Radeon HD 7990 coming in April

Dual chip, shortly after GTX680

We managed to confirm what many have been talking about for a while. AMD is working hard to launch the last of its Southern Islands cards and this time the card comes with two GPUs on it

The card is codenamed New Zealand and it will launch shortly after Kepler, Nvidia’s new 28nm based GK104, or GeForce GTX 680 comes to market

AMD is waiting to see the final performance of the GTX 680 and launch a counter attack with Radeon HD 7990 as early as April. There is no solid date at this time, but it should not take that long to see the card in the market

It will be expensive once it launches, but we also heard that Nvidia has its own dual GK104 card ready to counter attack

Nvidia GeForce 296.10 WHQL drivers released

Supports new Geforce GTX 560 SE

 

Nvidia has recently released new Geforce 296.10 WHQL drivers, the second official release from the R295 family of drivers

The Geforce 296.10 WHQL drivers are dated March 2012 and include support for Geforce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 Series desktop cards. The package also comes bundled with new PhysX 9.12.0213 and add support for Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 560 SE GPU

According to Nvidia's driver engineering team, these drivers contain numerous performance enhancements and bug fixes for Battlefield 3 (October 2011), Blacklight: Retribution Beta (February 2012), Diablo III Beta (February 2012), Mass Effect 3 (March 2012), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (November 2011) and more

In comparison to the previous Geforce 295.73 WHQL release, these drivers contain SLI improvements for Blacklight: Retribution (up to 1.8x performance increase), DiRT 3 (updated DirectX 11 performance to improve menu performance), Dishonored (Q2 2012), Dungeon Defenders (October 2011), F1 2011 (September 2011) and rFactor 2 (January 2012). Additionally, Geforce 296.10 WHQL drivers add Nvidia 3D Vision support to Dear Esther February 2012 and Deep Black: Reloaded March 2012.

A list of additional issues that Geforce 296.10 WHQL addresses can be found in the release notes here

 

Microsoft possibly streamlining Windows 8 SKUs

Home Premium, Business, Ultimate editions gone?.

Based on recently leaked documentation originating from HP.com, it appears that Microsoft may be planning to streamline its upcoming Windows 8 SKU lineup with fewer versions offered to consumers, professionals and enterprises. While this may seem like bad news on the surface, we believe the new strategy, if true, would ultimately aid Microsoft's efforts to reduce user confusion, reduce product fragmentation and facilitate its transition into supporting both ARM and x86 editions of the operating system
 

 

Steven Sinofsky, President of the Windows Divison at Microsoft, said in a statement back in September 2011 that "the different editions or SKUs are not developed or announced until late in the development process (closer to market availability)." Nevertheless, a recent analysis of the leaked HP documentation from the folks at ZDNet unveils revision notes for an Alcor Micro Smart Card Reader Driver, which, next to a section titled “operating system(s),” lists the following Windows 8 versions

Microsoft Windows 8 32 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 64 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise 32 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise 64 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 32 Edition
Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 64 Edition

Now, it is very possible that these six SKUs may simply be placeholders for more SKUs to come in the final Windows 8 Public Beta release. One fact is certain, however, and that is Microsoft's intention to release 32-bit and 64-bit client versions, a 64-bit server version and the highly-anticipated ARM version as listed in this Windows 8 Hardware Certification Requirements document

More details can be found here

Huawei announces three new smartphones

Ascend D quad, Ascend D quad XL and Ascend D1

Huawei is probably one of main surprises at MWC 2012 show as it came up with a couple of new and interesting devices including a new lineup of Ascend D smartphones, the Ascend D quad, Ascend D quad XL and Ascend D1.

The most interesting is the Ascend D quad that features Huawei's own K3V2 quad-core CPU clocked at 1.5GHz and paried up with 1GB of RAM. The smartphone is built around 4.5-inch 1280x720 IPS+ touchscreen with 330ppi and 32-bit true color graphics processor. The rest of the specs include 5.1 surround sound with Dolby Mobile 3.0 Plus, dual microphone tech, 8MP back snapper with autofocus and 1080p video recording and dual LED flash, front 1.3MP 720p capable snapper for video calls, 802.11bgn WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, HSPA+, 8GB of storage space and Android 4.0 ICS OS

The Ascend D quad and Ascend D quad XL shares all the specs except for the battery as the D quad comes with 1800mAh one while the D quad XL will feature 2500mAh one. The Ascend D quad is 8.9mm thick, 64mm wide, 129mm tall and weighs around 130 grams, which is honestly not so bad. Huawei also announced a couple of proprietary techs including power management one that should provide up to 30 percent longer battery life, bragged about excellent sunlight legibility, high voice quality as well as the special BSI 8MP camera

The Ascend D1 is pretty much identical to the Ascend D quad but uses the TI OMAP4460 1.5GHz dual-core CPU paired up with the same 4.5-inch 1280x720 IPS+ touchscreen with 330ppi. The only other different specification that we noticed is the smaller 1670mAh battery

Unfortunately, the precise price or shipping date haven't been announced but Huawei did say that it should ship in Q2 2012 while the price should be 15 to 25 percent lower than Samsung devices

 

Windows on ARM will ship with Office apps

Goodbye iPad it was nice knowing you

Windows on ARM will include Office 15 apps according to Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky. Sinofsky has just penned a 8,000-plus word blog which details what Vole is up too on its ARM project

It looks like the software will have some somewhat groovy features which will make it more useful than has been previously stated. Firstly the Windows desktop will still be a part of the whole thing so ARM users will still have access to the desktop and desktop apps. While the apps, of course, will have to be ported to the ARM architecture, it means that Vole is not limiting its tablet to Metro apps

But what is more important for business users is that Vole is going to include the core Office 15 apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote within Windows on ARM. Sinofsky said the big idea is that Windows on Arm will be a “no-compromise product,” and Microsoft knows that Windows users will want access to the industry-leading productivity apps even on non-x86 desktops and laptops

This begs the question, why is Microsoft, which makes shedloads off Office going to give it to ARM users for free.  It could be that the apps will be add based, but one wonders what is Vole's cunning plan here. We know that Windows will be heavily integrated with SkyDrive, so Microsoft could indeed be looking for ways to squeeze more cash from Office users. Still it is starting to make Windows 8 on a tablet look jolly attractive

Intel Haswell to pack DirectX 11.1 graphics

When it comes March-June 2013

Although it won't show up until sometime in March-June next year, there has been a lot of info regarding Intel's Ivy Bridge successor known under the "Haswell" codename. Now, Donanimhaber.com managed to score a new set of specs, revealing more details about the integrated GPU part and its support for DirectX 11.1, OpenCL 1.2 as well as the Auto-Stereoscopic 3D (AS3D) feature

The feature for the iGPU starts with "significant 3D and media performance increase and auto-stereoscopic 3D (AS3D) that will bring decent Blu-Ray 3D acceleration. The new iGPU part will also have support for DirectX 11.1 and OpenGL 3.2 as well as support for OpenCL 1.2 that will help to speed up certain tasks with GPGPU-optimized applications. According to the slide, Intel's Haswell will also be able to drive up to three independent displays via HDMI 1.4, DVI, DP and VGA, although VGA (D-Sub) will be available via Lynx Point chipset since all digital display outputs will be wired directly to the CPU

Details regarding Haswell are literally pouring but we are still over a year away from the official launch as according to the latest leaked roadmaps, Haswell is scheduled to be launch sometime in March-June 2013.

You can check out the original slide here

VLC 2.0 announced, Blu-ray support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

New redesigned user interface

The creators of VideoLAN, a world-reknown free and open source cross-platform media player for streaming video across a local area network (LAN), has received a significant update this morning and the first release candidate is available for public download starting today

According to the release, VLC 2.0 features a completely redesigned user interface and includes enhancements such as native full-screen mode for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, a redesigned subtitle manager, support for multiple video files inside .RAR archives and enhanced video output modes




Developers of VideoLAN have also designed this release to allow native Blu-ray support on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, while Microsoft Windows users will get to enjoy a 64-bit version

Based on the screenshots, VLC 2.0 for Mac substitues the previous Spartan interface design in favor of an iTunes-esque appearance that sorts media types in the left-hand column and flows more naturally with Apple's overall Mac OS X user experience. Of course, the developers have also added support for VLC lua-based extensions which conveniently allows users to fetch subtitles from repositories automatically

The full VLC 2.0.0 changelog can be found here, and the release candidate for Mac OS X can be downloaded here

Samsung 55-inch 'Super' OLED HDTV shipping Spring 2012

Only in the United Kingdom

A recent piece of news stemming from CNET claims that Samsung is preparing to ship its highly-anticipated flagship 55-inch 'Super' OLED HDTV this Spring. Unfortunately, the release will be limited to those lucky few residents in the United Kingdom with plenty of saved-up cash ready to expend

We were able to see Samsung's 2012 OLED HDTV lineup during the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada earlier last month. While we were impressed with the incredible color accuracy, contrast reproduction and luminosity of the displays, we couldn't help but take away that there was a somewhat "unnatural" feeling to viewing them. Perhaps, through reverse psychology, it is possible that Organic LED is actually the most "natural" technology for viewing media content, and our eyes have been so deceived by lies of inferior display technologies all these decades. Nevertheless, the experience really is different from anything we've seen, and when contrasted with LED-backlit LCDs and Plasma displays, there is a significant difference to take away from Samsung's 'Super' OLEDs





Of course, the company is also incorporating its new "Active 3D" technology in these panels, meaning users will have the choice of enabling stereoscopic viewing modes with the included passive 3D glasses

Exact price points and Spring 2012 release dates for Samsung's 'Super' OLED HDTV displays have not been published yet, but we will keep on the lookout for early listings from online UK vendors

MSI launches its Radeon HD 7700 series cards

Total of four cards, all custom

Following the official AMD launch, MSI has launched a total of four Radeon HD 7700 series cards, all with custom dual-fan cooling

As noted, MSI lineup consists of four new graphics SKUs, two Radeon HD 7770 and two Radeon HD 7750 cards. In addition to the OC Editions, MSI also launched reference clocked cards that are also equipped with non-reference dual-fan cooling. The R7770-2PMD1GD5 works at reference 1000MHz for the GPU and comes with 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1125MHz (4.5GHz effective). The R7750-2PMD1GD5 works at 800MHz for the GPU and comes with 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4.5GHz. Despite their non-overclocked nature, both of these reference cards are still paired up with all aolid capacitors and custom dual-fan cooler

The OC Edition cards are a bit underwhelming as MSI decided to do a mere 30MHz overclock on the GPU for Radeon HD 7750 and even less impressive 20MHz overclock on the R7770-2PMD1GD5/OC HD 7770 card. The memory on both cards was left at 4500MHz. Compared to some other factory-overclocked cards that go as high as 1120MHz, MSI certainly didn't give enough credit to the Cape Verde GPU

As noted, the entire series is cooled by a dual-fan cooler paired up with a large aluminum heatsink. The HD 7770 feature larger fans and are equipped with a heatpipe, while the HD 7750 cards have, what appears to be, smaller fans and lack the heatpipe

 

XFX details its HD 7700 series lineup

Launches nine cards

Going hard with the launch of the AMD Radeon HD 7700 series, XFX decided to launch no less than nine different models starting with Core Edition based on AMD reference clock and all the way up to SuperOverclock Edition that we had a chance to review today

The XFX Radeon HD 7770 includes a total of five models that start with XFX HD 7770 Core Edition featuring AMD reference 1000MHz GPU and 4.5GHz memory clocks paired up with XFX's Ghost Technology cooler with a single center placed dust-free IP-5X fan, as well as solid state capacitors and XFX exclusive bracket. The next in line are two cards that are a part of XFX's Standard Edition, the XFX FX-777A-ZDB4 Black Edition Double Dissipation card with a dual-slot dual-fan cooler that is overclocked to 1095MHz for the GPU and 4.98GHz for 1GB of GDDR5 memory and the XFX FX-777A-ZNBC with Ghost Technology, which is pretty much identical as the Core Edition but with same 1095MHz GPU and 4.98GHz memory overclock

The Double Dissipation Edition includes a single FX-777A-ZDF4 model that is pretty much the same as the Black Edition one mentioned earlier as it uses the same dual-slot dual-fan cooler but lacks the factory overclock so it is set to work at 1000MHZ for the GPU and 4.5GHz for memory. The last but not least, is the cream of the crop, Black Edition series FX-777A-ZDSC Super Overclock card that we had a chance to review earlier. This one works at impressive 1120MHz for the GPU and 5.2GHz for the same 1GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 128-bit memory interface
The XFX 7750 lineup is pretty much the same but includes "only" four models, Core Edition, Double Dissipation Edition, Black Edition and Black Edition with Double Dissipation. As you could have guessed, both Black Edition cards will feature a factory-overclock that is currently unknown as the core clock is still TBD. The Core Edition and Double Dissipation Edition are both set at 800MHz for the GPU and 4.5GHz for 1GB of GDDR5 memory and are differentiated by the cooler, one with a single fan and other with dual-fan cooler

The entire XFX lineup is a bit of confussing but thankfully, the XFX site have them all listed in one place and it is easy to find the right model for yourself

You can check out the lineup here
 

Atom Z2610 is Medfield’s official name

Penwell 32nm SOC and SGX540 graphics

Intel was very public about the fact that Medfield is coming to a tablet near you as soon as Q2 2012, but it’s been mum on quite a few details

The new tablet chip will definitely end up in at least a few phones and tablets and it features a Penwell SoC 32nm core based on Atom architecture. It supports LPDDR2 memory, dual camera with up to 16MP, as well as an SGX540 graphics core for 2D and 3D acceleration

When it comes to video support, Intel’s chip for tablets can cope with 1080p encoding and 1080p dual stream video decoding. The operating system of choice is Android 4.0 and tablets based on the reference design can also support WiDi. On a separate note, at least some of Intel’s next generation netbooks will  also feature WiDi support and it seems Intel is keen to embrace the new technology

Intel also pays a lot of attention to security in its chips and Medfield comes with a built-in security engine, remote wipe capability, protected memory and protected apps

The system on chip known as Atom Z2610 supports HDMI, USB 2.0, LP Audio and a few other things. This chip should get comparable battery life to ARM-based Android 4.0 tablets and hybrid devices and the rest of the spec should also be quite similar

The release window is Q2 2012, so April to late July should be the time we will see the first Medfield tablets in retail. One more thing, Atom Z2610 is an Android 4.0 oriented chip and Intel has something special for Windows 8, but not this particular Medfield 32nm SOC

AMD rolls out pre-certified Catalyst 12.2 driver

Support for Radeon HD 7900 and HD 7700 series

Those that were holding out for Radeon HD 7900 series support with Catalyst 12.2 driver can now be happy to know that AMD has released its Catalyst 12.2 pre-certified driver that features support for all cards since Radeon HD 2000 series and brings a couple of updates enhancements as well as new super-Sampling Anti-Aliasing support for Radeon HD 7900 and HD 7700 series graphics cards

The feature highlights list for the AMD Catalyst 12.2 pre-certified driver starts off with Windows 7 and Windows Vista support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 series for both 64-bit and 32-bit systems, while the Windows XP support will be made available in AMD Catalyst 12.4.

The new driver also brings Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications on the AMD Radeon HD 7900 and HD 7700 series cards, so it is now possible ot enable SSAA and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing via AMD Catalyst Control Center. The new driver brigns couple of AMD Eyefinity 2.1 enhancements as well including custom resolutions, Dynamic Configuration Changes, HydraVision enhacementsthat allow for Windows Task-bar to be moved and resized besed on preference as well as some Profile Manager improvements

In addition to the new Catalyst 12.2 pre-certified driver, AMD has also issued AMD Catalyst Application Profile 12.1 CAP3 that includes updates for Alan Wake, Syndicate, Darkness 2 , Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Natural Selection 2 game titles

The official Microsoft certified 12.2 driver should be launched sometimes late February or very early March 2012 and in case you just can't wait for it, you can find the pre-certified one here

Powercolor HD 7970 LCS shows up in retail/e-tail

Liquid cooled HD 7970 for €729,90/£599.99

We have stumbled upon a couple of listings for Powercolor's yet to be announced HD 7970 LCS Edition card and although still not available these are currently listed at €729.99 in Germany and £599.99 inc. VAT over at Overclockers.co.uk

In case you missed it, the Powercolor HD 7970 LCS Edition comes pre-fitted with EK's Nickel Acetal Waterblock and works at 1050MHz for the GPU and 1425MHz for the same 3GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 384-bit memory interface. The card has a pretty decent factory overclock and EK's waterblock will certainly do a good job in keeping the temps down, but it also depends on the rest of the liquid cooling system

The new Powercolor HD 7970 LCS Edition should be interesting to those that aren't too keen to fiddle around with custom water blocks as this one also comes with a 2-year warranty period

You can find the German Snogard listing here and the Overclockers.co.uk listing is here