AMD Radeon 6990 - The Dual GPU, 4GB GDDR5 Pixel-Punching Beast

The Dual GPU, 4GB GDDR5 Pixel-Punching Beast is pretty much the official name. I think.

The reference card (pictured above by 4Gamer.net) has been shown off by AMD (ATI) at the Asia Pacific tech event. The 6990 4GB will fill the slot of 6xxx answer to AMD's older dual-GPU card; the 5970 2GB.

It will likely be based on the 6970's GPU, of the Cayman architecture, giving it a total of 3,072 stream processors. It could, however have slightly less and be based on the 6950 - a move I don't think AMD would pull unless they intend to have two dual-GPU cards occupying the top spot (perhaps a dual-6950 based 6980?).

Round back, we can see four mini DisplayPort outputs, along with a single DVI slot. That's no Eyefinity 6 - but then MSI, Asus, Evga, XFX etc. love to handle that themselves. Of course, some crazy folk will chain a couple of these bad-enough-as-it-is boys up in CrossFireX.

Here's awaiting more info.

Nvidia launches GTX 560 Ti

You know what day it is today?

Yup, that's right, 25th Jan - scheduled launch date for the 5xx series update to Nvidia's fantastic GTX 460.

Well it's happened. The GTX 560 Ti is here. The 460 was a very capable GPU (still is), very overclockable, and getting inredibly cheap now too.

So can the 560 live up to the hype? Read on to find out.

Motorola Atrix - The Beast Phone

I thought the Asus Transformer tablet was my favourite CES announcement. I also thought that I would buy one. All has changed.

Introducing:

The aesthetic of Motorola phones isn't for everyone - and the Atrix certainly isn't one of their best.

However, that should be quickly gotten past, because this phone, really is a beast. There will no doubt be more and more talk as it approaches launch, and when it does, it may well be bigger than the Evo.

And for good reason, this phone is packing so much more in "tech specs" than a mobile device, let alone a phone, has any right to pack.

With functionality rare in desktops, laptops and certainly other mobiles, this phone looks set to bridge the smartphone and secondary device - tablet, netbook, or even laptop replacing.

What makes this phone truly netbook/laptop replacing, is the "Atrix Laptop Dock". A thin and lightweight 'laptop', essentially an aluminium chasis with display and chiclet keyboard, docks the Atrix, which then switches to WebTop - more on that and HD Multimedia Dock, as well as the Vehicle Dock, past the Read More link.

Head past the "Read More" for the full specification break down, along with the accessories which make this new Android smartphone pretty damn innovative.

nVidia to launch Quad Core Tegra 3

nVidia have announced the Tegra 2 replacement - Tegra 3. The chip is to contain four physical cores, and as before, high standards of graphics processing too.

This comes right after many products were launched or announced at CES in Vegas, using the soon-to-be old hat, Tegra 2 processor.

Nvidia entering desktop CPU market

At CES this year, nVidia announced their "Project Denver" plans to move in to the desktop and server CPU business.

They already have the Tegra line of mobile device CPU/GPUs - but in this latest stunt, nVidia will be launching Cortex-A15 based CPUs for the desktop market, with their ARM license.


This plays nicely in time with Microsoft's CES announcement to extend Windows compatibility into ARM architectures.


The A15 will be combined with a GeForce GPU to directly take on Intel's GMA enabled processors (H series chipsets), and AMD's "APU".