Water cooling is where it’s at, currently. Any gamer will tell you that keeping your PC cool is critical for making sure you computer runs smoothly and effectively. The issue is, it’s a pain in the butt to set up. It looks like Cool IT intends to help us with that problem. → Read More
Not content to sit back and let Intel have all the ultra low voltage fun, AMD’s low voltage Congo platform is apparently due in the coming weeks – late October or early November, according to DigiTimes. → Read More
Some day, I too will have three identical monitors for gaming purposes. It’ll have to be in my game cave once I retire as an eccentric millionaire, though. Don’t have room for it here. That’s probably a good thing, though, since I also don’t have the money required, and besides that there are still a few quirks to be worked out. Not to mention the fact that the best games are barely playable on… → Read More
Do you remember the days when video cards were only as large as your hand? I personally remember installing a TNT2 — and at the time, I thought that was big. Now you’ve got dual-GPU monsters like the just-leaked 5870 X2 coming out which, in addition to taking up two PCI-e slots and requiring a secondary power source, are nearly a full foot long. Not that you’d be buying one unless you’re… → Read More
The more my games stutter and the more my HD content skips frames, the more I think about that wonderful day when I shall put together a beautiful new system with all new hardware. The trouble is that Intel’s got the processor thing locked down and AMD has the lead on graphics. I don’t really want to mix and match, but the pull of the Radeons might prove to be too strong. That new 5800… → Read More
AMD just revealed a processor for their “Mainstream Desktop Platform” that will be going for less than a bill. There are cheap processors out there already, but this is a full-featured, quad-core 45nm part, not some cut-rate piece of garbage. Sure, the Athlon II X4 620 isn’t going to set any speed records, but it’s part of the excellent AMD ecosystem. Paired with a similarly low-cost video card… → Read More
Those of you who run multiple monitors know the freedom it gives as well as the pain of configuration. While I’ve arrived at a sort of compromise with NView in how my desktops work, I wouldn’t say it was particularly easy (and sometimes the backgrounds freak out). AMD’s new DirectX 11 cards are shipping with a tool called Eyefinity, which allows multiple monitor setups to be handled natively as… → Read More
I know, you like posts with pictures in them. Well, too bad! AMD’s new ultrathin platform isn’t quite ready for its close-up yet. If you remember last year, they introduced the dv2 with HP as the first entry in their ultrathin platform, and I liked pretty much everything but the trackpad and the fact that it came with Vista.
The new ultrathins are going to be better, faster, stronger… and more… → Read More
AMD is sort of becoming the Mac of PC hardware. That is to say, they perform well, but in the end want it to be about a final user experience, not a piecemeal selection of parts and capabilities. In this spirit of simplicity, they’re shifting the bulk of their merchandising over from Turion and X4 and all that to three labels under the brand name “Vision.”
It reminds me of when they simplified… → Read More
While I was sliding down bannisters and having -160° alcohol poured on my hands, the AMD camera crew and the overclockers we were all there to see were putting together an honest-to-god documentation of the event.
I forgot to post it a few weeks ago when it came out, so it’s not exactly breaking news, but if you’re interested in how these guys did their incredible overclocks using exotic cooling… → Read More
AMD CEO Dirk Meyer recently revealed that his “company is currently developing a platform that features lower-power, smaller-sizes, more complete functionality, and a cheaper price than Intel’s Atom for netbooks,” according to DigiTimes. Sounds great. The fact that AMD owns ATI should make for an awesome mish-mash of processors and graphics. So let’s start rolling these things out, eh?
Whoops… → Read More
Don’t count AMD as being out. In response to the ever growing netbook/small laptop market, AMD has announced their new CPU “Congo”, along with putting it into the updated HP Dv2 which is coming out on June 10th. We liked the original Dv2 — however, adding a little more grunt to it with the improved AMD processor can only be a good thing. → Read More
Last week AMD invited CrunchGear down to Austin to check out an overclocking event they were holding, at which many, many liters of liquid nitrogen and the much colder liquid helium would be consumed by thirsty processors.
They asked us, however, not to video the entire event, since they’d have their official video coming out shortly and some of the technology being used was still in development. → Read More
<img src="http://old.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/header.jpg" class="center" I'm eating lunch in the conference here in AMD's Lone Star campus while they're getting their custom cooling setup down to -250°F. Yes, -250°F, 120 degrees above absolute zero. Then they’re going to go for a couple world records while pouring liquid Helium… → Read More
AMD launched the Break Free Page: a collection of articles and quotes ramming about Intel’s bad behavior. I understand that Intel was a bad boy and revenge is sweet but making a website about it seems a little cheap. Maybe the time and effort put in slapping Intel should go to making processors. → Read More
The European Commission today announced that it has fined Intel a record €1.06 billion ($1.45 billion) for abusing its dominance in the market for computer chips to exclude its biggest (and frankly, the only serious) rival AMD by paying computer manufacturers Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and NEC as well as retailers to postpone, cancel or downright avoid using or selling the latter’s… → Read More
We recently reported of Advanced Micro Devices’s (AMD) uphill battle to challenge rival Intel’s dominance in the micro-processor market. According to the technology market research firm IDC, AMD could be catching up to Intel sooner than everyone thought. The IDC released a report today that indicated that AMD may be gaining ground in the fight to surpass Intel. In the first quarter of… → Read More
AMD gained 4.6 percent of the CPU market this past quarter, making it the first time in five quarters that AMD’s made up some ground against Intel. It’s now got 22.3 percent to Intel’s 77.3 percent, according to analysts at IDC. → Read More
The Phenom II X4 has been shown to be an excellent overclocker, and recently the world record was set by a group called Limit Team, who took the 3.2GHz stock processor and took it up to an insane 7127Hz. That’s an increase of just over 221%. Of course, while with good ventilation you could probably overclock yours a good 10-15% with no ill effects, this particular hack required “exotic cooling… → Read More
Please join me in a celebration of one of the hardware world’s biggest movers on their 40th birthday. The last few years have been pretty rough on AMD, but they’re still rocking out and competing convincingly with their arch-rivals, Intel and NVIDIA. To celebrate their middle-age debut, they’re doing a couple contests, so if you want to win a new processor or video card, step… → Read More
What’s the matter with AMD? The number two chip maker in the whole world just posted some numbers that don’t reflect too kindly on its performance over the last few months. The big, bad Sunnyvale, Calif.-based corp lost $416 million last quarter; about $195 million of that was related to a corporate spinoff (see: GlobalFoundries). When put into scary percentages, AMD’s sales fell off 21 percent. → Read More
For whatever reason this week’s launch of the beta version of AMD’s Fusion Media Explorer, the company’s first forray in the social media hub / browser space, isn’t being met with a mountain of buzz. For a 40-year old giant of a tech company that’s mostly known for its micro-processors and related technologies, that’s quite surprising, especially because the product actually appears to be quite… → Read More
The eternal quandary for system builders has been much less quandarious (to coin a term) for the last year or so. Intel processor, AMD video card — anything else would be uncivilized. AMD’s 48xx series has been the only choice for a while, but the latest products from AMD and NVIDIA are a little less starkly separated.
For around $250 (the mid-high sweet spot), the 4890 and GTX 275 are … → Read More
As much as we like the giant-killing 4870 graphics cards from AMD, they have been around for quite a while now. It’s past time when more needs to be done than tape two together and call it “X2.” Luckily, they’ve had the successor to the 4870 in the pipe for a while now, and someone’s just gotten their dirty hands on one. → Read More
If you didn’t already have enough reasons to buy a Radeon 4870 in one of its many forms, well, here’s another one. AMD’s been trying to push sales of its graphics cards, hoping to lower inventory and get a little dough, maybe to offset the enormous loss they posted this last quarter.
Their strategy was to lower the 512MB 4850 to ~$120, and its big brother the giant-killer 4870 to an incredible… → Read More
SATA 3.0 is about to bring the goods – and fast. Seagate and AMD partnered together to demo just what the hopeful revision will be capable of with a prototype Barracuda drive and AMD chipset. If Seagate gets its way. – you see, not all manufacturers are signed on just yet including Western Digital – SATA 3.0 will be a full 200% faster than the current generation while still being backwards… → Read More
It wasn’t so very long ago that the 4870 was the king of the hill. They offer it all the way up to 2GB right now, but 512MB should suit anybody shopping in the mid range. And $150 (with the $15 mail-in rebate) is an absolutely excellent price for this card. If I weren’t completely broke right now, I’d buy one myself. Maybe one of you guys could buy two and I’ll pay you back… → Read More
Video card technology seems to compete with CPU technology, both of them continuing to obey Moore’s law, and becoming faster and faster with each iteration. Many manufacturers have also taken to increasing the amount of memory on their existing cards to make them run better. Most the time, this results in at least noticeably better performance, as we’ve seen. → Read More
Currently, if you want a netbook, you’re going to get an Intel atom chipset. This is just understood. They are fast, have low heat and power consumption, and are the defacto standard. But AMD is looking to get in on some of that action, and they could be a serious threat to Intel. → Read More
AMD enthusiasts should mark February 9th as a red-letter day. Five new processors have been unleashed by the ailing but effective CPU company, and they look like a serious value. If you’re looking to upgrade your box right now, these new processors are pretty much the only reasonable option.
Plus, you can upgrade now with your DDR2 setup, and then move to a new DDR3 setup in six months and keep… → Read More
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