BIOSTAR, maker of embedded/IPC solutions, graphics cards, and motherboards, has introduced their latest motherboard that supports AMD's FM2 APU family (Trinity / Richland), the Hi-Fi A85W 3D. It comes with BIOSTAR's own in-house audio technology called "Hi-Fi 3D".

The Hi-Fi A85W 3D is an ATX form factor board that features AMD socket FM2 APU support and 4 DDR3 memory slots. It includes the usual high-end motherboard features like USB 3.0, HDMI and PCI-E slots. Additional utilities from BIOSTAR including: Watch Dog, BIO-Relife, BIO-Flasher, e-Hotline, BIO-Watch, T-Overclocker, GPU (Green power uitlity), and Smart Speed LAN.

With Microsoft readying a Release Preview of its upcoming Windows 8.1 operating system; AMD jumped in with a specialized Catalyst driver. Windows 8.1 features an upgraded display driver model, WDDM 1.3, which lets users take advantage of a few new features. GPUs based on AMD's Graphics CoreNext architecture will be supported by Windows 8.1 over WDDM 1.3, while older VLIW4 and VLIW5-based GPUs (Radeon HD 6000 series and older), will be supported over older WDDM 1.2 based drivers.

Windows 8.1 brings some enhancements to PC graphics, with support for Microsoft's own standardized wireless display technology; 48 Hz dynamic refresh rates for video playback, V-sync interrupt optimization, video conferencing acceleration, and a new instruction to the DirectX 11.1 API, named "tiled resources." Like the operating system itself, AMD's Windows 8.1 Preview Catalyst driver is a beta, and its use comes with no warranties. Microsoft expects to launch Windows 8.1 later this year, reportedly available as a free upgrade for current Windows 8 users.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst Windows 8.1 Preview Driver

Lists of AMD GPUs supported by WDDM 1.3 and WDDM 1.2 follow.

AMD Super Pi History To Be Rewritten, Courtesy Of The Stilt

AMD's typically underwhelming Super PI performance, that was usually attributed to architectural limitations when it comes to the X87 instruction set, appears to have been nothing more than a blunder on the part of the developers responsible with BIOS development and optimization for AMD platforms. Finnish overclocker, The Stilt, figured out how to considerably improve performance by going through the BIOS developers guides. The exact same guides available to the BIOS R&D teams of motherboard vendors, a surprising fact considering a single man managed to outdo an entire industry. Here is the download link to the patch: click

The Stilt posted a video in which he showed a 4.1GHz A10-6800K completing SuperPI in 17 minutes and 34 seconds. The fastest 5GHz Richland SuperPI 32M is around 18 minutes and 15 seconds. A lot faster! For more information, check out the thread in the HWBot forums.

TechPowerUp released GPU-Z 0.7.2, the latest version of the popular graphics hardware information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility that enthusiasts and overclockers can't leave home without. Version 0.7.2 adds support for new GPUs, notably NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 760, and the new Radeon HD 8970M; improves support for Intel HD 4xxx series graphics embedded into Core "Haswell" processors, and a few more user-interface feature additions.

To begin with, GPU-Z 0.7.2 adds support for NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 760, GeForce GT 740M (based on the new GK208 silicon), Tesla K10 compute accelerator; AMD's Radeon HD 8970M, HD 8490, and HD 7400D. Detection and information of Core "Haswell" integrated GPUs, are improved. A new AMD Radeon logo was added, and will show up for AMD-branded Radeon GPUs. Tooltip translations were added for Greek, French (improved), and thanks to our friends at Clube do Hardware, Brazilian Portuguese. A rare crash during DirectCompute detection, is fixed.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.7.2, GPU-Z 0.7.2 ASUS ROG-themed

The change-log follows.

After a successful collaboration with AMD over the past two years to leverage open standards to drive amazing quality, scalability, and performance for our customers - Adobe has just released Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Now users can get the production releases of these flagship products which have been optimized to the massive compute power of AMD APUs, AMD Radeon HD graphics and AMD FirePro professional graphics to enable GPU-accelerated performance across a broad range of form factors through the OpenGL and OpenCL open standards. As highlighted in recent blogs, these optimizations are significant because, not only do they result in faster final render times, but more importantly, they enable users to apply effects and preview their edits in real-time, enabling greater productivity. This is great news for end-users everywhere, who now have unprecedented choice in using the hardware that best suits their needs. AMD-based systems coupled with Adobe's shift to the affordable and innovative Adobe Creative Cloud model for managing licenses and software updates can now put these latest Adobe creative tools in the hands of more users than ever.

The information was sourced and publicized by the VideoCardz.com crew on Tuesday, confirming some previous leaks and refuting others. The new GeForce GTX 760 employs the same reference design NVIDIA used for its previous generation cards (GTX 670, GTX 660 Ti, GTX 660 and GTX 650 Ti) and is designed to replace the GTX 660 Ti in NVIDIA's current lineup. The card employs a cut down version of the GK 104 GPU, with 1152 CUDA Cores, 96 TMUs and 32 ROPs. With a base clock of 980 Mhz and a boost value of 53 MHz, for a maximum out of the box frequency of 1033 MHz, the new card supports GPU Boost 2.0 which is a temperature controlled feature (the cooler the chip the higher the clocks). Stock memory size will be 2 GB and reference memory clocks were set at 1502 MHz, for a slightly over 6 Ghz effective speed. A 256-bit wide memory bus is employed to offer 192 GB/s of memory bandwidth at stock clocks. TDP is set at 170W for the new card, requiring two 6-pin PCIe connectors

Also relevant to the topic is another piece of information unveiled along with the above mentioned specifications, the fact that the GeForce GTX 760 will complete NVIDIA's portfolio for the coming months. NVIDIA presumably awaiting AMD's move before launching any more GeForce products of its own. AMD, in turn, being expected to bring out the Radeon HD 8000 Sea Islands cards in September.

ECS Reveals Its First AMD Kabini Motherboard - KBN-I

Elitegroup Computer Systems reveals its latest Mini-ITX motherboard family KBN-I featuring the world 1st Quad Core SoC (system-on-a-chip) processor with the newest "Jaguar" 28 nanometer architecture. The ECS KBN-I integrated AMD Quad Core A6-5200 APU with AMD Radeon HD 8400 Graphics, supporting new generation DirectX 11.1 graphics. The ECS KBN-I with official Windows 8 WHCK certification (Windows Hardware Certification Kit) allows users to take full advantage of the touch browser and function-oriented design of Windows 8. The KBN-I is optimized for home entertainment, general computing productivity, and multimedia applications.

All Frostbite 3 Titles Will Be Optimized For AMD Only (Updated)

According to a report from IGN, EA and AMD have entered an agreement which sees the latter benefiting from exclusive rights to optimization for games based on EA's Frostbite 3 engine. Titles like Battlefield 4, Need for Speed Rivals and Mirror's Edge 2 are subject to this rumored accord between AMD and EA, but also many other current and future EA titles. Of course, this will not completely remove NVIDIA from the Frostbite 3 table, they will simply be absent from it until the actual launch takes place, meaning that pre-launch testing and driver optimization can only be done by AMD, leaving NVIDIA at a clear disadvantage.

While still an unconfirmed rumor, AMD refused to deny it in a reply to Ryan Shrout's query regarding the story. AMD's reply below.
"It makes sense that game developers would focus on AMD hardware with AMD hardware being the backbone of the next console generation. At this time, though, our relationship with EA is exclusively focused on Battlefield 4 and its hardware optimizations for AMD CPUs, GPUs and APUs."

AMD today publicly disclosed its strategy and roadmap to recapture market share in enterprise and data center servers by unveiling innovative products that address key technologies and meet the requirements of the fastest-growing data center and cloud computing workloads.

Additionally, AMD revealed details of its 2014 server portfolio including best-in-class Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), two- and four-socket CPUs, and details on what it expects to be the industry's premier ARM server processor. This is on the heels of announcing the general availability of the AMD Opteron X-Series processor, code named "Kyoto," which dominates the small-core server market on every performance benchmark. These forthcoming AMD Opteron processors bring important innovations to the rapidly changing compute market, including integrated CPU and GPU compute (APU); high core-count ARM servers for high-density compute in the data center; and substantial improvements in compute per-watt per-dollar and total cost of ownership.

On Friday, we published and commented on The Tech Report's FX-9000 insight and findings from their interview with an unnamed AMD official, among which was the undecided or improbable retail availability of the new processors. Today, the exact same two processors which made the object of AMD's Friday disclosure are available for pre-order from online retailers such as PCSuperStore, and while speculation on the causes or reasons of the apparent misinformation might be expected and could even be interesting, I will spare you the usual AMD bash and just point out the prices of these two new AMD processors, $ 960 for the FX-9590 and $ 576 for the FX-9370, vexing, to be blunt. Unless we're dealing with circumstantial speculation by a retailer (not unheard of), these prices would put the two new CPUs in direct competition with Intel's Core i7 Extreme processors, very unlikely targets for AMD's Vishera chips. We'll know soon enough, with retail availability imminent, it shouldn't be long before benchmark scores and charts start surfacing.

AMD's new A10-6800K "Richland" APU is turning out to be quite the chip for competitive overclocking. Finnish overclocker "The Stilt" cracked the 8.00 GHz mark with the chip. Skills aside, "The Stilt" relied on liquid-nitrogen cooling that kept the chip at -185°C, a core voltage of 1.992V, a base clock of 126.99 MHz (~127 MHz), and 63.0x BClk multiplier. All four cores were enabled during the feat. Other key components of the bench include an ASUS F2A85-V Pro motherboard, and 2x 4 GB dual-channel memory of an unknown make, running at 1692 MHz (DDR) Find details and validation links here.

AMD unveiled the first batch of Athlon X4 CPUs in the socket FM2 package, based on its latest Richland silicon. These chips stop short of being labeled APUs, for they lack integrated graphics. You need a discrete graphics card. Unlike its previous generation "Trinity" silicon-based Athlon X4 CPUs, AMD unveiled a few parts with high clock speeds, some even with unlocked base-clock multipliers, targeting consumers who want to build socket FM2-based gaming PCs, but don't intend to use the integrated graphics.

At the top of the stack is the Athlon X4 760K Black Edition (AD760KWOHLBOX). This chip offers 3.80 GHz of clock speed, and 4.10 GHz maximum Turbo Core frequency. Despite its lack of the graphics core, its TDP is rated on par with the A10-6800K, at 100W. In its consumer-friendly PIB (processor-in-box) package, the X4-760K Black Edition is priced around US $135. A variant of this exact chip, which lacks unlocked BClk multiplier, is named just Athlon X4 760K (the "K" here can be misleading), and is priced around $100. AMD has other quad-core and dual-core Athlon parts based on the "Richland" silicon planned for later.

With its focus on on-demand entertainment at the expense of gaming prowess, Xbox One didn't impress gamers at E3, who instead flocked to Amazon to pre-order their PlayStation 4, which not only features faster hardware, that could translate to better visuals in gaming, but is also a whole 20 percent cheaper ($499 vs. $399). At E3, Microsoft tried to pull a fast one. It set up several gaming stations allegedly powered by Xbox One, where gamers could play unreleased Xbox One games using the new Xbox One controller, just to get a feel of how rich and smooth the graphics really are. Some of them fell for it, others didn't. When these peeping toms didn't find the screens wired to an Xbox One main unit, they yanked open the cupboards below, only to find a full-fledged Windows 7 gaming PC.

How full-fledged you ask? Keen observers across the forumscape made out a rig powered by an Intel LGA2011 processor, which could at least be a Core i7-3820, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700 series reference design graphics card, which could at least be a GeForce GTX 770. Such a system would obviously give you a rich and smooth gaming experience.

It appears that the recently announced FX-9590 and FX-9370 processors will be available through system integrators only, with no plans for retail at this time. In a discussion with the folks at The Tech Report, an unnamed AMD source was quoted saying the two new processors will be "available from system integrators globally beginning this summer," while adding that "AMD is considering all options" when asked about retail. During the same discussion the rumored "~220W" TDP was confirmed, which could hint to the reason why these chips might not see retail, requiring advanced cooling solutions, expensive and difficult to integrate into a typical retail package. The discussion also revealed the base clocks of both chips, in the FX-9370's case it being 4.4 Ghz while the FX-9590 boasting a base clock of 4.7 Ghz, in both cases Turbo Boost upping the clocks by 300 Mhz, to 4.7 Ghz and 5 Ghz, respectively.

AMD today announced exclusive collaboration with Square Enix to optimize "THIEF" for the Graphics Core Next architecture in select AMD Radeon graphics processors, as well as the x86 and graphics architectures featured in AMD A-Series APUs. Developed in conjunction with the AMD Gaming Evolved program, "THIEF" will extensively leverage the advanced capabilities of AMD Radeon graphics processors, including AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology for panoramic gaming, AMD CrossFire multi-GPU technology for supreme performance, and state-of-the-art DirectX 11 rendering for pristine image quality.

"The 'THIEF' franchise has a storied history that we are proud to join in this latest installment," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. "We are even more pleased to work so closely with their development team to realize the vision for these games with the incredible gaming performance of a PC powered by AMD Radeon graphics. And as the exclusive hardware partner for 'THIEF,' we continue to demonstrate that the best experience for gamers and developers lives at AMD with the Gaming Evolved program."

AMD today unveiled its most powerful member of the legendary AMD FX family of CPUs, the world's first commercially available 5 GHz CPU processor, the AMD FX-9590. These 8-core CPUs deliver new levels of gaming and multimedia performance for desktop enthusiasts. AMD FX-9000 Series CPUs will be available initially in PCs through system integrators.

"At E3 this week, AMD demonstrated why it is at the core of gaming," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Products Division at AMD. "The new FX 5 GHz processor is an emphatic performance statement to the most demanding gamers seeking ultra-high resolution experiences including AMD Eyefinity technology. This is another proud innovation for AMD in delivering the world's first commercially available 5 GHz processor."

It was only a matter of time after AMD's launch of the more energy-efficient Radeon HD 7990 "Malta" graphics card, that Sapphire would design a liquid-cooled Atomic variant. The card is based on a custom-design 12-layer PCB, ships with factory-overclocked speeds, and uses a high-grade VRM with 12-phase vGPU, 4-phase VDDCI, and 2-phase MVDD, which draw power from three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The card is cooled by a full-coverage water-block, and features an aluminum back-plate to cool memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB. The card features 6 GB of total memory, 3 GB per GPU.

On the demo system, the full-coverage block was seen connected to a conventional-looking liquid-cooling loop, and not something closed-loop/AIO. Coolant tubes from the card run to a conventional-looking reservoir, a 240 x 120 mm radiator, and a pump that occupies a 5.25-inch drive bay, and features a pressure gauge. We're not sure if the Sapphire Atomic-branded FB blocks for the CPU and chipset are part of the package, but Sapphire has, in the past, given CPU blocks with its Atomic-branded cards. This is one card to watch out for.

While Sapphire's LGA1150 motherboard lineup came across as a little lukewarm, the company more than made up for that with its fleet of motherboards that take advantage of AMD's newest A-series and E-series APUs and SoCs. First, there's the PGS A320M, a micro-ATX motherboard that ships with a FirePro A320 socket FM2 APU pre-installed. Largely identical to an A10-5800K, and based on the "Trinity" micro-architecture, the A320 features FirePro-branded professional graphics that's certified for most modern 3D productivity applications, and can give display output at resolutions as high as 4096 x 2160. The board features one each of DisplayPort 1.2, dual-link DVI-I, and D-Sub display outputs. Other features include eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four USB 3.0, gigabit Ethernet (Broadcom controller), and 8-channel HD audio.

Things get interesting with a contraption called IPC-FS1r2A75. This board comes in a proprietary IPC form-factor, features an FS1 rev 2.0 socket, which seats R-series APUs, an embedded AMD Radeon E6000 series GPU based on the Graphics CoreNext arhitecture, with its own dedicated GDDR5 memory on-package, and AMD A75 FCH chipset. The board offers six mini-DisplayPort and four HDMI outputs, two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, an open-ended PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot, four mPCIe slots (in stacks of two), five SATA 6 Gb/s ports, six USB 3.0 ports, two gigabit Ethernet connections, and 6-channel audio.

AMD today announced its 2013 Elite A-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) for desktops, codenamed "Richland", which delivers a superior PC solution with increased computational performance, discrete-level graphics and an easy upgrade infrastructure. At COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2013, AMD showcased the complete breadth of its 2013 APU portfolio with the launch of the new Elite A-Series APU for desktops which power a diverse range of OEM systems and feature new generations of software and applications that harness the unrivaled compute power of the 2013 AMD APU product lineup: the fastest AMD APUs ever.

"The new AMD A-Series APU is ideal for desktop PC builders and mainstream gamers wanting outstanding performance for their money, and today AMD delivers an excellent new follow-on to the recently announced mobile lineup," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Products Division at AMD. "The combination of high-performance, third-generation desktop APUs with our existing portfolio of low-power, mobile APUs gives us our strongest-ever lineup of products for our customers and our technology partners."

ECS unveiled one of the very few mini-ITX motherboards to ship with an AMD "Kabini" A6-5200. The chip integrates both the APU and FCH, making it a true system-on-chip (SoC). It packs four x86-64 "Jaguar" CPU cores, a Radeon HD 8400 series GPU with 128 stream processors, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller, and a modern FCH chipset. On the KBN-I, the 28 nm chip is cooled by a small fan-heatsink. The PCB area gained by the single-chip solution is used to create two mPCIe expansion slots, in addition to the PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The board draws power from just a 24-pin ATX connector. Connectivity include two SATA 6 Gb/s ports, 6-channel HD audio, D-Sub and HDMI display outputs, four USB 3.0 ports, and a gigabit Ethernet connection.

Graphics card maker Triplex, which is more prevalent in the Greater China region, unveiled a new single-slot Radeon HD 7850 2GB graphics card that relies on the PCI-Express slot entirely, for power. It lacks any kind of power input. The card is based on an alternate (more expensive to implement) reference design by AMD, which has been sporadically implemented by other AMD partners. An example is this card by AFOX. Unlike AFOX' card, Triplex' lacks power connectors. The card comes with reference clock speeds of 860 MHz core, and 4.80 GHz memory. It packs 1024 stream processors, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. Sadly, even for buyers in this part of the world, Triplex' card will be sold only in the OEM channel.

Mid-April, we learned that AMD was working on its next "TWKR" chip for overclockers, based on the existing "Vishera" silicon. It turns out it is, and scrapes 5.00 GHz frequency at some unreal TDP levels for a client processor. SweClockers reports that AMD is working on at least two new socket AM3+ FX-series processors to make it competitive against Intel's 4th generation Core series. Among these are the FX-9000, and the FX-8770. The FX-9000 leads the pack with 4.80 GHz out of the box clock speed, and a TurboCore frequency of 5.00 GHz. Clock speeds of the FX-8770, on the other hand, haven't been disclosed. A catch here is the TDP of these chips. Two hundred and twenty Watts! The jump from 3.80 GHz to 4.80 nearly doubled TDP from 125W to 220W. Prices of the two remain under the wraps. AMD plans to unveil the two at E3, sometime between 11th and 13th June.

At Computex, GIGABYTE showed off the first AMD platform motherboard in its coveted G1.Killer series, which targets gamers and overclockers, the G1.Sniper A85X. The board is based on AMD A85X FCH chipset, and comes with out-of-the-box support for AMD A-series "Richland" APUs, including the AMD A10-6800K quad-core APU, with the fastest integrated graphics in market. Built in the narrow ATX form-factor, the G1.Sniper A85X draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, and uses a 6-phase VRM to condition it for the APU.

The FM2 socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, which support up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-3000 MHz memory; and a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot. In addition, the board offers a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to the FCH), three PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and two legacy PCI. The board shines in connectivity, where it offers eight SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports, a combination of DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI display outputs, Creative Sound Core3D audio with user-replaceable OPAMP and audio-grade capacitors, four USB 3.0 ports, and gigabit Ethernet. The board is driven by AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS, backed by GIGABYTE Dual-UEFI redundancy, and the new BIOS interface that made its debut with GIGABYTE's socket LGA1150 motherboards.

The HSA Foundation has released Version 0.95 of its Programmer's Reference Manual. The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium dedicated to developing architecture specifications that unlock the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern devices. This is the first output from the HSA Foundation, who have been collaborating on this project since its founding in June 2012. It represents an important step in the development of the HSA Foundation's ecosystem because it enables software partners to develop libraries, tools and middleware and to code high performance kernels.

The Programmer's Reference Manual provides a standardized method of accessing all available computing resources in HSA-compliant systems. This enables a wide range of system resources to cooperate on parallelizable tasks. It has been specifically designed to perform in the most energy efficient way without compromising on performance. The goal is to enable a heterogeneous architecture that is easy to program, opens up new and rich user experiences and improves performance and quality of service, whilst reducing energy consumption.

AMD today unveiled a new family of low power server processors: the AMD Opteron X-Series optimized for scale-out server architectures. The first AMD Opteron X-Series processors, formerly known as "Kyoto," are the highest density, most power-efficient small core x86 processors ever built. The new X1150 and X2150 processors beat the top performing Intel Atom processor on key performance benchmarks, including single thread and throughput performance with superior power-efficiency, twice the cores and L2 cache with a more advanced pipeline architecture, higher integration and support for up to 32 gigabytes of DRAM -- 4x more than the Intel Atom processor.

The AMD Opteron X-Series processors come in two variants. The AMD Opteron X2150, which consumes as little as 11 watts, is the first server APU system-on-a-chip integrating CPU and GPU engines with a high-speed bus on a single die. This enables customers to take advantage of leading-edge AMD Radeon HD 8000 graphics technology for multimedia-oriented server workloads. The AMD Opteron X1150, which consumes as little as 9 watts, is a CPU-only version optimized for general scale-out workloads.