News is a few weeks old, but still a milestone worth noting:

The Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card driver for Linux from Creative Labs was awful. That's simply the nicest way to put it. The driver was home to many bugs, initially only supported 64-bit Linux, and it was arriving extremely late. The open-source drivers supporting the Creative X-Fi drivers have also been at a stand still. However, Creative Labs today has finally turned this situation around and they have open-sourced the code to this notorious driver. The source-code for the Creative X-Fi driver is now licensed under the GNU GPLv2.

Read the full article at Phoronix.com

Discussion Thread: Rage3D Linux Forum

A couple of competitions worth a gander! Visit the sites for details on how to win free hardware!

• Win a Corsair 620HX Power Supply from Bjorn3D
• Driverheaven Competition: Win a Full AMD PC and bonus prizes of two video cards!

It's that time of year again and Christmas is around the corner. The year's hottest games are about to be released and it's time to look at new Tech Toys to make your year's gaming experience the best it can be. This year we decided to go with a price point comparison of two of the best GPU's out there, the Nvidia GTX-260 Core 216 vs the ATI 4870 1 GB edition in a head-to-head 5 game Hottest Title Shootout. Both of the selected GPU's are at the same price point roughly $300 (USD). The ATI card has 1GB of memory and the Nvidia card has 896MB of memory, and it's going to matter. We're testing at uber resolutions for this shootout. The lowest resolution is 1920x1200 and the highest resolution is 2560x1600 with AA set at 4x and AF set by the game.

So what games are we running in the Shootout, lets see there's PacMan, QBert, Space Invaders, Pong, and Asteroids. Oh wait a minute, flashback, it's FarCry 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Call Of Duty World At War, and Left 4 Dead. Must have been that road trip during the 60's. I knew that Koolaid tasted funny.

Full review at Bjorn3D.com

One of my biggest issues with high performance is the high levels of heat generated and that often means loud cooling. I'm completely surprised by how well the HD 4850 X2 cools itself, I was skeptical that the two tiny heatsinks would be able to do the trick, especially when there's probably more metal on the shroud than with the heatsink. However, with the latest BIOS flashed onto the card, Sapphire has managed to balance performance, heat and cooling noise. I was still able to achieve a modest overclock while staying at reasonable temperatures and quiet cooling.

Full review at Overclockersonline.net

It was the HD 4870 that wowed gamers by being able to keep up with much more expensive GTX 280, and blew away even many more gamers with its impressive anti-aliasing ability. But released at the virtually the same time, the HD 4870's little brother -- the HD 4850 -- was the product that offered high-end performance at a price point that was affordable by most. It wasn't all that long ago at all that the second fastest card you could get in a new generation of GPU's would bust the bank -- but this wasn't the case with the HD 4850. For many, the deadly cost effectiveness made the HD 4850 the more memorable of the brother wonder-cards coming from ATI... but where does it stand today, four months later?

Full review at Neoseeker.com

Metku.net offers up a comparo of non-reference HD 4850 graphics cards:

Today we are going to get a bit more familiar with some of the more interesting HD4850-offerings. All of these cards feature an improved cooler, higher frequencies and better performance than the reference cards.

Full Article @ metku.net

Bjorn3D takes on the Sapphire Toxic HD4870:

With the standard ATi HD4870 being such a huge hit amongst high-end gaming enthusiasts, I’ve been really looking forward to reviewing Sapphire’s Toxic version of the card for my first video card review for Bjorn3D. Even though the standard version has had great success, it wasn’t without a few flaws of its own, the first being that it ran super hot and the second being that the fan was extremely loud.

The Sapphire Toxic HD4870 is looking to resolve these two issues by utilizing their own Vapor-X cooler (Vapor Chamber Technology), as well as throwing in a little over clock just for good measure. Both of these features should help the faint of heart rest a little easier by giving them a better performing card with better cooling, while still maintaining the manufacturer's warranty.

Read the full review at Bjorn3D.com

The market is absolutely packed to the rafters with CPU coolers these days, making it tough for any given company or solution to stand out from the crowd. However, that fact hasn't stopped newcomer GELID Solutions from taking the plunge into the CPU cooler market by way of their debut Silent Spirit offering. Can it establish itself in this crowded market?

Attached to the top of the copper base which makes contact with the CPU is a small nickel-plated aluminium heatsink, which is itself linked to the four copper heatpipes to help provide the maximum possible heat transfer away from the CPU itself.

These heatpipes are, of course, attached to a large number of aluminium fins, which is angled at what initially seems like an odd position, but is supposedly the optimum angle for heat transfer, particularly if your chassis has a rear fan to exhaust hot air out of. Atop those fins is the Silent Spirit's cooling fan itself, which is fitted with rubber fan mounts to stop vibration noise and keep the fan running as quietly as possible.

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

Over the course of the past few months we have been saying that the NVIDIA 180 Linux driver to be released in the fourth quarter of 2008 would hold in store a few interesting features. Well, today that closed-source driver has been released in beta form. This driver adds a new VDPAU API, which provides PureVideo-like features on Linux, adds in CUDA 2.1 support, new workstation performance optimizations, X Render improvements, and other improvements

Source: Phoronix

Discussion Thread: Linux Forum

ATI has unveiled their March of the Froblins Demo for public consumption. Requires an HD 4800 Series graphics card.

March of the Froblins

The Froblins demo is designed to showcase many of the new techniques for character-centric entertainment made possible by the massively parallel compute available on the ATI Radeon HD 4800 GPU series. In our large-scale environment with thousands of highly detailed, intelligent characters, the Froblins (frog goblins), are concurrently simulated, animated and rendered entirely on the GPU. The individual character logic for each froblin creature is controlled via a complex shader – 3200 shader instructions for each froblin. We are utilizing the latest functionality available with the DirectX® 10.1 API, hardware tessellation, high fidelity rendering with 4X MSAA settings, at HD resolution with gamma-correct rendering, full HDR FP16 pipeline and advanced post-processing effects.

Full Details and Download: March of the Froblins

Discussion Thread: General ATI Discussion Forum

PureOverclock takes a look at Sapphire's HD 4870 X2:

Today we’re looking at the Sapphire 4870 X2. It has been out for a while now, but it still certainly appears to be a card worthy to sit atop the heap as king of the hill. Indeed, it features two GPUs on one card, and is gigantic, in more ways than one.

Source: PureOverclock

AMD unlocks the door on Fusion: ATI's forward looking vision of Stream Computing. Be sure to download REMOVED PENDING UPDATE (pdf) as we begin our journey!

GPGPU is one of those trendy buzz-words that gets thrown around a lot these days ... and for good reason. With the latest GPUs, the potential for accelerating a large array of algorithms is rather staggering. However, in order to tap into the parallel processing muscle of a GPU, proper tools are needed - and so we have arrived at today's topic.

Article: ATI Stream Computing Unleashed

Discussion Thread: General ATI Radeon Discussion

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As always, we recommend checking out other articles to get a better picture of what new technologies have to offer.

Soon AMD will give all HD3000 and HD4000 owners an early Christmas present in their next Catalyst-drivers. We've got the details of the new ATI Stream-support that will turn your GPU into a transcoding monster.

Source: ATI Stream Technology @ Bjorn3D.com

This is very interesting news. I had updated my bios to 0504 when it came out in October, and I figured it was just for the the upcoming 45nm AM2+ socket CPU's.

ASUS, worldwide leader of motherboard production, has once again kept up with leading trends and technologies with the announcement to release a wide range of high-performance motherboards that will take advantage of the most high-end and upcoming AMD AM3 CPUs. This new generation of AMD CPUs will encompass the 45nm infrastructure; and will be equipped with C1E halt states for advanced power savings. The most distinguishing feature of the AM3 CPUs is the fact that they will support DDR3 RAM. In order to meet user demands for top-of-the-line CPUs that deliver advanced performance, the ASUS M3/M2 Series motherboards will offer the most completed product lines to fully support the upcoming AM3 CPUs.

AM3 CPU Ready Motherboards
The list below shows the ASUS motherboards that are currently AM3 CPU-ready. For users who have already purchased the M3 or M2 Series motherboards, a simple BIOS update is all that is needed to support future AM3 CPUs. The following list will be continuously updated and more AM3 CPU-ready ASUS motherboards are expected to be announced soon.

Source: ASUS

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

AMD has released ATI Catalyst™ 8.11 for Windows Vista, Windows XP and Linux platforms on http://www.amd.com

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 8.11 Windows release include:

Performance improvements

• Stalker Clear Sky: Performance increases between 6%-18% on single card configured systems when using the ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products. Performance increases between 10%-30% on CrossFireX™ configured systems using the ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products.
• Far Cry 2: Performance increases between 5%-10% on single card configured systems when using the ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products. Performance increases between 8%-14% on CrossFireX™ configured systems using the ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products.

ATI CrossFireX™ enhancement:

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ enables users to verify whether an application is running in ATI CrossFireX™ mode. The new option found in the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center system tray, will allow users to verify whether a Direct3D or OpenGL application is running in ATI CrossFireX™ mode. (The “ATI CrossFireX” logo will be shown on screen when the application is running)

HydraVision Support for Windows XP

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces HydraVision support for the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center under Windows XP. HydraVision enables users to more efficiently organize multiple applications across single or multiple displays. High-lights include:
  • HydraGrid – A new feature found in HydraVision that divides the Windows desktop into user definable areas helping users to more easily move and organize multiple applications.
  • HydraVision Hotkeys – The ATI Catalyst™ Control Center Hotkey Manager can be used to quickly setup and define their HydraVision specific hotkey commands
  • HydraVision Virtual desktops – Users can configure up to 9 virtual desktops, enabling users to manage and group multiple applications across user defined desktops. Application positions, desktop associations and display settings can be saved for every virtual desktop
  • HydraVision Wizard – Using the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center Wizard, users can very quickly configure their HyrdaVision settings.[/indent]

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: RHEL 4.7 support

New Display enhancement

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for display scaling to resize the display devices that support TV timings (480i/p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) through either digital (DVI or HDMI) or analog (component) interfaces

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 8.11 (for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 8.11 release notes.

Source: AMD Press Release

Download & Release Notes: Game.AMD.com

Rage3D Discussion: Catalyst Driver Forum

In our latest review, we take a look at a couple boards sporting AMD's new 790GX chipset.

Watching paint dry is just as engaging as reviewing motherboards! This isn't because the chipset guys are less talented, nor is it because the motherboard isn't an important part of any system ... no, it's because motherboards work as intended with annoying frequency. Will this hold true for 790GX based motherboards?

Review: State of the Union - AMD 790GX Chipset Review

Discussion: General AMD Discussion Forum

Yikes! I guess someone was out to lunch when testing this virus definition update.

The world of computer security can be a scary place for friends and foes alike. This weekend users' found their AVG software updated with a new virus definition file. Then they quickly found their computers crashing.

What was discovered was that the new virus definition file mistook user32.dll, a critical Windows component, for a container for the Trojan Horses PSW.Banker4.APSA or Generic9TBN. When the scanner went active, it deleted this critical file, thinking it contained a virus, causing the system to crash. AVG recommended users whose definitions auto-updated delete their virus definition file and cancel any scans they have running.

If your computer is affected, it will either stop booting or go into an endless reboot loop. Vista users can breathe a sigh of relief -- so far that OS has remained relatively unaffected. Windows XP users, however must now exercise extreme caution, or risk having to carry out a bothersome repair process.

Both AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 were affected by the erroneous definition file. The file has since been update to remove the error.

For affected users, you can either reinstall Windows or repair it with a Windows disk. A third option is to use a boot disc, such as the Ultimate Boot CD (ISO) and then grab the files you need from the "C:\Windows\System32\dllcache" directory.

Source: DailyTech

Click HERE to discuss this topic in our General Software forum!

This is a light month for OS patching...

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-069
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft XML Core Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (955218)

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-068
Vulnerability in SMB Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957097)

Source: Microsoft Technet Security

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

Overclockers Online reviews the Sapphire Radeon HD4550 512MB:

Well, I honestly have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the
performance and features of the HD4550. It comes with every feature and
accessory you could want for a HTPC setup and even handles games fairly
well. At around $60 US you easily get your money's worth and more.

Read the full review at Overclockersonline

Late last month we published system benchmarks of Ubuntu 7.04 through 8.10 and had found -- at least with the Intel notebook we were using -- that the performance had degraded with time. This article had then resulted in benchmarks of Fedora 7 through 10 and most recently were Mac OS X 10.5 vs. Ubuntu 8.10 benchmarks. In our original article we hadn't focused much upon the graphics tests and we were just using ATI's binary driver, but per a request from Canonical's Bryce Harrington, we have carried out some open-source graphics tests on Ubuntu 7.04 through 8.10 and we started with the ATI performance.

Source: Phoronix

Discussion: Rage3D Linux Forum

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices, one of the world's two makers of microprocessors for personal computers, said it had cut 500 people from its staff of 15,500, effective Wednesday, as part of a move to cut costs.

A spokesman declined to give any details about where the cuts had been made.

They are part of major changes the company is undergoing to reduce expenses, including spinning off its manufacturing arm.

The plans pre-date the economic troubles of September and are part of an approach the company has called "asset light."

Source: Reuters

Full Article & Discussion Thread: General AMD Discussion Forum

AMD and Red Hat Demonstrate Live Migration of Virtual Machines Across Vendor Platforms: See For Yourself

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- November 6, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD), in collaboration with Red Hat, today demonstrated for the first time “live migration” of a virtual machine across vendor platforms. Live migration enables the movement of running virtual machines (VMs) from one physical server to another without disrupting service to the end user, something that, till now, has only been demonstrated across systems based on one vendor’s platforms. Today’s live migration demonstration moves a live VM from an dual socket Intel Xeon DP Quad Core E5420-based system to a system based on the forthcoming 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processor, utilizing Red Hat’s high-performance open source virtualization software. See the demonstration on the AMD Unprocessed YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuhU6jJjpAQ or on AMD at http://www.amd.com/amdlivemigration01.

Source: AMD Press Release

Discussion Thread: General AMD Discussion Forum

AMD Powers World’s First ATI CrossFireX™ High Performance Notebook by Alienware

ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3800 series graphics and ATI CrossFireX technology pack an unprecedented 640 stream processors into a single notebook

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- November 4, 2008 --High-performance gaming notebook manufacturer Alienware is putting two powerful ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3800 series graphics processors from AMD (NYSE:AMD) in the Alienware M17 notebook PC. The Alienware M17 is the world’s first notebook from a major manufacturer to include the raw horsepower of AMD’s award-winning ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology with Microsoft® Direct® X 10.1 support.

“The M17, loaded with all the capabilities of ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU technology, delivers outstanding performance at an extremely aggressive price point,” said Patrick Cooper, director of product planning, Alienware. “Paired with an award-winning chassis design, mobile gamers will be blown away by the realism that the scalable ATI graphics solution provides.”

Source: AMD Press Release

Full Press Release & Discussion Thread: ATI Radeon Forum

It has been a long week for a lot of reasons, but we've certainly kept you all waiting long enough! I'm happy to announce we have awarded the winners of the Rage3D 10 year tag-line contest! You'll find the winners on the contest page or the contest thread.


In addition there was a gem that many of you saw in the discussion thread for the last contest news post that I wanted to get out there. It's a great Rage3D teaser background pic put together by one of our local miracle-workers JonZ. Grab the background from this post.

Well this news puts the nail in the coffin as most people thought this OS was going to be released next year.

Early this year, 2010 was what some Microsoft executives were saying to expect for a release date. However, as the year progressed, Microsoft's top executives became increasingly optimistic that the OS could be delivered in late 2009. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer first floated the possibility of a 2009 release earlier this year.

Microsoft director Doug Howe showed slides in a WinHEC presentation that all but confirmed a 2009 release -- and even earlier than expected. His slides stated that Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 mid-year, in time to be included on the machines to be sold during the holiday buying season. Mr. Howe stated, "Definitely the holiday focus is going to be on 7."

Source: DailyTech

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

Sapphire is back again with another specialty graphics card based on a high end ATI Radeon GPU. The newly released Sapphire Radeon HD4850 X2 2048MB graphics card incorporates a pair of Radeon HD4850 graphics processors and 2048MB of GDDR3 memory on a custom PCB to create one serious looking piece of equipment.

Read the full review at Bigbruin.com