Video Card News

Synopsis:  AMD's "Maui" home theater PC plafform consists of a combination of AMD hardware and software.  Systems built around the platform feature an energy efficient Phenom or Athlon processor, ATI Radeon graphics, ATI TV tuners, and AMD LIVE! software elements.  The current foundation of the platform is MSI's somewhat unique Media Live DIVA 5.1 motherboard, which is based on the AMD 780M chipset, and includes a specialized Intersil D2 Ausio DAE-3 audio chip with an accompanying 5.1 channel...

NVIDIA’s and AMD’s graphics board partners usually take differing approaches when releasing factory overclocked variants of each company’s respective high-end GPUs. When NVIDIA launches a new part for example, their board partners typically have factory overclocked versions at the ready, and at launch, it’s sometimes easier to find overclocked cards than stock reference models. AMD’s board partners, however, don’t usually take the same approach. When AMD launches a new ATI Radeon, the first batch of cards to...

Synopsis:  When the new Core i7 processors arrive sometime later this month, pricing for the flagship Core i7 Extreme 965 will be set at $999, the Core i7 940 at $562, and the Core i7 920 at $284.  Expect enthusiast-class X58 based motherboards to sell for around $300 give or take a few dollars depending on the number of features.  Ultimately, we can't help but be impressed by the new Core i7 processors. The performance, power profile, and overclockability are...

  When we think about ECS and their product lines, we typically expect a budget-minded approach.  Solid products at reasonable prices that don't exactly wow the consumer, but don't hit them hard in the wallet either.  The ECS X48T-A motherboard that we looked at a few weeks ago was one of the first steps by ECS to change that image, although a few missteps with the construction as well as some overclocking issues didn't overly sway us to their new way of thinking.  Thus, we were...

Since the RV770 GPU's initial arrival, we have seen the technology used in the GPU migrate up and down AMD's product stack. At first, the RV770 powered only the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870, but soon thereafter two RV770's were linked together to form the current flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2.  Then the GPU was scaled down to bring out the Radeon HD 4600, 4500, and 4300 series of products. Ultimately, AMD ended up with competitive offerings at virtually every price point, ranging from $39 on...

Synopsis:   Lenovo's IdeaPad S10 is a 10" Netbook that sports low power consumption, ultra-portability, respectable performance and a well rounded feature set. It's built on Intel's new low-power Atom processor. Taking on such challengers as Asus' Eee PC and the MSI Wind, Lenovo offers this svelte machine for a modest $399 entry price point.  While the S10's keyboard is a little cramped for a 10" netbook, we liked the machine's, build quality, fit and finish, and super-crisp LCD.Gallery: ...

With all of the recent hoopla surrounding Intel and NVIDIA as of late, today's announcement may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you. To say that there has been some tension between Intel and NVIDIA lately would certainly be putting it mildly. But the fact of the matter is, for now at least, the two companies share a somewhat symbiotic relationship. The products we'll be showing you here are proof of this fact.What we have on tap for you today is a new NVIDIA chipset with an mGPU (or IGP) designed for...

With the recent run of newer and more affordable graphics cards from ATI, it's almost easy to forget that there's already a sub-$200 frame-rate cruncher called the Radeon HD 4850.  Based on the same RV770 chip as the more powerful, yet more expensive HD 4870, the HD 4850 ships with the same 800 stream processors, 40 texture units, and 16 ROPs that have made these cards such hot items.  The main area where they differ, other than clock speeds, is in regard to memory.  While the HD...

Although the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 were launched nearly four months ago, they are both still exciting cards and we look forward to testing each one that enters our labs. For this article, we have another "TOP" card from ASUS in the form of the EAH4870 TOP, which of course is a factory overclocked Radeon HD 4870. Like most other HD 4870s on store shelves, the EAH4870 TOP sports 512MB of GDDR5 memory and a 256-bit memory bus. Additionally, the card features support for DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1,...

Synopsis:  With an Intel Core 2 Duo low power dual-core processor under its hood, this machine is capable in many mainstream user applications and could make for a decent Home Theater PC.  Aficionados may scoff at the system's integrated Intel X3100 graphics, which does not provide full offload processing for HD video.  However, the Studio Hybrid has more than enough power to playback full 1080p resolution content with its Core 2 Duo dual core processor, standard 160GB...

AMD continues their procession of new ATI Radeons today, with a couple of new entry-level offerings targeted at users who would like to upgrade from underpowered IGPs. Like the Radeon HD 4670 that came before it, the new Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 being rolled out today are based on the same GPU architecture first introduced with the popular Radeon HD 4800 series. The Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 both offer support for DirectX 10.1, DisplayPort, AVIVO with the UVD 2 engine, and CrossFire, although they do...

NVIDIA's current list of graphics products reads like a mathematician's crib sheet; there are no fewer than 10 active SKUs in their GTX 200- and 9000-series of graphics cards.  It's generally understood that higher model numbers typically mean better peformance, but the subtleties behind the GSO / GT / GTX / GX2 monikers are enough to confuse even the most stalwart tech gurus.  NVIDIA admits to creating some buyer confusion, and plans on making things easier from here on out with the model...

No matter what you think of AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series of video cards, you'd be crazy not to love what AMD did with the pricing of the first two cards (Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870) from the series. As a result of AMD's aggressive pricing, NVIDIA felt compelled to lower the price of its latest GeForce video cards, the GeForce GTX 260 and the GTX 280. It's not often that ATI can actually make NVIDIA fans smile as big as its own or vice versa. Ultimately, though, you don't have to favor one brand...

Desktop supercomputers became a reality today as Nvidia announced the release of its new GPU-based Tesla personal supercomputer

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AMD will release next month a new version of its ATI Catalyst driver suite that unlocks stream-processing technology that currently lies dormant in ATI Radeon HD 4000 series videocards.

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