Items tagged with NYSE: AMD
AMD has just released the latest version of its Radeon Crimson graphics driver, 16.2. If you plan on playing either Ashes of the Singularity or Rise of the Tomb Raider, this driver is going to be worth the time it takes to download. For everyone else, if time and bandwidth isn't an issue, you may still want to grab the update as there is a long list of fixes. At the forefront, AOTS is the highlight here. Earlier this week, AMD worked with Stardock to deliver an improved DirectX 12 benchmark. This enabled asynchronous compute, multi-GPU support, and multi-threaded command buffer re-ordering. There's a good reason AMD is helping Stardock out with this: its Radeon GPUs are delivering the best benchmark...
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It's no secret that NVIDIA does a great job of bundling in some epic games to help it move graphics cards -- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the latest example. Meanwhile, in recent years, AMD has largely targeted odd games that don't appeal to a wide audience, or has given gamers a choice of one or more outdated games -- that's just not as appealing as a brand-new AAA title. Well, with its upcoming Radeon lineup, AMD might finally have a game on offer that's going to settle the deal for many: Star Wars Battlefront. The original Battlefront games became cult classics, and a reboot is something that was demanded from gamers long in advance of an actual announcement. The hype for this game is...
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NVIDIA's latest high-end GeForce cards, the GTX 980 and 970, are powerful - a fact we well-established in our in-depth look last month. In fact, I'd wager that the cards are so powerful - and not to mention so power-efficient - that even AMD itself was taken by surprise. To me, it felt like NVIDIA pulled out all the punches to make AMD feel it. I think that the company could have released both the 970 and 980 scaled-back a little bit, and they still would have impressed us. Nonetheless, with NVIDIA's latest cards totally ruining AMD's value proposition at the high-end, the red team has finally decided to drop the prices on a number of its Radeon graphics cards. The high-end R9 290X, for...
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Radeon fans, take note! AMD is going to be hosting a livestream this AM (9 CT, 10 ET) called "30 Years of Graphics and Gaming." Given the headline, you can probably make a guess or two at what is going to be discussed. What we know for certain is that if you've been a PC gamer for a while, a trip down memory lane with a bit of nostalgia awaits. With AMD inviting everyone to tune in, you can also expect that a couple of cool products will be announced, as well. AMD's livestream is going to be hosted by the company's Chief Gaming Scientist, Richard Huddy, and as he has recently rejoined the company, we're sure he's anxiously waiting to tell us what he's been up to, as well as clue us into what's...
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Sometimes, it's just better to build something yourself - even microprocessors. That's something that Russia proved this week as it was announced that the government would be funding a project to build a custom CPU, codenamed Baikal. The deal is worth "dozens of millions" of dollars, and supercomputer designer T-Platforms will be the firm to head-up development. Like every other country on earth, Russia wants to keep its secrets and internal information secret and internal. As such, it feels that it can't trust American-built processors, eg: Those made by Intel and AMD. Given the fact that it's been heavily rumored that the NSA has worked with both of those companies in the past, and also that...
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AMD is banking big on a heterogeneous server future, one where CPUs and GPUs work in unison to offer unparalleled performance. And speaking of parallels, that's just where AMD thinks its APUs can shine. It should come as a surprise to no one at this point that if a process can take advantage of a highly parallel processor, then running it on the GPU is a no-brainer; otherwise, the process can be kept on the CPU. AMD calls this magic HSA, or heterogeneous system architecture. To aide developers for the future of HSA, AMD has been working with a couple of developers to release tools that are going to make the transition to CPU+GPU computing much easier. Project Sumatra, for example, is a joint...
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In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty tough sledding out there in the semiconductor space. Margins are thin, suppliers are demanding, consumers are finicky, and we're living in a world that constantly demands more power for less money. It's a story that's familiar to AMD, which has been in some state of turmoil for years it seems. Ups and downs at AMD are nothing out of the ordinary, but considering that the planet would be quite a boring place with only Intel in the space, we're happy to see AMD's third-quarter earnings. Following Intel's own profitable Q3, AMD is citing a major boom in the semi-custom business as the key proponent for its Q3 net income figure of $48 million. Revenue for...
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You may have heard that AMD is in some way, shape, or form powering each of the three next generation game consoles (Nintendo Wii U, Microsoft Xbox One, and Sony PlayStation 4), but don't you worry, PC gamers, the Sunnyvale chip designer hasn't forgotten about your platform of choice. Far from it, AMD made at splash at Gamescom 2013 in Cologne, Germany, by partnering with several developers to showcase the latest PC titles that fall under its Gaming Evolved program. Need a refresher? "AMD’s Gaming Evolved program represents our deep commitment to PC gamers, PC game developers, and the PC gaming industry to deliver innovative technologies, nurture open industry standards, and to help the...
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We have some good news for PC gamers. AMD's free game promotion with the purchase of select graphics cards from qualifying vendors continues today with the arrival of the "Never Settle Forever" bundle, the third edition of the "Never Settle" franchise of game bundles. It's also the most flexible of the bunch, as gamers can now choose exactly which titles they want to receive. "AMD has numerous close ISV partnerships with the world’s top game developers and we are thrilled to collaborate with them to the benefit of gamers," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. "But the ‘Never Settle Forever’ program is an entirely new dimension...
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You may have noticed that AMD's Radeon HD 7990 graphics card is selling for less money these days. That's because the Sunnyvale chip designer issued a generous price cut to its flagship part, and the end result is that you can get your mitts on what was once a $1,000 card for around $700 or less. Shop around a little and you could save even more. Granted, $700 is hardly cheap, but we're talking about a dual-GPU graphics card that's capable of performing like two Radeon HD 7970 cards when properly scaled (see our full review). Equally important, there's a value proposition at the $700 price point that didn't exist at the $1,000 mark. Officially, AMD knocked $200 off the MSRP. We reached out to...
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AMD expanded its line of low-power G-series APUs with the GX-210JA, a full SoC design for x86-based embedded systems that the company says uses a third less energy than even its own previous embedded G-series chips, with a TDP of just 6W. Further, AMD says that the chip’s “average power” is a mere 3W. Like the recent Intel announcement about a Haswell chip with a 4.5W SDP (which, as we mentioned, is not an apples-to-apples comparison with TDP), the GX-210JA is designed for fanless designs. The AMD chip could find its way into fields ranging from industrial controls to digital gaming to digital signage and thin client computing. AMD G-Series platform block diagram "AMD Embedded...
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AMD has a new beta graphics driver available--the AMD Catalyst 13.6 Beta2 Driver--which features the typical sort of feature list that you’d expect from a driver release, with a notable exception: there’s no support for Windows XP. In the “system requirements” area, AMD lists Windows 8 (32 & 64-bit versions), Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit versions with SP1 or higher), and Windows Vista (32 & 64-bit versions with SP2 or higher). That’s not surprising. Windows XP is a venerable operating system, to be sure, but it’s long overdue for mothballs. Microsoft will stop supporting the OS in April, and the company has been pushing for businesses, who are otherwise...
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AMD is stepping up its efforts on the CPU front by announcing two new FX-series chips, the FX-9590 and FX-9370. The company claims that the FX-9590 is the world’s first commercially available processor clocked at 5GHz (Max Turbo), and the FX-9370 isn’t far behind at 4.7GHz(Max Turbo). Based on the Piledriver architecture, the 8-core processors are unlocked so gamers can push the already-high CPU clock even further. They also feature AMD Turbo Core 3.0, which is designed to optimize performance across all of the CPU’s cores. MAINGEAR SHIFT with AMD's New 5GHz CPU AMD isn’t offering up too many additional details on the FX-9590 and FX-9370, although of course they’re...
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Although AMD said in January that it was diving in strong with Windows 8 and was not interested in making chips for Android devices, senior vice president and general manager of global business units at AMD Lisa Su told PCWorld that the company may shift some of its focus to building chips for Google’s two operating systems and is in fact working with developers on Android apps for AMD processors. "We are very committed to Windows 8; we think it's a great operating system, but we also see a market for Android and Chrome developing as well," she said. Kabini-based AMD A6-Series APU It’s not hard to imagine why AMD would consider making chips for Android and Chrome OS devices. For one...
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