Hasta La Gadget!

Think CrossFireX is nifty? We’re betting you’re a big fan of SLI, huh? For those who grew up bragging about their “dual Voodoo” setup, there’s nothing in the world that can stop you from lusting over this bad boy. Quietly introduced at CES, the EVGA W555 is just now being shown to the world in proper (prototype) form, and aside from being crafted to hold two overclocked processors and a dozen DDR3 DIMM slots, there’s also space for seven PCI expansion slots. In other words, you could theoretically run seven GPUs in this thing. Of course, you’d need some serious software hacking skills to drive all that horsepower into a single display, but we get the feeling you like challenges, anyway. Hit the source link for more of the madness, but don’t expect any units to hit retail until later in the year.

EVGA’s W555 motherboard gets a once over, can hold seven GPUs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD had a little show and tell with Asian press to go along with those new Phenom II and Athlon II chips it just launched, and it revealed some of its next-gen plans along the way. In the short term, it looks like the plan is to launch the 45nm Leo platform we’ve heard about later this year to better compete with Intel’s 32nm Clarkdale parts, and then to push forward to 32nm in 2011 with the Scorpius platform, which will feature a Bulldozer CPU called Zambezi with up to 8 cores and a “next-generation discrete graphics solution.” Midrange desktops will get some “next-generation integrated graphics” of their own this year on the Dorado platform, while 2011 will see the Lynx platform launch with the long-delayed Fusion chip. (We were first supposed to see Fusion chips in late 2008, remember?) Fusion is also still on vapor-y track for laptops with scheduled 2011 launch of the previously-leaked Sabine platform, but AMD also tipped the new Brazos Fusion-based platform powered by the Ontario APU, which is “optimized for new form factors” — potentially MID-sized, but we don’t know for sure. Phew, that’s a lot of codenames — we’d say we can’t wait, but we’re clearly going to have to learn how.

Next-gen AMD Scorpius and Lynx desktop platforms leak out, Fusion still coming in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fermi hardware might still be two months away, but NVIDIA has done the sage thing and released some tantalizing numbers and architectural details to keep the fanboys chirping in the meantime. The GF100 will signal the end of tiresome rebadging and clock speed massaging, and early adopters will find 512 CUDA cores, 48 ROPs, and a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface sprawled across three billion transistors. Big changes are also afoot in how the card will do its work, with a reorganization toward a more parallel workflow leading to promises of up to eight times better geometry performance than on the GT200. HardOCP reports that anti-aliasing results have improved “notably,” while the video we’ve got stashed after the break for you shows the GF100 beating the GTX 285 handily in a Far Cry 2 benchmark. Still, the PC Perspective crew expressed some apprehension about the massive die size and how it could impact yields given the still young 40nm production process — a sentiment echoed by other publications who questioned whether NVIDIA would not have been better off trying for a less ambitious, more gaming-oriented board. We should all know that answer soon enough.

Read – AnandTech
Read – Hot Hardware
Read – PC Perspective
Read – HardOCP
Read – Tom’s Hardware

Continue reading NVIDIA Fermi / GF100 architectural details revealed

NVIDIA Fermi / GF100 architectural details revealed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DirectX 11 has been chewed up and spit out by desktop GPUs over the past few months, but until CES 2010, laptops at large were left out of the raving. This week, AMD has introduced what it’s calling the world’s first mobile graphics with DX11 compatibility, and the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 — which just so happens to be featured in ASUS’ recently revealed G73jh — is leading the way. The HD 5800, HD 5700, HD 5600 and HD 5400 series are all new at the show, and each one comes with baked in support for ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology and helping tech-adoring geeks find their soulmates (as is clearly shown above). Hit the source link for more details on each, and figure on seeing these filter out to new ultraportables, mainstream rigs and gaming lappies in the seconds, days and weeks ahead.

ATI serves up DirectX 11-compatible Mobility Radeon GPUs, helps nerds fall in love originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering the present date, it’s no longer a mystery that Fermi won’t be seeing the glaring lights of store shelves this year, but now DigiTimes reports that the delay might be even longer than feared. Sources from within board manufacturers have been informed by NVIDIA that the launch of the 40nm GPU will be pushed back to March 2010. Though NVIDIA’s flagship DirectX 11 card has yet to get out of the starting blocks, ATI — already the proud papa of a litter of DX 11 parts — is said to be preparing a renewed onslaught on the mainstream market with two new releases slated for late January or early February. The HD 5670 (Redwood) and HD 5450 (Cedar) will slot in alongside the unannounced HD 5570 and HD 5350 to flesh out the lower and middle portions of ATI’s Evergreen refresh. So that’s one whole family of DirectX 11 parts from ATI, and one long wait from NVIDIA.

NVIDIA Fermi pushed back to March, ATI prepping midrange refresh for early Q1? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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