HIS extended its IceQ series with the release of a feature-packed Radeon X700 Pro card. The X700Pro IceQ TURBO includes iTURBO overclocking technology, a blue led fan and a UV sensitive case. The card has eight pixel pipelines, 128-bit memory bus and is clocked at 425 MHz. It packs 256 MB of GDDR3 memory at 864 MHz and comes with VGA, HDTV-Out, DVI and VIVO connectors.
ATI introduced new mobile PCI Express chips to the low-end and high-end market segments. The Mobility X300, with four pixel pipelines and 128-bit interface, is targeted at cheaper systems. The Mobility X800 is a version of the most advanced Radeon architecture and offers features such as 12 pixel pipelines, GDDR3 memory, 256-bit interface, 3Dc image enhancement technology and HD VideoShader. Both chips features PowerPlay 5.0 power management capabilities. The first notebooks sporting the Mobility X300 and X800 should appear in December.
Futuremark released a patch to the 3DMark03 providing the new valid version (3.5.0) of the benchmark suite. Only scores obtained through this version and with approved drivers will be used in official statistics, comparisons and services provided by the company. Among the novelties, are an updated System Info module with support for the latest CPU and graphics hardware; updated version of the Entech library, which is used to detect the clock frequency of the graphics chip core and memory; and the usual corrections for reported bugs. The 5.2 MB patch can be dowloaded for free.
Sparkle released its first GeForce 6600 GT VGA card with AGP 8x interface. The SP-AG43GDH has eight pixel pipelines, runs at 500 MHz and includes 128 MB GDDR3 memory at 900 MHz with 128-bit interface. The card comes with VGA, DVI and (HD)TV-Out connectors.
Tul announced a PowerColor card based on the Radeon X700 XT VPU with the new Silent Cooling System, a high performance fanless cooler using heatpipe technology with gold-plated copper tube. The SCS X700XT has eight pixel pipelines, 128-bit memory bus and is clocked at 475 MHz. It is available with up to 256 MB GDDR3 memory at 1,050 MHz. The PCI Express card comes with VGA, TV-Out, Dual-DVI and VIVO connectors.
ATI has just released the latest version (4.11) of its Catalyst driver. According to the company, this is a minor update, containing bug fixes and improvements such as a new monitor tab for each display device. The suite updates both the ATI Display Driver (8.071) and the Catalyst Control Center (4.11). The latter is recommended only for Radeon 9500 or higher cards.
Nvidia unveiled this week its first mobile graphics chip based on GeForce 6 series architecture. The GeForce Go 6800 is a PCI Express GPU for desktop replacement notebooks featuring 12 pixel pipelines, 5 vertex pipelines and 256-bit memory interface. Nvidia plans to ship different versions clocked at from 275 MHz to 450 MHz with memory frequencies ranging from 400 MHz to 600 MHz. Additional features include a video decoding acceleration technology called PureVideo and power consumption management tool PowerMizer 5.0.
ABIT has also announced a Radeon X700 XT card as part of its Fatal1ty hardware series. The PCI Express card has eight pixel pipelines, 128-bit memory bus and is clocked at 475 MHz. It uses 256 MB of GDDR3 memory (1.6 ns) running at 1050 MHz. Special features include copper heatsink, copper RAMsinks and OC Strips. The card comes with VGA, DVI and TV-out connectors.
The graphic cards maker Tul has alerted its customers about the existence of forged PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro graphics cards, found in market earlier this month. Apparently, some cards are being sold as PowerColor Radeon 9600, but use Radeon 9550 graphic chips instead. Tul added that is has already announced the discontinuation of the PowerColor RADEON 9600 PRO 128 MB available in 400/600MHz in June. The company sent out warnings to its partners and posted an announcement on its website.
Gigabyte has just announced its Radeon X700 Pro solutions. Available in two models, GV-RX70P256V and GV-RX70P128D, the Radeon X700 Pro chip runs at 425 MHz with 256 MB or 128 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 860 MHz, 128-bit memory bus and eight pixel pipelines. The 256 MB version from Gigabyte also comes with VIVO (video capture) function. Both models are PCI Express x16.
