3DMark Vantage seems to be becoming the new "3DMark 06", as the benchmark becomes passable by even the most entry-level DirectX 10 supportive GPUs. Rather Unexpectedly, Futuremark released a new update, v1.1.0, that comes with significant changes. To begin with, there's no more "trial edition". The Basic Edition, which cost $6.95, is now free. Users can now freely put their GPUs through all four of the main tests, view their scores online, and compare their scores with others' on the ORB.

Display scaling is added to improve display compatibility. By default a PhysX processor won't accelerate CPU tests. The Futuremark SystemInfo component is updated to detect the latest hardware, such as CPUs, GPUs, etc. The entire application is recompiled on Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. An expert developer we spoke to doesn't believe it brings about any change. 3DMark Vantage is a comprehensive 3D graphics hardware benchmarking suite that uses DirectX 10 API.

DOWNLOAD: Futuremark 3DMark Vantage 1.1.0

AMD today announced the launch of the fastest graphics card in the world, the AMD Radeon HD 6990, packing so much raw performance it delivered a new single graphics card world record score of P11865 in the industry standard 3DMark11 benchmark. AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics cards are available immediately from retailers worldwide, with select models starting at US $699 MSRP.

Designed for the power gamer, AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics cards include AMD's second-generation, Microsoft DirectX 11-capable architecture, advanced image quality features for the best looking games, and AMD PowerTune intelligent technology to enable higher clock speeds and faster gaming. The AMD Radeon HD 6990 offers the ultimate in immersive HD gaming and computing with native support for up to five displays using AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology, with six display support possible via DisplayPort 1.2 components available for purchase later this year. The AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics cards also feature a dual-BIOS toggle switch, allowing enthusiast gamers to unlock the card and rev up the clocks and voltages for even more performance. Finally, AMD HD3D technology provides a cutting-edge stereoscopic 3D gaming and movie experience, thanks to HDMI 1.4a support.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly introduced the Calibre X570 graphics card , delivering intense cooling performance and the broadest set of features for gamers who demand the best. With the excellent cooling solution from Accelero Xtreme, the Calibre X570 Graphics Card brings ultimate DX11 performance with OC function. This offers opportunities for enthusiasts and anyone intent on more hardcore applications to tap their full, powerful potential. Compared to reference GeForce GTX 570 graphics cards on market, the the Calibre X570 Graphics Card is overclocked out of box, it boosts the core, shader and memory clocks significantly to 772MHz, 1544MHz and 4212MHz, bringing better performance in the latest DX11 games.

In the wake of impending competition from NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti, AMD is busy fine-tuning its performance-segment offer. It is lowering prices of Radeon HD 6950 with the introduction of a new 1 GB variant, and reportedly working on Radeon HD 6870 "Turbo" models. Combined with the two, AMD is also planning a new driver which is out and out focussed on performance enhancements for Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs.

Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix introduces performance improvements specific to Radeon HD 6800 and HD 6900 series, in turn specific to games. One can expect performance improvements of up to 35% with Anti-Aliasing in some games. Catalyst 11.1a is also going to give users full control over the way the driver handles tessellation, allowing users to override applications' tessellation settings (much like AA and AF). In the future, there's also scope for an AMD-optimised tessellation setting that adjusts tessellation detail to give the best details with minimal performance impact.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update

A list of changes follows.

The launch of Futuremark's anticipated DirectX 11 graphics benchmark suite 3DMark 11, has been delayed. The software was earlier slated for release on the 30th of November, with pre-ordering already underway. The company is citing last-minute bugs as a reason for the delay. In a circular to the press, Futuremark said: "Over the weekend we made the difficult decision to postpone the launch of 3DMark 11 by a few days. Our aim is that 3DMark 11 should provide accurate, reliable and consistent results from the start. With that goal in mind we are taking some extra time now to fix a couple of difficult bugs rather than patching the benchmark immediately after launch."

The company does not have a new release date at hand, as it doesn't know how long the last-minute bug-squashing will take. "It might take a day, it might be a week, but either way we'll be in touch again soon to confirm the new launch date...," the circular added. 3DMark 11 is a comprehensive 3D hardware performance benchmark suite that makes use of the DirectX 11 API, making use of the very latest in consumer 3D graphics. It also provides an insight into what level of detail and realism one can expect from this generation of graphics processors.

Futuremark announced today that 3DMark 11, the latest version of the industry standard benchmark for real-time 3D graphics, will be released on November 30. 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition priced at $19.95 can be pre-ordered today from http://www.3dmark.com/. Futuremark has updated the 3DMark website to highlight the exclusive features in the Advanced Edition and has released a new pre-order preview trailer showing graphical improvements in the Deep Sea and High Temple scenes. A selection of new before and after screenshots demonstrate tessellation, volumetric lighting and other effects created with DirectX 11.

The new 3DMark 11 Pre-order Preview trailer shows off a number of improvements from the previously released work-in-progress tech demo videos. The Deep Sea scene now includes particle effects in the water as submersibles explore the sea bed and discover a sunken World War II submarine. In the High Temple scene the foliage is now animated and there are changes in the lighting conditions as the sun sets on the mysterious temple.

Futuremark, the company behind some of the most popular PC performance benchmark applications, which also maintains a score validation and record-keeping system, the ORB, announced that it's working on important changes to its site design as well as the ORB database itself. A side-product (which in disguise is the news of actual importance here), is that Futuremark's next-generation ORB will not support "legacy" benchmark applications from the company, namely 3DMark 2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, PCMark 2002 or PCMark04, thereby marking a complete retirement of those applications.

Back in their day, those applications put hardware through their minutes' joyride through hell, but now their practical application is reduced. Retiring ORB support means that while you can still run the benchmark, you can't submit your score online or validate it. That effectively eliminates these applications from professional-level overclocking competitions.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 260.89 driver suite. The software provides WHQL-signed drivers for all GeForce 6-series onwards, and ION platform GPUs. It also provides 3D Vision software, GPU-integrated audio device driver (version 1.1.9.0), and PhysX system software (version 9.10.0514). As with almost every new release, GeForce 260.89 WHQL packs a host of performance enhancements, official support for new GPUs (it's GeForce GT 430, this time), and a host of bug-fixes. What's different this time around is that the performance enhancements are specific to two GPUs, GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 460. SLI profiles are added for new game titles.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 260.89 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

A detailed list of changes follows.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced six SPARKLE GeForce GT 430 Graphics Cards, bringing unparalleled levels of price/performance to mainstream users. SPARKLE provides two thermal solution options beyond standard fan version of the SPARKLE GeForce GT 430 Graphics Cards.

GeForce GT 430 graphics card with one-slot cooling design to saves the chassis space. It uses the Aluminum Extrusion technology to form the heat sink of the cooler at once, so that the heat sink can transfer the heat with more continuities. The cooler use centrifugal fan structure, to make wind pressure more stronger and more concentrated to get quicker cooling effects.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today unveils two SPARKLE GeForce GTS 450 Graphics Cards, offering a variety of cooling solutions and bringing premium gaming performance and the fun of use to mainstream gamers. SPARKLE introduced two versions of the SPARKLE GeForce GTS 450 Graphics Cards:

Active Cooling Version: This version of the SPARKLE GeForce GTS 450 Graphics Card uses the non-reference cooling fan from SPARKLE, featuring 1 big size PWM fan with 92mm diameter (12mm bigger than the reference one) and directional cooling fins with the directional guidance technology, effectively creating huge of wind for the heat dissipation of GPU / Memory / MOS circuit / capacitors. The non-reference cooling fan use the quiet design to operate extremely silence.It dissipate heat up to 5% more efficiently during gameplay and enable up to 9% quieter operation than the stock fan for GeForce GTS 450 graphics card.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 257.21 WHQL driver suite for GeForce series graphics cards and NVIDIA ION platforms, this is the first WHQL-signed driver in its 256 series of drivers, which archives two main goals as far as driver packaging goes: unifying desktop and mobile GeForce drivers; and unifying GeForce 400 series drivers with that which supports GeForce 6 thru GeForce 300 series into one package (NVIDIA initially had a separate package for GeForce 400 series). GeForce 257.21 also packs a boatload of changes, including a large number of game-specific performance increments, new technologies, updates key extra components, and fixes bugs.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 257.21 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit
A complete list of changes follows.

Futuremark is readying the next generation of its popular 3D graphics benchmark, the 3DMark. The new version will be called 3DMark 11 (probably named after the year 2011 or DirectX 11), and will strive to be every present-generation GPU's worst nightmare (stress test). With NVIDIA's entry into the DirectX 11 generation of graphics following ATI making the new GPUs "current", 3DMark 11 will focus on the GPUs' DirectX 11 capabilities, probably exploiting new texturing and hardware tessellation features.

The benchmark will be able to push present and future GPUs to their maximum capabilities. At least one of its game tests have been known to be called "Undersea Submarine". There is no mention of NVIDIA PhysX, so it's safe to assume that the benchmark will use industry standard features which are available to all DirectX 11 generation GPUs. However, similar to a marketing deal with Sapphire for 3DMark Vantage (where a certain game test showed a futuristic vehicle with Sapphire logo on it), this version will market MSI. What's more, it will be bundled with MSI graphics cards when the software releases. Futuremark will show off its latest creation at this year's Computex event held in early June, in Taiwan. The software will be released some time in Q3, 2010.

More details have surfaced about NVIDIA's upcoming GPU which is on the low-end of the GeForce GTX 400 series, the GTX 465. Chinese website eNet.com.cn published some lesser known specifications about the GPUs, which pieced together with known details more or less completes the picture. The GTX 465 has not four, but five streaming multiprocessors (SMs) disabled from the GF100 core, yielding 352 CUDA cores (against the earlier known number of 384). With a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, the GPU has 32 out of 48 ROPs enabled, and makes use of 1 GB of memory.

Out of the few benchmarks the GTX 465 was put through, it scored 5488 points in the eXtreme preset of 3DMark Vantage, which is roughly 20% less than what a GTX 470 would manage. It is said to have outperformed the ATI Radeon HD 5870 in Far Cry 2, while was slower than Radeon HD 5830 in Crysis Warhead. The GeForce GTX 465 will be launched on the 3rd of June, at the Computex 2010 event.

Apart from being the industry's leading 3D graphics benchmark application, 3DMark has had a long history of 3D graphics hardware manufacturers cheating with their hardware using application-specific optimisations against Futuremark's guidelines to boost 3DMark scores. Often, this is done by drivers detecting the 3DMark executable, and downgrading image quality, so the graphics processor has to handle lesser amount of processing load from the application, and end up with a higher performance score. Time and again, similar application-specific optimisations have tarnished 3DMark's credibility as an industry-wide benchmark.

This time around, it's neither of the two graphics giants in the news for the wrong reasons, it's Intel. Although the company has a wide consumer base of integrated graphics, perhaps the discerning media user / very-casual gamer finds it best to opt for integrated graphics (IGP) solutions from NVIDIA or AMD. Such choices rely upon reviews evaluating the IGPs performance at accelerating video (where it's common knowledge that Intel's IGPs rely heavily on the CPU for smooth video playback, while competing IGPs fare better at hardware-acceleration), synthetic and real-world 3D benchmarks, among other application-specific tests.

The Dutch techsite tweakers.net set a new world record for 3Dmark03. While the old record (180,349) was set using four 4890s the new record uses only three 5870s and a Xeon W3540 clocked at 5231 MHz. The 5870s ran at 1200 MHz with only slightly overclocked memory at 4900 MHz.

A Chinese tech community MyMyPC.com member pictured, and tested a Radeon HD 5750 graphics accelerator, which is intended to be AMD's flagship product in the sub $150 market segment. Unlike the Radeon HD 5770, which is pictured with a different cooler that resembles that of the Radeon HD 4770 (AMD reference), and Radeon HD 3870, this card makes do with a GPU cooler essentially similar to that of the more common Radeon HD 4770 cooler design, except for a few changes with the fan and the cooler shroud. Under the black, egg-shaped shroud is a heatsink with radially-projecting fins, in which is nested a red 80 mm fan. Everything else on the card, relies on its air-flow.

It looks like MSI's beating the drums about military-grade superiority of its N260GTX Lightning over its competitors has finally come to bear some fruit. Renowned enthusiast hipro5 from Greece set a new GPU core clock-speed record for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, with a stress-stable 1100 MHz, with its shader domain clocked at 2205 MHz. Aided with an Intel Core i7 975 XE clocked at 5.57 GHz (HTT disabled, 4 GB DDR3 memory clocked at 2064 MHz DDR), the bench stood Aquamark with scores of 392,063 points (GPU score: 71,955, CPU: 40,070). The score validation can be found here The memory of the graphics card remained at its stock frequency of 999 MHz. The same bench at slightly lower speeds of 1070/2205/999 MHz (core/shader/memory), ran 3DMark03 stable, scoring 73461 points. The stock cooler of the N260GTX however, was excluded from this feat. The HWBot record reveals that the graphics card was cooled using a liquid-nitrogen (LN2) cooler.

AMD's Phenom II TWKR 42 quad-core CPU was made with only one objective: to deliver record-setting CPUs to more professional overclockers than thought was possible. Having rolled out at least 100 units, AMD opened a door for several world-record attempts. Some of the most important ones took place at the SF3D OC Gathering in Finland. The new world record the group of overclockers put up was 7.00 GHz. The record was attempted on a DFI LANParty 790FXB-M3eH7 motherboard, and involved (from what the validation page shows) a bus speed of 250 MHz, and 28.0x bus multiplier. Its voltage remains a secret-sauce.

Other highlights include a run of 3DMark06 with the CPU clocked at 6.54 GHz, on a different bench. 3DMark06 tests the stability of this clock speed, as the test includes the CPU test score. The bench was aided by two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 GPUs in CrossFireX mode. The same bench was used for a run of 3DMark05, with the CPU clocked at 6.67 GHz. This time however, the CPU test was not part of the score.

During the weekend days Futuremark has updated most of its benchmarks, including 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage, PCMark05 and PCMark Vantage. These patches update the system information detection component to the latest version for each of the benchmark products listed. This fixes numerous issues related to hardware detection in the testing tools. The updates are available now as separate small patches and will soon be available as full installer packages, downloadable through Futuremark's mirror sites. Please note, that benchmark scores after installing of these updates won't change at all.

DOWNLOAD

Taiwan-based English tech website OC Heaven has disclosed some performance figures of the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 4890 1 GB graphics accelerator. The tests run are two of the most popular synthetic benchmarks: 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark06. Also disclosed, rather verified, are the card's clock speeds as read by ATI Catalyst Control Center and GPU-Z. The test bed, from what the 3DMark06 window shows, consists of an Intel Core i7 920 CPU running at 2.66 GHz, coupled with 3 GB of system memory. In 3DMark06, the HD 4890 accelerator secured a score of 16,096 points, with SM 2.0 score of 6155, HDR/SM 3.0 score of 7521, and CPU score of 4836. In 3DMark Vantage, it secured a score of P10996. Catalyst Control Center reveals the card's memory bandwidth to be 124.8 GB/s, up from the 111 GB/s on its predecessor, the HD 4870. The early driver in use makes provides "RV790" as the device string to GPU-Z.

Update (03/19):Ukrainian website Overclockers.com.ua has come up with a more comprehensive 3DMark shootout between cards in this segment. Radeon HD 4890 and HD 4890 CrossFireX are part of the comparison. The testers used an Intel Q6600 CPU running on an X48 motherboard with 4 GB of memory. The article can be read (Google-translated to English) here.

In yet another overclocking feat using AMD's Phenom II series processors, Team Finland set a new 3DMark06 world-record score of 35,698 3DMarks. The team consisted of renowned overclockers Petri "SF3D" Korhonen Sampsa Kurri and Sami "macci" Mäkinen. The team used AMD's DDR3-supportive AM3 platform and used high-performance DDR3 memory to demonstrate its overclocking capabilities. The bench consisted of:

• AMD Phenom II X4 6187MHz (4500MHz NB) under Dragon F1EE pot, liquid nitrogen cooling
• ASUS M4A79T Deluxe (790FX chipset)
• Corsair XMS3-2133 2x1GB DDR3-1800 CL7-7-7-1T
• 2x Radeon HD 4870 X2 830/950MHz with stock cooling
• Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W

As NordicHardware notes, for the first time in ages, an AMD-platform topped 3DMark06 Hall of Fame, crossing the previous record holder by 150 3DMarks. Validations of the score can be found here. A video of the feat has been posted on YouTube, and can be viewed here.

ASUS chose last month's CES event to announce its flagship gaming notebook, the W90. Usual high-end specifications aside, the most distinct component used in it is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2, AMD's flagship mobile graphics platform, which is on the brink of snatching the performance crown away from NVIDIA for the platform. A North American sales representative for ASUS tells GPU Café that the W90 will be available from February 23, which perhaps makes it the launch-date for the Mobility HD 4870 X2. It is also noted that the Mobility HD 4670 will be out around the same time, while Mobility HD 4850 will arrive a week or two later.

XtremeSystems forum member Kinc posted some early performance numbers relating to the Mobility HD 4870 X2, featured on the ASUS W90 with an Intel Core 2 Quad T9400, which effortlessly overclocked to 4 GHz on the notebook's stock cooling system. The Mobility HD 4870 X2 carried clock speeds of 600/900 MHz (core/memory). The notebook used Intel's X38 core-logic. At the said parameters, it was put through 3DMark 06. The notebook secured a score of 20,284 3DMarks at default setting. When released, the Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 will replace NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX SLI as the fastest mGPU solution, replicating a similar feat by its desktop cousin.

Intel is planning on a newer flagship desktop CPU to lead the Core i7 Extreme Edition pack: the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition (XE). The model surfaced at an XtremeSystems forum thread where overclockers FUGGER and Mikeguava took a shot at the 3DMark05 world record of 45,474 3DMarks, set by AMD at its presentation of the Phenom II X4 processor running at speeds of around 6.30 GHz. The overclockers used a bench consisting of the new Core i7 975 XE, Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme motherboard, two Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerators in a CrossFireX setup, powered by a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W PSU. The CPU was cooled by a custom-made copper cooling pot. At a clock speed of 5,239 MHz and the graphics cards running at reference speeds, the bench cracked the world record to reach 47,026.

During the course of this feat however, we get to know more about the Core i7 975 XE. The new premium offering by Intel comes with a clock speed of 3.33 GHz. It achieves this frequency using a bus multiplier of 25X. Intel built this chip on the new D0 revision of the Bloomfield core, on which the company also plans to release fresh batches of the Core i7 920. Apart from the unlocked bus multiplier and the broader QuickPath Interconnect bandwidth of 6.4 GT/s, other features remain standard: 4 processing cores supporting 8 threads with HyperThreading enabled, 256 KB of L2 cache per core, 8 MB of shared L3 cache, and a triple-channel DDR3 memory interface.

Futuremark Corporation today announced that its online database of 3DMark and PCMark benchmark results has now topped 30 million records making it the world's largest source of PC system comparison data. Futuremark benchmarks are used by millions of gamers and hardware enthusiasts from all around the world. The ORB, Futuremark's online database of benchmark results, has been collecting scores since March 2001, and currently sees a new result added every 4 seconds on average.
For ten years, 3DMark has been an important part of PC performance testing for consumers, press, OEMs and semiconductor companies allowing architects, designers, gamers and overclockers to explore the limits of hardware and software.

AMD finally seems to have put a realistic assessment of its processors, with its claims of the Phenom II X4 having "massive headroom" with its overclocking potential being validated once again, this time by Team Finland, at a CES overclocking event. Team Finland was able to overclock a Phenom II X4 940 processor at its highest stable clock speed of 6.30 GHz using extreme cooling. Earlier attempts to overclock the chip beyond the 6 GHz mark only yielded in test-beds that were able to POST, boot and display the clock speed using CPU-Z. This attempt however, was a benchmark-stable overclocking feat.

The bench consisted of a Phenom II X4 engineering sample, DFI LANParty Dark 790FXB-M2RS, OCZ DDR2-1066 memory, two Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards in CrossfireX and Windows XP. The CPU cooling employed was liquid helium, which dropped the temperature to -242 degrees Celsius. To achieve a clock speed of 6.30 GHz, the processor's vCore was set at 1.84V, its bus speed at 280 MHz and a multiplier of 22.5 was set. The HyperTransport frequency multiplier was set at 8. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerators were set at 800 MHz (core) and 950 MHz (memory). The machine was put through 3DMark05, where it ended with a world-record score of 45,474.