XFX Introduces Radeon Cards

Since late last year when XFX announced that it would in fact be designing Radeon cards from AMD, people have been curiously awaiting them. Now XFX has shown off their Radeon HD-4000 series graphics cards, and while it is now delivering AMD chips to its users, NVIDIA will also be offered at the same time. The graphics card distributer states that the new Radeon graphics cards come with superior scalability, DirectX 10.1, and HDMI connectivity. While pricing has yet to be announced for the cards that they are producing, which include the HD 4870, HD 4850, HD 4830, HD 4650, and HD 4350, XFX is saying that it will offer reference designed cards, as well as those that are factory overclocked.

EVGA Supplies 55nmGeForce GTX 260 Cards

With EVGA bringing most consumers excellent performance and warranty support with NVIDIA chipsets, the graphics card distributor is now updating the GTX 260 to a 55nm chip. This smaller reference design will allow users to get more overclocking performance out of their cards while also maintaining decent temperature levels. EVGA is supplying the card in three different models, which all are in the $200 price spectrum. The standard card sells for $259.99 and features a 576MHz core speed, 1998MHz memory clock speed, and 1242MHz shader core clock. Other versions of the card provided by the company are the Superclocked version and the SSC, or SuperSuper Clocked model. Price varies from different retailers somewhat, but the Superclocked version can be found for $269.99 while the SSC version can be purchased for $289.99.

NVIDIA Plans 40nm GeForce Cards

With a discussion going on regarding the NVIDIA cards and the rebranding process, the green company is said to be debuting new GeForce cards based on the 40nm process in the second-quarter of next year. The cards, according to recent reports on the internet, will be the GT212, GT214, GT216, and the GT218, with all of the cards except the GT212 to be slated for the third-quarter of the upcoming new year. The GT212 is supposed to replace enthusiast and performance cards, while the other three models are allegedly going to be placed in the value segment of the market. The GT216 is expected to provide 4 desktop SKU, while the GT218 is expected to provide 6 desktop SKU. The graphics chip manufacturer also plans to be working on a graphics card based on a GT300 GPU that will eventually replace the GT212. A new integrated graphics processor is said to be in the works as well, named the IGT209, and will power products that are currently based off of the Geforce 9300 and the GeForce 9400 integrated graphics processors.

Sapphire Announces Second Set of Fall Sweepstakes Winners

Saphhire is sponsoring a Fall sweepstakes offering folks three opportunities to win a HD4850 each month. Those of you who regularly visit our home page have probably seen the banners appearing at the top of the page advertising how to enter and win. The second set of winners has been announced and here they are:

L. Barros of Belo Horizonte, Brazil
D. Ojeda of Greenville, USA
H. Leinonen of Oulu, Finland

Congratulations to the three winners! Keep an eye out for the Sapphire banner for more chances to win.

NVIDIA CUDA Technology Extends to BOINC

NVIDIA's CUDA technology enables the GPU to be used for complex computational problems instead of the CPU in a fraction of the time, making it the perfect solution for distributed computing. NVIDIA's first foray was with Folding@home, and it saw great results. Now NVIDIA is expanding its use of CUDA to Berkeley's Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). BOINC joings multiple consumer computers together over the Internet in order to use the combined computing power to tackle very large computational tasks for various scientific research projects, such as SETI@home. As with Folding@home, the results are astounding; a GeForce GTX 280 running SETI@home is nearly twice as fast as the newest Intel CPU, the Core i7 965. To read more information about how CUDA and BOINC work together, click here.

GeForce Cards to Support OpenGL 3.0

With the latest drivers released by NVIDIA, the company has enabled OpenGL 3.0 support on its GeForce 8 and later cards. While many games are based on the DirectX standard, some users that work with applications which make use of the OpenGL API may see some performance boost, if the developer implements the new version into the program that is. Even if the new standard is not implemented, OpenGL 3.0 is backwards compatible, ensuring both games and programs that use previous versions of OpenGL will still be functional. The new drivers can be downloaded from the graphics manufacturer website and are available for most operating system, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD.

NVIDIA Releases Notebook Graphics Drivers

An overwhelming amount of people over the years have been requesting new and updated graphics drivers for their laptops. Most have wanted ones that could possibly increase performance over the original equipment manufacturer drivers that came with their notebook. NVIDIA is now supplying users of GeForce 7, 8, and 9 series cards, as well as the Quadro NVS series notebook graphic cards, with that exact thing. These new drivers can unlock the potential of PhysX games, along with CUDA-based applications as well. While the beta releases are out now, the WHQL-ceritified versions are said to be released somtime early next year. The green company suggests downloading the notebook manufacturers’ driver updates over these new ones in some situations however, due to the notebooks warranty and support following certain drivers.

Hardware Roundup: Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 Edition

We've heard the rumors and today we got a chance to look at the specifications. Now we get a chance to check out some initial reviews of the forthcoming gual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 to see what the performance looks like.

Nvidia GTX295 Performance Preview  @ OverclockersClub
Nvidia GTX-295 Fastest GPU on the Planet @ Bjorn3D
GeForce GTX 295 Preview @ [H]ardOCP
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Preview - Performance King Returns @ PC Perspective

Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 Specifications

Rumors around Nvidia's next graphics cards have been circulating around the Internet for a while with photos purporting to show the card and speculation on features and availability. Nvidia puts an end to all that today as they released some information on the GTX 295 and GTX 285 cards which will be officially announced on January 8 at CES. Briefly, the GTX 295 will feature two GeForce GTX processors on a single card with 1792MB of GDDR3 memory and 480 processor cores. The core clock speed is 576MHz with the stream processors clocked at 1242MHz. The reference design is a dual-slot fansink with a max power of 289W. GTX 295 will be available January 8, 2009 at a MSRP of $499US.

Check out OCC's Nvidia GTX295 Performance Preview.

Leaked GTX 285 and GTX 295 Specifications

Since the announcement of the new GTX cards, rumors have been circulating among the internet, mainly discussing the performance that NVIDIA will see against ATI with their Radeon HD 4870 X2. Supposed specifications have now been leaked on the internet, showing various comparisons with the GTX 295 and the Radeon HD 4870 X2. Many of these tests are showing the GTX 295 beating the Radeon card in some of the most played recent games, at a resolution of 2560 x 1600 with 4x anti-aliasing. The games that were tested include Fallout 3, FarCry 2, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty: World at War. The new GTX 295 has a TDP level that is just 53W higher than the GTX 280, bringing it to a total level of 289W. This feature is mainly due to the adoption of the 55nm process technology that the new graphics card incorporates.

XFX to Produce ATI Radeon Graphics Cards

Pine Technology Holdings announced today that its XFX graphics group is partnering with AMD to begin producing ATI Radeon 4000-series graphics cards. The AMD GPU-based cards will become part of XFX's existing lineup of performance videocards. The first of XFX 4000-series cards will hit the market in early 2009 and will include the factory-overclocked XXX series of cards.

Rumors Fly Regarding ATI and XFX

Many companies over the past few years, mainly the ones that make solely NVIDIA cards, have been rumored to be partnering with ATI and producing Radeon video cards. EVGA was a part of this rumor some time ago, but has now denied anything dealing with the Radeon chip maker. XFX rumors have now begun to circulate regarding their possibility to start producing ATI cards under their brand. The main reason for this rumor is due to the fact that NVIDIA cards aren’t selling too well at the moment, mainly because of price issues, as well as performance problems compared to ATI graphics cards. The company has yet to confirm or deny these rumors, so anything could come from it. If they do in fact confirm the reports, it is said that XFX will possibly have its first Radeon card produced around the first-quarter of 2009.

NVIDIA to Support OpenCL

After the announcement from AMD regarding their support of the OpenCL specification, NVIDIA is now releasing to the public that it will support the API as well. The new specification is stated to allow developers to take almost full advantage of the GPU parallel computing capabilities. CUDA, which has been available to research communities since the release of the GeForce 8800, is expected to work seamlessly along with the new OpenCL API.  Apple is also taking part in the spread of OpenCL, and is now recognizing that the graphics processing unit plays an important role in consumer applications as well as the overall computing experience.

Sapphire Announces Latest 8.12 Catalyst Drivers to Unlock Potential of Stream Processors

ATI's latest set of Catalyst drivers, version 8.12, are set to be released tomorrow. Sapphire Technology has announced that the new driver set will unleash the power of stream processing on all the latest generation Sapphire cards. ATI Stream is a set of open AMD technologies that enable the hundreds of stream processors on cards such as the HD 4850/4870 series to be used to accelerate general purpose applications. Several companies are already working on developing applications to harness the massive parallel processing capabilities of the 800 stream processors found on the HD 4850/4870 cards to accelerate various multimedia applications along with gaming and productivity tools. Sapphire has also announced it will be releasing a new version of its ATI Avivo Video Converter utility in December as a free download which will allow users of Sapphire video cards to transcode HD video between formats at speeds much faster than before. The HD 4850 X2 videocard is only available from Sapphire and the new 8.12 drivers will offer support for that model along with the recently released HD 4830.

EA and 2K Games to License Nvidia PhysX Technology

Nvidia today announced it has signed licensing agreements with two major game studios to use its PhysX technology in developing games. 2K Games, part of Take Two Interactive Software, and Electronic Arts Inc. have licensed PhysX for use in their development studios worldwide. Both companies cited the need to enhance gameplay interactivity and environmental interaction as reasons for choosing PhysX. The tools provided by Nvidia include a physics engine and software development kit and API to enable developers to develop greater interactivity by authoring and previewing physics in real time. Nvidia claims that running physics effects on GeForce GPUs enable visual complexity to be displayed at levels 10-20 times than what is currently possible. PhysX on all major gaming platforms including consoles and PCs. 2K Games intends to use PhysX in its upcoming Borderlands title as well as other future games.

NVIDIA to Release GTX295

For some time now, ATI has been leading the video card market with the release of its Radeon HD 4870 X2. While the card is quite expensive to some, others are picking them up without a doubt because of their obvious performance. The green company, NVIDIA, has been behind this card in terms of performance ever since it was released. Now however, NVIDIA plans to release a card officialy known as the GTX295, or better known online as the GTX260 GX2 by internet rumor web sources. The card is said to contain 216 stream processors for each core that it has, but details on the memory size and core frequency of the card have not yet been confirmed. Design is finished for the GTX295 and is in testing right now in order for it to be released to the public market sometime in the near future.

New Catalyst Driver Coming Soon

ATI is planning to release its new Catalyst driver suite, version 8.12, on the second Wednesday of next month, December 10th. The graphics chip maker is counting on this new driver to combat the new NVIDIA GeForce drivers that were recently released and improved performance upon many new titles, such as Far Cry 2, Dead Space, and Fallout 3. Both single card and CrossFire setups are said to be affected in the optimizations that are to be included in the Catalyst 8.12 driver. Performance numbers cannot yet be determined though, due to the new driver not being available in a beta form for testing.

Sapphire Announces First Set of Fall Sweepstakes Winners

In addition to the OCC HD4850 X2 giveaway Saphhire is sponsoring a Fall sweepstakes offering folks three opportunities to win a HD4850 each month. Those of you who regularly visit our home page have probably seen the banners appearing at the top of the page advertising how to enter and win. The first set of winners has been announced and here they are:

M. Menar of Minneapolis, USA
A. Morris of Bridlington, UK
J. Hansen of Leanyer, Austalia

Congratulations to the three winners! Keep an eye out for the Sapphire banner for more chances to win. In addition, the Sapphire/OCC HD4850X2 giveaway runs through November 30 so you still have an opportunity to enter.

NVIDIA Updates GeForce Drivers

Version 180.48 of the GeForce drivers is now available for download, and is sporting some heavy improvements according to the graphics chip maker NVIDIA. The new drivers support the GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8800-series desktop cards. New coding in the drivers also now enables X58-based motherboards to support SLI technology. Game performance is improved all around as well, with some games such as Assassin’s Creed, Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, and Lost Planet: Colonies showing considerable improvement. PhysX processing can also be used with a supported card in the 180.48 drivers, by using a portion of the graphics card memory and dedicating it to being a PhysX processing unit. NVIDIA, as well as other tech websites, are now hosting the newly released drivers for download.

Rambus Petitions FTC to Halt Imports of Nvidia Cards

Last July, Rambus sued Nvidia for infringing on 17 of its patents that Nvidia is not licensed to use. Now Rambus has asked the FTC to halt the imports of Nvidia graphics cards in the U.S. Along with Nvidia, Rambus named most, if not all, of the OEMs producing cards based on Nvidia's GPUs as defendants including Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, Biostar, BFG and MSI. Rambus says the move is necessary to protect its patents and to be fair to those licensees who are paying fees to use the technology. The FTC has 30 days to make a decision on whether to begin an investigation.

PowerColor Announces Water Cooled HD4870 Graphics Card

With the heat issues some users are reporting with standard reference design HD 4870 graphics cards, it's no wonder enthusiasts and manufacturers are turning to after-market cooling solutions to keep temperatures in check. PowerColor has just announced its LCS HD4870 card designed to offer the best cooling performance in a single slot setup. The 'LCS' in the name stands for Liquid Cooling Series and PowerColor has affixed a copper-based water block from EK Water Blocks. Not only does the block help cool the GPU, its full coverage extend to the memory and power regulator chips as well. The water block is equipped with both 3/8" and 1/2" barb fittings and is ready to be added into your water cooling setup. Designed specifically with overclockers in mind, the PowerColor LCS is expected to retail for $369US.

Windows 7 Hybrid Graphics Card Woes

Both AMD and NVIDIA have been working on the idea of hybrid graphics for quite a while now. The idea of both, Hybrid SLI and Hybrid CrossFire, incorporate an integrated graphics chip and a discrete graphics card to allow the user optimum performance and battery life by switching in-between the two. Microsoft’s Guidelines in Windows 7 was released yesterday, and outlines the company’s dislike for the technology used by both manufacturers. The guideline itself states that the upcoming operating system by Microsoft, Windows 7, does not natively support Hybrid SLI or Hybrid CrossFire. It also claims that users who use these technologies could experience unstableness as well as poor performance.

Diamond Multimedia Launches 1GB HD 4670 Video Card

What go you get when you combine "high-end" and "mainstream" together? Throw in 1GB of GDDR3 memory and you have Diamond's new HD 4670 1G graphics card. Targeted at the mainstream user, Diamond's new card comes in a single-slot design built around an ATI RV730 GPU. The 55nm process core is clocked at 750Mhz and features 320 stream processors. The 1GB frame buffer memory comes clocked at 900MHz. The HD 4670 features PCIE 2.0 and full DirectX 10.1/Shader Model 4.1 support and can be configured up to four GPUs in CrossFireX mode. Diamond expects the card to be available locally at Fry’s, Micro Center, Best Buy Canada, and Future Shop immediately and online by the third week of October. Pricing was not announced.

nVidia Rebranding, Again

To some people, the only thing more difficult than quantum physics is the naming schemes of certain computer components, namely video cards and CPUs. Well nVidia is hoping to make it a little easier...again. As if dropping down to the "200's" after the "9000's" wasn't confusing enough, right? This time, the focus is on the letters. GTX will be for the highest-end cards, GS and GT will be for the mainstream, mid-range cards, and G will be for the budget cards. Wait...wasn't this how it's been for...uh...ever? To complicate matters even more, they plan on actually rebadging current products; the 9800GT, for example, will become the GT150. This is supposed to make things simpler? Really?

ATI Catalyst 8.9 Drivers Available

Sorry for the delayed posting but ATI has launched some new Catalyst Drivers updating them to Version 8.9. One thing I noticed right away is the update fixes issues with Folding@home right away that is worth the download right there . :) With the New Folding@home client and the new drivers I am finishing work units way faster then I was before.

ATI 4850X2 $399????

Expreview has some slides up on the performance on the soon to be released HD4850X2. On one of the slides it says $399. If this does turn out to be accurate that would be a little more then what 2 HD4850's would run you if you have a crossfire board that is.

Sapphire Announces HD 4870 Toxic Edition GPU

Sapphire Technology today announced the release of the new HD 4870 Toxic videocard featuring its unique Vapor Chamber Technology cooling system. ATI 4800 series cards are known for their performance - and their toasty warm nature. Sapphire has equipped its Toxic Edition card with a dual slot Vapor-X cooling solution that combines a three-heatpipe cooler with a thermally-controlled fan with external venting to more effectively cool the card at lower noise levels than normally found on reference-card designs. The Toxic is no reference design for that matter. This edition from Sapphire sports 512MB of high performance GDDR5 memory clocked at 1000MHz and the GPU is factory-overclocked at 780MHz. Pricing and availability were not available.

More 2GB Of Memory On Video Cards Coming

Rumour has it that the 4870X2 Toxic and the 4850X2 will both be sporting 2 gigs of memory. There will also be a 4850X2 model that will have only 1gig of memory so it will be intresting to see if the 2gigs of memory will actually help during gameplay. Keep an eye out for Ultimate Edition 4850's to start showing up keep in mind different companies might use different names. Cards should start showing up in Oct with reviews being seen possible in the next week or two.

PowerColor Ups the Ante with PCS+ HD4870 1GB GDDR5

The ATI HD 4870 has proven popular since its initial release to say the least. OCC reviewed the original PowerColor HD 4870 almost tow months ago and came away impressed but raised some concerns about possible heating issues. Now PowerColor is back with its PCS+ HD4870 1GB GDDR5 model card that increases the buffer frame size to 1GB from 512MB as well as providing a factory overclock that provides clocks at 800MHz core speed and 925 MHz effective memory speed. Perhaps the most innovative feature on this card is the inclusion of an after-market cooling solution from ZeroTherm with a dual S-shaped heatpipe that can reduce temperatures by an additional 10 degrees Celsius. The PCS+ also features improved fan control, allowing the fan speed to adjust automatically with the temperature. Pricing and availability were not disclosed.

Hardware Roundup: AMD HD 4870 X2 Edition

Ever since AMD acquired ATI a lot has been written about the sagacity of the deal and whether AMD could replicate any of ATI's past successes. It looked as if AMD was content to relinquish the top-end of the graphics market to Nvidia and Nvidia responded with a string of successful cards that ATI just couldn't seem to match. Things took a turn for the better recently though with the launch of its 4800 series of cards. The HD 4850 and HD 4870 enjoyed more than a smattering of success and were made available at price points below what Nvidia's GTX 260/280 could be had for. Nvidia began feeling the heat and was forced to drop its prices. Today AMD announced the latest in the 4800 series - the HD 4870 X2 and is billing it as the world's fastest graphics card. It's been a while since AMD could claim that title. With two RV770 GPU cores on a single card, the HD 4870 cranks out 2.4 tera FLOPs while offering an 80% performance gain over a single HD 4870 card. So how well do these claims hold up? OCC leads the review charge with a look at the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 and we have a bevy of additional reviews from our affiliates to go along with it.

Sapphire HD 4870 X2 @ OCC
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB @ PC Perspective
AMD's Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card @ Tech Report
Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 X2 in Crossfire @ TweakTown
ATI HD4870X2 vs NVIDIA GTX 280 - High-End VGA Comparison @ Madshrimps
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 - AMD Back On Top @ HotHardware
Palit Radeon HD 4870 X2 1GB - AMD Reclaims GPU Supremacy @ Techgage
Double the fast: Palit HD 4870 X2 @ Neoseeker