AMD today announced the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards, the latest additions to the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics line up. These feature-rich graphics cards deliver exceptional gaming and HD multimedia performance at value prices. Both cards are based on the same technology found in the celebrated ATI Radeon HD 4800 series, including support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games and superior HD multimedia capabilities.
Delivering mainstream-class performance at a value price, the ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics card plays demanding game titles previously unplayable by cards in this price segment, and for less than USD $59 for a 512MB memory configuration. An even more incredible value, the ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card is the ideal introduction to the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series, priced for less than USD $39 for a 256 MB memory configuration, giving gamers and multimedia enthusiasts more features than products available from the competition today.
The ATI Radeon HD 4550 and ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards are supported by a dozen add-in-board companies offering custom designs of the products. Partners include ASUS, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, GIGABYTE, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), Jetway, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and VisionTek.
As well as launching its new Fusion marketing campaign, AMD has also used its favourite new name for the Fusion for Gaming utility. This isn’t just another Windows overclocking app, though; the idea behind the utility is that it unclogs all the surplus processes from your PC before you run a game as well.
This application is targeted at the not-so-hardcore gamer who still wants to get the most out of his or her system. The idea is that at the press of a button that sits on your desktop, you could engage a system state that is more gaming friendly.
There are two factors at work here. The first is overclocking via a link between the Fusion for Gaming utility and AMD’s Overdrive software and the Catalyst Control Center, which allows the utility to overclock your CPU and graphics card. The second is that PC gaming performance is often hampered by other background processes and apps that aren’t needed for gaming, such as Skype, and this will automatically be stopped by the Fusion for Gaming utility when you hit the big button on the screen.
AMD showed off the application in a webcast, in which AMD’s desktop gaming strategist, Brent Barry, and the ‘mastermind’ behind the software, Casey Gotcher, demonstrated its features. As a quick demo, the pair used a 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition with various apps loaded. After hitting the big Fusion button (which initiated a dramatic ‘whoosh’ sound), all of the apps disappeared and the CPU clock speed went up to 2.8GHz via a multiplier increase, which was verified in CPU-Z. When the utility was stopped, the clock speed went back down to 2.6GHz and all the apps appeared on screen again.
You may watch the YouTube video here:
Three modes are available, starting with a Basic Mode that just shuts down a few background processes such as power state switching and AMD’s Cool’n’Quiet technology. Next comes the Advanced mode, which goes a step further by shutting down other apps such as web browsers and word processors as well as background processes, although it will stop if any of the shut-down procedures initiate a Save dialogue. As well as this, AMD also says that this mode can initiate hard drive acceleration designed to ‘decrease data seek time’ via the southbridge. This mode will also overclock the CPU and GPU, although only to a set level.
To get complete control over the overclock you’ll need to use the Expert Mode, which lets you select which programs are stopped, as well as the clock speed of your CPU and GPU. Casey Gotcher explained the reasoning for the different modes, saying that the apps’ target audience ‘wouldn’t necessarily be the heatseeker; the ultimate enthusiast who knows how to tweak every aspect of his system.’
The biggest benefit to the average non-enthusiast consumer would probably be shutting down background applications and restarting them. Things like Windows Defender and virus scanners and messaging programs and email programs and all the little random stuff people like to have up and running while they are surfing the web or getting work done. Any one of these programs might not really impact performance, but having a lot going on just increases the chance of stability and performance issues. An easy way not only to shut all this down, but also to bring them all back up, would go a long way in helping average gamers get more out of their system.
The Fusion for Gaming Utility is currently only supported in Windows Vista 32-bit, although 64-bit support is promised for a later date.
Here is The Future is Fusion Web page where we can download stuffs like AMD Fusion animation, whitepaper, screensaver or even desktop wallpaper : http://www.amd.com/us/fusion/Pages/index.aspx
AMD is a company undergoing a major transformation. They are driving to a more competitive cost structure, while introducing innovative new products and platforms. They are taking place as the graphics performance leader, and about to reignite processor portfolio with 45nm technology. Meanwhile, the new executive team is coming together, aligned around a renewed strategy for success built to deliver consistent profitability, based on focus and execution.
AMD is launching an exciting new brand direction: The Future is Fusion.
With immediate effect, AMD Smarter Choice should be replaced with the new corporate logo.
AMD today announced the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series, mainstream graphics offerings that deliver exceptional gaming and HD multimedia performance while consuming less power than a standard light bulb.
Comprising the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and the ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series leverages the leading technology found in the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4800 series, including support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games, superior HD multimedia capabilities and industry leading performance-per-watt3, all delivered at affordable prices for the mainstream graphics segment. The combined features and technologies and incredible prices makes the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series a superb all-around performer, ideal for playing the latest games or driving a high quality home theatre entertainment experience.
The ATI Radeon HD 4670 and ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards feature AMD’s TeraScale graphics engine, with 320 stream processing cores, and are based on AMD’s advanced second generation 55nm process. The result is that even in today’s most demanding games like Crysis, the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series delivers up to double the performance of competing products at the same price. Both the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and ATI Radeon HD 4650 deliver substantial gaming horsepower with minimal power draw – the ATI Radeon HD 4670 operating at under 60 watts and the ATI Radeon HD 4650 operating under 50 watts under full load – eliminating the need for additional power connectors and making installation a cinch.
The ATI Radeon HD 4670 is immediately available with a frame buffer of 512MB GDDR3 memory with an MSRP from USD $79, while a 1GB GDDR3-based variant is scheduled to ship later this month. The ATI Radeon HD 4650 features a frame buffer of 512MB GDDR2 memory and is expected to be available later in the month at an MSRP from USD $69.
Today’s price cut for Phenom X3 processors is the second within two weeks. AMD now has four regular (95 watt) triple-core processors. The X3 8450 runs for $104, the X3 8650 for $119, the X3 8750 for $129 as well as the new X3 8750 Black Edition with overclocking support, which is priced at $134.
Also new are 65 watt Phenom X3 8450e and 8250e processors (Energy Efficient) with undisclosed prices.
The new BIOS fix the SATA settings which sometimes back to default AHCI from IDE and causing BSOD on WindowsXP.
Release Note of BIOS version 3331:
Date : 2008/8/1 QCI Ver.: 0.3331 EC Ver. : 0.024 VGA BIOS: z05M77a2.028 AMD CPU code: (agesa 4.1.0.3) 1. Update new "PMU.bin". 2. Fix the some system "CMOS CHECKSUM" will fail after remove AC/Battery and plug.
AMD has released version 1.14 of their dual core optimizer. This is a must download for gamers! Grab it here.
The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer can help improve some PC gaming video performance by compensating for those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing by directly using the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Applications that rely on RDTSC do not benefit from the logic in the operating system to properly account for the affect of power management mechanisms on the rate at which a processor core's Time Stamp Counter (TSC) is incremented.
The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer helps to correct the resulting video performance effects or other incorrect timing effects that these applications may experience on dual-core processor systems, by periodically adjusting the core time-stamp-counters, so that they are synchronized.
