Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has announced that it had produced the first verification chips for its 10nm manufacturing technology. The world’s largest contract maker of semiconductors plans to start risk production using 10nm fabrication process late this year and to initiate high-volume manufacturing in late 2016 or in 2017. At …
Read More »Specifications of AMD Radeon R9 Fury and AMD Radeon R9 Nano revealed
Advanced Micro Devices has reportedly finalized specifications of its upcoming Radeon R9 graphics cards based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processor, the Radeon R9 Fury and the Radeon R9 Nano. Both products promise to be rather powerful, but will still be noticeably slower than the Radeon R9 Fury X. AMD’s …
Read More »Visiontek Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB Review
Today we take a somewhat belated look at the latest AMD flagship, the R9 Fury X. This graphics card has been designed to tackle Nvidia in the high end, specifically their similarly priced GTX980 Ti. The Fury X is the first consumer GPU equipped with Stacked High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) …
Read More »Asus Strix GTX 980 Ti: 14-phase VRM, new cooling, extreme clock-rates
Asustek Computer has officially unveiled its new Strix GTX 980 Ti graphics card, which promises to be one of the most advanced graphics adapters based on the GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics processing unit. The new solution boasts extremely sophisticated voltage regulator module (VRM), an all-new cooling system, high frequencies …
Read More »Zotac debuts world’s only GeForce GTX 980 Ti with overclocked GDDR5 memory
Zotac, a well-known maker of advanced graphics adapters, has quietly started to sell its highest-performing factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics card, which has enough performance to beat far more expensive GeForce GTX Titan X. The new graphics board not only features extreme clock-rates, but it is the world’s only …
Read More »Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB Review
Today we look at a sub £300 graphics card from AMD partner Sapphire. The R9 390 Nitro is a model from Sapphire's new range and features Black Diamond Chokes and a large triple fan cooler to keep temperatures in check. The card ships in an overclocked state and is priced …
Read More »AMD offers to personalize Radeon R9 Fury X with custom plates
AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X looks impressively stylish thanks to its short printed-circuit board and simplistic design of its cooling system. Nonetheless, some end-users – especially modders – may find the new flagship from AMD too basic. The GPU developer proposes such users to create their own front plate for …
Read More »U.S. clears acquisition of IBM’s chip unit by GlobalFoundries
GlobalFoundries this week said that the U.S. authorities had approved its acquisition of IBM’s microelectronics business unit. From now on, GlobalFoundries will make various important semiconductors for the U.S. military and government agencies. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has reviewed the proposed transaction between IBM and …
Read More »Nvidia preps low-cost GeForce GTX 950-series graphics cards – report
Nvidia Corp. is working on two new affordable GeForce GTX 900-series products that will replace low-cost graphics cards released last year. The new adapters will be powered by the second-generation “Maxwell” architecture and their performance is expected to be comparable to that of the GeForce GTX 960. Nvidia’s GeForce GTX …
Read More »AMD: Technologies we are developing will make impact 3-5 years from now
Advanced Micro Devices is experiencing difficult times because of business decisions made several years ago. At this point AMD is developing its “Zen” and “K12” microprocessors, which are expected to make AMD competitive in the CPU market again. However, many new technologies, which are in the works today, will have an impact …
Read More »Nvidia is developing new ‘Maxwell’-based Quadro, Tesla cards
Nvidia Corp. is developing three new cards for the professional markets: two new Quadro graphics adapters as well as a new Tesla accelerator for high-performance computing applications. The latest drivers from Nvidia add support for Nvidia Quadro M5000, Quadro M4000 as well as Tesla M60 boards, reports VideoCardz web-site. The …
Read More »Microsoft might be interested in buying AMD, according to source
In a bid to revive its chip design operations, Microsoft Corp. may acquire Advanced Micro Devices, according to a source familiar with the matter. The software giant approached AMD several months ago, the source indicated. The result of the talks is unclear. Microsoft Corp. has been selling game consoles for …
Read More »Sapphire R9 390X Tri-X 8GB Review
Today we take a look at one of the latest graphics cards from Sapphire – the new R9 390X featuring the latest version of their Tri-X cooling system. This top level graphics card ships in an overclocked state and features a custom triple cooler – shipping with 3x 90mm dual …
Read More »Oculus VR: For now, virtual reality gaming is for hardcore gamers only
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, claims that while virtual reality gaming will make it to the mainstream market in the future, for a couple of years down the road it will remain a prerogative of hardcore and enthusiast gamers. The VR pioneer confirms that high prices of hardware …
Read More »Micron begins commercial shipments of 20nm GDDR5 chips
Micron Technology has announced that it had begun commercial shipments of GDDR5 chips made using 20nm process technology. The company did not reveal any details, but it is highly likely that Micron initiated shipments of its 8Gb GDDR5 chips several weeks ago. “We commenced shipments of our first 20 nanometer …
Read More »Sapphire Nitro Range Introduced by Bill Donnelly: Exclusive
What promised to be a fairly straightforward launch sequence turned into a series of incredibly interesting stories that engaged just about every enthusiast user on the web. Whatever your personal opinions, AMD's latest product launch has certainly generated a lot of attention. We decided to invite Bill Donnelly from Sapphire …
Read More »PCIe 4.0 with 16GT/s data-rates and new connector to be finalized by 2017
PCI Express bus has been evolving for over ten years now. So far the technology has tripled its initial data rate, but the next step is taking a longer time. PCI SIG claims that the fourth generation PCI Express specification will be finalized in 2017 and will materialize this decade. The …
Read More »OCUK is cutting GTX 980Ti prices across the board
Last night, we got wind of some market rumours suggesting that Nvidia was considering cutting down the price of the GTX 980Ti a bit in light of the release of AMD's Fury X. Now today, Overclockers UK has announced a slew of deals on GTX 980Ti graphics cards, with models …
Read More »Nvidia is considering a price-cut of high-end graphics cards
Nvidia Corp. is mulling to reconsider prices of select high-end graphics cards in order to further strengthen its positions in the market advanced graphics solutions. If the company proceeds with the plan, it will get considerably harder for Advanced Micro Devices to regain market share it lost to Nvidia in …
Read More »AMD officially launches the Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday officially launched its new flagship graphics processing unit as well as a card based on the GPU. The new graphics processor is the first chip in the world to use all-new high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is a high-profile innovation on its own, to boot, AMD has …
Read More »UMC: 14nm FinFET technology will be ready for tape outs by year end
United Microelectronics Corp. said on Tuesday that it has successfully taped out a test chip from ARM using its 14nm FinFET fabrication technology. The company also revealed that the new manufacturing process will be ready for customer tape outs by the end of the year. UMC and ARM recently taped …
Read More »GlobalFoundries is evaluating 22nm FD SOI technology
Modern FinFET process technologies help to reduce power consumption of modern chips while increasing their clock-rate potential. Unfortunately, it is extremely expensive to design FinFET chips, which is why many chip developers cannot afford creation of new solutions. In a bid to help such companies to release new chips, GlobalFoundries …
Read More »Nvidia and Samsung still cannot finalize chip manufacturing deal
Earlier this year Nvidia Corp. officially named Samsung Electronics its manufacturing partner. However, as it appears, the companies still have not signed any actual deals because negotiations are proceeding with difficulties. The consequence of prolonged negotiations could result in later-than-expected release of Samsung-made Nvidia chips. Nvidia wants Samsung Electronics to …
Read More »AMD is considering breakup, spin-off graphics business unit – report
Chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices has ordered a research to review possibilities of splitting the company in two or spinning off a multimedia chip business unit, a media report claims. The company is mulling different options, as it desperately wants to become competitive against Intel. AMD itself denies …
Read More »VR headsets could boost GPU sales, bring billions to AMD, Nvidia – analyst
Virtual reality hardware market is something that does not really exist today. Oculus VR sells its virtual reality headsets to game developers, Samsung supplies Gear VR to hardcore enthusiasts, other VR gear just cannot be bought for money. But many believe that already next year sales of virtual reality headsets …
Read More »Rebadging of graphics adapters: Past, present and future
In the recent years both Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp. sold similar graphics processing units under completely different names, a practice many consider as deceiving. While stagnation in the market of graphics adapters and rebranding of graphics cards is hardly a good thing for the consumer, both GPU developers …
Read More »AMD reveals specs of AMD Radeon R9 300-series: Old GPUs get new life
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday revealed all the details about its new family of graphics cards, the Radeon R9 and the Radeon R7 300-series. As reported, the whole lineup is based on existing graphics processing units with minor speed-bumps to improve performance in certain cases and games. The flagship Radeon …
Read More »AMD’s official Radeon R9 Fury X test results: World’s fastest GPU
Advanced Micro Devices this week officially unwrapped its new flagship single-chip graphics card based on the highly-anticipated “Fiji” graphics processing unit. The new AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics adapter has a number of advantages that can make it one of the world’s highest-performing solutions. In fact, according to AMD’s …
Read More »Gigabyte GTX980 Ti G1 Gaming Review
Nvidia's GTX980 Ti has stormed the performance benchmarks in the last couple of weeks and now modified, partner cards are hitting retail. We have already looked at the excellent EVGA model last week, and today we analyse the new Gigabyte G1 Gaming version which features a beautiful new cooler with …
Read More »SK Hynix confirms mass production of first-gen HBM memory
SK Hynix, one of the world’s major producers of memory, on Tuesday said that it had begun volume shipments of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) designed for bandwidth-demanding applications. The first products to use HBM will be AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards, but eventually other devices will utilize the new …
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