Tweaktown-Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT (Tahiti LE) 2GB with Boost Overclocked Video Card Review

Having a look at the box there's nothing too new. You can actually see we're dealing with the typical HD 7870 box with just a sticker that gives it the new name which has the XT label tagged onto the end. The biggest problem is that we don't really know this card is based on the new Tahiti LE core. This was the same issue we noted with the PowerColor version that we looked at previously.

ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 (AMD A85X) Motherboard Review

A month on, though, we've got some new boards and some updated BIOS's to play around with. We wonder if anything has changed in that time. We've seen some amazing numbers come out of the latest AMD CPU's when it comes to pure speed, but they're all based on extreme LN2 cooling. Today we'll take the time to check out an ASRock FM2 offering in the form of the FM2A85X Extreme6 motherboard.

HIS HD 7970 IceQ X² & HD 7950 IceQ X² Review

For this review, we will be looking at HIS’s HD 7970 GHz Edition IceQ X² and HD 7950 Boost Clock IceQ X². They remain at AMD’s reference clock speeds and instead rely upon offering excellent overclocking headroom and some advanced cooling features to justify a slight premium. Now, HIS does sell an overclocked version of the HD 7970 GHz Edition which uses the “Turbo” moniker but we decided to focus upon two more affordable alternatives.

PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 3GB PCS Overclocked Video Card Review

We'll move from here into the package to see what PowerColor is offering us on the box along with its content. Once we've done that it's onto the video card itself to see the cooler we've got along with the connection options before we move onto the specification side of things which today will be slightly expanded as we've decided to overclock this card. Finally we'll check out the testbed and get straight into the testing side of things to see just what kind of performance we're able to get out of the card here today. First, though, let's get into that package and see what's going on.

AMD has posted up a number of items from their CES 2013 activities incluing blogs, videos, and their press conference.  

AMD is taking experiential computing to the next level in the AMD Experience Zone at CES and this site is your destination for inside access to all the action. This year AMD is kicking off CES early with a press conference and digital engagers event on January 7th 

Make sure to come back here for exclusive access to our live press conference January 7th at 4pm PST. This site is also your pass to videos of SurRoundHouse, photos from all of our CES events and your chance to hear about the latest technologies coming from AMD.

GamesIndustry.biz compares the upcoming Playstation 4 to a Radeon HD 7970 in performance.  I'm very skeptical of that, but indeed the new all AMD PS4 and Xbox 720 will be more powerful, but are already almost a year behind the PC in performance and might be just under a year from launch.  Maybe.  After seeing the complete lie that was the PS3 booth at CES back before launch I have a hard time believing anything Sony says.  The most important part here is will this help AMD in game optimization on the PC.  Will octo core finally take off?  Much was speculated when Intel stole the original Xbox win from AMD about that.  This time around Intel is looking from the outside in focusing instead on phones.  Blah. 

Married to the eight-core processor, Orbis also features Radeon HD graphics hardware. We've previously suggested that AMD's mobile "Pitcairn" design - the Radeon 7970M - could be a strong basis for a next-gen console graphics core in terms of power consumption and die-size. Running at 850MHz and featuring 20 of AMD's "Graphics Core Next" compute units, our information suggests that Orbis shaves off 10 per cent of that number, offering up 18 CUs in total, and sees a mild downclock to 800MHz. Incorporated into a design dedicated to cutting-edge visuals and gameplay, this hardware has some serious potential.

AMD has released their 13.2 Catalyst drivers today.  They include all of the improvements from the 12.11 beta drivers.

AMD Catalyst 13.1 features a newly designed 3D application settings page, allow users to more easily adjust and control their 3D settings on a per application basis.

Rage 3D- His Radeon HD 7970 IceQ X2

HIS recently launched a new Radeon HD 7970 model, based on the GHz Edition specification but with a new dual-fan heatsink and tweaked for overclocking. The HIS Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition IceQ X2 features additional power input capacity in the form of dual 8-pin PCI-e power inputs and a custom cooling design. It launched alongside AMD's Never Settle bundle to give holiday season shoppers the most incentive to team Red - if you're in the market for the fastest single GPU card. The Never Settle bundle is still in effect, although the Medal of Honor: Warfighter discount has now expired.

Hardware Heaven-EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW Signature 2 versus ASUS HD 7970 DirectCU II Graphics Card Review

We will be taking EVGA's latest GTX 670, the FTW Signature 2 Edition and putting it head to head with the ASUS 7970 DirectCU2 to find out how each performs in games such as Far Cry 3, Assassins Creed and Hitman Absolution. Of course this will all be real world gaming and the usual GPU computing, media and power/thermal testing will be thrown in too. So lets get started...

Tech Powerup-VTX3D HD 7870 Black Edition 2 GB

Towards late-November last year, AMD made a halfhearted attempt at launching a new performance-segment GPU that strikes a price-point right in between the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and the Radeon HD 7950, and that's putting it mildly. There was confusion over specifications and name until the very last minute. AMD finally decided not to make a reference-design card which left the decision to its partners, most of whom decided against releasing the SKU so as not to disturb their swelling HD 7870 GHz Edition and HD 7950 inventories. To make matters worse, AMD chose the brilliant SKU name of "Radeon HD 7870".

Tweaktown-HIS Radeon HD 7970 3GB IceQ X2 Overclocked Video Card Review

As we start a new year it's time to get back into the swing of things and the first video card to be tested this side of 2013 comes from HIS who sent us a bunch of cards before the new year. The latest is one of our favorite models, the HD 7970 3GB, which has served us extremely well for over a year now when it launched last January.

Tech Report has tested AMD's Catalyst 13.2 beta with a Radeon HD 7950 and it has shown to improve stuttering or frame draw times.

We asked Mr. Dodd whether the changes included in this beta driver would impact performance generally in DirectX 9 applications or only in the three DX9-based games we tested. We also inquired about whether the previously mentioned buffer size tweak for Borderlands 2 was included. Here's his answer:

Basically the fix was different per application (for the DX9 applications) – each fix involved tweaking various driver parameters. In the case of Borderlands 2, yes it did involve tweaking the buffer size.

So what we have in Cat 13.2 is a series of targeted tweaks that appear to work quite well for the games in question. However, Dodd says additional improvements are coming down the pike, including a rewrite of the software memory manager for GPUs based on the Graphics Core Next architecture that should bring a more general improvement:

The driver does not yet contain the new video memory manager. Our intention is release a new driver in a few weeks, which does include the new Video memory manager, which will help resolve latency issues for DX11/DX10 applications.

Unveils First-ever Open, Modular Platform for the Masses

SANTA CLARA, Calif. —1/16/2013
OPEN COMPUTE SUMMIT - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today is launching the AMD Open 3.0 platform (formerly codenamed “Roadrunner,”) a radical rethinking of the server motherboard designed to the standards developed by the Open Compute Project. AMD Open 3.0 enables substantial gains in computing flexibility, efficiency and operating cost by simplifying motherboard design with a single base product to address multiple enterprise workloads, including high-performance computing, cloud infrastructure and storage. This innovative design is optimized to eliminate features typically over-provisioned in traditional server offerings.

Today’s servers are designed with a “one size fits most” approach incorporating many features and capabilities that can inefficiently utilize space and power, increasing cost. Many mega data centers have engineers developing optimized platforms with the minimum set of components for specific workloads. The desired result is a tailored solution with the ideal combination of power, space and cost. The AMD Open 3.0 platform is designed to easily enable IT professionals to “right size” the server to meet specific compute requirements. Fidelity Investments and Goldman Sachs are evaluating AMD Open 3.0 as part of their collaboration on the Open Compute Project.

“We became involved with the Open Compute Project very early as we saw a pervasive demand for simplified, energy efficient servers,” said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, corporate vice president and general manager, Server, AMD. “Our goal is to reduce data center power consumption and cost yet increase performance and flexibility– we believe that AMD Open 3.0 achieves this.”

“This is a realization of the Open Compute Project’s mission of ‘hacking conventional computing infrastructure,’” said Frank Frankovsky, chairman of the Open Compute Foundation and VP of Hardware Design and Supply Chain at Facebook. “What’s really exciting for me here is the way the Open Compute Project inspired AMD and specific consumers to collaboratively bring our ‘vanity-free’ design philosophy to a motherboard that suited their exact needs.”

AMD Open 3.0, powered by the recently announced AMD Opteron™ 6300 Series processors, can be installed in all standard 19” rack environments without modification, as well as in Open Rack environments. The AMD Open 3.0 motherboard is a 16” x 16.7” board designed to fit into 1U, 1.5U, 2U or 3U rack height servers. It features two AMD Opteron 6300 Series processors, each with 12 memory sockets (four channels with three DIMMs each,) 6 Serial ATA (SATA) connections per board, one dual channel gigabit Ethernet NIC with integrated management, up to four PCI Express® expansion slots, a mezzanine connector for custom module solutions, one serial port and two USB ports. Specific PCI Express card support is dependent on usage case and chassis height.

Pre-production AMD Open 3.0 systems are currently available to select customers. Production systems from Quanta Computer and Tyan are expected to be available through Avnet Electronics Marketing, Penguin Computing and other system integrators before the end of Q1.

“We have eagerly awaited the AMD Open 3.0 platform as it brings the benefits and spirit of the Open Compute Project to a much wider set of customers,” said Charles Wuischpard, CEO, Penguin Computing. “As we deliver a new line of Penguin servers based on AMD Open 3.0 and AMD Opteron 6300 Series processors, our high performance computing, cloud and enterprise customers can now deploy application-specific systems using the same core building blocks that are cost, performance and energy optimized and perhaps most important, consistent. We think this initiative eliminates unnecessary complexity and provides new levels of supportability and reliability to the modern data center.”

Gopalakrishnan will discuss AMD’s latest Open Compute development and its impact on the industry at the Open Compute Summit today in a session titled “An Introduction to the Open Compute 3.0 Modular Server” at 3:30 p.m. PT. Static demonstrations of the AMD Open 3.0 will also be shown in AMD’s booth B4.

Supporting Resources
AMD Open 3.0 web site
AMD Open 3.0 specification
AMD Opteron 6300 Series processor

Read more...

ZDNet reports that four former AMD employees who left for Nvidia last year alledgely stole more than a 100 thousand documents before they went to those green guys up 183.  

The suit, filed in the U.S. District of Massachusetts, claims former vice-president Robert Feldstein, along with managers Manoo Desai, Nicolas Kociuk and Richard Hagen, took the files before the four left the company. AMD wants to recover the files, which the company claims covers everything from upcoming AMD technology and contracts with large and enterprise customers.

Asrock sends word of the new 990FX Extreme9 being released.  The product page is here.  This is looking like a very nice board for AMD users.

ASRock 990FX Extreme9 is composed by the most luxurious hardware components. It uses AMD 990FX and SB950 chipsets and supports AM3+ processors with up to eight cores, the CPU is provided with high quality power solutions. Premium gold caps that extend the motherboard’s life span 2.5 times longer than usual, Digi Power for smoother CPU Vcore voltages, 12+2 power phase design for stable performance and revolutionary Dual-Stack MOSFET for larger die area, lower Rds(on) and better CPU Vcore power efficiency.

Tech Report has tested out AMD's Radeon HD 8790M mobile part.  Unique to this review it is actually tested with MXM models on a desktop motherboard.

The new architecture and higher clocks bode well for performance, despite the 8790M's lower ALU count. AMD's internal benchmarks show an increase of 20-50% from the 7670M to the 8770M, and one would expect the 7690M to trail the 8790M by a similar margin. Since we have the latter two GPUs our disposal, we're going to put that assumption to the test.