Hasta La Gadget!

Disappointed by the lack of support for multiple displays and OpenCL in embedded GPUs these days? Then AMD may have just made your day. It’s just debuted its new “desktop level” Radeon E6760 discrete GPU, which packs both OpenCL support and Eyefinity-enhanced support for no less than six independent displays. AMD also notes that the GPU can be paired with its upcoming Llano APU for some additional graphics and parallel computing power and, while it might not wind up in many consumer devices, the company says it’s ideal for everything from casino games to medical imaging. Head on past the break for the complete press release.

Continue reading AMD debuts first embedded GPU with support for OpenCL and six displays

AMD debuts first embedded GPU with support for OpenCL and six displays originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 17:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AMD  | Email this | Comments

AMD’s net income for the past quarter was $510 million, generated from $1.61 billion in total revenues. That should make happy reading for a company that’s been raising similar gross revenues previously but finding itself losing cash — though the more intriguing figures are a little deeper in its latest disclosure. CFO and interim CEO Thomas Seifert has noted that AMD “tripled” its Fusion APU shipments relative to last quarter — meaning that at least 3.9 million units have made their way out to OEM partners in Q1 — which now account for “roughly half” of the company’s notebook shipments. In less upbeat news, average selling prices in both the microprocessor and graphics divisions were down sequentially, with AMD having to react to pressure from its traditional foes Intel and NVIDIA. You might surmise that with the mainstream Llano APU out and shipping to computer makers, AMD might have a happier second quarter, but the company’s guidance is for revenues to be flat or slightly down. A final note of pride is reserved for the Radeon HD 6490M and HD 6750M GPUs, which figured prominently in Apple’s latest MacBook Pro refresh and mark a bit of a coup for AMD, who’s now responsible for all of Apple’s discrete graphics across the MacBook Pro and iMac computing lines. Click the links below for even more intel on Advanced Micro Devices.

Continue reading AMD collects half a billion in Q1 profit, Fusion APUs now account for half of its laptop shipments

AMD collects half a billion in Q1 profit, Fusion APUs now account for half of its laptop shipments originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AMD, Earnings call transcript (Seeking Alpha)  | Email this | Comments

We’ve been hearing rumors of an 18-inch addition to the Alienware line for some time, and now its big-eyed visage is making an appearance — in Canada. The M18x configuration page has gone live on Dell‘s Canadian site, though curiously it’s displaying what looks to be a picture of the M17x. The system starts at just over $2,000 CAD with a 2.8GHz Core i7 processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 320GB of storage, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics. But, our more well-heeled neighbors to the north can step up to a 3.4GHz processor, 8GB of memory, 750GB of storage, and dual AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics cards, pushing the price up nearly another $1,000. The 18.4-inch display manages a full 1080p resolution and you can have any operating system you like — so long as its Windows 7 Home Premium. The estimated ship date has this thing leaving the factory in early May, which means it should start hitting the domestic configurator soon enough.

Update: Daniel wrote in to let us know that the M14x is there as well — though it looks to be in the process of being taken down.

[Thanks, Nicklas]

Alienware M18x appears on Dell’s Canadian site, glares at you from afar originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Dell  | Email this | Comments

Like a pesky video game villain that just won’t go away, Microsoft’s DirectX has been a mainstay of mainstream PC gaming pretty much since the inception. Its existence hasn’t been without its tensions, however, with notable graphics guru John Carmack of id Software ignoring it in favor of OpenGL — until last week when he finally acknowledged that Direct3D had outgrown its cross-platform alternative and was now the preferable API for PC game development. That’s all well and good, but plenty of game devs, says Richard Huddy, head of AMD’s developer relations team, don’t want any API at all. Huddy points out the sadly obvious fact that modern graphics cards can pretty much stomp any console hardware into the dirt in a straight fight and yet fail to show the full extent of their superiority in actual game visuals. He’d prefer to see developers given direct low-level access to the hardware, so they can maximize their own talents and really push things forward. Of course, the beauty of DirectX is that it’s a standard that every Windows game designer can code to, leading to predictable and more widely compatible (if not necessarily spectacular) results. For more on how the future’s shaping up, hit the links below.

Game developers want DirectX to ‘go away,’ says AMD man originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 04:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Bit-tech  | Email this | Comments

If you’re scoring at home, NVIDIA currently holds the lead in single-GPU graphics cards with its GeForce GTX 580, but ATI’s dual-chip Radeon HD 5970 has been holding down the absolute speed crown for a good long while. Now, bearing the name of AMD Radeon HD 6990, its successor sidles up to the throne and demands attention as the fastest single expansion board you can plug into your shiny new motherboard. The 6990 boasts a massive 4GB of GDDR5, 3,072 Stream Processors, 64 ROPs, and an 830MHz core clock speed. A dual-BIOS switch will let you crank that clock up to 880MHz with a corresponding increase in voltage, but don’t expect to see much overclocking headroom above that.

Reviewers note, alongside their fawning assessment of the world’s best performance, that the HD 6990 is a massively power-hungry card (375W TDP) and one that makes quite a bit of noise while going through its herculean tasks. That’s in spite of a new vapor chamber cooling system that allegedly supports up to 450W of thermal output. If all this strikes you as a somewhat flawed execution, maybe you’ll join us in hoping NVIDIA’s imminently upcoming response, dubbed the GTX 590, will be able to offer a neater, more efficient assault on the extreme peaks of graphical performance.

Read – HardOCP
Read – AnandTech
Read – Tech Report
Read – PC Perspective
Read – techPowerUp!
Read – Hot Hardware
Read – Hexus

AMD launches Radeon HD 6990 powerhouse for $699, maintains ‘world’s fastest’ title originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments