The world of processing units is altering. With the ARM architecture entering the market of servers and the Power architecture available for licensing by third parties, a lot is going to change within the next five years. Thanks to the fact that similar processing technologies will be available from different …
Read More »Intel approached AMD about access to Mantle
Intel Corp. has asked its arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices to provide it access to the Mantle application programming interface (API), AMD said last week. While in its current form Mantle can hardly bring any tangible benefits to Intel, the latter could redesign the API in order to allow software developers …
Read More »AMD readies enhanced Radeon R9 290X ‘Hawaii’ graphics solution
Back in early January it was reported that the Hawaii graphics processing unit from Advanced Micro Devices might be more powerful than AMD publicly disclosed because of deactivated units. So far the theory has not been proven, but this may change soon. A famous overclocker said on Friday that AMD …
Read More »Ubisoft: Far Cry 4 with ultra-high settings will look the same on PC, PS4 and XB1
Far Cry 4 is expected to be one of the best-looking video games ever made, judging by the trailers that Ubisoft published earlier this month. What is somewhat surprising is that according to a representative of the game developer, the game will look equally good on all modern platforms, including …
Read More »Sony still cannot meet PlayStation 4 demand in Europe
The PlayStation 4 video game console from Sony Computer Entertainment has been on the market for over seven months now. Nonetheless, Sony still cannot meet the demand for the system in Europe. A good news is that the things are improving and the tight supply situation may soon be over. …
Read More »AMD to increase energy efficiency of APUs by 25 times by 2020
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday unveiled a rather bold strategy called 25X20 under which it intends to dramatically increase energy efficiency of its accelerated processing units by the year 2020. In the next six years AMD plans to further optimize power consumption of its chips and also increase their performance, …
Read More »Ubisoft expects new console cycle to be shorter and prices to be lower
The launches of both Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 were pretty successful since gamers had waited many years for the systems to arrive. While it remains to be seen how successful the XB1 and the PS4 will eventually be, Yves Guillemot, the chief executive officer of Ubisoft, believes …
Read More »Sales of graphics cards dropped significantly in Q2 – report
Sales of graphics cards significantly dropped in the second quarter this year, according to a media report. In fact, shipments of discrete desktop graphics processing units have been declining for years now, but this time the drop of demand is attributed to crypto-currency miners. While the actual sales figures of …
Read More »Asus gives free Cerberus headset to buyers of Radeon R9 290 cards
High-performance graphics cards are not really affordable, so are high-quality gaming headsets. But what if you need to have both? Make compromises? Apparently, Asustek Computer and Overclockers UK have a solution: you buy an Asus Radeon R9 290-based graphics card and get a headset for free. For a limited time …
Read More »AMD reorgs further: sets up two business groups, shuffles execs
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday announced “the latest” step in its strategic transformations. Starting from the 1st of July, AMD will consist of two large business groups led by Lisa Su and John Byrne, two executives who have been very efficient in their current roles. In a bid to further …
Read More »AMD: wearable devices today are mostly a fad
While Intel Corp. is clearly interested in making chips for wearable computing devices as well as smart home appliances, Advanced Micro Devices plans to take a wait-and-see approach. The company believes that while wearables will have a lot of practical applications going forward, developing chips for them today is too …
Read More »Sony preps white PlayStation 4, has no storage upgrade plans
Sony Computer Entertainment has introduced a new colour variation of the PlayStation 4 video game console at the E3 trade-show. The new flavour will come in “glacier white” and will be available worldwide starting this fall. Since the PS4 is already very successful on the market, the company decided not …
Read More »AMD: next-gen game consoles may arrive sooner than we think
Chief financial officer of Advanced Micro Devices said that the next generation game consoles from companies like Microsoft Corp., Nintendo and Sony Corp. may emerge on the market sooner than we might think. The life-cycle of the currently available systems may be shorter than those of Sony’s PlayStation 3, Microsoft’s …
Read More »Microsoft starts to sell Xbox One without Kinect
Microsoft Corp. on Monday started to sell its Xbox One video game console without the Kinect motion sensor. The new version of the Xbox One bundle is designed to lower the price of the console and make it more popular among gamers than it is today. However, the new price …
Read More »AMD reportedly plans to outsource chipset development to Asmedia
Advanced Micro Devices reportedly plans to outsource development of its core-logic sets to Asmedia, a controller chip developer co-owned by Asustek Computer. While the plan may further reduce AMD’s costs and potentially will allow to quicker respond to market demands, it will also shrink AMD’s ability to offer fully-integrated platform …
Read More »AMD demonstrates the first FreeSync display prototype
At the Computex 2014 trade-show this week Advanced Micro Devices demonstrated the industry’s first prototype of a monitor that features the company’s FreeSync technology, which is largely based on the recently announced Adaptive Sync technology from VESA. While the monitor works pretty fine, it seems that it has certain limitations, …
Read More »AMD unveils mobile A-series ‘Kaveri’ APUs, FX-series APUs
Advanced Micro Devices this week introduced its first accelerated processing units (APUs) based on the code-named Kaveri design aimed at mobile computers . The new chips bring AMD’s latest technologies, including the heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) and the Radeon graphics with the GCN architecture, to mainstream and thin laptops. The new …
Read More »Asus unleashes Ares III, proclaims it ‘the world’s fastest graphics card’
Asustek Computer this week officially unveiled its new Ares III dual-GPU graphics card that belongs to the Republic of Gamers family of products. The new graphics board is expected to provide performance that will be higher compared to that of the dual-chip Radeon R9 295X2 thanks to very high overclocking …
Read More »Sales of Sony PlayStation 4 reportedly exceed eight million units
The adoption rate of Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 4 video game console continues to set records, if the unofficial information about its sell-through numbers is to be believed. As of mid-May life-to-date sales of the PS4 were eight million units. Apparently, the PlayStation 4 continues to sell very well seven months …
Read More »Apple Mac Pro finally ships immediately after purchase
Apple has finally managed to solve the issues with availability of its high-end Mac Pro workstations. At present the systems can be purchased and obtained in several days. Previously it took Apple up to six weeks to ship its flagship desktops to their owners. Although the Apple Mac Pro was …
Read More »Asus unveils Strix R9 280 and Strix GTX 780 cards with 0dB fan tech
Asustek Computer is well-known for innovative cooling solutions for its graphics cards. Those coolers not only allow the company to offer factory-overclocked graphics adapters, but also to make its boards quieter compared to reference designs by AMD or Nvidia. This month the company made one step closer to perfection, it …
Read More »Sony expects PlayStation 4 to bring more profits than the PS2
Kazuo Hirai, chief executive officer of Sony Corp., believes that the company’s new-generation PlayStation 4 game console could eventually bring more money than the legendary PlayStation 2. While the PS4 will unlikely outsell the PS2 in terms of unit sales, thanks to PlayStation Network services it can leave its ancestor …
Read More »Nvidia holds discrete GPU market lead as shipments decline
Sales of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs) for both desktop and laptop computers were down in the first quarter because of seasonality, according to Jon Peddie Research, a leading market tracker. Nvidia Corp. managed to remain the king of discrete GPUs, whereas AMD remained the No. 2. As mainstream PCs …
Read More »AMD loses graphics adapters market share as shipments drop – JPR
Since shipments of personal computers in the first quarter of the year dropped again both sequentially and annually, it is not surprising that sales of graphics adapters (both discrete and integrated) also contracted in the Q1 2014. Advanced Micro Devices suffered most from the declines and its overall share of …
Read More »VisionTek cuts prices of liquid-cooled R9 290 graphics cards by $100
VisionTek this week announced a $100 (€73, £59) discount on its CryoVenom R290 and CryoVenom R290LE graphics cards that come with water-blocks and are designed for enthusiasts, who assemble custom cooling solutions. With a $100 discount, the custom-built graphics cards look rather attractive. From now on and until the 3rd …
Read More »AMD licenses SATA Express technology for 2015 chipsets
Perhaps, the first-generation SATA Express (SATAe) implementation that relies on the PCI Express 2.0 technology is not truly revolutionary and does not bring a dramatic performance boost compared to Serial ATA-6Gb/s. Nonetheless, SATAe is a part of the future, which is why companies like AMD need to support it in …
Read More »AMD debuts embedded ‘Bald Eagle’ APUs, CPUs with HSA capabilities
Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday introduced its new family of embedded accelerated processing units (APUs) and central processing units (CPUs) with heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) capabilities. The new chips code-named “Bald Eagle” are based on the design known as “Kaveri”, which is already available for desktops. The fresh family of …
Read More »AMD’s ‘Mullins’ APU fails to win designs with tablet makers – report
While Advanced Micro Devices was late to market with its chips for netbooks, the company’s accelerated processing units for inexpensive low-power laptops are quite popular nowadays thanks to relatively high performance, rich functionality and low cost. Unfortunately, AMD’s APUs designed for tablets still have not become any popular. Although AMD …
Read More »8GB of RAM may not be enough for future video games – Crytek
The new generation video game consoles have significantly higher amount of random access memory (RAM) than previous-generation systems, which allows to significantly improve visual quality of new video games. But will 8GB of RAM inside Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 be enough for future video games? According to …
Read More »Microsoft Xbox One to gain support for external hard drives ‘soon’
One of the biggest complaints gamers have about the new-generation game consoles – Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 – is the lack of support for external hard disk drives. While both companies promised to add such support in the past, so far neither has done it. Fortunately, according …
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