Conceived to be a successor to the RV770 graphics processor, the RV790 emerged out of various media-leaks as the next big thing for ATI, in its never-ending pursuit for market leadership. Information on this mysterious new GPU has been trickling in at leisure, and it has been shaping up to be a current-generation GPU built using newer manufacturing technologies that could make it cheaper to produce. What we do know about RV790XT based engineering samples so far, is that they carry faster memory chips that are rated to operate a higher frequencies, 1 GHz to be precise, but specified by AMD to run at 975 MHz.

Fresh details sourced by Hardware-Infos from internal sources point out to the possibility of AMD stepping up the core clock speeds by as much as 100 MHz, taking it to 850 MHz. The ramp in clock speeds however, come at the expense of increasing core voltage to 1.3 Volts. There have been several reports speculating the core voltage so far, on of which points at 1.23V for 750 MHz. Another grey-area for now is the RV790's shader domain, with a certain level of ambiguity surrounding stream processor count. All of this leads us to believe that AMD hasn't finalized the specifications of RV790 and could be racking its brains on this one. AMD is expected to make critical announcements on its new GPUs in March and might choose the CeBIT event as the ideal platform.

AMD is on course of releasing the industry's first GPU built on the 40nm silicon process: the RV740. Its specifications make it a cheap yet powerful GPU for the segment it is about to cater to. With the earliest pointers hinting at 640 stream processors and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The GPU also marks the industry's first mainstream implementation of the GDDR5 standard.

Fresh details emerging out of the inspection of the driver information files of ATI Catalyst version 9.1, as German website ATI Forum finds out, hints at the possibility of the RV740 being implemented in two SKUs: the Radeon HD 4730 and Radeon HD 4750. While in the driver file, the device string lists with "RV630", it can be seen throughout the file that several strings are assigned to the same RV630, and is merely a means to identifying a whole class or generation of graphics processors to the driver. Additionally, the string bears the device ID of the RV670, again, that's not relevant. The strings are what matter. The RV740 is not very far away from large scale production. It should become a reality by the upcoming CeBIT event, in March. From the view of being a mere postulation, RV740 being the GPU that goes into making the new SKUs, does end up sounding plausible. When released, these cards are intended to further strengthen AMD's market position in the sub-US $150 market.

January 8 saw NVIDIA reclaim the performance crown from arch-rival AMD/ATI with the introduction of its dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 graphics accelerator. The company used two of its 55nm G200 graphics cores is building this accelerator. Maintaining a dual-slot construction with its reference design, the card provides a fair bit of overclocking on its stock cooler. EVGA and Zotac, two of NVIDIA's largest add-in card partners, are reportedly planning water-cooled versions of this accelerator.

It is not clear at this point if the accelerators come in the form of merely cards with factory-fitted water-blocks, or if they come equipped with dedicated water-cooling loops. The two manufacturers will take advantage of the superior cooling system to provide high, non-reference clock-speeds to the cards' GPUs and memory. The new SKUs are likely to surface at the upcoming CeBIT event held in Hannover, Germany.

Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium memory module and flash memory solutions, today announced it will be showcasing its award-winning products at CeBIT, which will be held in Hannover, Germany March 3-8, 2009. CeBIT attendees can expect to see Patriot's full line of DRAM and flash memory solutions.

"Europe was our second largest market in the world in 2008 and continues to show incredible growth potential," says Johnny Van Esch, General Manager for Patriot Memory, B.V. "CeBIT gives us the opportunity to meet with new and existing customers and to showcase our newest products for 2009 and beyond."

NVIDIA snatched the performance crown from ATI with the introduction of the GeForce GTX 295 accelerator, and its launch itinerary for CES 2009 includes the GeForce 285, NVIDIA's second fastest graphics accelerator. NVIDIA's campaign to regain the performance crown was spearheaded by the G200b graphics processor, that, while not offering anything new, helped cut manufacturing costs and reduced the thermal envelope of the GPU, making conditions favourable for a dual-GPU accelerator, the GeForce GTX 295.

AMD on the other hand, has announced price-cuts to respond to the GeForce GTX 295, by lowering the prices of its Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerator. The G200b is likely to get a competitor from AMD by March, when the company is looking to release the industry's first GPU built on the 40nm manufacturing process, the RV740. But wait, there seems to be something larger on the cards, according to the various sources Hardware-Infos got in touch with. AMD is planning the RV790 graphics processor. It will be a current-generation GPU built on the next generation 40nm manufacturing technology. There is a lot of speculation surrounding the RV790's specifications, with some of the more plausible ones hinting it has two additional SIMD clusters (960 SPs) and a total 48 texture memory units (TMUs). Both the RV740 and RV790 are slated for March, there's also a little indication of AMD using the occasion of CeBIT for its announcements and product launches.

The huge numbers of visitors present at ASUS' booth during CeBIT 2008 were treated to a dazzling display of innovative technology that included the ever-popular Eee PC, the ASUS-Lamborghini PDA handphone, and the exclusive EPU energy saving technology in the motherboard range. In addition to these new product lineups, ASUS has also included new concept products at this year's CeBIT 2008 exhibition. A leading company in the new digital era, ASUS has brought forth a new concept line that focuses on alternative material design aimed at helping save the earth. ASUS is committed to green computing, and this new lineup of concept products serves to keep users in touch with the future of environmentally friendly technology.

Some guy at the 3DCenter Forums posted an interesting picture that shows a set of rules how Add-In-Board (AIB) partners should handle R600 systems at this' years CeBIT.

...AIB Partners are not allowed to have pictures or videos taken of the R600 board or the Ruby demo...

As we all know TUL (PowerColor) didn't really stick to these rules and Ruby couldn't be kept in her icy solitary confinement either.
That shows once more: Rules are there to be broken.

Introduction | Girls | 3RSystem | A-DATA | A+ Cases | Aerocool | Akasa | Albatron | Antec | ASUS | Biostar | Cool IT Systems | Cooler Master | Corsair | ECS Elitegroup | In Win | EVGA & Innovatek | Forsa | Gigabyte | Hiper | Lian Li | OCZ Technology | Origen AE | Point of View | Razer | Sapphire | Sharkoon | Soundgraph | Sparkle | Thermaltake | Xigmatek | Zalman | Zotac

Corsair, known for making quite good RAM among other things, is apparently really getting serious about the power supply business. Most power supplies on the market today are anywhere between 50 and 85% efficient, with the vast majority of power supplies being between 75 and 85% efficient under load. Corsair had a brilliant power supply at their CeBIT booth, which had an impressive 90% load efficiency. This allowed it to power an AMD QuadFX system with G80 SLI, 4GB of PC2-8000 DDR2 RAM, and a 150GB hard drive with a 620W power supply (most people at the show expected an 850W-1kW PSU to be required). To be honest, Corsair has actually had this power supply on the market for a while, and probably couldn't wait for CeBIT to make it available. You can get this extremely efficient power supply here (oh look it's on sale).

At CeBIT, Sparkle showed several unique self-designed cards, apart from the well known Calibre P880+ GeForce 8800 GTX cooled by TEC active cooler system from MACS Technology. VR-Zone has pictures of a very interesting graphics card, the self-designed Sparkle GeForce 8800 GTS without any additional power connectors? VR-Zone informs us that Sparkle will have their own self-designed G84 and G86 cards with better cooling solutions which will increase overclockability of the cards by 10-15%. There is also another interesting technology created by Sparkle where a small PCB is inserted into the graphics card with POST LEDs and a reset button. It allows voltages adjustment and temperature management through software. This concept will be available for upcoming Sparkle DX10 cards.

In yet another story from CeBIT, it turns out that someone forgot to file their paperwork. Or their copyrights, or their patents....you get the idea. At least one booth owner has been ordered to take down their booth, due to infringing on various copyright laws. Local German authorities are working hard to make sure that nobody else joins the list of companies with booths taken down. They take a look at all the products at CeBIT, then go through the tedious process of making sure all the paperwork checks out, and then goes to visit the booth if there are any questions.

It turns out that AMD has been producing Barcelona wafers for a while now. We thought you'd be very interested in the pictures that The Inquirer got for everyone that couldn't catch a plane to CeBIT in Germany.

SiS, announced today that it will unveil the most advanced chipsets supporting Windows Vista at CeBIT 2007. The SiS672FX series, SiS671FX series, and SiS771 series chipsets are SiS special innovations. They are designed for optimum compatibility with Windows Vista, and support mobile PCs and desktop PCs platforms. For Intel platform, SiS presents SiS672FX, SiS672, SiSM672MX, SiS671FX, SiS671, SiS671DX, and SiSM671MX chipsets; for AMD platform, SiS unveils the SiS771 chipset.

The card is not even near any stores and there are plenty of companies showcasing the proper water cooler for it. Yes, I am talking about the R600 that you won't even see at the CeBIT. But the good news is if you decided to buy a G80 based card recently - there is even more cooling gear out for that one. Thanks go out to the ComputerBase which came up with the pictures.Thermaltake G80 and R600
Massive Arctic Cooling R600/G80 Prototype
ASUS AquaTank
Zalman G80 GTX/GTS Solutions

Update: PC Games Hardware have some more details of the AC Prototype.

The VR-Zone keeps me quite busy with their new picture stories. Following links to different manufacturer galleries:10: Scythe Mini Ninja & Kama Cross
09: Stardom Storage Solutions Lineup
08: Coolermaster New Cases, PSUs, Coolers
07: Meizu Music Card Insight
06: Sapphire Quad Crossfire Demo
05: Enermax eSATA Case & Detachable Fan Blades
04: OCZ Demo Uses Brain Waves To Play Games
03: OCZ Rally 2 Firewire Flash Drives
02: EVGA Displays nForce 680i LT SLI Board
01: MSI 8600 GT & 8500 GT Cards w/ HDMI

Update: The guys from the HardwareZone have their Day 1 Coverage online.

Hexus.net doesn't rely on their video-reporting only, the have many picture stories on their website as well:01: Antec unveils P182 chassis - made of shiny polished steel!
02: GeCube's Gemini 2 - two GPUs on a single PCB, and quad DVI
03: SiS672FX IGP the optimum value solution for Vista Premium?
04: EVGA's nForce 680i SLI Special Edition we were talking about that over here.
05: MSI's now spilling the beans on GeForce 8500!
06: Mystery XFX mainboard spotted take a look at the XFX booth babes too.
07: Antec reveals the P190 and it's a monster!

If you haven't already check out the other CeBIT Pics and Vids we mentioned earlier.

Never before there was so much video footage around the web like today. Hexus.tv stands out against casual everyday- and joke-content websites like YouTube for their great hardware flicks and interview video coverage. Of course Hexus.tv is at the CeBIT, Nick and James report on-site the fare and show you what's hot and what's not.
A very hilarious thing happened during shooting the 'PreBIT' part. Fast-forward to 05:10 min and watch a 3-stage phase change cascade cooler killing the electricity of the entire ABIT booth.

In their second part, they call it HEXUS CeBIT Sofa - Day 1, Nick and James are sitting on a sofa - sorry, on two sofas - and talk about new hard- and software around the exhibition.

Update: The third sofas-part just emerged. Get some popcorn and a beer, sit back and relax: HEXUS CeBIT Sofa - Day 2.

Those of you at the event will know that CeBIT, for the third time, hosts the World Cyber Games gaming tournament, which starts today. More than 250 best gamers from 30 Nations are there. Gamers can compete in games like Counter-Strike, WarCraft III (The Frozen Throne), FIFA 2007, Dead or Alive 4 (XBOX) and others. The finale is scheduled for Sunday.

Samsung, the main sponsor of the event, will hand over 100 000 Euro to the best player!

Stay tuned for more.

During the ongoing CeBIT show in Hannover, Samsung Electronics is introducing a 30-inch LCD monitor that incorporates an LED as the backlight source. Featuring a 123% color production, 3000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 2ms response time and viewing angle of 170 degrees, this monitor has the perfect specs. The SyncMaster XL30 will come equipped with "Eyeone Design & Eyeone Photo" and "Natural Color Expert" software. Various input terminals such as USB terminal, DVI-D are available and the 30-inch monitor also features HDCP for viewing high-definition (HD) contents via DVI ports. At the show, Samsung is also launching the 19-inch SyncMaster 940UX LCD monitor we told you about earlier this year, that can be connected using only an USB port.

The same procedure as every year, journalists sneak around and get as many pictures as the battery level of the digicam allows. I find these quite entertaining, after watching the picture show I can easily pretend I have been there too...
The first in the row is the famous VR-Zone which happen to have two parts out already. Click here for the second one!

Update I:
Planet3DNow comes next with their gallery. You will find their coverage of last year's CeBIT over there as well.VR-Zone CeBIT Coverage Part I and Part II; Planet3DNow gallery

Fudzilla reports that ASUS will have a wide variety of products to show at CeBIT.

First off, there will be notebooks:The VX2 notebook from the Lamborghini line will be available for viewing. The W5Fe will make an appearance, as as the world's first SideShow notebook.

Also from the notebook department, there is the ultra-portable U1F, weighing in at less than 1kg:Next, two monitors will be presented:The LS201 20 inch LCD monitor that provides slim elegance. The display has a jewel-class glass for both aesthetical and protective reasons, so it won't be scratched ever again. It has a contrast ratio of 2000:1. The other one is more interesting, of course because it supports HDCP function with DVI input. It is a 22 inch wide-screen with a 16:10 screen ratio, and it has a fast 2ms Response Time.

For overclocking gadgets and a watercooled GeForce 8800, click below.

The world's biggest computer exhibition, the CeBIT, starts today! It takes place at the Messe district in Hannover (Germany) with thousands of exhibitors from around the globe. Pricing will be quite high, look at the chart below, but there will be a lot special forums and interesting events to be worth it.

The CeBIT hasn't even started but news websites around the world won't get tired posting about things you will actually see there. This time the Heise Newsticker reports about the world's biggest LCD-TV made by Sharp. 108 inch (2,74 meters) is what you have to beat nowadays and to set you back right away, there is no price tag on it which doesn't mean it's for free.
If you still want to connect your game console to a big display I would advise you to look at the more affordable HD1E- and XL1E Series. You can choose between 52" and 46" and all four devices have a native solution of 1920x1080. The HD1E screens come with four tuners (DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-T, analog) whereas the XL1Es only support DVB-T and analog TV.

Elitegroup Computer Systems, Inc. (ECS), will reveal their newest Intel Bearlake-based motherboards at CeBIT 2007. The new P35T-A, G33T-M and Q35T-M motherboards feature the next generation chipsets and will be continued by the current P965, G965 and Q965 Broadwater-based motherboards, offering across-the-board performance benefits. All these new motherboard chipsets are validated to perform flawlessly with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Quad processors. The P35T-A is designed for gaming and performance users and provides PCI Express X16 slots (X16, X4) with dual graphics solutions. The ECS G33T-M and its integrated graphics core is designed for the digital home, and the Q35T-M brings more functionality to enterprise and office users. The Barelake based motherboards support 45nm-process microarchitecture CPUs, 1333 MHz FSB, DDR3 memory and work with Intel's new ICH9 Southbridge I/O chip. More information and pictures will be available after CeBIT 2007 starts.

A couple of weeks ago EVGA brought it's watercooled Black Pearl Edition to the market. It's GPU cooler comes from Innovatek and is called Cool-Matic G80 GTS/GTX depending on the card you choose. The cooperation between EVGA and the engineers from Innovatek is quite fruitful as the latest product bundle shows. EVGA is offering it's nForce 680i mainboard coupled with four watercoolers and you can get the aforementioned two watercooled G80 cards of course. The CPU cooler is the G-Flow the other three (2x Chipset and one for the MOSFETs) will be announced at the CeBIT. The whole cooling bundle will be available from Innovatek as well shortly after the convention according to their officials.

Thermaltake is set to launch new V1 stylish cooler designed for enthusiasts at this year's CeBIT, starting 15 March 2007. Build with all copper construction and 4 long length heatpipes of total 936mm in length, it provides most efficient heat conductivity and heat transfer for the latest Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad LGA775 and AMD socket AM2 processors. The cooler is equipped with silent and powerfull 110mm LED VR fan. Manually controlled (1300-2000rpm) by the VR Control, it is nearly noisless with only 16dBA at minimum fan speed. The Thermaltake V1 cooler weights 637g.