TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, is thrilled to offer the most exciting game bundle to all gamers: the latest DirectX 10.1 support game-S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky with PowerColor HD4870 series graphics!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is set in 2011 and brings forth the events to have preceded the third campaign of Strelok to the Zone center. It has enabled DirectX 10.1 in game, numerous features and optimizations improvements, and has offered up 7% or more performance when compared to DirectX 10 games. PowerColor gamers can take full advantage of the featuring assets of DirectX 10.1 with HD4870 series graphics, promoting superior visual experience.Quizzed S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Win big for PowerColor HD4870!
PowerColor not only offers superior bundle package of PowerColor HD4870 series & S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear sky, we are also offering a chance to win the exclusive HD4870 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. edition withour quiz contest, Quizzed S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which will launch on Mar. 2nd. For more details on superior game bundle and other awesome prizes, check it out here.

“We’re ecstatic to offer our new game bundle to the PowerColor fans!” says Ted Chen, C.E.O of TUL Corporation. “With this perfect gaming set, gamers can now fully enjoy the maximum gaming quality possible; it’s time for DirectX 10.1! “

XFX, following its recently announced collaboration with AMD, today introduced its first Radeon™ HD-powered 4000 series cards, the XFX Radeon™ HD 4870, 4850, 4830, 4650 and 4350.

All five models feature exceptional memory bandwidth, board power and compute power as well as a number of industry-firsts. For example, the XFX Radeon™ HD 4870 is the first graphics card with GDDR5 memory.

To introduce the new GPU line, XFX selected these five models for their highly desirable gaming features, including superior scalability, state-of-the-art DirectX® 10.1 graphics capabilities, optimal power performance and HDMI support. Designed for serious HD gaming, these graphics cards offerexceptional performance at a variety of price points.

Future collaborations will include over-clocked versions of these and other popular Radeon™ HD-powered cards.

XFX confirmed Monday that information circulating in the form of rumors for several days: none devoted exclusively to the production of Nvidia graphics cards signed, the firm decided to expand its product portfolio by partnering AMD also. She says that the first Radeon signed XFX arrive early 2009, probably around the CeBIT in Hanover. It will not surprise card HD 4000 series, XFX traditionally present on the segment of upmarket.

In a statement, Michael Chiu, president of Pine Technology Holdings - the company behind XFX says that its Radeon HD 4000, AMD wasable to redefine the market for graphics card, and address the multiple needs of players, without neglecting aspects multimedia, video encoding to playback high definition content. For its part, AMD logically welcomes the arrival of this new partner.

In a market increasingly competitive, XFX likely see in this an opportunity to follow more closely the buying trends of consumers, according to the temporary superiority of one or the other providers on the GPU Market players.

Gainward has introduced an improved version of the generic ATI Radeon HD4850. The graphics card we have in our labs today features a faster GPU and memory and has 1GB of DDR3 memory. Before starting with our usual presentation of the card's features and specifications, let's say a few words about AMD's HD48xx series.

ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series GPUs is a "TeraScale graphics engine " according to AMD, promising to offer HD gaming and Blu-ray/HD content playback with incredible visual fidelity.The new graphics engine combines the power of one teraFLOPS, 800 stream processors and next generation GDDR5 memory. It also supports tessellation, DirectX 10.1 and scalable ATI CrossFireX technology.Like their predecessors, the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series graphics cards offer optimal performance and efficiency with platform-independent intelligent power management. Regardless of platform, these graphics cards deliver the power needed during gaming while conserving energy at idle or when demand is low.According to the system requirements, the Gainward HD4850 1GB GS needs a PCI-e based PC with one X16 lane graphics slot and a 450Watt (or greater) power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin connector. For CrossFire configurations, a 550 Watt PSU with two 6-pin connectors is recommended.

Our sample comes with a different cooling system than the generic ATI Radeon HD4850, potentially offering better conditions for overclocking. Our sample comes with a massive 700MHz core (625MHz for generic HD4850) and 1000MHz of memory (vs 993MHz for generic HD4850) clocks. As we have mentioned, it has an 1GB memory onboard (0.8ns) with a bandwidth of 256bits.

- Retail package

Below you can see the photo of the retail package of the Gainward HD4850 1GB GS. The graphics card is available for approximately €180.All the included box contents are well-packaged and secured. In the box you will find a printed manual, a driver's disc, a power adapter and the DSub15-to-DVI converter. No retail game is included.

AMD has launchedits Fusion for Games beta application, a gaming utility as part of their "The Future is Fusion" campaign. Through the campaign, AMD aims to re-brand their hardware technologies -- microprocessors and graphics both. To the consumers, AMD will detail the solutions derived from AMD products to optimize the performance of the computing systems: essentially a collaborative campaign run by AMD and their technology and product partners.

Fusion also reflects AMD's upcoming Fusion microarchitecture that combines AMD's x86 CPU capabilities with Radeon GPUs to offer a hybrid solution. The AMD Fusion for Games software released, is in beta stage and currently works for Windows Vista (32-bit only), future versions will offer greater platform support, including Windows XP. It offers three gaming profiles -- Advanced, Basic and Expert. One can choose and edit one of the three profiles or create an entirely new profile.Fusion basically shuts down 70 or more background processes which hog the CPU and memory on typical computing system. This can be enabled by simple on-off feature that talks with the CPU and GPU on the system. The application also packs new feature such as AMD Boost and AMD overdrive. However this application works only on a system that has both carrying the processor and graphic card AMD branded; there is no cross-platform compatibility. As it stands, the utility is little more than a simple tweak; nothing special.

After much anticipation and countless rumors, the Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro and its graphics subsidiary, ATI, have finally unleashed the latest addition to the Radeon graphics cards, with the new ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series. Designed to provide an impressive graphics quality for mainstream desktop computer users, the newly announced cards will be available in two flavors, namely HD 4670 and HD 4650. Either of these has been build taking advantage of the company's successful technology featured on its HD 4800-series, which was released earlier this year. With AMD having claimed the performance crown from NVIDIA, it also had a chance to work on its new graphics chips targeted at the mainstream market, which, until now, was the main “battlefield” where the company would compete with Santa Clara-based rival NVIDIA. Now that AMD has finally introduced its latest Radeon graphics cards, it can deliver a new level of graphics performance, with two products specifically designed for gamers on a budget.
“Today, AMD is providing mainstream users – one of the largest segments of the market – with superior graphics products and performance at previously unheard of prices,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “The success of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series validates that AMD’s shift away from the traditional means of producing large, hot, monolithic graphics chip continues to be a successful strategy AMD continues to execute against its timelines and deliver leading graphics performance at every price point.” Bergman added.
The new ATI Radeon HD 4670 and ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards feature the company's TeraScale graphics engine, and deliver 320 stream processing cores, based on AMD's advanced second-generation 55nm process technology. The cards ensure a minimum power draw, with the Radeon HD 4670 capable of working at under 60W, while the HD 4650 card operates at 50W under full load.
The new HD 4670, equipped with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, is available immediately with an MSRP of US$79, while the 1GB model will go on sale later this month. The other new Radeon graphics card, the HD 4650, comes with 512MB of GDDR2, and will also become available later this month, for an estimated retail price of US$69.source : softpedia.com

Throughout most of the 1990s, Diamond Multimedia was one of the major players in the graphics card world. Their well made cards with solid performance resulted in some of the most well known brand names of the time including the Speedstar, Stealth, and Viper. After merging with S3 Incorporated in 1999, the resounding failure of their joint contribution: the Diamond Viper II Z200 based on S3's Savage 2000, eventually led to the combined Diamond/S3 company backing away from third-party graphics cards.In 2003, however, Best Data stepped in and purchased the rights to the brand name and assets from SONICblue Incorporated, including the Stealth and Viper brand names. Focusing on ATI's Radeons as their GPU of choice, the original line-up seemed to be focused mostly on the lower-end, more mainstream cards, including the Stealth S80 we took a look at in early 2003. The good news is, with some more time and resources under their belt, Diamond has completely revitalized the Viper name in both body and spirit. Once again, with high-end products at the core, Diamond is a force to be reckoned with in the market.
An odd thing about the cards we received is in regard to their associated bundles. Now, as you will see on the next page, the packaging and even the cards themselves are nearly identical. The driver CD and manual are also the same, which should be expected as the drivers are universal and there's only so many ways you can show someone how to install a PCI-Express card into their system.
What becomes odd, then, is the included cables and adapters. With the 1GB overclocked Viper, we found a collection of component and S-VIDEO out cables, as well as a power splitter for providing 6-pin power to the card. Two adapters, one for VGA and the other for HDMI complete the collection. On the other hand, with the 512MB version, there's a component video cable and the same adapters, but a CrossFire bridge replaced the S-Video cable and there's no power cable. We seriously doubt there is much cost saving in either direction, and there's nothing wrong, per se, with either bundle. We just like a little consistency now and then, and feel both cards should come with all of the pieces we found in the separate sets. The 1GB card especially should also include a CrossFire bridge at the very least.

The folks at AMD keep, er, chipping away at Intel's lead in the CPU market by finding new ways to price and package their quad-core Phenom processors so they offer compelling value propositions. Their latest move on that front comes today with the introduction of several new Phenom models, including the energy-efficient Phenom X4 9350e and 9150e. The lower-case "e" at the end of their model numbers denotes energy efficiency, and in this case, that translates into a 65W maximum power draw rating, or TDP, for both products. The X4 9350e runs at 2GHz, and the 9150e clocks in at 1.8GHz.AMD points out that Intel doesn't yet offer any quad-core processors for under 200 bucks, and even the 45nm Core 2 Quad 9300 has a TDP rating of 95W. That puts the new Phenoms into a category all their own—a category that may appeal to builders of home theater PCs and the like, especially in conjunction with the 780G chipset. AMD has been shipping a Phenom X4 9100e to PC makers for a while now, but these CPUs will be selling to end users, as well.

Also new today is a slightly faster flagship, the Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition, which finally reaches the 2.6GHz core clock frequency AMD forecast last November when it seeded reviewers with 2.6GHz review samples. Of course, early Phenoms saw their share of delays for multiple reasons, including the infamous TLB erratum. Happily, all of the Phenom models introduced today are based on B3-revision silicon, which is free and clear of the TLB problem. Like prior Black Editions, the X4 9950 has an overclocking-friendly unlocked multiplier.
Prices have dropped almost across the board, with the triple-core Phenom X3 now reaching as low as $125. The energy-efficient parts command a bit of a premium over their 95W counterparts, of course, but the 9150e still lists for just $175.

The Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition takes a very different path to its destination, seeking higher frequencies at the cost of a 140W TDP rating—15W above the previous top Phenom. This processor will require fairly beefy cooling, and like some 125W Phenoms, it won't be compatible with lower-end Socket AM2/AM2+ motherboards. AMD recommends enthusiast-class boards like the MSI K9A2 Platinum and the Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe for this one.

If that additional 15W puts you off, you may be pleased to learn that AMD will be keeping the Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition around as an unlocked model for the time being; it will transition to a conventional, locked model at some point, but not until later this year. We have an asterisk next to the $205 price for the 9850 Black Edition in the table above because that price won't officially take effect until July 7th. Once it does, the 9850 Black Edition should continue to be one of the best deals in the Phenom lineup.