Lately we’ve been working on expanding our GPU coverage to include more GPUs that aren't directly sold to consumers discretely or as part of a package. Up until now we’ve mostly focused on 4 classes of GPUs: Desktop, Mobile/IGP, High Performance Computing (HPC), and we’ve spent some time dabbling with System on a Chip (SoC) GPUs for smartphones/tablets/netbooks. This range of products mostly covers the different GPUs seen in consumer products and in commercial supercomputing, but there is still a large gap in there for non-consumer business uses. This is the embedded market, and today we’re expanding our GPU coverage to include those GPUs.
Kicking off our coverage of embedded GPUs is AMD’s Radeon E6760, which is launching today. The E6760 is the latest and greatest AMD embedded video card, utilizing the Turks GPU (6600/6700M) from AMD’s value lineup. The E6760 isn’t a product most of us will be buying directly, but if AMD has it their way it’s a product a lot of us will be seeing in action in the years to come in embedded devices.
Two weeks ago we saw the paper launch of the Radeon HD 6450, the low-end member of AMD’s Northern Islands family of GPUs. It was a solid product for HTPC use and a very notable improvement over the 5450 it replaced, but it was an uncharacteristically delayed launch for AMD. At the same time we noted that the Northern Islands family had one more GPU we had not seen: Turks.
As it turns out, Turks-based video cards will be launching alongside the 6450 today, delivering all of the remaining Northern Islands products in a single push. Turks will be powering the Radeon HD 6670 and Radeon HD 6570, replacing the Redwood-based Radeon HD 5670 and Radeon HD 5570 respectively. Considering that we saw AMD deliver a solid update for their low-end lineup with the 6450, will we see the same with Turks and the 6670/6570? Let’s find out.
AMD’s Northern Islands family is composed of four GPUs, roughly divided into two categories. At the top is the 6900 series powered by Cayman, AMD’s first VLIW4 GPU. Below Cayman are three more GPUs, all derived from the VLIW5 Evergreen generation (5000 series). The first of these GPUs was Barts, which is the basis of the 6800 series that launched back in October of 2010. However up until now we haven’t seen the other two mystery GPUs in the retail market. Today that starts to change.
The final two Northern Island GPUs are Caicos and Turks. They have been available in the OEM market for both desktop and mobile products since the beginning of the year, but as is often common with low-end/high-volume GPUs, a retail presence comes last instead of first. AMD is finally giving Caicos its first retail presence today; it will be powering the new Radeon HD 6450. Packing all the upgrades we saw with Barts last year, it will effectively be replacing the Radeon HD 5450. But how well does AMD’s latest stand up in the crowded low-end market? Let’s find out.
The last couple of weeks after the recent GeForce GTX 550 Ti launch have been more eventful than I had initially been expecting. As you may recall the GTX 550 Ti launched at 0, a price tag too high for its sub-6850 performance. I’m not sure in what order things happened – whether it was a price change or a competitive card that came first – but GTX 550 Ti prices have finally come down for some of the cards. The average price of the cheaper cards is now around 0, a more fitting price given the card’s performance.
The timing for this leads into today’s launch. AMD is launching a new card, the Radeon HD 6790, at that same 0 price point. Based on the same Barts GPU that powers the Radeon HD 6800 series, this is AMD’s customary 3rd tier product that we’ve come to expect after the 4830 and 5830. As we’ll see NVIDIA had good reason to drop the price on the GTX 550 if they didn’t already, but at the same time AMD must still deal with the rest of the competition: NVIDIA’s GTX 460 lineup, and of course AMD itself. So just how well does the 6790 stack up in the crowded 0 price segment? Let’s find out.
When Eurocom offered to send us their latest Racer notebook, we were mildly intrigued. Then they upped the ante by giving us the chance to put AMD’s latest and greatest HD 6970M to the test and we jumped at the opportunity. The Racer is the “little brother” of the Clevo P170HM we reviewed a few weeks ago, sporting many similarities all wrapped up in a smaller package. This puppy doesn’t come cheap, but with a matte 1080p LCD sporting a good contrast ratio, awesome performance, and a better build quality than the previous Clevo models we’re quite happy with the result.
So, just what does an HD 6790M do for performance, and how much will it set you back? What else might Eurocom have to offer to sweeten the deal? Eurocom also likes to label their notebooks as mobile workstations, and while the system we have doesn’t necessarily cater to that audience, we’ll have some thoughts on that segment as well. Read on for our full analysis.
The AMD Radeon HD 6990, otherwise known as Antilles, is a card we have been expecting for some time now. In what’s become a normal AMD fashion, when they first introduced the Radeon HD 6800 series back in October, they also provided a rough timeline for the rest of the high-end members of the family. Barts would be followed by Cayman (6950/6970), which would be followed by the dual-GPU Antilles (6990). Ultimately Cayman ended up being delayed some, and as a result so was Antilles.
So while we’ve had to wait longer than we anticipated for Antilles/6990, the wait has finally come to an end. Today AMD is launching their new flagship card, retiring the now venerable 5970 and replacing it with a new dual-GPU monster powered by AMD’s recently introduced VLIW4 design. Manufactured on the same 40nm process as the GPUs in the 5970, AMD has had to go to some interesting lengths to improve performance here. And as we’ll see, it’s going to be a doozy in more ways than one.
December 15th, 2010
admin
In 2009 AMD launched the highly successful Radeon HD 5800 series to great fanfare and even greater shortages. With a 6 month lead on NVIDIA, AMD had the high-end market locked up tight, and in spite of recurring GPU shortages was able to make the best of the situation. Ultimately their one-sided dominance did come to an end with NVIDIA's GTX 400 series launch, but it's not until the past month with the GTX 500 series that NVIDIA gained a clear upper-hand over AMD's long-lived 5800 series.
Hot on the heels of the Radeon HD 6800 series launch and NVIDIA's GTX 500 series launch, AMD is making a truly fresh start in the high-end market. Launching today is the Radeon HD 6900 series, marking the launch of not just AMD's competitor for the GTX 500 series, but also the start of the company's future. With the launch of a new GPU architecture premiering with the Cayman GPU, this is anything but a typical GPU launch.
Last week we had our first (and unfortunately only) 6GB memory kit giveaway. Today I'm happy to announce the winner: khaydin. Check your email 
Today we have two prizes from our good friends at PowerColor. I've got two PowerColor PCS Radeon HD 5770 1GB cards here and I'm giving them both away. I'm giving away one per winner, so we'll crown two winners this time around.
Read on for entry details!
With the recent rise in the number of triple-slot cards, we have a few different cards in-house that we’re going to be looking at over the next few weeks. But to kick things off, we decided to start small, looking at an interesting product from PowerColor that takes an interesting direction with the triple-slot concept.
The PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ Vortex Edition is a factory overclocked Radeon HD 5770 with a unique feature: an adjustable height fan. By default the fan sits flush against the heatsink of this double-slot card, but with a twist of the fan it can be raised roughly 9mm. PowerColor says that doing can improve the cooling beyond what a pure double-slot card can achieve by reducing backflow, and today we set to find out if that's the case.
SCURRILOUS RUMOURS that Apple was going to shift back to Nvidia’s graphics chips appear to have come to nothing and Jobs’ Mob will be using AMD’s ATI Radeon graphics in its next Macs.
According to AMD, Apple will use ATI Radeons for its next lines of Apple Imac and Mac Pro tower PCs.
The high-performance AMD ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card features 1GB of GDDR5 memory. It seems that AMD pitched the chips as being good for motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering or animation. The ATI graphics technology will come as standard. There will be an upgrade for Mac fanbois to an ATI Radeon HD 5870 card if they want more power.
HD 5750 graphics will be available in the new 27-inch Imac. HD 5650 graphics will be available in the new 22-inch and 27-inch Imacs. HD 4670 graphics will also be available in the new 22-inch Imac.
Apple and the Green Goblin were best mates until last year when Nvidia started sending out chips that were broken, in a debacle that we called “bumpgate”. That fiasco cost Apple lots of money as it committed to offering unprecedented free replacements for three years if the Nvidia graphics chip went bad.
But these days Apple just offers users a free rubber band if something doesn’t work. µ
