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AMD powered Hp Dv6 Laptop Computer

May 22nd, 2012
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Whether there’s a dad or a grad (or both!) on your gift list, a sexy new computer is always a really cool gift idea.

The HP Pavilion dv6-6c35dx laptop with AMD VISION technology delivers style plus substance making it the perfect gift for any dad who wants a premium notebook for stylish mobility — and that’s anyone who wants to escape from the apartment and take their laptop with them!

The Dv6 features a 15.6″ high-definition display for crisp, clear images with excellent visual quality and HD video is crystal clear through dedicated video playback technology powered by AMD. It includes Wireless Beats Audio for optimal sound experience when playing audio through headphones or external speakers, and supercomputing-like speed brings a blistering performance without the bulkiness. HP CoolSense Technology combines advanced hardware and intelligent cooling software for a noticeably cooler notebook. Its s design includes extras like a fourth USB port and second headphone jack, along with a longer lasting battery (something that those of us who travel all the time super-value!)

And, like some of our other dad/grad gift finds, we’re giving one away!

Source:http://mygloss.com/giveaways/giveaway-amd-powered-hp-dv6-laptop-computer/

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AMD launches Trinity APUs to take on Intel’s Ivy Bridge

May 17th, 2012
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AMD has announced its second-generation “Trinity” Accelerated Processing Units.

The A-Series APUs are aimed at laptops, PCs, and embedded hardware. AMD’s latest processors will come in dual- and quad-core variations and go toe-to-toe with Intel’s third-generation Ivy Bridge Core chips.

AMD touts a “ground up” improvement compared to the previous generation with double the performance per watt. Eyeing the Ultrabook market, the firm quotes up to 12 hours of battery life for notebooks by way of the power-optimized “Piledriver” CPU core.

Like Ivy Bridge, there is also a focus on graphics performance. The Trinity chips will have Radeon HD 7000-Series graphics giving an improvement of up to 56 percent on the previous generation.

“Our second-generation AMD A-Series APU is a major step forward in every performance and power dimension, allowing users to enjoy a stunning experience without having to give up the things that matter to them most. This experience doesn’t stop at mainstream notebooks. It carries over into affordable ultrathin form factors featuring the latest in AMD Radeon graphics,” said Chris Cloran, corporate vice president at AMD.

AMD added that the Trinity APUs are “well-positioned to take advantage of the upcoming transition to the Windows 8 operating system.”

The second generation of A-Series Trinity APUs will available from today with “a record number of design wins with companies like Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, and Sony,” the firm said.

Source:http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/amd-launches-trinity-apus-take-intels-ivy-bridge-193384

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AMD aims to undercut Intel’s Ultrabooks on price with new Trinity chips

May 16th, 2012
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Advanced Micro Devices hopes to provide thin-and-light laptops that are less expensive but equally speedy to Intel’s Ultrabooks with its new A-series chips, which the company officially announced on Tuesday.

The A-series chips, code-named Trinity, will enable laptops to be made that are comparable in size, weight and battery life to Intel’s Ultrabooks, said John Taylor, director of global product marketing at AMD. Users won’t have to pay “premium prices” for Trinity ultrathin laptops, which will be significantly cheaper than Intel’s Ultrabooks.

Laptops with Trinity chips will be priced at “mainstream prices,” and offer battery life of up to nine hours, Taylor said. AMD has said that Trinity laptops could start at $500, while Intel’s Ultrabooks starting prices of $750 to $800. Intel hopes to bring that down to $699 by the year end.

Laptops with Trinity chips will offer around eight hours of battery life, Taylor said. The chips will go into laptops up to 22 millimeters thick, just a hair over the 21-mm maximum set by Intel for Ultrabooks, AMD’s Taylor said. The chips will draw around 17 watts of power, similar to the upcoming Intel’s Ivy Bridge Ultrabook chips.

AMD will also provide quad-core Trinity chips for ultrathins, Taylor said. Intel has said Ultrabooks for now would be limited to dual-core processors, but quad-core chips could give AMD-based laptops a performance advantage.

“We have differing approaches [to Intel],” Taylor said. “You will see a spread of price points and configurations that will create more lower price points for consumers to jump in.”

The A-series chips will initially appear in systems from five PC makers, with hundreds of designs in the works, Taylor said. Hewlett-Packard last week introduced thin-and-light Envy Sleekbook laptops with options including AMD’s latest A-series chips starting at $599. That is $150 cheaper than HP’s new Envy Ultrabooks, which have Intel processors and start at $749.99.

HP said that Envy Ultrabooks and Sleekbooks offer similar battery life of eight to nine hours. HP also said that while Sleekbooks with AMD were strong on graphics, the Intel Ultrabooks were slightly thinner and lighter, offer better resume time from standby and also have antitheft features.

AMD’s Trinity chips come a month ahead of Intel’s launch of third-generation Core chips for Ultrabooks, code-named Ivy Bridge. Intel is pouring $300 million into the development of Ultrabooks, which will have tablet-like features such as instant boot, touchscreens and all-day connectivity. AMD said Trinity-based laptops will ultimately have features like touchscreens and high-resolution screens.

PC makers want to offer laptops at every price point, and designs are tweaked to get the smallest size and best battery life, said Dean McCarron, analyst at Mercury Research. AMD’s calling card in the past has been lower pricing.

AMD excels on graphics, but there are questions about whether the company’s chips can match Intel on power efficiency, McCarron said. AMD’s Trinity chips are a manufacturing generation behind Intel, whose upcoming Ultrabook chips will have 3D transistors and will be made using the 22-nanometer process.

The new chips replaces the current line A-series line of processors code-named Llano announced in June last year. AMD has improved the CPU, which is 25 percent faster than comparable Llano chips, and graphics core, which is 50 percent faster. The Trinity chips have a new CPU core code-named Piledriver, which succeeds the previous Bulldozer core used on the high-end FX desktop and Opteron server chips.

The first Trinity chips include low-power chips that could go into thin and low-power laptops. The dual-core A6-4455M chip runs at a clock speed of 2.6GHz and draws 17 watts of power, while the quad-core A10-4655M chip runs at 2.8GHz and draws 25 watts. The company also announced three 35-watt A-series chips.

Desktops and all-in-ones with Trinity chips will come next month, Taylor said. PCs with the new chips are ready for Windows 8 — for example the Metro user interface is offloaded to the graphics processor, leaving the CPU free to take on additional tasks.

The Trinity release comes as AMD rebuilds its product portfolio and restructures its business model. The company appointed former Lenovo executive Rory Read as CEO in August last year, and new chief technology officer Mark Papermaster was appointed in October.

The management changes didn’t alter the Trinity chip design, Taylor said. Going forward, the company is trying to maintain chip flexibility so it can include third-party intellectual property, in line with a change in chip design methodology set forth by the company on analyst day in February.

Source:http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/amd-aims-undercut-intels-ultrabooks-price-new-trinity-chips-193180?page=0,1

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AMD Announces the Launch of Second Generation Trinity A-Series APUs

May 15th, 2012
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AMD today announced the widely anticipated launch of its 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) for mainstream and ultrathin notebooks, All-in-One and traditional desktops, home theater PCs and embedded designs.

The 2nd-Generation A-Series APU, codenamed “Trinity”, is a grounds-up improved design over the previous generation, enabling a best-in-class PC mobility, entertainment, and gaming experience. New features of the product design include:

● Double the performance per watt of the previous generation;
● The AMD HD Media Accelerator with a unique set of technologies designed to optimize video quality available with premium and Internet video content, and accelerate video file conversion;
● An increase in CPU performance of up to 29 percent with higher processor speeds thanks to the next-generation AMD “Piledriver” CPU core with 3rd-Generation AMD Turbo Core technology, where power is dynamically shifted between the CPU and GPU depending on application needs, effectively providing a more responsive experience that can boost CPU frequencies to up to 3.2 GHz;

● AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics for an increase of graphics performance up to 56% over the previous generation. Combined, the CPU and GPU cores deliver more than 700 gigaflops of computing performance – several times more than the fastest x86 CPUs – to boost performance of hundreds of applications;
● Up to 12 hours of battery life through CPU and GPU power enhancements, with clear battery life leadership in notebook form factors.

“The latest OEM notebooks, ultrathins, All-in-Ones and desktops based on the new AMD A-Series APU enable the best video and gaming experiences, highly responsive performance with AMD Turbo CORE, and accelerate an ever-increasing range of productivity and multimedia applications — in sleek, stylish designs at price points that make sense,” said Chris Cloran, corporate vice president and General Manager, AMD Client Business Unit. “Our 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APU is a major step forward in every performance and power dimension, allowing users to enjoy a stunning experience without having to give up the things that matter to them most. This experience doesn’t stop at mainstream notebooks. It carries over into affordable ultrathin form factors featuring the latest in AMD Radeon graphics.”

The Growing AMD Accelerated Application Ecosystem
The developer ecosystem continues to gravitate to the unmatched level of compute and unique processing capabilities of the APU as more than 100 applications and games are now accelerated by AMD APUs. The 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APU gives users superior Web-based video experience thanks to plug-ins for Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 9 that make it easy for consumers to turn on AMD Steady Video technology. Recent applications that have been optimized for use on AMD A-Series APUs include Adobe Photoshop CS6, WinZip 16.5 and VLC Media Player. AMD A-Series APUs are also well-positioned to take advantage of the upcoming transition to the Windows 8 operating system.

“We are excited for the introduction of the 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APU and are confident it will continue the great work Microsoft and AMD have done together on the A-Series APU,” said Aidan Marcuss, senior director, Windows Business Planning, Microsoft Corp. “We look forward to seeing the A-Series APU in action with Windows 8 to deliver a great user experience across a variety of hardware.”

For developers who want to engage in the industry’s move toward heterogeneous computing, the upcoming AMD Fusion Developer Summit will offer them a unique opportunity to enhance their knowledge base. More information on AFDS can be found here.

Unmatched Mobility
With more than 12 hours of ‘resting’ battery life, AMD is now an industry leader in notebook battery-life performance. The 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APU delivers increased levels of performance, while consuming half the power as its predecessor.

These gains can be attributed to the new power-optimized “Piledriver” CPU core, as well as to AMD Start Now technology, which is designed to maximize system responsiveness by quickly entering and exiting low power states. With AMD Start Now, the computer resumes from sleep mode in as few as two seconds and boots to the desktop in as few as 10 seconds.

In ultrathin form factors, AMD enables an uncompromised visual experience thanks to a power-efficient and premium AMD Radeon graphics engine. Consumers can expect to see ultrathin notebooks based on dual-core 17-watt and quad-core 25-watt AMD A-Series APUs. These products will be easily identifiable by aluminum-styled VISION Technology stickers at a range of competitive price points.

Best-in-class Entertainment
As more and more people turn to their computers as the hub for their entertainment, the visual aspect of computing becomes ever more important. To enhance these capabilities, AMD created the AMD HD Media Accelerator – a unique set of technologies that enable the best video quality on a PC. Key features of the HD Media Accelerator include:

● AMD Perfect Picture HD – An image, video processing and display technology that automatically makes images and video better with color vibrancy adjustments, edge enhancement, noise reduction and dynamic contrast fixes;
● AMD Steady Video Technology – A technology that enables smooth playback of jittery video content with a single button click thanks to plug-ins for popular Web browsers and multimedia applications;
● AMD Quick Stream Technology – A new technology that prioritizes video streaming on PC systems for a smooth, virtually uninterrupted video stream;
● True HD video chat with up to four people at once;
● AMD Video Converter – A video compression engine for fast conversion and sharing of media files across multiple formats and devices;
● Full decode support for H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1, MVC, DivX and WMV.

Gaming Leadership
The 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APU builds on AMD’s legacy of gaming leadership with an increase in graphics performance of up to 56% over the previous generation and support for:

● AMD Eyefinity Technology – For the first time, this immersive technology is available from an APU without the need for a discrete graphics card;
● Performance-leading DirectX 11 graphics architecture and 1080p gaming a life-like level of detail;
● AMD Radeon dual graphics support that delivers a performance boost of up to 75 percent when adding a discrete graphics card to the APU. The AMD Radeon dual graphics option also offers support for DirectX 9 for older game titles, and uses new AMD CrossFire Technology Profiles for easier updates.

Availability and Technical Details
AMD has a record number of design wins with companies like Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba based on our 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APUs and VISION Technology from AMD, with mainstream and ultrathin notebooks as well as embedded solutions, available beginning today.

Desktops systems and component channel parts will be available later this year.

Source:http://wccftech.com/amd-announces-launch-generation-trinity-aseries-apus/

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AMD Preps Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Graphics Card to Compete with Kepler

May 7th, 2012
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) doesn’t appear terribly concerned with NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture at the moment. If you recall, it took some time for AMD to roll out price cuts for its Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards after Kepler made its official entrance. But now that there’s a dual-Kepler graphics card — GeForce GTX 690, see our review here — AMD can no longer claim it has the fastest single videocard on the planet. How do you respond if you’re AMD?

According to a report in Australia’s Atomic MPC, AMD’s response is to goose its Radeon HD 7970 graphics card and launch a GHz Edition SKU. As the name implies, the revised card will sport a 1GHz GPU clockspeed, up from the current reference of 925MHz.

AMD’s official reasoning for the clockspeed bump at this point in time is because of improved yields. With better silicon coming through the pipeline, AMD claims the average voltage required for a 925MHz clockspeed is now much lower than before, and that the current crop of chips are ramping up to 1,250MHz with little trouble. That being the case, it’s curious why AMD isn’t aiming a little higher, perhaps 1,150MHz or 1,200MHz, which would still give yields a bit of breathing room, but it appears the Santa Clara chip designer is content to stop at 1,000MHz and market the card as the third GHz Edition in the Radeon HD 7000 lineup.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Preps-Radeon-HD-7970-GHz-Edition-Graphics-Card-to-Compete-with-Kepler/

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Eurocom’s Racer 2.0 Gets Ivy Bridge And AMD Radeon HD 7970M Graphics

May 4th, 2012
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Eurocom added the newest AMD Radeon HD 7970M GPU to the EUROCOM Racer 2.0 notebook. The EUROCOM Racer 2.0 is a 15.6-inch small form factor notebook that uses the Intel Mobile HM 77 Express chipset and supports the full line of 22nm Ivy Bridge processors. The notebook also supports up to three storage drives and up to 32GB of DDR3-1600 memory. Eurocom claims the Racer 2.0 will be one of the world’s first Ivy Bridge notebooks with Intel HM 77 chipset using the uFPGA988B socket.

Eurocom Corporation, a developer of long lifespan, fully upgradable notebooks is adding the newest AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M GPU to the 15.6” EUROCOM Racer 2.0 notebook. Eurocom will also offer the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M GPUs separately to existing customers as an upgrade option.

The EUROCOM Racer 2.0 is a 15.6” small form factor Mobile Workstation utilizing the Intel Mobile HM 77 Express Chipset with support for the full line of 22nm Ivy Bridge Processors. Graphics support comes from AMD Radeon HD 7970M with support for up to three storage drives. The Racer 2.0 supports 32 GB of DDR3-1600 memory for unforeseen multitasking ability and performance in a 15.6” system.

“The addition of the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M, the highest performing mobile solution from AMD, gives Eurocom customers a superior choice of video processor options to configure into their new Eurocom Racer 2.0 or upgrade into their existing system. This thing is a beast, our customers will love the graphics and overall performance of the Racer 2.0” said Mark Bialic, President of Eurocom.

AMD Radeon™ HD 7900M Series graphics processors are the most technologically advanced and feature-rich mobile GPUs AMD has ever created, enabling unsurpassed HD gaming and stereoscopic 3D entertainment. Eurocom has combined AMD technology in their mobile systems to offer a stellar entertainment powerhouse with massive computing power, delivering desktop graphics power to mobile gamers for the ultimate performance at home or on-the-go. Combined with a high quality Onkyo speaker system and THX TruStudio Pro, the Eurocom Racer 2.0 is a true notebook entertainment system.

EUROCOM Racer 2.0 will be bolstered by the introduction of the Intel Ivy Bridge processors and complete line of Intel 22nm processors. The Racer 2.0 will be one of the world’s first Ivy Bridge notebooks with Intel HM 77 chipset using the uFPGA988B socket. The EUROCOM Racer 2.0 is ideal for professionals and teams who frequently travel and need access to high performance computing.

The EUROCOM Racer 2.0 is built with an ultra heavy duty design for unintentional abuse while on the go. It is a fully upgradeable system with support for the best in mobile technology. The Racer 2.0 can be customized based on processor, memory, storage, display and wireless technology. Based on the HM 77 Express chipset from Intel the EUROCOM Racer 2.0 can support up to 32GB of DDR3-1600 memory from four sockets.

With support for an mSATA Intel SSD 310 Series drive, the storage capabilities and performance of the EUROCOM Racer 2.0 are second to none. Support for an mSATA drive greatly improves boot times, performance and battery life of the Racer 2.0. With no moving parts, Intel SSD mSATA drives offer high levels of performance and reliability in a small form factor system.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Eurocoms-Racer-20-Gets-Ivy-Bridge-And-AMD-Radeon-HD-7970M-Graphics/

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AMD Pitcairn With 768 Shaders: What is This Mystery Chip?

May 4th, 2012
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Our colleagues at one of our European labs were handed an early version of an AMD Pitcairn-based Radeon HD 7850. What made this AFOX unit special from the currently existing Radeon HD 7850 reference design that we’ve already peeled apart is that is it a single-slot solution as opposed to one that takes up two of your expansion spaces. Here is what comes up with plugging it into GPU-Z:

A look at the device ID, the clock speeds and memory reveal nothing out of the ordinary. What caught our attention, however, was the number of available shader units. While the Radeon HD 7850 we were expecting comes with 1024 shaders, our sample had only 768 shaders.

This compelled us to dig deeper, so we removed the cooler and the abundant amounts of thermal paste. The board itself was produced by AOLIDA, Jiutan Xinhua Town (Guangdong).

Please keep in mind that this is just an engineering sample, and is not a fair representation of any final shipping product. Any product packing a Radeon HD 7850 GPU will obviously be equipped with 1024 shaders. We’re treating this product as something of a mystery in the Tom’s Hardware labs.

We tried looking into the BIOS to see if it would shed some light on the unexpected number of shaders, but none of our traditional BIOS tools revealed any information. The card identified itself as a Radeon HD 7850 in AMD’s current Catalyst driver suite software, but it was incompatible with the Overdrive overclocking functions.

BIOS limitation, laser-cut or faulty chip?

With a card that identifies itself (somewhat) as a Radeon HD 7850, we were expecting a chip stamped with the batch number 1151, like all of the other HD 7850 and 7870 chips so far, but scrubbing the GPU revealed 1152 ENG as the batch number, further confusing the matter. If it is indeed a different chip, then perhaps it isn’t a case of cut or BIOS-disabled shaders. In fact, even after attempting to flash the reference firmware of an HD 7870 and an HD 7850, the card was both stable and exhibited no change in performance, leading us to assume that it truly only packs 768 shaders.

We’ve brought this issue to AMD only to be referred back to the board partners. AFOX told use that this chip belonged to a batch of GPUs AMD delivered in March 2012 for layout and design purposes. Still, we’re not sure how this 768-shader GPU ended up on the board designated for the HD 7850, pre-production sample or not.

One theory is that AMD is sending out partially defective chips for PCB developers to experiment with instead of throwing them away, but that may go against the logic of having engineers trying to validate on an ‘incomplete’ GPU. Maybe – just maybe – it’s an unannounced Radeon HD 7830 that slipped through the cracks and into our labs.

Our team in Germany will be putting this card through its paces. Stay tuned for that coming next week!

Source:http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Pitcairn-radeon-HD-7850-768-shaders-gpu,15524.html

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