AMD Blogs

AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series Graphics (OEM)

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:39:28 +0000

BRAINS

Leave no performance behind with the intelligent AMD PowerTune technology, or consume virtually no power at all with AMD ZeroCore Power.¹Maximize efficiency and conserve power, seamlessly.

BEAUTY

Experience certifiably spectacular HD, from streaming video to 3D Blu-ray, and enjoy a “theater quality” experience with your favorite content. AMD App Acceleration is your supercharger for everyday applications, including an accelerated Windows 8 experience.²

BRAWN

Experience the latest DirectX® 11.1 graphics features with the award-winning Graphics Core Next architecture, delivering fierce performance and revolutionary intelligence. Or get a beautifully panoramic gaming experience with AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology.^3,4

ELIGIBLE PRODUCTS

Buy a qualifying desktop PC with an AMD Radeon™ HD 8900, HD 8800, HD 8700 Series, HD 8670 or HD 8570 graphicscard and Get BioShock® Infinite and MuseMage™ photo-editing software FREE*.

HP ENVY Phoenix h9

AMD Radeon™ HD 8760 Graphics
Intel Core i7-3770 Processor
10GB DDR3-1600 RAM
2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Windows 8

LEARN MORE

ACER Aspire AMC605

AMD Radeon™ HD 8570 Graphics
Intel Pentium Dual Core G645 Processor
2GB DDR3 Memory
Various hard drive capacities
Windows 8

LEARN MORE

HP ENVY h8

AMD Radeon™ HD 8760/8570 Graphics
AMD FX-6120 six-core processor
6GB DDR3-1600MHz SDRAM
1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Windows 8

LEARN MORE WHERE TO BUY - Media Markt

ACER Predator G3

AMD Radeon™ HD 8670 Graphics
Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Processor
Up to 16GB DDR3 Memory
Up to 9TB Storage
Windows 8

LEARN MORE WHERE TO BUY

Paradigit
Krefel
MSH
Coolblue

LEARN MORE ABOUT AMD RADEON^TM HD 8000 SERIES GRAPHICS

*Get Key Codes for free downloads of BioShock® Infinite and MuseMage™ photo editing software when you buy a qualifying desktop system with an AMD Radeon™ HD 8900 Series, AMD Radeon™ HD 8800 Series, AMD Radeon™ HD 8700 Series, AMD Radeon™ HD 8670 or AMD Radeon™ HD 8570 Graphics Card. Limited time offer expires August 31, 2013 or when supply of Key Codes is exhausted, whichever occurs first. Key Codes must be used by September 30, 2013, after which the Key Codes are void. LIMIT: One (1) free Game Key Code per game, one (1) free Application Key Code per application (2 total Key Codes) per person. Internet connection required. Internet connection fees may apply. You must be 17+ to redeem this offer. Offer is subject to geographical limitations. See www.amd.com/bioshockmusemageoffer for complete details. Anticipated release date for game is as follows: BioShock Infinite – March, 26 2013. Game release may be delayed for reasons that are out of the control of AMD. Websites, Game and Application may not be provided in your local language. Confirm with your retailer eligibility of desktop system, availability of Key Codes, and method of obtaining Unique Coupon Code from your retailer before purchase. Void in any jurisdiction where prohibited.

© 2013 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Microsoft, Windows and DirectX are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Images for Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. © 2002-2013 Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Developed by Irrational Games. BioShock, BioShock Infinite, Irrational Games, 2K Games and their respective logos are trademarks of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Images for Square Enix Ltd. Tomb Raider © Square Enix Ltd. 2013. Square Enix and the Square Enix logo are registered trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics, and the Crystal Dynamics logo are trademarks of Square Enix Ltd. The rating icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association.

1 AMD PowerPlay™, AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power are technologies offered by certain AMD Radeon™ products, which are designed to intelligently manage GPU power consumption in response to certain GPU load conditions. Not all products feature all technologies – check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities.

2 AMD App Acceleration is a set of technologies designed to improve video quality and enhance application performance. Full enablement of some features requires support for OpenCL™, DirectCompute or DirectX® Video Acceleration (DXVA). Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products.

3 The GCN Architecture and its associated features (PCI Express® 3.0, AMD ZeroCore Power technology, DDM Audio, and 28nm production) are exclusive to the AMD Radeon™ HD 7900, HD 7800 and HD 7700 Series.

BJS Biotechnologies Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:52:23 +0000

BJS Biotechnologies, a London-based firm specializing in technology for the medical field, set out to make DNA replication less time consuming and more intuitive. They selected the AMD Embedded G-Series APU to help build a solution that provides a high-speed process for thermal cycling of DNA within a platform so simple nearly any lab technician can use it. Read the full case study below to learn more.

Ooma Telo Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:10:16 +0000

Since the very beginning, Ooma Telo has been committed to transforming the landscape of home phone service. The company took into account everything that was wrong with phone service (too pricey, limited features, inflexible) and made it their mission to reinvent it. Read the full case study to find out why Ooma Telo selected AMD's SeaMicro SM15000-XE high density server solution.

Supercharge Your Creative Workflow - See how AMD boosts the quality and performance experience on Adobe Photoshop® CC and Adobe Premiere® Pro CC

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 07 May 2013 07:02:57 +0000

Supercharge Your Creative Workflow - See how AMD boosts the quality and performance experience on Adobe Photoshop® CC and Adobe Premiere® Pro CC

AMD is a sponsor of this year’s Adobe MAX, The Creative Conference in Los Angeles (May 4-8) where we are pleased to announce continued collaboration with Adobe to boost quality and performance of new and enhanced features in the latest versions of both Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Premiere Pro CC, by leveraging the massive compute horsepower in AMD APUs, AMD Radeon^TM HD graphics, and AMD FirePro^TMProfessional graphics. By continuing to use an open standard, cross-platform approach with OpenCL™ and OpenGL, coupled with the affordable and flexible licensing terms of Adobe’s Creative Cloud membership, Adobe is bringing the benefits of acceleration in its flagship products to a broad range of PC form factors for all types of users. Now that Adobe and AMD have shattered the cost and performance barriers, any creative pro or consumer can access the tools needed to follow their dreams.

Last month at NAB 2013, I posted a blog highlighting AMD and Adobe’s announcementon expanded OpenCL support for Premiere Pro, including multi-stream and mixed-format accelerated workflows with real-time effects, color grading, and finishing with hardware-accelerated rendering to the chosen final destination format. Today AMD has more good news: Premiere Pro offers even more OpenCL-accelerated features, including the following:

OpenCL hardware-powered rendering with Adobe Media Encoder. Users can queue up multiple Premiere Pro projects to be rendered using all of the available GPU horsepower in the background.
Multi-GPU support. Users with multiple AMD graphics devices in their PC can achieve fast render results by leveraging all of their GPUs.

The latest version of Adobe Photoshop adds new and enhanced features on top of the dozens of existing open hardware-accelerated features. Adobe Photoshop’s impressive list of GPU-accelerated features now includes the following:

An all-new, higher-quality Smart Sharpen filter. The new Smart Sharpen filter leverages OpenCL and AMD graphics technology to sharpen images faster¹ while minimizing halo effects on distinct edges and providing precise noise reduction control.
An enhanced Blur Gallery. The Blur Gallery now harnesses the power of AMD graphics technology to deliver mouse-down previews quickly, accurately, and in high on-screen resolution of up to a million pixels. This high-quality, instant on-screen feedback allows artists to work more efficiently without unnecessary disruptions to their creative workflow. Non-destructive hardware accelerated Blur Gallery effects are applied as as Smart Objects to create a desired look for images and even video within Photoshop CC.
Faster Liquify. Performance enhancements made to the Liquify effect so that creative professionals can now push, pull, rotate, reflect, pucker, or bloat selected image areas to achieve unique artistic effects with greater speed² while working with even the largest images. And now with the added Smart Object support, you can create, edit, and maintain a specific look without having to ever start over.

Both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro fully support advanced display technologies, such as 4K and AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology.

If you are at Adobe MAX this year, please come check us out (Booth #115). See www.amd.com/adobe for updated information about AMD and Adobe.

Supporting Resources

With Adobe Creative Cloud, a simple monthly membership gives you the complete collection of Adobe creative desktop applications. Along with cloud storage, Creative Cloud members automatically get access to new tools and product updates as soon as they’re released.
For more information about AMD Performance
Details about AMD and Adobe
For more information about AMD FirePro™ Graphic
Find more great apps accelerated by AMD at www.amd.com/appzone
For more information about Adobe
For more information about AMD

Clarice Simmons is a Senior Marketing Manager at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied

1 - AMD tests are performed on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary configuration yielding different results. Test project used the new “Smart Sharpen” effect with Adobe Photoshop CC pre-release build, version 1.0.0.157 from 4/23/2013, test image: 5616x3744, 60.2MB, .PSD format. A notebook PC with AMD A10-5850M APU with AMD Radeon™ HD 8650G Graphics, 2x2GB DDR3-800 RAM, video driver 12.105.0.0 - 07-Apr-2013, SSD hard drive and Window 8 Professional (x64) build 9200 took 14.84 seconds with GPU acceleration on versus 31.03 seconds with GPU acceleration off. RIN-27

2- AMD tests are performed on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary their configuration yielding different results. Test project used the new “Liquify” effect with Adobe Photoshop CC pre-release build, version 1.0.0.157 from 4/23/2013 compared to the original “Liquify” in Photoshop CS6 released in May 2012, test image: 5616x3744, 60.2MB, .PSD format, on a notebook PC with AMD A10-4600M APU with AMD Radeon™ HD 7660G Graphics, 2x2GB DDR3-1600 RAM, SSD hard drive and Window 8 Professional (x64) build 9200. he original “Liquify” effect (with video driver: 8.981.0.0 - 06/20/2012) took 7.47 seconds and the new “Liquify” effect (with video driver: 9.17.10.2932 - 2/12/2012) took 36.67 seconds. RIN-28

New AMD Catalyst™ drivers bring performance and stability

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:47:52 +0000

To celebrate with today's announcement of the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU, we are introducing a pair of new AMD Catalyst™ drivers that improve performance and stability for AMD Radeon™ graphics products! These drivers are the AMD Catalyst™ 13.4 WHQL and the AMD Catalyst™ 13.5 Beta.

AMD CATALYST™ 13.5 BETA DRIVER

This driver is intended to replace the AMD Catalyst™ 13.3 Beta driver we released in late March. It contains the very latest performance optimizations from our driver team, and should be the driver of choice for gaming enthusiasts. Compared with the 13.3 Beta driver it replaces, the 13.5 Beta driver offers several notable improvements:

Recommended for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 graphics processor
Extensive optimizations for Far Cry® 3 Blood Dragon
Up to 6% improved performance in Tomb Raider™
Up to 6% improved performance in BioShock� Infinite
Up to 5% improved performance in Sid Meier's Civilization� V
Up to 4% improved performance in Far Cry® 3
Up to 18% improved performance in Borderlands 2 with FXAA
Resolves TressFX Hair corruption seen in Tomb Raider™ on the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU

CLICK TO EXPAND: Performance increases will depend on your resolution, systemn and in-game settings, but our own performance analyses are seeing performance up to these levels!

AMD CATALYST™ 13.4 WHQL DRIVER

Certified by Microsoft® via the Windows Hardware Certification program, the 13.4 WHQL driver is an upgrade to AMD Catalyst™ 13.1 WHQL driver released in January. For users tracking our drivers closely, this is the Microsoft-certified version of the 13.3 Beta. As a WHQL driver release, this should be the driver of choice for users that depend upon the most rigorous levels of stability certification. Additionally, users coming from the 13.1 WHQL driver should note that this is a very significant driver release, featuring the following improvements:

Full stack of performance optimizations for Crysis® 3, bringing the many enhancements we�ve developed for our beta drivers into the certified driver tree.
Full stack of performance optimizations for BioShock® Infinite, bringing the many enhancements we've developed for our beta drivers into the certified driver tree.
Full stack of performance optimizations for Tomb Raider™, bringing the many enhancements we've developed for our beta drivers into the certified driver tree.
Windows Hardware Certification for AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 and HD 7790 GPUs
Up to 5% improved performance in Batman: Arkham City
Up to 10% improved performance in Borderlands 2
Up to 14% improved performance in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with MSAA
Up to 11% improved performance for Hitman Absolution™
Up to 11% improved performance in Return to Castle Wolfenstein MP
Up to 5% improved performance in Sid Meier's Civilization® V
Performance optimizations for the 2013 release of SimCity
Resolves rare image corruption seen in Tomb Raider™ with TressFX Hair enabled
Implements the frame latency fixes for Tomb Raider™ and Hitman Absolution™ that were tested in our beta drivers
Implements the DirectX® 9.0c texture flickering fixes developed and tested in our beta drivers
Adds support for the following OpenGL® 4.3 extensions:
- GL_ARB_compute_shader
- GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect
- GL_ARB_shader_storage_buffer_object
- GL_ARB_arrays_of_arrays
- GL_ARB_clear_buffer_object
- GL_ARB_ES3_compatibility
- GL_ARB_explicit_uniform_location
- GL_ARB_fragment_layer_viewport
- GL_ARB_invalidate_subdata
- GL_ARB_program_interface_query
- GL_ARB_shader_image_size
- GL_ARB_stencil_texturing
- GL_ARB_texture_buffer_range
- GL_ARB_texture_query_levels
- GL_ARB_texture_storage_multisample

CLICK TO EXPAND: Performance increases will depend on your resolution, systemn and in-game settings, but our own performance analyses are seeing performance up to these levels!

SUMMARIZING

The AMD Catalyst™ 13.4 WHQL driver is the certified version of 13.3 Beta, while the AMD Catalyst™ 13.5 Beta driver extends the code in both of these drivers with additional fixes/enhancements. And, more importantly, both drivers are available immediately for Microsoft Windows®-based PCs!

Robert Hallock is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD' positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION:

Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz)

MSI X79A-GD65

16GB DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24

Microsoft® Windows® 7 x64

The AMD Radeon HD 7990 is the world's fastest graphics card

community.blogs@amd.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:01:44 +0000

Here at AMD we are obsessed with gaming performance and graphics cards. For the lot of us, it's more than 'a job'... It's deeply personal. That is to say: when we shut off the lights and go home, we're hardware enthusiasts, gamers and content creators in our own right. It's that kind of consuming passion that makes us so excited to bring word of our latest product: the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 graphics processor. And at the expense of spoiling it, I'm proud to say that it's the fastest graphics card in the world.¹

DESIGNING GREATNESS

Building the world's fastest graphics card requires a mountain of state-of-the-art hardware, which the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU offers in spades:

Two specially-screened AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series GPUs, with a clockspeed of up to 1GHz.
6GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, running at 6.0Gbps for 576GB/s of memory bandwidth.
A PCI Express® 3.0 PLX bridge to connect the dual ASICs in an internal AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration.² This interconnect provides 48 lanes (96GB/s) of bandwidth.
Native support for up to five simultaneous displays integrated via AMD Eyefinity technology. Further support for up to six total displays is possible using DisplayPort 1.2 MST-enabled hubs or monitors.³
A shockingly quiet triple-fan cooler, which is not only quieter than the Titan or the GTX 690, but quieter than your average library.⁴ At 100% GPU load.
FUN FACT: The graphics chips on the HD 7990 GPU contain a combined 8.2 billion 28nm transistors. If you were to redraw the schematics by hand with a fine-tipped pencil, you would need a piece of paper larger than 172 American football fields!

GAMING IN ULTRAHD

If you look at the data that Valve Corporation assembles for their Steam® Hardware Survey, you can see that a small percentage of their 50,000,000+ users demand the best gaming experience by using 2560x1600 and 2560x1440 displays. These truly passionate gamers are on the bleeding edge, and it's for them that we've lovingly crafted the performance I'm about to demonstrate.

CLICK TO EXPAND: This image of BioShock� Infinite was captured at a resolution of 3840x2160 on the AMD Radeon� HD 7990 GPU. Surely most have heard about "4K" or "UltraHD" TVs and monitors. These displays have a gigantic resolution of 3840x2160, which is twice as many pixels as a 2560x1600, and a whopping four times the resolution of a normal 1080p display! That's a lot of pixels to move, but the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 graphics processor enables completely playable performance and high image quality.

GAMING WITH AMD EYEFINITY TECHNOLOGY

We know that UltraHD monitors are still quite expensive, which makes multi-monitor an attractive solution for big resolution! Thanks to AMD Eyefinity technology, we can bring that capability out in force on the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 card with native support for up to five simultaneous displays. These five displays would offer a larger resolution than a single UltraHD panel at a significantly lower cost.

Today, however, we'll be looking at the more common 3x1080p configuration many users select for AMD Eyefinity technology. The resolution of this configuration falls between 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 with respect to the number of pixels, so it's only predictable that the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU absolutely screams when pitted against such a display setup.

WHISPER-QUIET PERFORMANCE

We know that acoustic performance is just as important as game performance to our most demanding enthusiasts, which is why we've engineered the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU with a shockingly quiet triple-fan design. Mounted atop a big ol' heatpipe array of eight heatpipes, we can happily say that the world's fastest graphics card is also quieter than a library!^1,4

Measured with a sound meter from a distance of 50cm in a room with a noise floor of 29.1 dBa, the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU posted sound pressure of 37.8 dBa to beat out a library, GTX 690 and Titan at 100% GPU load. Quite simply, this is one of our quietest enthusiast products ever.

THE BEST GAMES ON THE BEST GRAPHICS

Since January, we've been running the astonishingly successful Never Settle Reloaded promotion, which has given gamers around the world scores of free games for purchasing select AMD Radeon™ GPUs at participating retailers. More recently, we expanded that program to include Far Cry® 3 Blood Dragon, which we're giving away for free to thousands of gamers! Clearly it's a mission of ours to be constantly doing awesome things with awesome games, and the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU is no different.

Coinciding with retail availability over the next two weeks, customers will be treated to EIGHT FREE GAMES for purchasing the world's fastest graphics card!¹ Those games include:

We've worked with our GPU manufacturing partners to ensure that a postcard to redeem these games will be right in the box for every AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU sold in a country eligible for the Never Settle Reloaded promotion. For more details, I invite you to take a look at the Never Settle Reloaded webpage!

AVAILABLE SOON

The AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 GPU will be on shelf within two weeks from the date of this post. Today, however, reviewers around the world are publishing their independent analyses of this fantastic piece of engineering, so keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook properties for the latest scoop! Thanks for reading. See you next time! [accordion] [accordion_pane title="> Click here for Fine Print" current="no"]Robert Hallock is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD's positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

1 In tests by AMD as of 28 February, 2013, the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 showed higher average performance than the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 690 in the 3DMark® Fire Strike Extreme (FS6407 vs. FS5316) and Crysis 3 (1080p & 1600p at all quality presets). System configuration: Intel® Core™ i7-3960X (3.30 GHz), MSI X79A-GD65, 16GB DDR3-1600 and Windows 8 x64. AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 evaluated with AMD Catalyst™ 13.2 Beta 6. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 690 evaluated with NVIDIA® ForceWare™ 310.90 WHQL. GRDT-32 2 AMD CrossFire™ technology requires an AMD CrossFire Ready motherboard, an AMD CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect (for each additional graphics card) and may require a specialized power supply. 3 AMD Eyefinity technology supports up to six DisplayPort™ monitors on an enabled graphics card. Supported display quantity, type and resolution vary by model and board design; confirm specifications with manufacturer before purchase. To enable more than two displays, or multiple displays from a single output, additional hardware such as DisplayPort-ready monitors or DisplayPort 1.2 MST-enabled hubs may be required. Maximum two active adapters supported. See www.amd.com/eyefinityfaq for full details. 4 Acoustics testing performed by AMD from a distance of 50cm, in accordance with ISO 7779:2010 methodology, with an open-air system and an acoustically-controlled environment with a noise floor of 29.1 dBA. AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 acoustic results of 37.8 dBa bests the GeForce Titan and GTX 690 with values of 41.2 and 47.5 dBa, respectively. All graphics cards tested at 100% graphics load with FurMark. Perceived loudness of a library rated at 40 dBA by the Purdue School of Chemistry: http://www.chem.purdue.edu/chemsafety/Training/PPETrain/dblevels.htm GRDT-33 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION(S):Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz) MSI X79A-GD65 16GB DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 Microsoft® Windows® 7 x64 [/accordion_pane] [/accordion]

The Rising Tide of World-Class Engineering Talent at AMD

community.blogs@amd.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:09:15 +0000

As the saying goes, “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” But in the technology industry, it’s really WHAT you know that matters most. Simply put: the best brains win. The importance of our strong engineering teams around the world and the talent they deliver to the business simply cannot be overstated. AMD has always made it a top priority to attract the best brains: engineering innovators bent on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and giving them the freedom to do just that. It’s that kind of mentality that’s kept us competitive in a tough business when so many others have tried – and failed – over the years. With such a massive shift in our industry underway – namely the transition of growth from traditional PCs to more cloud-based mobile device computing – we thought it was important to tell you that some of the very best brains in the world have recently joined (and in some cases returned to) AMD. Why? Because these big, impressive brains believe in AMD’s business strategy, and believe in our already-strong nucleus of differentiated IP in graphics, client and server. These are some of the very same people responsible for the world’s most popular tablets, smart phones, MP3 players and other mobile devices because they in-part architected them and the experiences they deliver. They are all distinguished innovators whose work had a major impact on x86 64-bit computing as well as low-power ARM-based mobile processing. And they now work for AMD. As I mentioned, several of these innovators are former AMDers, so in a way you can say that AMD is “getting the band back together.” To carry that metaphor forward, we believe our engineering teams are poised to churn out a steady stream of hits for years to come. Yesterday we announced the return of Raja Koduri to AMD as our corporate vice president of Visual Computing. Raja re-joins AMD from Apple, where he led the company’s graphics architecture. He is an accomplished engineering leader and notable graphics industry visionary. Formerly the graphics CTO for AMD, Raja now has overall responsibility for driving AMD’s innovation in visual and accelerated computing. With 20 years of hands-on experience advancing visual computing, from application software programming to GPU design, he has led engineering teams focused on graphics hardware, graphics software, parallel languages and power management. Raja is a perfect complement to other recent, notable hires Jim Keller, Wayne Meretsky and Charles Matar as we round-out our engineering leadership team; a team stacked with both deep AMD and external experience. While we’re excited and fortunate to have world-class brains like Raja, Wayne, Jim and Charles coming to work at AMD because of the opportunity we have to disrupt the market, let’s also give thanks and credit to every one of the thousands of brilliant engineering minds working very hard all over the world to push the boundaries of what’s possible and bring AMD products to life. We hope you’re as excited as we are about what the future holds not just for our business, but for innovation itself and the impact our innovations can have on billions of peoples’ lives all over the world. Mike Silverman is a Senior Manager in Corporate Communications at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

VIZIO Selects AMD Technology to Help Expand Beyond the Entertainment Space

community.blogs@amd.com — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 02:36:50 +0000

VIZIO selects AMD technology to power their newest tablet, notebook and All-in-One systems.

Learn more about how VIZIO expanded from their entertainment offerings further into the consumer PC space, and why they chose to partner with AMD.

Far Cry® 3 Blood Dragon Joins Never Settle Reloaded

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:01:08 +0000

The Never Settle Reloaded promotion has been a tremendous success for AMD, with scores of new customers claiming their free copies of amazing games like BioShock® Infinite, Crysis® 3 and Tomb Raider® each and every day. But it comes as no surprise to us that the one piece of feedback we keep hearing is: "MORE GAMES, PLEASE!" We hear you. Actually, we did a little more than that... we took your feedback to heart and added a new game! That game is the sublimely nostalgic Far Cry® 3 Blood Dragon, which today joins the Never Settle Reloaded promotion as the fifth and newest title.

The Never Settle Reloaded promotion in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand & South Korea. For other nations, please see this chart.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE GAME

The year is 2007. It is the future. Earth has been ravaged by a nuclear war and new paths for peace must be found. A U.S. cyborg army may have found a solution: a powerful bioweapon on a distant island. A Mark IV Cyber Commando, Sergeant Rex Power Colt has been sent over to gather information and figure out what the hell is going on. The entire game is a throwback to the charmingly bad sci-fi movies from the straight-to-VHS era, which broadly depicted the "future" as a mild dystopia slathered in neon and bionics. Even the game' official website is a gem, no doubt built in loving memory of the late, great Geocities. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the teaser trailer, exquisitely mastered in 360p complete with sketchy VHS tracking. Comedy gold, people! Anyways...

A THANK YOU FOR CURRENT CUSTOMERS

Starting May 1, any customer that has ever redeemed a code for our Never Settle Reloaded promotion is going to receive a FREE GAME KEY for Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon by email. Or, if you have a Never Settle Reloaded postcard with a code you're not yet redeemed, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon will be added to the games on the postcard when you finally register the code. In short: if Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon will go on sale in your country, we're going to send you a free copy as a thank you for participating in our Never Settle Reloaded program. We're doing this because we feel it perfectly captures the spirit of our AMD Gaming Evolved program, which makes "gamers come first" as its prime philosophy.

EXPANDING NEVER SETTLE RELOADED

Going forward, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is an across-the-board addition to Never Settle Reloaded. And as you saw in the chart above, we're even adding the AMD Radeon™ HD 7770 GHz Edition to the promo—just so we can give away more free games! For more details on the promo (you know, the whos/whats/whens/wheres of it all), please visit the Never Settle Reloaded promotion page.

MORE INFO TO COME

As we get closer to the launch date for Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (5/1/2013 worldwide), we'll have lots more information to share with you! But for now, take a look at this first batch of screenshots hot off the presses from the ladies and gentlemen at Ubisoft.

[gallery link="file" ids="9794,9795,9796,9797,9798,9799"] [accordion] [accordion_pane title="> Click here for Fine Print" current="no"]

Robert Hallock is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD�s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

[/accordion_pane] [/accordion]

The University of Texas at San Antonio Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:58:47 +0000

AMD's SeaMicro server technology helps the University of Texas at San Antonio to foster teaching, learning, innovation and discovery. Read the full case study to learn more. April 2013 University of Texas at San Antonio Case Study.

AMD and Barco: Supporting Clinical Outcomes for 10 Years

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:37:44 +0000

For more than a decade, Barco has relied exclusively on AMD FirePro™ workstation graphics cards (display controllers) to power its diagnostic displays. Our companies work together to help address customer mandates, whether it’s extending the life of older technology, or undertaking a redesign of existing graphics cards in response to customer requests, or enabling new cutting edge features. Further, Barco expands on the FirePro™ unified software driver to include technologies and features unique to its displays, ensuring the best possible experience for its customers. Bottom line – AMD and Barco are committed to providing the best visual experience possible for the medical imaging community. Watch this video to learn more:

Mitch Furman is a senior product manager, Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Be Stronger, Faster and Reign Over All with the AMD A-Series APU Advantage

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:00:33 +0000

AMD announces special promotional offer for select AMD A-Series APU featuring Radeon™ Graphics and new SimCity™ PC game. AMD announced a special promotional offer that brings together the AMD A-Series APU, Radeon™ Graphics and the all new EA Maxis game, SimCity™, featuring unprecedented simulation with model-like worlds and details. EA has delivered with compelling cityscapes and engaging challenges that are truly brought to life with the visual compute power from AMD A-Series and Radeon™ graphics. It’s the gaming performance you expect from AMD. The AMD APU advantage demonstrates AMD A-Series APU leadership in games, compute, and benchmark performance in comparison to the competition. The accelerated performance of multicore CPU technology and the brilliance of premium AMD Radeon™ graphics technology come together in one chip resulting in significant performance wins.

See below for details about the performance of SimCity on AMD’s A8 APU[1]:

AMD believes the collaboration with EA is an important milestone, as it validates our products and gaming strategy, but also gives us a platform to showcase the control and performance of the 2^nd generation AMD A-Series APU. Details of the promotion that launch today[2]:

Buy select A8 and A10 AMD APU* from a participating retailer
Receive a Origin game code for SimCity
Promotion offer will read: “Buy select* A-Series APU from participating retailers and get a game code for SimCity." *Select = A8 and A10

*Covers both locked and unlocked parts

Complete promotion details here.
For more details on the AMD APU Advantage
For more details on SimCity™

John Taylor is the Corporate Vice President of Global Communications & Industry Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied

[1]Tests performed by AMD Benchmarking Labs.

AMD A8-5600K with AMD Radeon™ HD 7560D Graphics, 2x4 GB DDR3-1866, A85X, 1TB 7200 rpm HD, Windows 7 64bit. Catalyst 12.8
Intel Core i3-3220 with HD 4000 graphics, 2x4 GB DDR3-1600, P67, 1TB 7200 rpm HD, Windows 7 64bit. Driver 8.15.10.2712
Intel Core i3-3220 with NV GT620 2GB DDR3, 2x4 GB DDR3-1600, P67, 1TB 7200 rpm HD, Windows 7 64bit. Driver 304.48

3DMark version as of March 6, 2013. SIMCITY tested with FRAPS at 720P with Medium settings and Low Lighting, Low Shadows on the game tutorial map. SIMCITY version as of March 6, 2013. Handbrake tested with 123 minute MPEG2, 1080P file converted to MKV. Handbrake nightly build 5269 version used.

[2] Get a Key Code for free download of SimCity (PC Game) accessed through the EA Origin® online gaming platform when you buy an eligible AMD A10 or A8 A-Series processor from a participating retailer between March 12, 2013 and either December 31, 2013 or when supply of Key Codes is exhausted, whichever occurs first. Key Code must be used by March 12, 2014, after which the Key Code is void. LIMIT: One (1) free Key Code per game per person. Internet connection required. Internet connection fees may apply. You must be at least 17 years old to redeem this offer. Offer is subject to geographical limitations. See www.amd.com/simcityoffer for complete details. Void in any jurisdiction where prohibited. YOU MUST MEET THE MINIMUM AGE REQUIREMENT, WHICH VARIES BY TERRITORY, TO PLAY. EULAS AND ADDITIONAL DISCLOSURES CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.EA.COM/1/PRODUCT-EULAS. EA ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF SERVICE CAN BE FOUND AT www.ea.com. EA MAY RETIRE ONLINE SERVICES AND ONLINE FEATURES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON www.ea.com/1/service-updates. 2013 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. 2013 Electronic Arts Inc. EA, the EA logo, Maxis, the Maxis logo, and SimCity are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. .

Now Showing on AMD Everywhere – Adobe Premiere Pro with Real-Time editing and Finishing

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 07:00:13 +0000

Now Showing on AMD Everywhere – Adobe Premiere Pro with Real-Time Editing and Effects Today at the National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow (NAB), AMD announced a collaboration with Adobe to deliver OpenCL™ powered hardware-accelerated for the first time on the Microsoft Windows platform with the next version of Adobe® Premiere® Pro. This is a true demonstration of how AMD enables partner ecosystems with cross-platform open standards and empowers them to amplify experiences for creative users everywhere. What’s more, Adobe’s support for OpenCL™ means that the leading video production and editing tools are optimized to take full advantage of a wider range of hardware – namely, AMD’s APUs and GPUs – bringing the power to create to more users and more PC form factors everywhere. Take a minute to think about that. The next version of Adobe® Premiere® Pro, accelerated by OpenCL™, will efficiently harness the compute power of AMD APU’s and graphics products to do real-time editing. In addition, it will be up to 4.3X faster exports from a source format with effects to a preferred final destination format for quick and easy distribution and publishing*. So, what does this really mean? There is more to this that meets the eye. Only a short time ago, if you wanted professional high-performance non-linear video editing, your choices were often limited to proprietary solutions that integrated specific video editing software with a very narrow selection of hardware choices. Such solutions were already known for their high-performance, but also as very expensive and closed. In those days, video editing was often cumbersome and difficult to use, even for seasoned professionals. Fast forward to today, a time where Adobe is working with AMD to embrace an open standards/cross-platform approach that leverages the immense power of affordable off-the-shelf AMD APUs and GPUs. Plus, with the expanded support to now include Windows, the number of available vendors, form factors and PC models has expanded exponentially. What’s more, through the Adobe Creative Cloud™ membership, all the creative tools once costing thousands of dollars and out of reach to many classes of users has suddenly become accessible to the creative masses - from the freelance videographer to the independent departments of large companies, to students wanting to master industry leading tools. Adobe Creative Cloud combined with OpenCL-accelerated support for a broad range of AMD devices are converging to truly bring the power of creative control into the hands of everyone. Whether it’s our APUs that power popular ultrathin notebooks or our screamingly fast AMD FirePro™ Professional Graphics, AMD is extremely excited to break down the barriers and enable accelerated experiences with greater performance and productivity to all.

“To achieve high-performance editing breakthroughs, we tapped into the massive compute resources of AMD APUs and GPUs. This collaboration allows us to broaden accelerated experiences for creative professionals to Windows,”said Simon Williams, director of strategic relations at Adobe. “Greater performance and productivity with the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro means users everywhere can create and render in real-time. We are excited about AMD’s strong commitment to AdobePremiere Pro and enhanced editing solutions.”

Additional references:

With Adobe Creative Cloud a simple monthly membership gives you the complete collection of Adobe creative desktop applications. Along with cloud storage, Creative Cloud members automatically get access to new tools and product updates as soon as they’re released.
For more information about AMD and Adobe at NAB Show
For more information about AMD Performance
Details about AMD and Adobe
For more information about AMD FirePro™ Graphics
For more information about Adobe
For more information about AMD

*Testing was performed by AMD, test project used the “Three-way Color Corrector” effect with the NAB 2013 build of Premiere Pro Next provided by Adobe, .MP4 video file, 17 seconds, 1920x1080, 24fps with .WAV audio file, 169 seconds, 1411 kb/s audio bitrate, 41 khz audio sample rate, export to Device – Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4 and newer, 720p, 29.97 max render quality. With OpenCL (GPU acceleration) enabled, the export took 46.6 seconds. With CPU only, the export took 246.1 seconds. Test system was a desktop PC configured with an AMD A10-6800K APU with AMD Radeon™ HD 8670D Graphics, 8GB DDR3-2133, SSD hard drive, running Window 8 Professional (x64) build 9200, video driver 12.102.0.0. RID-10

Sneak Peek: Adobe® Premiere Pro Next GPU Performance Testing

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:00:46 +0000

Earlier today Adobe revealed some of its next generation professional video and audio products, including the next version of Adobe® Premiere Pro. Basically Adobe is giving users a sneak peek at the new features coming to the next versions of its software. And we’ve decided to give you a sneak peek too, providing a look at how the next version of Premiere Pro performs when accelerated by AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics and OpenCL™ versus Nvidia Quadro workstation graphics and CUDA. Before I jump into an explanation of how we measured performance, I want to take a step back. The whole idea of enabling GPU acceleration with OpenCL in the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro is to enable real-time workflows. Users can add effects and see high quality results in real-time. With GPU acceleration, users don’t have to render and wait to see results. Because it’s difficult to quantify real-time performance, we created and rendered files into memory so we can compare the differences. This allowed us to see the performance differences between OpenCL and CUDA GPU acceleration performance. So we applied several effects (filters), including many effects from Adobe’s Lumetri™ Deep Color Engine, and measured the time to render the effects In and Out. In Premiere Pro, users can mark In and Out points to define a portion of video sequence they plan to render in the preview window. The effects (filters) we tested include:

ProcAmp
Sharpen
Color Balance (RGB)
RGB Color Corrector
Lumetri - Compression 1
Lumetri - Cinematic 1
Lumetri - Sepia
Lumetri - B&W Yellow Filter
Lumetri - Maxiumum Desaturation
Lumetri - Back in the Day
Lumetri - Dreams 2
Lumetri - Duo-toning
Lumetri - Warm Overall

These effects are designed to help users craft the perfect look for every project. These effects enable high quality adjustments to video footage in real-time, including color matching, adjustments to compensate for gamma irregularities and color shifts, color layering, primary and secondary color correction, and more. Our first test looked at the next version of Premiere Pro running on a CPU only. We compared the CPU-only render in/out times to the render in/out times when GPU accelerated in OpenCL by AMD’s latest AMD FirePro™ workstation graphics cards, built on the Graphics Core Next architecture. As expected the GPU accelerated render times are significantly lower than CPU only processing. With AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics and OpenCL acceleration, the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro runs up to six times as fast. (1)

Next we took a look at the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro with CUDA-based GPU acceleration provided by Nvidia Quadro 3D workstation graphics cards. What we found is that AMD FirePro™ and OpenCL-based GPU acceleration is faster across the board – up to 27%. (2)

Last but not least, we took a look at GPU utilization for AMD FirePro™ and Nvidia Quadro 3D workstation graphics when running the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro. When GPU accelerated by OpenCL and AMD FirePro™ graphics cards, GPU utilization is up to 28% more efficient than the competing cards. (3) While this performance testing is conducted on a pre-release version of the next Adobe Premiere Pro, we’re really pleased with the results. As with all of the professional applications we support, we’ll continue to make driver optimizations for Adobe Premiere Pro that can only help to improve the overall user experience and application performance. So if you’re considering a GPU upgrade as part of your transition to the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro, definitely consider taking a look at AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics cards. At NAB 2013 in Las Vegas next week (April 8-11, 2013), Adobe plans to showcase the next version of Premiere Pro in its booth (#SL3910) running on AMD FirePro™ graphics cards. Be sure to stop by and check it out if you are at the show. To learn more about the creative collaboration between AMD professional graphics and Adobe, please visit www.fireprographics.com/adobe

Theresa Chavez is a Product Marketing Manager, Professional Graphics, at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

1 - Testing configuration includes AMD FirePro™ W9000, W8000, W7000 and W5000 graphics cards, Adobe Premiere CS Next (pre-release version), 4K TIFF 24-bit sequence content, Microsoft Windows® 7 64-bit, Intel Xeon E5530 @ 2.40 GHZ, 12GB system memory, and AMD driver version 12.102. Software only at 1021 seconds vs W9000 at 170 seconds. FP-80

2 - Testing configuration includes AMD FirePro™ W9000, W8000, W7000 and W5000 graphics cards (AMD driver version 12.102 ) compared to Nvidia Quadro K5000, K4000 and K2000 graphics cards (Nvidia driver version 311.35) running Adobe Premiere CS Next (pre-release version), 4K TIFF 24-bit sequence content, Microsoft Windows® 7 64-bit, Intel Xeon E5530 @ 2.40 GHZ, and 12GB system memory. K2000 at 262 seconds vs W5000 at 207 seconds. FP-81

3 - Testing configuration includes AMD FirePro™ W9000, W8000, W7000 and W5000 graphics cards (AMD driver version 12.102 ) compared to Nvidia Quadro K5000, K4000 and K2000 graphics cards (Nvidia driver version 311.35) running Adobe Premiere CS Next (pre-release version), 4K TIFF 24-bit sequence content, Microsoft Windows® 7 64-bit, Intel Xeon E5530 @ 2.40 GHZ, and 12GB system memory. K2000 at 46% GPU load vsW5000 at 36% GPU load. FP-82

AMD FirePro™ Technology at NAB 2013

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:00:44 +0000

It’s April again. So it’s time for silly jokes, warmer weather and the annual NAB show in Las Vegas. If you are headed to the desert for the show next week (April 8-11, 2013) be sure to check out the AMD action. First, don’t miss the “A Taste of Vegas” Sony User Event on Monday, April 8, 2013. Our own Melanie Ball, senior manager of ISV Alliances for AMD Professional Graphics, is one of four keynote speakers. She will be addressing the overall Sony and AMD partnership, how GPUs benefit non-linear editing workflows and why AMD FirePro™ technology is the best choice for Sony Vegas Pro. And one lucky attendee will win big and walk away with their very own AMD FirePro^TM V5900 workstation graphics card. WHEN: Monday, April 8, 2013 from 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. WHERE: Las Vegas Convention Center, Room N250 REGISTER: Pre-registration is required to attend, as space is limited: vasst.com For more details on the event and other keynote speakers, click here. Also, several of our partners taking advantage of AMD FirePro™ technology to power demos at the show, including:

Adobe® (#SL3910): is previewing the next version of Premiere Pro, powered by AMD FirePro™ graphics
Assimilate Inc. (#SL12705): is showcasing SCRATCH® 4K DI workflows taking advantage of AMD DirectGMA technology that enables low latency PCIe® ‘peer-to-peer’ transfers and flexible SDI I/O connectivity
Autodesk® (#SL3316): is featuring multi-monitor 3ds Max® and Maya® 2013 workflows
bluefish444 (#SL9721): is demonstrating how AMD DirectGMA technology enables low latency transfers between its Epoch video cards and AMD FirePro® graphics cards
Dell (#S110LMR): is previewing the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro, with AMD FirePro™ technology powering an OpenCL™ accelerated Mercury Playback engine in Windows® for blazing fast performance
Sony (#C11001): multi-monitor Vegas™ Pro workflows
Ventuz (#SL6830): multi-monitor display walls powered by AMD FirePro™ graphics, showcasing Ventuz 4, Ventuz Director and Ventuz Express

Have a great time at NAB 2013. Be sure to let us know what you saw and what your thoughts are. If you have any questions, just post them here and I’ll get back to you. Theresa Chavez is a Product Marketing Manager, Professional Graphics, at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Stony Brook University and AMD Combine Talents to Create the Reality Deck - the World’s First Gigapixel Resolution Display

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:20:23 +0000

1, 4, 6, 18, 72, 416, 1.5 billion What do the above numbers mean? I’ll explain, starting from the last number to the first. Recently, Stony Brook University, with the financial assistance of the National Science Foundation, completed an ambitious project called the “Reality Deck” that involved designing and building an entire room of flat panel monitors, the goal being to establish the world’s first gigapixel resolution display. And they succeeded, with the room comprising hundreds of monitors, stacked floor to ceiling and even covering the door, with the sum of all pixels exceeding 1.5 billion! To put that in perspective, a 1080p computer monitor or television has just over 2 million pixels, so the Reality Deck is nearly three orders of magnitude greater in overall resolution. In total, 416 Samsung S27A850D LED monitors were used, each running at a native resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. To drive this many monitors, 72 AMD FirePro™ graphics cards were divided amongst 18 computer systems, or nodes, and each node fitted with an AMD S400 sync module to synchronize the output across all graphics cards and systems. Each AMD FirePro graphics card fed six monitors, and each node housed four AMD FirePro graphics cards. And the 1? Well, this effort started with one person, Arie Kaufman, and his interest in building a display unlike any other. Why? In our recent visit to the Reality Deck, Dr. Kaufman talked about the impetus behind the Reality Deck. Faced with expanding data sets in almost every industry and in many cases lacking the ability to adequately view inside that data, Dr. Kaufman saw the need to build an environment where data could be visualized like never before. Dr. Kaufman and his team at Stony Brook University are now working with researchers from both the public and private sector to understand data in a whole new way. AMD is very excited to have been an integral part of bringing Dr. Kaufman’s vision to reality. A video of the Stony Brook University Reality Deck can be found at http://youtu.be/E9KNLnzaHOI

Mitch Furman is a Senior Product Manager of Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

AMD Fan Day Hits West Coast April 6th

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 02:15:05 +0000

People love AMD. I never forget, take for granted, or underestimate this; it’s a rare asset in the world of technology to have real, loyal fans of our technology. From the launch of Athlon 64 in San Francisco in 2003 with an audience filled with enthusiasts, to the more than one million people who follow AMD on Facebook today, our fans are part of the AMD brand. For those of you located on the West Coast of the U.S. – as well as people just interested in the latest technology and software experiences – come be a part of the latest celebration of our fans on April 6^th in San Francisco at the Metreon. In 2012, AMD began hosting Fan Days to great success and feedback – first at our Austin Campus (pictured here), next at our Markham, Canada campus. We’ve also held Fan Days around the world partnering with media and review sites to create maximum exposure. For San Francisco, we’ve taken the best of those events and what we learned from them and applied it to the plan – and then ran that plan through an amplifier. AMD Fan Day San Francisco 2013 goes to “11”.

This year’s event will be a hands on experience with some of the latest and greatest technologies. The new 2013 line up of AMD A-Series processors will be ready for a test drive. Amazing AMD Radeon™ Graphics will be on display. Come play and compete on some of the newest game titles available, and some that aren’t available yet. Additionally, some of our key partners will be in attendance to showcase their technologies, games and newest innovations, including IGN, Ubisoft, Sapphire and Logitech. Did we mention we expect to see 1,000+ AMD fans? We are excited to bring the event to the West Coast and look forward to seeing you there. Register here to be a part of it. DETAILS: AMD Fan Day – West Coast Saturday, April 06, 2013 5:30 PM - 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) City View at METREON 135 4th Street, 4th Floor San Francisco, CA 94013 *Parking is available across the street from the METREON in the Fifth and Mission Parking Garage fifthandmission.com/ **Public Transportation is recommended as the METREON is one block from MUNI and BART lines on Market at the Powell Street Station. John Taylor is the Corporate Vice President of Global Communications & Industry Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied

AMD Gaming Evolved - GDC 2013 Trailer

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:32:52 +0000

AMD Gaming Evolved celebrates GDC 2013 with a look back at our exciting game partnerships from 2012 to date. We hope you have had a chance to enjoy some of these incredible titles and appreciate, as much as we do, the great and difficult work the many developers we've worked with put in to give fans the ultimate experience.

Optimized for AMD: BioShock Infinite launches

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 20:12:22 +0000

Today we at AMD are pleased to welcome the worldwide launch of the much-anticipated BioShock Infinite! We're excited for a couple reasons: it's the first DirectX® 11 game in the BioShock series, its performance is optimized for AMD Radeon™ GPUs, and that ever-so-famous art direction is simply gorgeous.

THE BIOSHOCK INFINITE STORY

Indebted to the wrong people, with his life on the line, veteran of the U.S. Cavalry and now hired gun, Booker DeWitt has only one opportunity to wipe his slate clean: he must rescue Elizabeth, a mysterious girl imprisoned since childhood and locked up in the flying city of Columbia. Forced to trust one another, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond during their daring escape. Together, they learn to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities, as they fight on zeppelins in the clouds, along high-speed Sky-Lines, and down in the streets of Columbia, all while surviving the threats of the air-city and uncovering its dark secret.

Elizabeth, a very special 21-year-old woman imprisoned within Columbia from the age of five.

As for Columbia, the fair floating city was built by the US Government in the late 1800s to serve as a world's fair. The city was sent to travel from continent to continent and show the rest of the world the success of the American experiment. Unknown to most, Columbia was also a "death star," secretly packed with weaponry. Political strife caused Columbia to secede from America and the city disappeared. No one knows how to get to Columbia... except Booker, that is.

THE GRAPHICS DRIVER OF CHOICE

A new game typically demands a new driver that includes the latest performance optimizations for the best experience. With BioShock Infinite, that driver is the AMD Catalyst™ 13.3 Beta 3 (or later) graphics driver. Any user running the AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series (or later) is encouraged to have this driver installed by both AMD and Irrational Games for the best performance and image quality!

KEY GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGIES

Like every other title partnered with the AMD Gaming Evolved program, software developers at AMD and Irrational Games collaborated extensively to make the PC version of BioShock Infinite the definitive experience for gamers. As previously indicated, BioShock Infinite is the first in the franchise to implement a DirectX® 11 graphics engine, which fundamentally offers state-of-the-art rendering in a series already famous for its beauty. To that point, let's take a look at some of the effects that make this fabulous game a perfect fit for the capabilities of the Graphics Core Next architecture.

DIFFUSION DEPTH OF FIELD

Diffusion Depth of Field (DDoF) is a technique designed to simulate the focal length of a camera or human eye, both of which naturally blur objects not in focus from the perspective of the viewer. For example, focusing on a hand in front of your face will cause objects behind your hand to blur, and that blurring increases in intensity with objects of an increasing distance from you. But DDoF isn't merely a simple blur applied to the scene beyond your focus. DDoF is a complex series of differential equations that intelligently blurs objects with respect to distance from the viewer and location in the player's field of view. It also prevents an artifact by which the soft edges of two blurred objects intersect and ruin the DOF effect entirely. This effect is tough to depict with BioShock Infinite for the purposes of a blog, but it's immediately noticeable (and beautiful) at many points throughout the game.

CONTACT HARDENING SHADOWS

The CHS feature computes the average distance of a shadow pixel from the object casting a shadow, then uses that calculation to inform how hard or soft the edges of a shadow should be as they move away from the source. This technique closely mimics a shadow you might cast in the real world, which would be more "solid" in appearance closer to your body.

HIGH DEFINITION AMBIENT OCCLUSION

Developed by AMD's software engineers, high definition ambient occlusion (HDAO) imbues BioShock Infinite with the ability to more realistically render the shadows we see when two objects are placed close to one another. HDAO accomplishes this first by collecting all of the visual information from the player's view of the game world, then by assessing all of the angles, pits and valleys present in that view. Using the compute capabilities of the Graphics Core Next architecture, BioShock Infinite then instructs the graphics card to increase or decrease the brightness of an area based on the analysis of those angles and valleys. In the real world, ambient occlusion can be seen in the shadows between logs piled in a stack, or between the wrinkles in a fabric. Even in direct light, it is still possible for shadows to be generated in these instances, so HDAO is a subtle but important technique to improve realism.

AMD EYEFINITY TECHNOLOGY

BioShock Infinite has been extensively optimized for the panoramic gaming capabilities offered by AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology. It has achieved a top-grade compatibility evaluation from AMD, so you should have an excellent experience on all of the supported modes, including 3x1 portrait, 3x1 landscape, and 3x2 landscape.¹

CONCLUSION

With a series-first DirectX® 11 engine, extensive optimizations for Graphics Core Next, and big enthusiast love for multi-GPU/multi-display technologies, BioShock Infinite is a real "must play" for PC gamers. Truly, the PC version is the definitive experience! Now, if you're interested in bringing home a copy of this game for yourself, you can pick it up on Steam® today (March 26th) for $59.99 USD. Or you could get it for free!

"Whoa, free? Say whaaaaaat?"

Right now AMD is running a promotion called "Never Settle Reloaded." If you buy any AMD Radeon™ HD 7800 Series graphics card from a participating retailer, you'll get a free copy of both BioShock Infinite and Tomb Raider! Or if you buy an AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 after April 2 (also at participating retailers), you could get BioShock Infinite for free as well. If you'd like to learn more about these promotions, you can visit the promotion page for a list of retailers.

[accordion] [accordion_pane title="> Click here for Fine Print" current="no"]

AMD Eyefinity technology supports up to six DisplayPort™ monitors on an enabled graphics card. Supported display quantity, type and resolution vary by model and board design; confirm specifications with manufacturer before purchase. To enable more than two displays, or multiple displays from a single output, additional hardware such as DisplayPort-ready monitors or DisplayPort 1.2 MST-enabled hubs may be required. Maximum two active adapters supported. See www.amd.com/eyefinityfaq for full details.

Something Cool is coming... Part 2

community.blogs@amd.com — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:35:24 +0000

If you saw my blog previously The specified item was not found. I mentioned that AMD is busy working on a fantastic new project that is definitely going to generate some buzz. It is still too soon to give out details; but as promised here are more pictures to drool over.

You Gotta have Cars

Concept Car Drawings

Cars in Engine

Keep your eyes peeled here on game.amd.com - as I will have some more to show over the next few weeks. In the meantime also follow me on twitter (@jaymarsden1) where I will be tweeting out more content!

Till Next time. Never Settle!

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD's positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Introducing the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 for great 1080p gaming!

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:05:02 +0000

The AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series has proven a tremendously successful and popular product with millions of gamers across the
globe. Today we are proud to announce a new member to that family, which we tirelessly crafted to provide an unbeatable value for gamers upgrading to play the latest titles at 1080p: the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 graphics processor.

IT’S ALL ABOUT PERFORMANCE

When you step up to buy a graphics card, you probably care about one thing: performance. Performance in today’s games, particularly DirectX® 11 ones, is often being driven by a technology called “DirectCompute.” DirectCompute is a programming language that can tap into the mega-parallelized architectures of modern graphics cards, and leverage that for higher image quality and better performance than other approaches to a given in-game effect.

So, when we set out to design the new graphics chip for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU, we leveraged the Graphics Core Next architecture, which was specifically conceived for outstanding performance with this programming language. Now, I’ll demonstrate the value of those optimizations in just a moment, but first I wanted to put a finer point on just how prevalent this is becoming in major titles:

Tomb Raider: TressFX Hair and depth of field
DiRT Showdown: Global illumination and advanced lighting
Far Cry 3: Ambient occlusion and global illumination
Hitman Absolution: Bokeh depth of field
Crysis 3: Global illumination, particle shading, directional occlusion
3Dmark®: Numerous post-processing effects to improve lighting/shadowing

As you can see, DirectCompute is a prevalent trend in PC graphics, with a significant chunk of many a modern game’s performance depending on excellence in this area. And in the performance analysis below, you can see what happens when you pit a product with weak compute capabilities against the DirectCompute-optimized Graphics Core Next architecture in the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU.¹

With an average performance advantage of up to 20% over the GTX 650 Ti, the AMD Radeon� HD 7790 GPU shines in modern games because of its excellence with the DirectCompute language, and the many in-game effects that rely on it.

THE PERFECT CHIP FOR 1080P GAMING

"High-def" or "1080p?" Whatever you call it, 1920x1080 is the most common resolution used by today's gamers. We knew we had to build a new graphics chip that offered this resolution outstanding performance at a fantastic value, and I wanted to walk you through some of the key specifications designed to achieve that goal. We started with what we call "dual geometry and tessellation engines," which let the GPU process two polygons in a single cycle of the graphics engine. Then we feed that data into 896 Stream Processors-the heart of the Graphics Core Next architecture-connected to 1GB of GDDR5 RAM on a high-speed 128-bit memory interface. Other features include our amazing HD video accelerator, super-efficient power consumption with AMD ZeroCore Power technology, and panoramic computing with AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology.^2,3 Altogether, this new and purpose-built graphics chip joins the rest AMD Radeon™ HD 7700 Series as the only products in their class to support multi-GPU configurations, all of the features in DirectX® 11.1, and complete compatibility with Windows 8. The competing GeForce GTX 650 Ti doesn't support all of these features, plain and simple.

GET BIOSHOCK INFINITE FREE

The Never Settle Reloaded program has been met with serious praise with gamers and critics across the globe. Through emails, tweets and more, you've proven us that you always want the latest games bundled with your new graphics card, and we're taking that advice to heart by extending Never Settle Reloaded to the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790. When you purchase this new graphics card at a participating retailer, you will receive a free copy of BioShock Infinite valued at $59.99 USD. Please make sure to watch for complete details on the promotion page so you can choose the right retailer! We expect that list to be available soon.

AMD POWERTUNE TECHNOLOGY REIMAGINED

Last, but certainly not least, I wanted to briefly tell you about the optimized version of AMD PowerTune technology that we've implemented on the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU.³ If you haven't heard about this technology before, it's an automatic and intelligent mechanism that optimizes the clockspeed of the GPU for higher clockspeeds and higher framerates in your favorite games. It accomplishes this by assessing the workload of whatever application you're running, predicting what kind of performance will be demanded, then adjusting the parameters of the chip to ensure maximum speed in a given scenario. This new version of AMD PowerTune technology brings additional intelligence to the table, and can now optimize voltages for efficient power consumption. That efficient power consumption allows us to bring even higher clockspeeds to a product like the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU, which can translate into faster framerates for you. In fact, we've designed to run the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU at 1000MHz on a single 6-pin power connector. Many of our partners may take even greater advantage of these new capabilities with a second power connector and even higher clockspeeds-and the new AMD PowerTune technology will be ready for that, too!

AVAILABLE SOON

Today you'll be able to read reviews of the AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 GPU at many of your favorite technology sites, and I encourage you to do just that. I think you'll agree that the price, the performance and the features are an unbeatable combination, and I hope you'll decide to join the red team when this new GPU is available on shelves in just a few weeks. Until then, take a peek at our official product page for more about the features and specifications! [accordion] [accordion_pane title="> Click here for Fine Print" current="no"]Robert Hallock is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD�s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.1 System configuration for all benchmarks:

Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz)
MSI X79A-GD65
16GB DDR3-1600
Windows® 7 x64
AMD Catalyst™ 12.101.2.1 Driver
NVIDIA ForceWare 314.14 BETA
4xAA / 16xAF

2 AMD Eyefinity technology supports up to six DisplayPort™ monitors on an enabled graphics card. Supported display quantity, type and resolution vary by model and board design; confirm specifications with manufacturer before purchase. To enable more than two displays, or multiple displays from a single output, additional hardware such as DisplayPort-ready monitors or DisplayPort 1.2 MST-enabled hubs may be required. Maximum two active adapters supported. See www.amd.com/eyefinityfaq for full details. 3 AMD ZeroCore Power, AMD PowerPlay™ and AMD PowerTune are technologies offered by certain AMD Radeon™ products, which are designed to intelligently manage GPU power consumption in response to certain GPU load conditions. Not all products feature all technologies - check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities. [/accordion_pane] [/accordion]

SimCity™

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:18:43 +0000

Power to Change a World Together

The defining city simulation is back! Create the city you desire and make the choices that shape your city and power the Sims within it. Every decision, big or small, has real consequences. Invest in heavy industry and your economy will soar—but at the expense of your Sims' health as pollution spreads. Implement green technology and improve your Sims' lives while risking higher taxes and unemployment. Team up with your friends to solve global challenges: launch a space shuttle, reduce carbon emissions, or build magnificent wonders. Compete on global and regional leaderboards to be the richest, the dirtiest, the happiest or the best place to visit!

Buy it now on Origin!

Key Features

Constructible Worlds—Creative and customizable world that offers unique gameplay benefits, all with a fun tactile interface.
Sims Matter—The Sims in your city speak to you directly and it's up to you to respond to their needs. Will you listen and be the toast of the town? Or abuse your power for fame and fortune?
Specialize in What You Love—Mold your city as a casino resort, manufacturing hub, educational enclave, and more, and then watch as a unique look and feel spread throughout your city.
Multiplayer— Build a region with friends for the first time! Collaborate or compete in regional and global challenges and make decisions that impact the greater SimCity World.
GlassBox Engine— SimCity introduces GlassBox, the revolutionary simulation technology that gives you the power to impact individual Sims lives, manage city level simulation, and balance multiple city simulations at once.

[gallery include="9497,9498,9499,9496" size="medium" link="file" columns="2"]

Developed by: Maxis

Published by: EA

Official Website

New Aviary SDK and Windows 8 App, Optimized for AMD

community.blogs@amd.com — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:00:58 +0000

There seems to be nothing more ubiquitous than photos. That’s why we are proud to

announce

our AMD Ventures collaboration with Aviary and our work together to optimize their new Software Development Kit (SDK) and Windows 8 app for AMD platforms.</p> The team at Aviary has done something amazing. They’ve built something very powerful, yet really simple. And their growth proves that they are onto something big. Even if you aren’t familiar with Aviary by name, chances are you may have used their technology. Aviary is the photo editing engine behind huge services and apps such as Flickr, Yahoo! Mail and Twitter. Just recently, Aviary CEO Tobias Peggs

posted a blog

announcing that more than 3 billion photos have been edited using Aviary in just 18 months – and this does not even include Twitter data!

Aviary’s Explosive Growth (Credit: Aviary)

Now, Aviary is bringing that same powerful photo editing technology to a PC OS for the first time. We thought it would be a great opportunity to demonstrate that by leveraging the unique compute capabilities of AMD APUs to make the processing of even the most complex filters and effects really, really fast.

The result? By optimizing for the AMD APU, we saw a performance improvement of 11X on average!¹

How did we do it? Quite simply, we leveraged the full parallel compute power of the AMD APU. Much of that highly parallel compute capability sits on the “GPU” side of the APU and is perfect for doing things like image manipulation. Since the target was to design a Windows Store app, we used

C++ AMP

to process the filters and effects on the graphics engine where it can be done much faster than processing on the traditional CPU cores. The end result is a super-fast experience that will delight consumers.

Competitively, the APU outperforms the competition. If you compare the upcoming AMD A4-1200 APU codenamed “Temash” designed for performance tablets to the latest Intel Atom Z2760 “Clovertrail” processor, there is a dramatic difference with an average of 16X faster² when applying the Aviary filters.

AMD A4-1200 “Temash” vs Intel Atom Z2760 “Clovertrail”</p> Check out the new

Aviary app in the Windows Store

or download the SDK today!

Also, be sure to mark your calendars for Aviary’s Photo Hack Day 4 ! Come join hundreds of developers at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, CA for a weekend of photo hacking fun, inspiration and prizes.

Find more great apps at AMD AppZone

Learn more about

AMD Ventures

</li> </ul> Gabe Gravning is head of app ecosystem marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

1 Test performed by AMD labs using a test script to measure the time to process the 19 filters from the Aviary SDK for Windows 8 on a .6 MP (953x648) thumbnail image. An AMD "Larne" reference platform system with upcoming AMD Elite Mobility Dual-Core A4-1200 Accelerated Processor with AMD Radeon™ HD 8180 Graphics, 2x2GB of DDR3-1600MHz RAM, video driver 12.102.0.0 - 02/18/2013, Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (x64), build 9200 averaged 17.3 ms per filter with GPU acceleration turned on through the Microsoft DirectX 11 API and C++ AMP programming model versus 210.1 ms per filter in CPU-only mode. TEM-23

2 Test performed by AMD labs using a test script to measure the time to process the 19 filters from the Aviary SDK for Windows 8 on a 0.6 MP (953x648) thumbnail image. An AMD "Larne" reference platform system with upcoming AMD Elite Mobility Dual-Core A4-1200 Accelerated Processor with AMD Radeon™ HD 8180 Graphics, 2x2GB of DDR3-1600MHz RAM, video driver 12.102.0.0 - 02/18/2013 averaged 17.3 ms per filter with GPU acceleration turned on through the Microsoft DirectX 11 API and C++ AMP programming model. A Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2, Model - 31P367923U with Intel® Atom™ Z2760 with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator graphics, 2GB of DDR3-1333 MHz RAM, video driver 9.14.3.1087 - 10/3/2012 averaged 304.3 ms per filter in CPU-only mode. The Intel device does not support DirectX 11, so must run the test in CPU-only mode. Both systems used Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (x64), build 9200. TEM-21

Loadout

community.blogs@amd.com — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 03:30:39 +0000

Create, Customize, Kill!

Loadout is an outrageous new multiplayer shooter that's all about the guns, Baby! Build a massive variety of absolutely insane weaponry — over 50 million combinations — totally customized, totally unique, totally deadly. You want a launcher that shoots ground-skimming rockets that explode into destructive clouds of flak? You got it! How about a gun that shoots syringes filled with healing green glowing goo that bounces off walls? It's done Son! What about a remote controlled missile that sticks to enemies before destroying them in a massive blue ball of electric destruction? We got you covered. Loadout is about total and uninhibited player expression. Craft your own guns, design your own loadout, dress your character to the nines, and play your way. Best of all? It's absolutely free to play!

Sign up for the Beta
Beta Activation Information

[gallery include="9764,9765,9766,9767" size="medium" link="file" columns="2"]

Developed by: Edge of RealityOfficial Website© 2012 Edge of Reality, Ltd. Edge of Reality©, the Edge of Reality logo™, Loadout, and the Loadout logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Edge of Reality, Ltd. All rights reserved.

AMD's Exploration at the Intersection of Creativity & Technology

community.blogs@amd.com — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 07:37:05 +0000

You could say it's natural evolution. What came before is cast aside for what's new. We see this every year in the evolutions that happen in Detroit, Las Vegas, London and Hollywood. But, there's one long-time innovator that is ensuring its claim to the technology revolution is well-entrenched for years to come. And, at this year's SXSWi, AMD will shine a light on this ever-present player in our tech-filled world – the personal computer. From the start, the PC has been about the individual. In fact, it's hard to imagine an area of our modern geek life that hasn't either originated from the PC or has been significantly influenced by it. PCs have been the catalyst for many modern-day improvements in art, education, healthcare, government and the ubiquitous connections that bind us as a society. At SXSWi, AMD is taking up the torch for the PC and re-imagining it through the lens of artists, technologists and creators of weird things that are appropriately on display in Austin, Texas every March. AMD's Technograffiti exhibit is a celebration of creative expression through technology. AMD has brought some of the greatest creators of the modding world together to deliver a compelling show full of bits and bytes pushed through everyday objects past, present and future. These creations include more than 15 creations like the ultimate Crysis 3® PC. There's a technology from the last century – the pay phone – married with web-based telephony. And, it's where the best AMD graphics meet the best in gaming. This year, AMD is pairing the hottest AAA Gaming Evolved titles in its Never Settle Reloaded bundle with cool 3D software and showing them off on some of the coolest mods in the world. After all, art is technology and, increasingly technology is art. AMD is proud to convene these creations and their creators to champion the debt we all owe to the PC. If you are attending SXSW or in the Austin area make sure to register and stop by. Chris Hook is a Senior Manager, Public Relations at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Something Cool is coming...

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:21:19 +0000

AMD is working on a super cool, super- secret project right now. For those of you who follow the blogs here on game.amd.com, you know how pumped we get when something new and exciting comes around - and this is pretty exciting. I can't give full details - yet, but over the next few weeks I will provide more information to fill in the gaps. For now I thought I would show off some early content + early renders just to give you a taste.

Back Alley Story Board Drawing

Back Alley Early Engine Render

Downtown Story Board Drawing

Downtown Early Engine Render

Stay Tuned Keep your eyes peeled here on game.amd.com - as I will have some more to show over the next few weeks. Also follow me on twitter (@jaymarsden1) where I will be tweeting out more content! Till Next time. Never Settle! Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD's positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Tomb Raider launches with revolutionary TressFX Hair

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:26:39 +0000

After receiving stellar reviews for the PlayStation™ 3 and Xbox 360® editions, the PC version of Tomb Raider is now available with a host of improvements in tow: AMD Radeon™ performance optimizations; DirectX® 11 graphics; better textures; and TressFX Hair, the world's first real-time hair physics system in a playable game! Let's dig right in and see how it all breaks down.

THE TOMB RAIDER STORY

Tomb Raider explores the intense and gritty origin story of Lara Croft and her ascent from a young woman to a hardened survivor. Armed only with raw instincts and the ability to push beyond the limits of human endurance, Lara must fight to unravel the dark history of a forgotten island to escape its relentless hold... and so much more!

TRESSFX HAIR

Kicking off the list of innovations unique to the PC version, Tomb Raider features a technology called "TressFX Hair." This technology is the result of months of close collaboration between software engineers at AMD and Tomb Raider's developer, Crystal Dynamics. TressFX Hair revolutionizes in-game hair by using the DirectCompute programming language to unlock the massively-parallel processing capabilities of the Graphics Core Next architecture, enabling image quality previously reserved for pre-rendered images. Building on AMD's previous work on Order Independent Transparency (OIT), this method makes use of Per-Pixel Linked-List (PPLL) data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage.

Wind tears through a perilous chasm, whipping Lara's ponytail to the side. With TressFX Hair, each one of her thousands of individualized strands of hair are constantly changing with the windspeed. DirectCompute is additionally utilized to perform the real-time physics simulations for TressFX Hair. This physics system treats each strand of hair as a chain with dozens of links, permitting for forces like gravity, wind and movement of the head to move and curl Lara's hair in a realistic fashion. Further, collision detection is performed to ensure that strands do not pass through one another, or other solid surfaces such as Lara's head, clothing and body. Finally, hair styles are simulated by gradually pulling the strands back towards their original shape after they have moved in response to an external force. Graphics cards featuring the Graphics Core Next architecture, like select AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series GPUs, are particularly well-equipped to handle these types of tasks, with their combination of fast on-chip shared memory and massive processing throughput on the order of trillions of operations per second. If you'd like to learn more about TressFX Hair, the world's first real-time hair physics system in a playable game, you can visit our technology page.

PERFORMANCE

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS

GRAPHICS CARD	RESOLUTION	QUALITY PRESET
2x AMD Radeon� HD 7900 Series	2560x1600 (or less)	Ultimate
2x AMD Radeon� HD 7800 Series	2560x1600 (or less)	Ultimate
2x AMD Radeon� HD 7700 Series	1920x1200 (or less)	Ultimate
AMD Radeon� HD 7900 Series	2560x1600 (or less)	Ultimate
AMD Radeon� HD 7800 Series	2560x1600 (or less)	Ultimate
AMD Radeon� HD 7700 Series	1920x1200 (or less)	High

OTHER GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGIES

As I mentioned, Tomb Raider is a DirectX® 11-enabled game—the first in the franchise, actually. That means it's chock full of features not found on the other versions of the game, all topped with performance optimizations that make AMD Radeon™ GPUs the definitive choice to play this game. Make sure you're using the latest AMD Catalyst™ 13.2 driver, and jump on in.

DEPTH OF FIELD

Another technology that uses DirectCompute, like TressFX Hair, depth of field (DOF) is a technique that simulates the blurring we perceive on distant objects that aren't in focus by the eyes or a camera lens. This technique is extremely common in photography and cinema, where the composition of a shot is designed to naturally draw the viewer's focus to a specific place or object that remains in focus. To achieve this effect in a game, a variety of shapes may be utilized to simulate the "bokeh" lens effect on unfocused lights and highlights. The game engine then utilizes the computational horsepower of the Graphics Core Next Architecture to evaluate the focal length of the scene's imaginary lens, relying on that calculation to properly defocus background objects and apply those shapes.

Click image a before/after comparison of the "depth of field" effect.

HIGH DEFINITION AMBIENT OCCLUSION

Yet another technology developed by AMD's software engineers, high definition ambient occlusion (HDAO) imbues Tomb Raider with the ability to more realistically render the shadows we see when two objects are placed close to one another. HDAO accomplishes this first by collecting all of the visual information from the player's view of the game world, then by assessing all the angles, pits and valleys present in that view. Again using DirectCompute, Tomb Raider instructs the graphics card to increase or decrease the brightness of an area based on the analysis of those angles and valleys.

Click image a before/after comparison of the "HDAO" effect.

HARDWARE TESSELLATION

The drive to produce increasingly detailed scenery in PC gaming has long been a motivator in the industry. Newer games demand faster GPUs, and faster GPUs demand games like Tomb Raider that rise to meet the challenge. But the quest for detail has a price, and there are many: hard drive storage space, system RAM, framerates, GPU memory buffers and so on. The solution to problems like these lie in innovative solutions like hardware tessellation, which allows for the procedural generation of more advanced scenes from a set of sparse instructions. Tessellation in Tomb Raider begins when a very simple patch-a triangle or quad-is passed to an engine in the GPU called the hull shader. The hull shader accepts the patch and prepares a set of instructions for the graphics card's tessellation units. These instructions tell the tessellation units how to build a complex object from the very simple object we started with. The tessellation unit will then—on the fly—generate that higher detail object, then pass it down the rendering pipeline where it ultimately appears on your screen with much greater visual fidelity than it started with. Tomb Raider uses this technology hundreds and thousands of times per second to improve the appearance of both characters and scenery, even while improving the efficiency of their game engine with respect to framerates, memory requirements and more. For more information on hardware tessellation, please see this video demonstration of the technology.

Click image a before/after comparison of the "hardware tessellation" effect.

SUPER-SAMPLE ANTI-ALIASING

Super-sample anti-aliasing, or SSAA, is an aggressive and ultra-high quality anti-aliasing format that many people consider the best in the gaming industry. It achieves its stunning quality by rendering the game at 2-4x the resolution chosen by the user, then resizing each frame of the game down to fit the user's display. You've simulated the basic principle behind SSAA any time you've ever noticed that artifacts are less visible in a picture when you shrink it in your favorite image editing application.

Click image a before/after comparison of "FXAA" vs. "SSAA".

CONTACT-HARDENING SHADOWS

This feature computes the average distance of a shadow pixel from the object casting the shadow, meaning the effect judges how hard or soft the shadow should be. For instance, the nearer a pixel is to an object blocking a light source, the harder the shadow. This technique closely mimics shadows from the real world, which you've probably noticed appear more "solid" the closer they are to their source.

Click image a larger view of the "contact hardening shadows" effect.

AMD EYEFINITY TECHNOLOGY

And what would a modern game be without support for AMD Eyefinity technology? As a close partner with the AMD Gaming Evolved program, Tomb Raider of course supports this awesome multi-monitor technology.

Click image a larger view of Tomb Raider with AMD Eyefinity technology.

WRAP-UP

With TressFX Hair, DirectX® 11 support, optimization for the Graphics Core Next architecture, and loads of PC-specific graphical effects, Tomb Raider is a technical smörgåsbord for PC gamers. Truly, the PC version is the definitive experience! Now, if you're interested in bringing home a copy of this game for yourself, you can pick it up on Steam® today (March 5^th) for $49.99 USD. Or you could get it for free! "Whoa, free? How?" Right now AMD is running a promotion called "Never Settle Reloaded." If you buy any AMD Radeon™ HD 7800 Series graphics card from a participating retailer, you'll get a free copy of Tomb Raider and a free copy of the upcoming BioShock Infinite! If you'd like to learn more about this promotion, you can visit the promotion page for a list of retailers.

[accordion] [accordion_pane title="> Click here for Fine Print" current="no"]Robert Hallock is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD�s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.1. Playable settings are defined as 30 frames per second. 2. System configuration for all benchmarks:

Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz)
MSI X79A-GD65
16GB DDR3-1600
Windows® 7 x64
AMD Catalyst™ 13.2 Beta 7
NVIDIA ForceWare 314.14 BETA
All settings and resolutions described in performance charts

[/accordion_pane] [/accordion]

Haier Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:29:44 +0000

Haier taps AMD Embedded G-Series APUs and Windows� Embedded Standard to pioneer a next-generation x86-optimized Smart TV.� Read the full case study at the link below. Haier Case Study

Red 5 Studios Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:21:35 +0000

�

Gamers explore, inhabit, and create heroic alter egos in Red 5 Studio�s Firefall on AMD�s SeaMicro Server.� Read more at the link below:

�

Red 5 Studios Case Study

THE AMD FIREPRO™ R5000: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF REMOTE GRAPHICS

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:45:29 +0000

Earlier this week at the VMware Partner Exchange in Las Vegas, we introduced the AMD FirePro™ R5000 remote graphics card. We designed this card with two key stakeholders in mind: the ever-challenged IT manager and the demanding workstation user. For the latter, we ensured this remote graphics card delivers the raw computing power professionals have come to expect from AMD FirePro™ workstation graphics cards. For the former, we engineered a solution that maximizes space and power consumption within the data center and enables organizations to begin delivering powerful hardware. The journey here didn’t happen overnight. Our development team tapped into our community of IT managers, listened to their feedback and learned about their major concerns as it relates to delivering graphics horsepower to remote users. From these discussions, AMD learned performance, responsiveness, power consumption and cooling costs, systems reliability and security were top of the list. At the end of the day, they are looking for a straightforward solution that delivers impressive functionality, doesn’t eat power by the megawatt, and ultimately delivers low-latency performance to workstation professionals. To that end, we delivered in a big way with the AMD FirePro™ R5000. IT managers will immediately notice how it optimizes space in the DC and offers the flexibility, functionality, security they were looking for from a premium remote graphics solution. But let’s face it, the proof is in the pudding; when it comes to declaring victory, end users often have the final say. That’s where our secret sauce comes in: Teradici’s PCoIP. We’ve integrated advanced PCoIP adaptive encoders to automatically adjust image quality on congested networks, meaning professionals who demand big data pipelines for daily workflows will experience minimal latency periods. And, with data security top of mind, the AMD FirePro™ R5000 helps protect corporate IP and keep sensitive data safeguarded in the data center, intact and uncompromised by encrypting all transmissions. So what can the AMD FirePro™ R5000 deliver to users? Simply put, a thin-client, remote workstation experience comparable to one found on the desktop. Loaded with 2GB memory and nearly eight-times the memory bandwidth than our previous generation card, it enables efficient multi-tasking capable of running graphics-intensive applications across multiple monitors. In this way, it is an ideal graphics workhorse for mid-range, multi-monitor workflows like those found in medical imaging, financial services and graphic design industries where professionals demand a seamless graphics experience. For more information on the AMD FirePro™ R5000 (MSRP $1,099 USD), and a listing on where to purchase it, visit AMD FirePro™ at http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/firepro-remote-graphics/r5000/Pages/r5000.aspx Mohamed Jivraj is a product manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD

Tomb Raider

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:59:39 +0000

A Survivor is Born

At the beginning of the story, we experience Lara embarking on her first job after graduating from University. She shows fear in the face of danger, initially lacking confidence in her own abilities and judgment. Still, we can see the seeds of what Lara will eventually become. She possesses a powerful sense of moral courage. She is clever, resourceful and determined.

Read our Tomb Raider technology blog

Buy it now on Steam!

The PC version of Tomb Raider has been developed in tandem between Crystal Dynamics and long-time partner Nixxes, and Square Enix are proud to be continuing this ten-year tradition. The relationship has spanned over a dozen PC titles, dating back to 2000. The PC edition also has the benefits of an ongoing partnership with AMD, with Tomb Raider extensively optimized to include unique AMD tech that supports highly realistic hair renders for Lara, AMD HD3D, AMD Eyefinity for capable PCs, and more.

In re-imagining Lara for the 2013 release of Tomb Raider wasn't just an opportunity to modernize the character, it was an opportunity to substantially advance in-game realism by tackling the long-standing challenge of unrealistic hair. Through painstaking collaboration between software developers at AMD and Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider proudly features the world's first real-time hair rendering technology in a playable game: TressFX Hair

[gallery include="9427, 9428, 9429, 9430" size="medium" link="file" columns="2"]

Developed by: Crystal Dynamics

Published by: Square Enix

Official Website Tomb Raider © SQUARE ENIX, Ltd. SQUARE ENIX and the SQUARE ENIX logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics, the Crystal Dynamics logo, Eidos, and the Eidos logo are trademarks of SQUARE ENIX, Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

What Your Tablet Doesn’t Want You to Know

community.blogs@amd.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:43:41 +0000

If you are reading this text on a media tablet right now I bet you are doing just fine with the experience. But say once you are done you decide you want to do something a little more visually intensive, like watch a movie in HD, or that you have time to do some quick work on the presentation you are giving next week at work? AMD recently polled its Facebook fans and found that people who want their tablet to do more outnumbered those who are satisfied with what they have 2-to-1. Funny thing is: It can! Since we announced the AMD Z-60 APU late last year, AMD has found a home in performance tablets from Fujitsu and Vizio that deliver an uncompromised experience in a thin tablet with excellent battery life. And we aren’t done yet; at CES in January AMD demonstrated our upcoming APU codenamed “Temash”, including 3D gaming on some top titles. This is the first quad-core x86, system-on-chip (SoC) and is expected to deliver twice the graphics performance of the Z-60 APU.¹ To get our story out, for the first time in a number of years, AMD is putting itself front in center at the mammoth Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain this week to remind the market of what we can do. At our booth in Hall 7, we will demonstrate a number of compelling designs and usage scenarios that show what performance tablet and hybrid PCs can deliver. I expect we will surprise a lot of people and I’m really looking forward to being in the booth with all our demo systems to spread the word. The hybrid PC design is generating a lot of interest in the Windows 8 market for the flexibility it gives the user to choose between a tablet and a full featured clamshell notebook by simply connecting the tablet to its keyboard base.

http://blogs.amd.com/home/files/2013/02/CompalAllFloat.jpg

AMD is paying particular attention to the hybrid PC at Mobile World Congress following the announcement of AMD Turbo Dock technology on February 20^th. This new innovation delivers uncompromised mobile hybrid PC experiences in either operating mode. AMD Turbo Dock technology automatically adjusts performance of the AMD accelerated processing unit (APU) higher while a hybrid PC is docked and being used for more complex tasks like content creation.² Likewise, AMD Turbo Dock technology is designed to lower power consumption when in tablet mode, helping to save battery life and extend movie or video watching, as well as web browsing time. In engineering speak, AMD Turbo Dock technology is delivered through “dynamic TDP” that lets the processor automatically adjust its top frequency to the scenario in which it is operating. Another example of AMD innovation being alive and well! By focusing its energy on delivering a full-featured PC experience on tablets and hybrid PCs, AMD believes it can bring consumers what they want from their Windows 8 experience and grow the market at the same time through a new category of mobile computing. Steve Belt is Corporate Vice President, Ultra Low Power Products. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.¹ Test conducted in AMD Performance Labs using FutureMark 3DMark Vantage P as a metric for GPU performance and PC Mark Vantage as a metric for CPU performance. The AMD Z-60 APU-based system scored 455 and 1914 in 3DMark and PCMark respectively. The AMD A6-1450 APU-based system delivers scores of 981 and 3123 in 3DMark and PCMark respectively. The platforms tested were the AMD Z-60 APU with AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics, 2x 2GB DDR3-1066, Microsoft Windows 7 and the “Larne” reference platform with an AMD A6-1450 Quad Core 1.0GHz APU, AMD Radeon™ HD 8280 series graphics, 2GB DDR3-1066 system memory and Microsoft Windows 7. TEM-2 ² AMD Turbo Dock technology allows a tablet device to boost its performance when connected with a compatible base unit. AMD Turbo Dock-compatible base units provide supplemental APU cooling beyond what is available solely in the slate. Actual performance increases using AMD Turbo Dock technology will vary based on the manufacturer's tablet, base unit and supplemental cooling solution design. AMD Turbo Dock technology is currently available only on the 2013 AMD A6-1450 APU, and is not available on all tablet models - check with the manufacturer for specific models that support this feature.

Crysis 3 – Wallpapers

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 23:37:42 +0000

Purchase now on Origin!More awesome game wallpaper for our fans, this time for Crysis 3 in single screen and in glorious AMD Eyefinity resolutions! Below you will find 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 for single monitors, and 5760x1080 and 5760x1200 triple screen versions. Hope you like them! Download InstructionsTo save a wallpaper to your desktop, left click on a thumbnail to expand it, then right click on the corresponding mini-image in the ribbon that appears at the bottom of the image. You will now see a "Save Image As" menu option. Save the wallpaper to your computer and enjoy! [gallery link="file" columns="2" size="medium" ids="9351,9352,9353,9354,9355,9356,9357,9358,9347,9348,9349,9350"]

��

AMD and The Sony PS4. Allow Me To Elaborate.

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:00:08 +0000

Yesterday, Sony gave a sneak-peek at its next-generation PlayStation®4 (PS4™) game console coming later this year and, here at AMD, we couldn't be more excited. Bringing a supercharged PC architecture that combines next-gen hardware, software, and the fastest game network in the world. Oh, and this is all powered by a semi-custom designed AMD accelerated processing unit (APU) jointly developed in coordination with Sony! In fact, the PS4 is the first announced design win based on semi-custom AMD APUs. This further demonstrates our commitment to take AMD technology into adjacent high growth markets as we diversify beyond the PC. What exactly is a semi-custom APU? Let me elaborate: At the most basic level, an APU is a single chip that combines general-purpose x86 central processing unit (CPU) cores (in this case, 64-bit x86) with a graphics processing unit (GPU) and a variety of system elements, including memory controllers, specialized video decoders, display outputs, etc. Our semi-custom solutions take the same treasure trove of graphics; compute and multi-media IP found in our APUs, and customize them for customers who have a very specific high-volume product that could benefit from AMD’s leading-edge technologies. In the case of the PS4, we leveraged the building blocks of our 2013 product roadmap – the same technologies you find in the latest AMD APUs powering PCs, ultrathin notebooks and tablets – to create a solution that incorporates our upcoming, low-power AMD “Jaguar” CPU cores with next-generation AMD Radeon™ graphics delivering nearly 2 TFLOPS of compute performance! This unique APU architecture enables game developers to easily harness the power of parallel processing to fundamentally change the console gaming experience. Not only creating the opportunity for new possibilities in software design, but also faster and more fluid graphics. This is going to be a very exciting year for gamers, especially for those with AMD hardware in their PCs and consoles, as we have even more game-changing (pun intended) announcements still to come. Look for some more exciting things happening at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March when we will provide even more info on how we are working with game developers to make AMD the hardware of choice for running the best games! John Taylor is the Vice President of Global Communications and Industry Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Crysis 3 runs best on AMD Radeon, and it's out today!

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:58:13 +0000

Late last month we brought word of the Crysis 3 beta, and ran through a full list of recommended settings for each AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series GPU. Today, we'll do you one better: the full game is here to play, and I have a full breakdown of (almost) everything there is to know about running this sensational AMD Radeon™-optimized game.

Get Crysis 3 for FREE

Just in case you haven't heard, we're currently running a promotion called NEVER SETTLE: RELOADED. With the purchase of a discrete graphics card powered by AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series graphics chip, you'll get a free copy of both Crysis 3 and BioShock Infinite. Those free games will come via a coupon in your shipping box, and the coupon has a code with a URL printed on the back. Punch the code into the website printed, and you get your game keys. It's that easy, but for more details you can check out the offer. If a free copy of Crysis 3 and BioShock Infinite sound like something you might like to get in on, visit this complete list of participating retailers. And if you don't see your country or favorite retailer on the list, sit tight! We're adding new ones all the time and we might get to your favorite as well!

The amazing graphics of Crysis 3

The Crysis franchise has long been the flagship for state-of-the-art PC graphics, and it comes as no surprise that Crysis 3 continues to fly that banner. Using a late iteration of the famous "CryEngine," Crysis 3 boasts some serious graphics knowhow. And what better way to demonstrate that with some before/after images? You can find those images here, along with a little bit on how each technology functions. Pay particular attention to the items below, as these technologies specifically play a part in making Crysis 3 the beautiful game that it is.

Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA) (Learn More)
Screen space directional occlusion (SSDO)
Contact-hardening shadows
Bokeh depth of field
Deferred Lighting
Shadow casting directional, point and spot lights
Eye adaption and high dynamic range (HDR) lighting
Color grading
Motion blur
High quality 3D water
Volumetric real time clouds
Procedural HDR lens flares and shapes
Parallax Occlusion Mapping

The best AMD Catalyst™ graphics driver for Crysis 3

With all that beauty, you're likely to wonder what graphics driver is best to run Crysis 3, and that's easy: you want to be using AMD Catalyst™ 13.2 Beta 5 (or later). No ifs, ands, or buts! You can grab it from this page, and install will only take a second. Engineers at AMD and CryTek have been collaborating day and night to ensure that Crysis 3 and the AMD Catalyst™ driver are mutually optimized for ideal performance starting with the 13.2 Beta and beyond. In fact, all of the recommendations I've made in the next section are based on this driver.

Recommended settings for AMD Radeon™ graphics

At last we come to recommended settings. I've combed through the performance figures crunched by our performance labs to bring you a final list of maximum playable settings (>30 FPS average) for each AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series GPU. The performance you experience with the settings will, of course, vary with your total system configuration, but they are a great starting point for determining the settings you'll ultimately use for Crysis 3.

Graphics Card	Resolution	Preset	AA Quality	AF Quality
AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 GHz Edition	2560x1600 1920x1080	Very High Very High	2xSMAA 8xMSAA	16x 16x
AMD Radeon™ HD 7970	2560x1600 1920x1080	High Very High	2xMSAA 4xMSAA	16x 16x
AMD Radeon™ HD 7950	1920x1080	Very High	4xMSAA	16x
AMD Radeon™ HD 7870 GHz Edition	1920x1080	Very High	2xMSAA	16x
AMD Radeon™ HD 7850	1920x1080	Very High	2xSMAA	16x
AMD Radeon™ HD 7770 GHz Edition	1920x1080	High	None	16x
AMD Radeon™ HD 7750	1920x1080	Low/Medium	None	4x/8x

Stay tuned for more goodness

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg! Soon I will have a deep dive of the performance, along with more exclusive content on the rendering techniques in Crysis 3 and exclusive never-before-seen interviews with some of the Crysis 3 dev team's best and brightest. So while we're rounding that all up, why don't you sit back, fire up your AMD Radeon™ GPU, and enjoy the best Crysis 3 experience on the planet? That's AMD Gaming Evolved at work, my friends. And we've only just begun.

Robert Hallock is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD's positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Livestream Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 04:14:06 +0000

Livestream connects millions of people with AMD�s SeaMicro SM15000 Server.� Read more below to find out how.

Feb 2013 Livestream Case Study

CASS Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 04:17:13 +0000

CASS solution offers high quality, smooth, stable real-time computer vision images for defense and other applications.� Read more about this success story and learn how CASS and AMD worked together. Read full story here:

CRP Feb 2013 CASS Case Study

Wayfair Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 03:57:11 +0000

Wayfair Accelerates Time to Revenue for New Products While Reducing Power and Space Footprint in the Data Center.� Read full story here:

Feb 2013 Wayfair Case Study

AddThis Case Study

community.blogs@amd.com — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 04:40:17 +0000

AddThis operates the world’s largest social infrastructure and data platform. It’s sharing tools are used by over 14 million web domains and reach 1.3 billion users each month. Continue reading to learn how AddThis selected AMD to help ramp up their data centers for increased real-time data processing needs, driven by some of 2012’s most discussed events. Read full story here:

CRP Jan 2013 AddThis Case Study[1]

Penguin and AMD, Changing the Status Quo

community.blogs@amd.com — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 02:05:18 +0000

By: Phil Pokorny, Chief Technology Officer, Penguin Computing I've been working in the server industry with Penguin Computing for over 10 years now, and one of the constants during that time is that server features are driven by the motherboard and that motherboard is usually an exercise in compromises. The majority of a motherboard is dictated by the manufacturer of the CPU and chipset. Motherboards that have the features you want also come with features you don't want. Customers looking to lower costs, ask if removing components they don't need could lower costs. In practice, a custom run of motherboards with parts removed could cost as much as or more than standard motherboards with the parts included. And motherboards tend to be optimized for cost as it's the easiest thing to measure and compare. But this can lead to compromises in things that are harder to measure like power efficiency, reliability and features. But Open Compute and AMD are turning this “one size fits all” motherboard status quo on its ear. The largest users are finding that their needs have changed and fortunately, it is now possible for them to get exactly the motherboard they want. With the help of AMD, a motherboard that has what users want and doesn't have what they don't want is within their reach. Based on the AMD Open 3.0 platform, this new development enables the general IT community to easily configure a “right size” motherboard to meet their specific computing demands. And AMD's involvement helps insure that reliability, efficiency and performance features are not compromised. Penguin Computing is particularly excited about this new motherboard and system design because it's a good fit for the kinds of systems our customers want. What they want is flexible, low cost, high-performance CPU and memory machines to be part of high-performance compute clusters and scale-out processing farms. Penguin started targeting this segment years ago with our Altus 600 and Altus 650 "low cost compute nodes." We expect a wide range of customers to be excited about the feature set of this new AMD platform. It’s a unique approach for creating solutions that are tailored to provide users just what they need and nothing more. Phil Pokorny, is Chief Technology Officer at Penguin Computing. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

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