Long awaited by hardcore gamers and overclockers in every part of the world, the latest generation of graphics processors from NVIDIA is finally here, and ASUS is the first to prepare and release fully-optimized products that build on its many new features to deliver total gaming frills and immersion.

The new graphics cards from ASUS deliver all the benefits of the debuting 40nm NVIDIA GPUs, possessing considerable power improvements compared to their predecessors. They come in two varieties in the initial launch. The flagship ENGTX480 uses the GTX480 core with 480 CUDA cores at 1401 MHz and a 384-bit memory interface. This is a frontline extreme performance board with a 700MHz core clock and 1536MB of 3696MHz GDDR5 memory. It's accompanied by ASUS' powerful mainline ENGTX470, which is a 448 CUDA cores running at 1215 MHz version of the NVIDIA GTX470 chip. It packs a 607MHz core and 1280MB of GDDR5 RAM at 3348MHz with a 320-bit interface.

NVIDIA finally released the graphics cards it made many wait for: the DirectX 11 compliant GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470. The two were unveiled at the PAX East gaming event, in the United States, as publications were allowed to post reviews right away. The two are based on the NVIDIA GF100 GPU, built on the 40 nm process. The higher-end GeForce GTX 480 packs 480 shader units (now referred to by NVIDIA as "CUDA cores"), branched geometry processing along with multiple tessellation units, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface to connect to 1536 MB (1.5 GB) of memory.

The GeForce GTX 470 is the more affordable part, it packs 448 CUDA cores, and a 320-bit GDDR5 memory interface to connect to 1280 MB (1.25 GB) of memory. Both models support new features by NVIDIA, such as CUDA 3.0, faster PhysX acceleration, Stereoscopic 3D, 3D Vision surround multi display technology, as well as support for OpenCL and DirectCompute 5.0. While the GeForce GTX 480 has a suggested retail price of US $499, the GTX 470 is suggested to be priced at $349, although final pricing set by board partners could vary. NVIDIA is initially making tens of thousands of these cards, which should be available worldwide a little after April 12th.

Here's MSI with its GeForce GTX 480 offering, the MSI N480GTX. While it's clear that all GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards, at least initially, will adhere to NVIDIA's reference designs, each manufacturer is throwing in a little something unique. MSI's offering speaks of "Military-class" components, though it's likely that NVIDIA's own choice of components fit MSI's definition of military-class, and the MSI Afterburner software. The software is advertised to work with the card to provide voltage control, advertising up to 15% of performance gains using it. Usual features include DirectX 11 support, support for PhysX, CUDA, 3D Vision Surround, 480 CUDA cores, 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit memory interface, and connectivity which includes two DVI-D and a mini HDMI.

HP today unveiled workstation offerings that include the first small form factor workstation to be available in every region of the world, multicore processor updates to its Z Workstation series and a mobile workstation with DreamColor display technology.

Adding to the award-winning HP Z Workstation series, the HP Z200 SFF Workstation delivers workstation performance and reliability in a sleek, ultracompact and affordable package, and is a great choice for space-constrained environments including the health care, engineering, education, financial and original equipment manufacturer markets.

Leadteak is one of the many NVIDIA partners ready with its offering of GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards, pictured ahead of its launch. As with every other GeForce 400 series SKU in the making, these cards stick to NVIDIA's reference design. The Leadtek GeForce GTX 480 is DirectX 11 compliant, has 480 CUDA cores, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit memory interface, while the GeForce GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 320-bit memory interface. Both are 3-way SLI capable. The two are expected to be launched later this week.

Exactly a week ahead of releasing its GeForce GTX 400 series accelerators, NVIDIA held meetings with the press discussing the company's newest technologies, including GeForce GTX 400 series. Some lesser known details about the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 surfaced, among more known and established ones. To begin with, the GeForce GTX 480 is confirmed to have a CUDA core (shader core) count of 480. The GF100 core operates at 700 MHz, its shader domain at 1401 MHz, and the memory operates at 924 MHz (actual, 1848 MHz DDR, 3700 MHz effective). With a GDDR5 memory bus width of 384-bit, the effective memory bandwidth would be 173.4 GB/s.

The GeForce GTX 470, on the other hand, has 448 CUDA cores, clock speeds of 607 MHz core, 1215 MHz shader domain, and 837 MHz memory (actual, 1674 MHz DDR, 3348 MHz effective). With a GDDR5 memory bus width of 320-bit, the effective memory bandwidth would be 130.7 GB/s. While the GTX 480 has a board power of 295W, the GTX 470 has a board power of 225W. Another piece of information the source reveals is that internal testing by NVIDIA showed that the performance level to expect from the GeForce GTX 470 should be 5-10% higher than that of the ATI Radeon HD 5850. The GeForce GTX 480 should be expected to be just that much faster than the ATI Radeon HD 5870. It is also expected that the target price of the GeForce GTX 480 should be typically US $499, while the GTX 470 should go typically for US $349. Detailed reviews of the two should be up by this time, next week.

In several of its communications about Fermi as a GPGPU product (Next-Gen Tesla series) and GF100 GPU, NVIDIA mentioned the GF100 GPU to have 512 physical CUDA cores (shader units) on die. In the run up to the launch of GeForce 400 series however, it appears as if GeForce GTX 480, the higher-end part in the series will have only 480 of its 512 physical CUDA cores enabled, sources at Add-in Card manufacturers confirmed to Bright Side of News. This means that 15 out of 16 SMs will be enabled. It has a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 1536 MB of memory.

This could be seen as a move to keep the chip's TDP down and help with yields. It's unclear if this is a late change, because if it is, benchmark scores of the product could be different when it's finally reviewed upon launch. The publication believes that while the GeForce GTX 480 targets a price point around $449-499, while the GeForce GTX 470 is expected to be priced $299-$349. The GeForce GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores and a 320-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 1280 MB of memory. In another report by Donanim Haber, the TDP of the GeForce GTX 480 is expected to be 298W, with GeForce GTX 470 at 225W. NVIDIA will unveil the two on the 26th of March.

Czech technology website PCTuning confirmed a few details about NVIDIA's upcoming performance graphics accelerator, the GeForce GTX 470. It was found out that a beta driver by NVIDIA, GeForce 196.78 supports GeForce 400 series accelerators, and was able run a qualification sample of GeForce GTX 470. The card was using A3 revision GF100 silicon. The driver's System Information dialog revealed that the card indeed has 448 CUDA cores (SIMD units). Further, it has 1280 MB of memory, and a 320-bit wide memory interface. NVIDIA also changed the way it represents memory clock speeds. Since it is using GDDR5 memory, while the memory has an actual clock speed of 1000 MHz, the data rate (DDR speed) is represented first, as 2000 MHz, and "effective speed" next, which is 4000 MHz.

Given these speeds, at 1000 MHz GDDR5, the GPU has a memory bandwidth of 160 GB/s. Without compromise on looks and quality, NVIDIA kept the cooler design basic. It has a matte finish. Display outputs include two DVI-D, and one mini HDMI. It supports NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround (a technology competitive to ATI Eyefinity, to span a display head across multiple physical displays), just that NVIDIA requires at least two accelerators in SLI to use it. NVIDIA's GeForce 400 series graphics accelerators will be launched on the 26th of this month.

ASUS has been readying its Republic of Gamers (ROG) Matrix HD 5870 graphics card. Earlier, the card was pictured fully assembled. Sources shared pictures of the card taken apart, showing its PCB and cooling assembly from the inside, which tells us a lot about this card. To begin with, ASUS engineered this card from scratch, with its own PCB and cooler designs, and choice of components. The card comes overclocked out of the box, and also promises overclocking headroom higher than the reference design. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. The PCB reveals a strengthened VRM. There is a 10-phase vGPU and 2-phase vMem, with independent voltage controllers. Power is drawn in from two 8-pin power inputs.

Sapphire is readying a bundle of interesting new graphics products to be unveiled at this year's CeBIT event. Two such products that stand out include a non-reference design Radeon HD 5970 accelerator with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (2 GB per GPU), and the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2 GB. The HD 5970 model is particularly interesting, as its rival in the field, ASUS, will be showing off a similar accelerator called the ROG Ares "dual HD 5870" accelerator. Sapphire however, prefers to call its creation a custom Radeon HD 5970. It is expected to feature custom cooling, increased clock speeds (and probably overclocking headroom), and twice the amount of memory. There is a likelihood that Sapphire designs this along the lines of its high-end "Atomic" series that includes watercooling, and other exclusive features.

The other offering by Sapphire of course is the HD 5870 Eyefinity6. Probably sticking to AMD's reference design, the Eyefinity6 card is optimised for ATI Eyefinity setups with up to six physical displays. The card has six mini DisplayPort connectors, with which it can connect to each of its display heads. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide interface. Using AMD Cypress GPU, it packs 1600 stream processors, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. At the same event, Sapphire will show off several other of its new creations, such as the N450 netbook, Mini Projector 101, and mini-ITX form-factor motherboards supporting socket AM3.

Club 3D B.V. today announced factory overclocked Radeon HD 5800 series. Club 3D's latest offer out of the award winning Radeon HD 5000 graphics cards series, the Radeon HD 5800 Overclocked Edition raises the performance bar into new dimensions.

Prepare to experience a riveting high-definition gaming experience with factory overclocked Club 3D Radeon HD 5800 graphics cards. Expand your visual real estate across up to three displays and get lost in the action with revolutionary ATI Eyefinity Technology. Using ATI Stream technology, accelerate even the most demanding applications and do more than ever with your PC. The first to deliver full support for Microsoft DirectX 11, The Club 3D Radeon HD 5800 graphics cards enables realistic and explosive HD gaming.

Club 3D unveiled a 'custom-designed' graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5850 GPU, being sold as the Overclocked Edition. The design of this accelerator resembles that of PowerColor's PCS+ series HD 5800 series accelerators, pointing back at its source. The card features a custom PCB and cooling solution which makes some smart cost-cutting in return for out of the box higher clock speeds. The GPU and memory are clocked at 760 MHz and 1050 MHz (4200 MHz effective), respectively, against reference speeds of 725/1000 MHz.

The cooling system involves a large heatsink with aluminum fins, to which heat is conveyed by four heat pipes. A centrally-located fan blows air on to it. The Radeon HD 5850 GPU is DirectX 11 compliant, features 1440 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of memory on this card, across a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface. The display connectivity, we presume, resembles that of the reference design, with two DVI-D, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Club 3D is yet to announce its price.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announced a powerful upgrade to the latest DirectX 11 mainstream graphics: the PowerColor PCS+ HD5670. This latest graphics solution features factory overclocking with standard core and memory clocks at 785 MHz and 1000MHz respectively. Gaming performance is boosted by the GDDR5 onboard memory that enhances data transmission rates up to 4.0Gbps.

The PCS+ HD5670 also features an ultra quite 92mm cooling fan which is made of a low-noise impeller, leading to a cool and low-noise working environment measured under 30dB at load. The card takes advantage of power efficient features, consuming less than 75 watts, enabling immersive HD gaming without an external power connection.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, is thrilled to announce the world's fastest GPU with liquid cooling solution: the PowerColor LCS HD5970 2GB GDDR5. Equipped with the award-winning EK cooling solution, LCS HD5970 enables superior gaming experiences, and easily boosts up the potential overclcoking ability in an ultra quite and cool operating environment.

PowerColor LCS HD5970 has a full water block mounted, which fully covers the memory and power regulator chip. With a copper base design, it is reduces temperature up to 30°C compared with the reference version. PowerColor packages a high-flow 3/8" and 1/2" fittings (barbs) to maximize water flow with captured o-rings to prevent leakage. Gamers can effortlessly customize their own liquid cooling system using these two fittings.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to announce their latest GV-R5600 series graphics cards. GIGABYTE's GV-R567OC-1GI and GV-R567D5-512I are built on the highly anticipated ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series GPUs ─which utilizes the latest 627 million transistors on 40nm fabrication process and GDDR5 memory. GIGABYTE GV-R567OC-1GI and GV-R567D5-512I provide Microsoft DirectX 11, ATI Stream technology, ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support, UVD 2 and PowerPlay. GIGABYTE GV-R5600 series are also equipped with GIGABYTE unique features including Ultra Durable 2 technology, and native HDMI port for HD gaming and Blue-ray movie playback.

The GIGABYTE GV-R567OC-1GI and GV-R567D5-512I feature ATI's latest 2nd Generation TeraScale graphics engine, boasting the power of more than 620 GigaFLOPS with 400 stream processors respectively. With 1GB and 512MB GDDR5 memory, the GV-R567OC-1GI and GV-R567D5-512I provide twice the data per pin of GDDR3 memory at the same clock speeds. Utilizing ATI Stream Technology, end-user can easily unleash the massive parallel processing power of GPU for physics, artificial intelligence, stream computing and ray tracing calculations, and tackle demanding tasks like video transcoding with incredible speed.

World renowned manufacturer of graphic card and mainboard, MSI releases R5670-PMD1G graphics card today to fulfill mainstream players' thirst for performance. With ATi RadeonTM HD 5670 standard technical specifications, including DirectX 11 and ATi Eyefinity technology, MSI R5670-PMD1G adopts unique designs, like GPU voltage adjustment, next-generation DisplayPort output and military class components. Hence, MSI R5670-PMD1G can fine-tune its performance and have better extensibility so that it is mainstream players' best choice for high C/P value.

Adopting brand-new 40nm processed ATI Radeon HD5670 GPU, MSI R5670-PMD1G graphics card is equipped with 1GB GDDR5 high speed memories and reach excellent balance between performance and power consumption. Furthermore, through MSI exclusive Afterburner overclocking utility, it can not only adjust the clock of GPU and memory, but also tune the GPU voltage to release the potential performance of graphic card as easy as anything.

Club 3D B.V. today announced HD 5670 availability in stores. Club 3D's newest offer out of the latest HD 5000 graphics cards series, HD 5670 is your start into HD gaming and extends Club 3D's multimedia and gaming graphics cards segment spanning more than 10 years of successful market with ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards.

As Club 3D's start into HD gaming graphics card, the HD 5670 provides amazing performance with ATI Redwood XT graphics processor combined with the latest DirectX 11 gaming technology to dominate with your games. Club 3D HD5670 supports ATI Avivo HD Technology for the best possible video and image quality and ATI Stream Technology to accelerate your applications to fulfill your multimedia demands.

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card, the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of the world's first and only graphics products to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11 gaming and computing, as well as new innovations such as ATI Eyefinity technology. Priced at less than USD $100, the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics card enables a superior HD gaming experience in the latest DirectX 11 titles, employs ATI Stream technology to boost performance in video playback and productivity applications, and helps enable the full Microsoft Windows 7 experience.

HIS released a custom-design graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5770 GPU, part of its generally cost-effective "Fan" series. The HIS HD 5770 Fan 1GB (H577FL1GDG) uses a GPU cooler which uses heat pipes to transfer heat to a circular aluminum fin array surrounding a fan. Unlike with older Fan series models (such as the HD 4850 Fan) which had seemingly skimpy cooling, HIS placed a plastic shroud on top of the cooler. It uses reference AMD clock speeds: 850 MHz (core), 1200 MHz (memory), and sports 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit interface. Connectivity includes one each DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort. It is expected to be priced around $140~$150.

MSI is ready with two new custom-design graphics cards based on the ATI Radeon HD 5800 graphics processors: the R5870 Lightning and R5850 Cyclone. The R5870 Lightning, as expected features a Twin-Frozr II dual-fan VGA cooler designed by MSI on a custom-designed PCB which makes some high-grade components, specifically in the card's VRM area (12-phase PWM, dual 8-pin PCI-E power input), to make it fare better at overclocking. Other notable features include v-check points and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across the GPU's 256-bit wide memory interface. Connectivity cluster resembles that of the AMD reference design, retaining Eyefinity technology support. The R5850 Cyclone, on the other hand, uses the familiar Cyclone GPU cooler MSI used in the past on some Radeon HD 4800 series graphics cards. MSI designed its own PCB here too, but with a few smart cost-cuttings, although the quality of the components used isn't affected. The two will be out in this quarter.

AMD today introduced its lineup of next-generation DirectX 11-capable ATI Mobility Radeon Premium graphics, including ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 graphics, the highest performance graphics for notebooks in the world.1 The entire family of DirectX 11-capable graphics consists of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5700, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5600 and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5400 series graphics. This top-to-bottom family of Direct 11-capable notebook graphics introduces compelling new features including ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, bringing powerful visual gaming and computing innovation to the notebook PC. Notebooks featuring the new graphics technology are previewed at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the VISION Experience Center, located in the Grand Lobby (GL-8 and GL-10) of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"Six months ago AMD claimed the title of undisputed technology leader in desktop graphics, and now we also offer powerful mobile graphics processors for notebooks to go with our market leadership in that segment," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. "Once again, AMD changes the game both in terms of performance and experience. AMD innovations now give notebook users full DirectX 11 support, eye-opening ATI Eyefinity technology, superb HD multimedia capabilities, and ATI Stream technology designed to help optimize Windows 7 notebook performance."

Hynix Semiconductor Inc., today announced the industry's first 2 Gb (Gigabit) GDDR5 called H5GQ2H24MFR-R2C using its leading-edge 40nm class process technology.

The newly developed GDDR5 is the fastest and highest density graphics memory available in the market. It operates at 7 Gbps (Gigabit per second) bandwidth and processes up to 28 GB/s (Gigabytes per second) with a 32-bit I/O. In addition to its fastest speed and highest density, it is also designed to minimize power consumption with 1.35V operation voltage. It is an 'eco-friendly' device which reduces energy consumption by 20% over the preceding memory solutions using 50nm class technology.

Global leading motherboard and graphics card brand-manufacturer, MSI, today unveils R5770-PMD1G graphics card with over voltage function of GPU after introducing hot selling R5770 series graphics cards. MSI R5770-PMD1G adopts 40nm manufacturing process Radeon HD 5770 GPU, 800 units of stream processors, and high speed GDDR5 1GB memory. Also, it supports DirectX11 and ATI Eyefinity three-screen output technology, so that users can enjoy the latest DX11 games and use multi monitors to enlarge the view in games. MSI R5770-PMD1G is bundled with MSI overclocking utility "Afterburner" which supports over voltage function of GPU and tuning the fan speed based on different temperature triggers, becoming one of the most attractive HD 5770 cards in the market.

With the recent spurt of non-reference design Radeon HD 5770 graphics cards, ASUS seems to be ready with its EAH5770 CuCore, where "CuCore" stands for copper (Cu) core, used in the GPU cooler. Speaking of which, the GPU cooler consists of a GPU base which has 5.8 oz (164.5 g) of copper, for better transfer of heat, to the rest of the heatsink which has radially-projecting aluminum fins. The PCB designed by ASUS seems to be slightly longer than the reference AMD PCB, yet it only makes room for one CrossFire connector, meaning its can pair with only one more card of its kind (or up to three more cards with two CrossFire connectors).

The 40 nm Juniper GPU has DirectX 11 compliance, and is powered by 800 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of memory across a 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface. Despite the swanky cooling the card sticks to reference AMD clock speeds of 850/1200 MHz (core/memory), but comes with the ASUS VoltageTweak feature that allows software voltage adjustments. The rear-panel is redesigned too, with one of the slots making for a large vent, with the lower slot holding one each of DVI-D, D-Sub, and HDMI. The ASUS EAH5770 CuCore is expected to be priced under 130 EUR.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, introduced an upgraded addition into the HD5700 series: the PCS+ HD5770. Part of the award-winning PCS series, the PCS+ HD5770 features outstanding factory overclocked ability with core and memory clocks at 875 MHz and 1225MHz respectively and GDDR5 onboard memory. Memory data transmission rates are enhanced up to 4.9Gbps, easily boosting gaming performance.

The PCS+ HD5770 also features an ultra quite 92mm cooling fan which is made of a low-noise impeller, easily dissipating heat from the copper base that fully covers the GPU at lower fan speed and efficiently cools down the temperature up to 10°C compared to that of reference board design. This allows more headroom for overclocking giving gamers maximum performance of their rig.