AMD
The problems associated with rendering realistic hair has held video games back for years. When Nintendo first created the sprite for Mario in the original Donkey Kong, it gave him a hat because it was too difficult to animate his hair. When video games made the leap into the world of real-time 3D graphics, things didn't get much better. Today AMD is officially unveiling its solution, TressFX Hair, that will significantly improve the look of virtual hair beginning with the new Tomb Raider. Read More
At least 25-30 million people worldwide have age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of blindness in middle-aged and older adults. The Israeli start-up Nano Retina has announced their new Bio-Retina, a tiny array of photodetectors which can be implanted directly on the retinal surface. Ready to enter clinical trials in 2013, the Bio-Retina restores vision to AMD sufferers almost immediately following the simple implantation process. Read More
AMD has taken the wraps of the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. Billed as the world's fastest single GPU graphics card and the only GPU based on 28nm production technology, the new arrival pushes AMD ahead of NVIDIA in terms of miniaturization. The HD 7970 uses a new Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture that AMD says results in a 150 percent performance/sq mm jump over the previous 40nm-based generation, is compatible with PCI Express 3.0 and features 3GB of GDDR5 memory and 925MHz engine clock. It also supports Direct3D 11.1 to be released with Windows 8. Read More
CompuLab's fit-PC3 gets redesigned and released
CompuLab has taken the time between announcing its fit-PC3 back in January and actually releasing it to give the low power, fanless mini computer a bit of a redesign. There's more processing and graphics power on offer, support for more memory, two casing designs and something the company has called the FACE Module, which alters the system's I/O capabilities to suit different needs. Read More
Packard Bell unveils slimmed down PB oneTwo all-in-one PC
Looking to build on the success of its original PB oneTwo all-in-one desktop computer solutions, Packard Bell has announced two new slimmed-down revamps in the shape of the 21.5-inch PB oneTwo M and the 23-inch PB oneTwo L. Both space-saving, touchscreen models will feature second generation Intel Core i processor options, a choice of NVIDIA or AMD discrete graphics, a high definition webcam and the option of a Blu-ray optical drive, when they go on sale later this month in Europe. Read More
A couple of weeks ago, NVIDIA released the GeForce GTX 580M laptop GPU, claiming it was the fastest graphics chip on the market. AMD has just unveiled a quick response, in the form of its Radeon HD 6990M GPU for laptops. The new graphics chip outpaces "any other announced notebook enthusiast GPU" by 25 percent, according to the Sunnyvale-based chipmaker. Read More
Laptop buyers do not have much of a choice in terms of CPUs these days with the market dominated by Sandy Bridge and other Intel solutions, but some competition is on the way. Today, AMD officially announced a full range of multi-core chips for laptops combining CPU and GPU, the so-called APUs (Accelerated Processing Units). These complement the AMD Fusion family, and were previously known as "Llano." Read More
Gateway has announced three new additions to its NV notebook family, each taking advantage of the latest AMD platform. The new models all feature a stylish satin black case, a 15.6-inch, 1366 x 768 resolution LED-backlit display, Radeon graphics and run on Windows 7 Home Premium. There's also 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Gigabit LAN, and a full-size keyboard with dedicated numeric keypad and multi-gesture touchpad. Gateway has additionally included its popular social networking button to give users quick, one-touch access and log-in to sites like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Read More
Not too long ago, we were all salivating at the release of NVIDIA's GTX 580 graphics card and scrambling to make the most of the world's fastest Direct X GPU. Now AMD has bounced back with the announcement that its new Radeon HD 6990 card has beaten NVIDIA's 3DMark 11 performance score in industry standard benchmark testing for a single graphics card. AMD says that its new powerhouse GPU is able to automatically unlock higher clock speeds, features technology aimed at giving gamers the best possible visual experience, and supports a number of different display options, including expanding the field of view over five monitors with Eyefinity technology. Read More
While the various flavors of games console have introduced gaming to the living room, the weapon of choice for most serious gamers is the PC. Not many would settle for an off-the-shelf gaming PC like the one in front of me, opting for a self build or custom model instead. Those who fall in the latter group will definitely be interested in the Luxury edition gaming PC from Pure PC. Benefiting from an open design that's said to help dissipate heat without the need for too many noisy fans, the high-end gaming rig is powered by a Core i7 chip which can be overclocked to 5GHz, at least two NVIDIA graphics cards and up to 24GB of memory. There's a choice of twin SSD or dual HDD storage, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 connectivity and a Blu-ray burner. So how much would such a system cost? Read on to find out ... Read More
