ATI

Take a long look at that ATi logo, because it might be one of the last times you see it on any new content. AMD has announced that they are killing ATi.

Now some of you may be thinking "WHAT?!? But I thought ATi was doing well!" No, silly, AMD's graphics division is not dead, only the ATi branding is. Radeon cards will now be called AMD Radeon graphics. Weird stuff, huh? Apparently AMD know best though, as they claim to have conducted extensive research on the matter and found that AMD was a far more recognizable brand to gamers.

At any rate, you might want to keep your old Radeons around, at least for sentimental reasons. Source

It wasn't long ago that PC vs. MAC commercials were all the rage. More recently, Verizon vs. AT&T has been the headlines.  Now it looks like AMD is taking a preemptive measure in the Radeon vs Fermi war that is about to take shape online. This well-scripted YouTube video shows a SWAT team invading a house with over-the-top heat detected by infrared and ridiculously high consumption of electricity. Of course, they are assuming there is an illegal grow operation in the house. Well, you know what they say happens when you assume... You make an ASS out of U and ME... and in this case, Fermi. How exactly? Check it out to find out.

Nvidia hands over the reigns as the top dog in graphics to AMD, thanks to recent second quarter domination by ATI.  Nvidia is still learning how to deal with a recent contract loss to Apple, while at the same time, phasing out their chipset business. These things along with simply not competing on the mainstream market with ATI has killed them. 

Maybe they have something up their sleeve, but nowadays even the former die-hard Nvidia fans from recent years are currently sporting ATI graphics cards in their newer builds.  Why?  Because Nvidia has decided to only support all the latest graphics technologies in their overhyped and overpriced graphics cards.  At this point the market share is still pretty close to 50-50, but if Nvidia doesn't start coming around we could see another 3dfx-type fallout in the graphics industry, and none of us want that.

"The HIS Radeon HD5670 is a very capable card for the cheap price of only US$89 at your favorite online retailer. Although it is not a screamer, at almost half the price of a HD5750, for the moderate gamer, it could be considered quite a deal for a videocard sporting such an impressive stock cooling solution." Read the full review 

"Assassin's Creed 2 Patch v1.01

----- -----

Changes in v1.01

- Game can now be continued from the exact same point when connection is restored

- Added support for ATI Eyefinity technology

- Fixed minor performance issues related to some multi-core processors - Now resets graphics options if a new video card or monitor is detected

- Fixed some minor issues in Uplay Browser" source

"Powercolor has announced its overclocked Radeon HD 5830 card that will be a part of Powercolor's PCS+ series. The card uses the same cooler we've seen on Powercolor's HD 5850 PCS and features a slight factory overclock.

The card still has 1120 Stream processors, 256-bit memory interface and runs at 825MHz for the GPU and 4200MHz for 1GB of GDDR5 memory. Just for comparison, the reference card works at 800MHz for the GPU and 4000MHz for the same amount of memory. " source

"World-renowned graphics card and mainboard brand-manufacturer MSI has officially launched a new generation of the Lightning series, the R5870 Lightning. Not only are top-quality components used in the design, but the following features are also included: exclusive all Hi-c CAP for GPU power, 15-phase power design, two 8-pin external power connectors, special PCB design called LPL (Lightning Power Layer), Twin Frozr II Thermal design with 8mm SuperPipe technology…etc. These outstanding features boost overall performance and reliability to a whole new level. This can be described as a top-performing product specifically designed for the extreme gamers and built to be perfect. " source

"The upcoming HD 5830, expected to be officially announced tomorrow, will be ship without the reference design, or to be precise, there will be no AMD reference design PCB. AMD has shipped GPUs to its partners and it is up to them to use their own designs, PCBs and coolers, so you can expect a wide variety of cards immediately after launch.

We are pretty sure that AMD gave some guidelines and maybe even some restrictions for the partners, but at least they can use their own coolers this time. We suspect that Sapphire will come up with Vapor-X card, and picture of Powercolor PCS card suggest that most manufacturers will go for the same cooler which we saw back on the non-reference HD 5850 cards. We know that at least one manufacturer will use the cooler similar to the one on the HD 5770 card which is also a possibility, but we guess that we'll see more once AMD's HD 5830 NDA gets lifted tomorrow. " source

"AMD has released a new build of their Catalyst software suite. This particular software suite updates both the AMD Display Driver, and the Catalyst Control Center. This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The AMD Catalyst software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability." source

"AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon™ HD 5570 graphics card, perfect for end-users seeking an energy efficient, low-profile DirectX® 11 card for small form factor PCs. The ATI Radeon HD 5570 graphics card joins the award-winning line of AMD graphics that fully support DirectX 11, as well as ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology1 and ATI Stream capabilities.2 This latest offering completes a full DirectX 11 refresh of AMD discrete graphics products, bringing customers a choice of cutting-edge graphics cards to match every budget and form factor." source