sometime during Q1 2012. This is most certainly something good, with AMD already planning on more than one release, it was more than time for Nvidia to present its own 28nm product.

Naturally, sources close to Nvidia and AIB partners are telling that Kepler is faster than the Radeon HD 7970, but doing the contrary wouldn’t really help the company, now would it?

With CES coming up next week as well, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Kepler in some way, maybe as a behind-closed-doors presentation for select members of the press and investors.

We will certainly keep you up to date with any new developments.

For more information about the Radeon HD 7970, you may want to check our review here.

Source 1; Source 2

While it has yet to arrive on the market, Aqua Computer went ahead and now offers the first waterblock designed for the AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, the AquagrATIx.

This waterblock will fully cover the main heat-producing part of the PCB, aka the obverse side of the PCB, including cover for the GPU, RAM and VRM in order to provide full cooling. Mainly made out of copper, the block features a stainless steel cover, obviously for the looks.

While the article is still in production, the estimated lead time is of 21 days. The waterblock will fit on the HD 7970 and 7950 and comes along the two standard G1/4″ threads for the inlet and outlet while the fittings have to be bought separately.

Now available for pre order, the AquagrATIx is priced at €89.90. As for the quality, well Aqua Computer is a German company, so that pretty much tells whole the story.

After more than a couple of details were revealed/leaked including the high-end HD 7990 specs and price, as well as the HD 7770 and HD 7750, and some unconvincing leaks for the HD 7950, even more informations have come out.

First off is news about Tahiti which in addition to the HD 7900 series, could also appear in a LE version, branded HD 7890. It would pack 1.5GB of memory, 1536 stream processors, 96 texture units, 32 ROPs and a 216GB/s memory bus. Price-wise, the SRP is $399, $150 less than the XT version of Tahiti, this one should also show up in March.

Same goes for Pitcairn, as it turns out, a LE version will also make its way with the HD 7790 brand. Packing 1GB of memory, 1152 stream processors, 72 texture units and 24 ROPs, it will feature a memory bandwidth of 144GB/s and be priced at $199.

As mentioned in previous reports, Pitcairn PRO will also find its way in March, but the card could feature either 1GB or 2GB of memory for the respective price of $219 and $249.

While it doesn’t close the case, we have a nice premier look at what to expect, even though these specs may not be definitive, it certainly gives a nice preview.

AMD has had a lot of news coverage regarding its 28nm lineup, Nvidia on the other hand has rarely been heard recently. AMD is certainly talking business, it may be time for Nvidia to try and catch up…unless everything has been planned out long before.

For more information, here is a table laying out all the informations.

Source 1; Source 2