Introduced in the Catalyst 8.8 Linux driver and further stabilized within Catalyst 8.9 was AMD's MultiView technology. MultiView makes it possible to use multiple GPUs on the same system not for Linux CrossFire but for driving multiple display heads. Using MultiView on Linux you can easily drive four, six, or even eight screens. In fact, up to 32 displays are theoretically supported on a single system (permitting you have enough graphics cards and PCI Express slots). MultiView also allows for OpenGL acceleration across all displays and does not rely upon Xinerama. In this article we are taking a brief look at this multi-GPU multi-monitor feature catered towards AMD's workstation customers.

AMD's MultiView On Linux @ Phoronix

Definitely good news for Xbox 360 users.

Unlike Toshiba Corp., which is still strictly against Blu-ray disc (BD) format, Microsoft Corp. has always said that it might release an external Blu-ray optical disc drive for the Xbox 360 video game system if there is demand. According to market sources, the software giant does have plans to offer its customers a BD option.

Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp., a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Toshiba Corp., has been contracted to manufacture external Blu-ray disc drives for Microsoft Xbox 360 game console. While the exact specifications of the product are unknown, it is rumoured that Microsoft aims at $100 - $150 price-point for the device in order to compete against Sony PlayStation 3 with Xbox 360 + external Blu-ray drive combination.

The main reason why Microsoft is unenthusiastic regarding Blu-ray is mandatory support of BD-Java interactive technology and Sony’s reluctance to adopt competing tech called HDi that was developed by Microsoft. Even though Microsoft managed to push its VC-1 codec onto both Blu-ray and HD DVD markets, the company’s negative attitude towards Java prevented it from supporting the former standard in general. As a result, the company used to sell external HD DVD drive for Xbox 360.

Source: X-bit Labs

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our Console Gaming forum!

With the recent run of newer and more affordable graphics cards from ATI, it's almost easy to forget that there's already a sub-$200 frame-rate cruncher called the Radeon HD 4850. Based on the same RV770 chip as the more powerful, yet more expensive HD 4870, the HD 4850 ships with the same 800 stream processors, 40 texture units, and 16 ROPs that have made these cards such hot items. The main area where they differ, other than clock speeds, is in regard to memory. While the HD 4870 ships with high-end GDDR5 memory chips, the HD 4850 finds itself loaded with 512 MB of more mainstream GDDR3.

A major caveat with the Radeon HD 4850 that has arisen, however, is the excessive heat that gets produced by the RV770 GPU. It seemed the single slot reference cooling solution had a tough time handling the heat output of the RV770. With heat being a concern, and manufacturers having more time to tinker with their cards, we weren't surprised to find out that two of ATI's major partners, HIS and Sapphire, had two new cards waiting in the wings, each with their own ramped up clock speeds and with some superior cooling thrown in as well. Come on by the site and check out the Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 4850 512M and HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX...

Read the full review at HotHardware.com

Many things have been said about the AMD's mystical "Asset Smart", but the time has come to move on from speculating to seeing it in action:

AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi to Create New Leading-Edge Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AMD (NYSE:AMD - News) and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi today announced the creation of a U.S.-headquartered, leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing company to address growing demand for independent, leading-edge foundry production capabilities. The new global company, to be temporarily called “The Foundry Company”, will serve this need by combining advanced process technology, industry-leading manufacturing facilities and aggressive plans to expand its global capacity footprint. At the same time, the Mubadala Development Company will increase its current investment in AMD to 19.3 percent on a fully diluted basis.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/081007/20081007005668.html?.v=1

Join the Discussion in the AMD Forum: LINK

After taking a look at Sapphire's Radeon HD 4850 TOXIC board a couple of months ago, the big-name AMD graphics AIB are at it again, this time bringing the Radeon HD 4870 into the TOXIC family. As you might expect, this board features factory overclocks, while also sporting a custom dual-slot cooling solution which makes use of vapour chamber technology. Do these additions do enough to make it stand out above other offerings in the hugely popular Radeon HD 4870 market?

In keeping with the rest of their TOXIC range, this offering features increases to both core and memory clock speeds over a reference boards - While the card's RV770 core gets a modest 30MHz boost for a final clock speed of 780MHz, the GDDR5 memory on board gets a more substantial 100MHz increase, with the 1000MHz memory clock offering up some impressive memory bandwidth improvements.

The Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC's cooler also gets a complete overhaul from AMD's reference solution - While it remains a dual-slot affair, the cooler itself is a copper block sporting three heatpipes coupled with numerous aluminium fins, and an 80mm fan on top of it all to provide airflow to the cooler. The Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC also makes use of Vapor-X vapour chamber cooling technology - Its interesting stuff and effective to boot.

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

I have been fortunate to be able to review two different HD 4850s, but until now, the HD 4870 has eluded me. Today, I will be looking at Sapphire's factory overclocked version, the HD 4870 Toxic. Sporting a massive cooler utilizing Sapphire's Vapor Chamber Technology (VCT), and a decent overclock, Sapphire carries on its Toxic tradition. Let's see if the HD 4870 lives up to its reputation.

Read the full review @ ThinkComputers.org

After a long wait for Canadian consumers the day has finally arrived for them as Newegg now does business in Canada.

If you were around in July, you might've seen Newegg announce the impending arrival of its Canadian online store. Pointing one's browser to Newegg.ca led to a "coming soon" page for the better part of the past two months, but the site finally opened its doors last night (so to speak).

The Canadian Newegg looks similar to its U.S. counterpart, but a Canadian flag adorns the logo at the top left, a mention at the top right says prices are all in Canadian dollars "unless otherwise specified," and the store seems to carry fewer items.

Source: The Tech Report

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our General Hardware forums!

A couple of weeks ago, Elite Bastards looked at a single Radeon HD 4870 X2 board to see how AMD's flagship graphics offering performed, and today they go one step further by pairing up two of these boards in a CrossFireX configuration. Four GPUs, a total of 4GB of graphics memory, and 4.8 teraflops of computing power - Sounds impressive, no? Take a look as they see just how that theoretical behemoth stacks up in the real world.

At idle and during video playback, we see an increase of around 70 to 80 Watts in the move from a single board to dual Radeon HD 4870 X2 - Not too bad, although 300 Watts just for Blu-Ray playback in a CrossFireX setup is rather a scary thought.

If that seems bad, you might want to look away before taking in our 3D rendering performance numbers - Almost 400 Watts for a single Radeon HD 4870 X2 is hefty, but with two boards in tandem you're looking at closer to 700 Watts, with power consumption likely to rise even higher in situations where both CPU and GPU are being pushed hard by a modern game title. Ouch.

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

If these performance claims are true with Shanghai then things will definitely be looking up for AMD when 45nm chips for desktops are released.

As the release of 45nm Opteron processors grows nearer, AMD executives are loosening their tongues and shedding more light on the upcoming chips. CNet has had a chat with AMD Server and Workstation General Manager Pat Patla, who painted an encouraging picture of the chipmaker's progress.

Speaking of Shanghai—the code name for 45nm Opterons—Patla said AMD is working hard not to repeat past mistakes: "We had some mis-starts in getting Barcelona to market and wanted to bring as much velocity to Shanghai as possible." To that end, a lead engineer oversees the Shanghai project and sets goals so that "the product that we put in the hands of our partners is going to be of substantial stability so they can do lots of early validation."

Patla hinted that Shanghai may zoom past Barcelona in benchmarks, too. He said the 45nm process yields "a lot more (clock) frequency," and at the same clock speed, Shanghai "will outperform Barcelona by about 20 percent." AMD's retail quad-core chips currently top out at 2.6GHz, so Patla's statements give weight to rumors of 45nm Phenoms clocked at up to 3GHz.

Source: The Tech Report

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our Processors & Overclocking forum!

These new graphic cards will be really good for those who want to build a multimedia center. As it is the 46xx series is already priced very nicely for those who can't afford the 48xx series but want to enjoy good frames rates for today's games.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4550 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4350 graphics cards, the latest additions to the award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series graphics line up. These feature-rich graphics cards deliver exceptional gaming and HD multimedia performance at value prices. Both cards are based on the same technology found in the celebrated ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series, including support for the latest DirectX® 10.1 games and superior HD multimedia capabilities.

Delivering mainstream-class performance at a value price, the ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics card plays demanding game titles previously unplayable by cards in this price segment, and for less than USD $59 for a 512MB memory configuration. An even more incredible value, the ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card is the ideal introduction to the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series, priced for less than USD $39 for a 256 MB memory configuration, giving gamers and multimedia enthusiasts more features than products available from the competition today.

"The ATI Radeon™ HD 4550 and ATI Radeon™ 4350 graphics cards are the final pieces of the puzzle in rounding out the highly successful ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series family," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "AMD set out to lead performance at every price point and today we offer a complete family of graphics cards that delivers on our commitment of winning performance in each market segment."

Source: AMD Press Release

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our General ATI Radeon Discussion forum!

The guys over at PureOC bully the Palit's Radeon 4850 Sonic around to see if they can make it squeal:

Promising to offer improved cooling and performance, Palit has released the Radeon 4850 Sonic, overclocked out of the box and sporting a new dual slot cooler design. Today we push the Sonic and find out if Palit’s “Fear the Frog” marketing campaign makes us green with envy or croak with disappointment.

Read the full review at PureOverclock.com

ThinkComputers reviews ATi's new Radeon HD 4670:

Traditionally, budget cards would barely play the current high performance games, even at low settings, and were primarily for enthusiast rigs not intended for serious 3D gaming. Today I will be looking at one of ATI's new budget offerings, Sapphire's Radeon HD 4670, a DX10 card costing well under $100. Considering that the HD 4670's big brothers have raised the bar for video card performance in their respective price points, has the 4670 likewise raised the bar for econo-card performance? Find out in the following pages!

Read the full review at ThinkComputers.org

The HD 4870 X2 hits our bench with a vengeance, literally sending other components running for the hills. With the rebuild complete, its time to see what happens when the a pair of 4870 GPUs get up close and personal with each other.

Rage3D's ATi Radeon HD 4870 X2 Review

Discussion Thread

Elite Bastards take a look at Vizo's recently launched Ninja HS notebook cooler, seeing what it has to offer over both its older brother the Mini Ninja, as well as some of the other notebook cooling solutions from various manufacturers currently on the market.

Straight out of the box, the aluminium Ninja HS actually comes in three sections, with the two side panels upon which the notebook rests separate from the main body of the cooler itself.

These panels attach to the main cooler via some provided screws, which in turn allows them to be adjusted dependant on the size of your own notebook - A handy feature to have to ensure that the notebook sits safely and comfortably on the Ninja HS. Aside from seeing those two fans a little better from the rear of the cooler, we can also see that it features a couple of rollers to allow you to easily move the notebook around on a desk.

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

Graphics is more than just fast frame rates. And with the adoption of NVIDIA CUDA™ technology, developers can use the power of NVIDIA® GeForce® GPUs in ways never before possible. Only NVIDIA GeForce GPUs offer the ability to deliver fast frame rates and more realistic, immersive experiences, which would explain why more than a million downloads of the first ever GeForce Power Pack occurred in less than two weeks.

“Gaming experiences are much more important to me than numbers in a benchmark. It’s not surprising that features like PhysX, Stereo 3D and multi-GPU are so important to me,” wrote user named Sir Pauly on Rage3D.com, a popular online discussion area for PC users. “I don’t just want to play a game. I want to experience the game and to be immersed.”

GeForce Power Packs are freely available content that allow consumers to experience first-hand new NVIDIA technologies that are fundamentally changing the way applications are designed, played, and experienced. For total immersion, the gaming environment has to “feel” as real as possible, and characters must be able to move and interact with the objects in the environment that have a compelling, dramatic impact on game play. PhysX technology provides developers the ability to include effects such as trees that bend in the wind and water that ebbs and flows naturally, and additional objects in the environment that dramatically impact the gaming experience.

“Just was playing Warmonger and actually enjoying it!” added Sir Pauly in his Rage3D posting. “I'm checking out my weapon loads and changing weapons under the illusion I was behind cover and, suddenly, a massive explosion, and my cover became rubble with pieces all over the place.........LOL! Sitting duck and ran like hell! That was neat!”

“Tornado was a blast! I saw a bot blast a large piece of rubble with a rocket to topple it and flatten another one. My rockets get blown off-course trying to kill a bot. The tornado sucked me out of a broken window and killed me. A good time was had by all!” reported user caveman-jim on Rage3D.com [r.e. UT3 PhysX maps]

Any owner of a GeForce 8-Series or higher GPU can download the first GeForce Power Pack from www.nvidia.com/theforcewithin. The second GeForce Power Pack consisting of additional game levels, videos, and demos from a variety of games and applications is expected to be released in October 2008.

Click HERE to discuss in our General Graphics Forum!

After taking the high-end of the market by storm with the launch of the Radeon HD 4800 series, AMD have now turned their attentions to the mid-range, sub-£80 price point, a task that they have taken on with a reduced version of that same architecture in the form of RV730. With its introduction in the Radeon HD 4670, just what have AMD brought to the table? Elite Bastards take a look in this review, courtesy of Sapphire's reference-based offering.

Compared to the RV770 core and its 956 million transistors on a 55 nanometre manufacturing node, RV730 is made up of 514 million transistors (also manufactured on a 55 nanometre process) and squeezed into a 146mm squared die. RV730 carries all of the same basic functionality as its big brother, from Shader Model 4.1 and DirectX 10.1 support through to the second generation UVD engine and hardware tessellation unit.

Into that transistor count, AMD have managed to pack the same basic amount of processing power as their previous generation high-end core (RV670), giving the Radeon HD 4670 a total of 320 Stream Processors to play with, which are arranged as eight SIMD cores, each of which sports forty Stream Processors (against ten cores with eighty Stream Processors in RV770).

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

Source: Expreview

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our Processors & Overclocking forum!

freeware platform game improved controls, decent graphics and a catchy soundtrack. You start the monster hunt unarmed, but new weapons such as axes, knives, whips, crossbows and even guns can be acquired by destroying the many candelabras you will find during your adventure.

The Japanese language pack has to be installed to play, and the game will only run on displays configured with 16-bit color quality instead of the standard 32-bit

Source : redshiki

Trailer : vimeo

download link: Click here - right click save as

As with all new product ranges as time progresses the technology trickles down into the lower end parts and that is why we are here today, the launch of an R700 based budget product, the Radeon HD 4670. This card retails for £60/$80 and so should be well within the price range of most consumers, but is it worth buying if you are a gamer? It is our job today to find out, and we will also test them in Crossfire to see the possible gains if you upgraded at a later date.

Source: DriverHeaven

The only question now is how successful will the phones that have the Google Android OS will be?

The first mobile phone to use Google Inc's Android mobile operating software will cost $199, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Wednesday.

The phone, which features a slide-out keypad, is being manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corp and will be sold by Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA unit, which plans to unveil the device at an event in New York on September 23.

AT&T Inc, the only U.S. operator selling Apple Inc's iPhone, set the price of the latest version at $199 in July, setting a benchmark for smartphones that can surf the Web, manage email and other multimedia features.

Source: Reuters

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our Operating Systems forum!

SANTA CLARA, CA—SEPTEMBER 18, 2008—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today announced a workforce reduction to allow for continued investment in strategic growth areas. As a result, NVIDIA expects to eliminate approximately 360 positions worldwide, or about 6.5 percent of the Company’s global workforce. The reduction is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ending October 26, 2008. NVIDIA will provide employees affected by this reduction with severance packages, counseling, and job placement services.

"Our action today is difficult, but necessary considering current business realities. Despite our reduction, we will continue to invest in selective high-growth opportunities like our revolutionary CUDA parallel computing technology and our Tegra mobile single-chip computer," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "We are taking fast action to enhance our competitive position and restore our financial performance. All of us at NVIDIA are determined to emerge from these challenges an even stronger company."

The Company expects to record restructuring-related charges of approximately $7 million to $10 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2009 in connection with the reduction. These pre-tax charges are comprised of severance and related expenses and are expected to be charged primarily against NVIDIA’s operating expenses.

Source: Nvidia

Rage3D sits down with AMD's Eric Demers to discuss Radeon technologies and reveal how one earns the right to say AYBABTU!

'Under the IHS' Interview: Click Here

Discussion Thread: Click Here

Phoronix takes a look at the new Catalyst 8.9 Linux driver set:

Last month with the Catalyst 8.8 Linux driver we finally experienced CrossFire support on Linux as well as OverDrive support. This was one of the most significant driver releases of the year, but it's now time to move on as Catalyst 8.9 has just been released. This new driver update does bring a few exciting changes: the long-awaited WINE fixes, what appears to be RandR 1.2 with accelerated rotation support, and a horde of bug-fixes.

Source: Phoronix

Linux Forum Discussion: Click Here

Global “The Future is Fusion” corporate brand campaign focuses on AMD’s unique ability to ignite next-generation solutions through innovation leadership, customer collaboration and industry impact. Consumers, especially PC gaming fans, can see and experience the power of Fusion on their PC desktop via the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility beta, a freely available software download that allows gamers to experience greater performance on AMD-based PCs with a simple click of a button.

Source: AMD News

Fusion Website: Click Here

AMD Forum Discussion: Click Here