Hasta La Gadget!

AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 graphics cards are here, but they might not be what you expect — though alphanumerics suggest they’d succeed the lauded Radeon HD 5870 and 5850, these new “Bart” chips are actually a pair of solid plays for the PC gaming mainstream. $180 buys you a Radeon HD 6850 with 960 stream processors, a 775MHz core clock and 1GB of GDDR5 memory at a 1GHz effective rate, and $240 nets the HD 6870 with 1120 stream processors and 900MHz / 1,050 MHz clocks respectively. On paper that puts them a good bit behind the finest, but a collection of reviews show they can keep up with the pack, as the 6870 consistently manages to surpass the framerates possible with NVIDIA’s $200 GeForce GTX 460, and even the cheaper 6850 can do the same in certain games. Some reports indicate they run a good bit hotter than their predecessors, however, so despite the bevy of ports they’re probably not right for your next HTPC. Hit up the reviews below for some promising benchmarks, and if you aren’t turned away by AMD’s lipsticking of the pig, you’ll find ten varieties already for sale at our source link. PR after the break.

Update: NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460 768MB now sells for $170, so there’s definitely still some mid-range muscle in the green camp.

Read – AnandTech
Read (1), (2) – Guru3D
Read – HardOCP
Read (1), (2) – Bit-tech
Read – PC Perspective
Read – Legit Reviews
Read – Techgage
Read (1), (2) – TweakTown
Read – Hexus
Read (1), (2) – TechPowerUp
Read – HotHardware
Read – TechSpot

Continue reading ATI Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 reviewed, deemed worthy of the midrange

ATI Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 reviewed, deemed worthy of the midrange originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 23:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2011 can’t come soon enough, particularly if you’re AMD. The company has been attempting to maintain hype behind its CPU / GPU hybrid since last century, but the newest demonstration of its Llano Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) is getting us back in the mood. For those who haven’t followed the play-by-play, this here all-in-one chip is expected to hit laptops and desktops at some point in 2011, and the company’s most recent demo featured a single chip simultaneously processing three separate compute-and graphics-intensive workloads. Llano was able to calculate the value of Pi to 32 million decimal places, decode HD video from a Blu-ray film and handle some other mysterious task that we may or may not ever truly find out about. Head on past the break for a promotional / informational video, and be sure to re-circle next year on your calendar. That’ll be the one… just like your high school football team always thought.

Continue reading AMD demos next-gen Llano Fusion APU, promises consumer availability in 2011

AMD demos next-gen Llano Fusion APU, promises consumer availability in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPad is the hottest holiday gift this season but one group of companies are unhappy about it. Chip makers Intel and AMD are feeling the pain from iPad sales as the tablet eats into consumer demand for notebooks.

“In the last quarter or two the tablet has represented a disruption in the notebook market,” Dirk Meyer, president and CEO of AMD told financial analysts Thursday. “If you ask five people in the industry you’ll get five different answers as to what degree there’s been cannibalization by tablets of either netbooks or notebooks.”

But the bottomline is that the iPad has cannibalized even the sales of laptops.

AMD is not alone in viewing the iPad as disruptive to the traditional laptop business. Earlier this week Intel CEO Paul Otellini told analysts that the iPad will “probably” hurt PC notebook sales. In the long term, though, Otellini believes the iPad will help expand the category of consumer electronics–much like what netbooks did.

But there’s one major difference. So far, the two major tablets–the iPad and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab and Research In Motion’s PlayBook–don’t use chips from the traditional PC chipmakers.

“Intel is starting to manage expectations better, admitting that iPad would cannibalize PC growth, but it has made the case that it is well positioned in other tablets,” Mark Lipacis, an analyst with Morgan Stanley wrote in a research note. “We remain challenged to find Intel-based non-Apple tablets which can drive meaningful revenues for Intel.”

Since Apple launched the iPad in April, the company has sold more than 3 million devices and has given the category a second lease on life. Other companies such as Dell, Samsung and BlackBerry maker RIM have announced new tablets but the iPad remains the market leader for now. Meanwhile, the halo effect from the iPad has spurred PC sales for Apple. Apple overtook Acer to become the number three PC maker in the U.S. in the last quarter, according to IDC.

“Apple’s influence on the PC market continues to grow, particularly in the U.S., as the company’s iPad has had some negative impact on the mini notebook market,” says Bob O’Donnell, IDC vice president for clients and displays. “But, the halo effect of the device also helped propel Mac sales and moved the company into the number three position in the U.S. market.”

For AMD and Intel, that can’t be good news. Unlike the netbook category, whose rise helped propel sales of chips for these companies, the explosive growth of tablets could help reduce their influence–unless they jump on to the trend.

And that’s exactly what Intel is hoping to do with its MeeGo operating system. MeeGo is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices that Intel has developed along with Nokia. A key executive departure and news that smartphones running the operating system won’t be available until sometime next year has left Intel and Nokia fighting to stay on course with Meego.

But already a German company WeTab is offering a MeeGo based tablet.

Intel says more tablets based on MeeGo will hit the market next year. Ultimately, tablets will become “additive to the bottom line, and not take away from it,” Otellini told analysts.

But unless some Intel-chip based tablets come to market soon that may be in danger of becoming just wishful thinking.

See Also:

• Samsung Tablet May Cost $400 with Long-Term Contract
• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet
• How the Tablet Will Change the World
• Roundup: The First Reviews of Apple’s iPad

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Dylan, who needs a serious frame rate boost at a serious bargain. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I was wondering what the best video card would be that I could buy on the market for cheap (the highest I would be willing to go is $150, and that is if I absolutely need to). I’m trying to make Dead Rising 2 (and similar) look good. By the way, my computer is running a Biostar T-series TA785G3 motherboard with a AMD Phenom II processor on Windows 7, for what it’s worth. Thanks!”

Look, not everyone can just go blow $400 on the latest and greatest overclocked slab of silicon, and the lower-end market has definitely been heating up of late. Got any solid recommendations for this fellow? Recommended places to buy? Drop a note in comments below — we’re sure your next deathmatch can wait ten seconds.

Ask Engadget: best gaming graphics card for under $150? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know, for a moment there, we actually thought we were past the point of pushing subsidized netbooks. Evidently not. Verizon Wireless has just revealed a tweaked version of HP’s 11.6-inch Pavilion dm1 (the dm1-2010nr) that’s designed to work on Big Red’s oh-so-vast 3G network. Better still, Verizon has thrown in a SIM card in order to let it roam on networks outside of America, but the catch is one you probably saw coming: price. As with the company’s international Wireless Fivespot, the data pricing options are patently absurd — particularly so when you realize that you can never use the data you’re paying for here unless you’re using the netbook its embedded within. Other specs include a 1.3GHz AMD Athlon II Neo K325 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), 2GB of DDR3 memory, ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 4225 GPU, a 1366 x 768 resolution, inbuilt webcam and Altec Lansing speakers. Verizon’s trying to hawk this thing for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement on a Mobile Broadband plan, while the standard version sells for just $250 more; worse still are the data plans, which mirror those found earlier in the week on the Fivespot. We’d tell you that they’re detailed in full after the break, but seriously, why would you voluntarily view something that would bring you to tears?

Continue reading HP’s Pavilion dm1 netbook outfitted with global 3G for Verizon, priced way outside of reason

HP’s Pavilion dm1 netbook outfitted with global 3G for Verizon, priced way outside of reason originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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