Spotted Balkan

This is something that initially caught me off-guard when I first realized it, but AMD historically hasn’t liked to talk about their GPU plans much in advance. On the CPU size we’ve heard about Carrizo and Zen years in advance. Meanwhile AMD’s competitor in the world of GPUs, NVIDIA, releases some basic architectural information over a year in advance as well. However with AMD’s GPU technology, we typically don’t hear about it until the first products implementing new technology are launched. With AMD’s GPU assets having been reorganized under the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) and led by Raja Koduri, RTG has recognized this as well. As a result, the new RTG is looking to chart a bit of a different course, to be a bit more transparent and a bit more forthcoming than they have in the past. The end result isn’t quite like what AMD has done with their CPU division or their competition has done with GPU architectures – RTG will talk about both more or less depending on the subje...

AMD launched its Fiji GPU—the company’s newest design—about six months ago. It fared well, besting Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti gaming card at 3840x2160 across our benchmark suite. But AMD’s management knows that there’s still a lot of work to do. Most of the Radeon lineup is based on much older silicon, and although those GPUs remain competitive through strategically timed price cuts, they’re also showing their age. For instance, Nvidia’s second-gen Maxwell processors dating back over a year support HDMI 2.0, whereas all of the 300-series Radeons are limited to HDMI 1.4. That’s going to change in 2016. Over the next few months, AMD plans to divulge more details about its next-generation architecture, including improvements made to the graphics processing, fixed-function media blocks, memory subsystem and compute capabilities. For now, though, the emphasis is on a beefier display controller and what it enables. Not only will the next-gen GPU incorporate HDMI 2.0a, but it’ll also get ...

Cooler Master recently updated its lower-capacity V series, and today we take a look at the V750. This unit features 80 PLUS Gold efficiency, fully modular cabling and very small dimensions, which put it up against the SilverStone ST75F-GS V2. Cooler Master sells three high-end, fully modular V-series power supplies made by Seasonic and three semi-modular V(SM) models that are manufactured by Enhance Electronics. Apparently, the company wanted to enrich its high-end line with lower-capacity units, so it introduced the V550, V650 and V750 with up to 550W, 650W and 750W output, respectively. These new PSUs are based on a similar platform as the VSM units. However, they employ fully modular cabling and incorporate a higher quality Loop Dynamic Bearing fan. There is currently a shortage of options when it comes to compact PSUs with enough power to feed a high-end gaming system. The most active company in this segment is SilverStone. In a recent review, we  evaluated the ST75F-GS...

Share This article Last week, AMD hosted its first RTG (Radeon Technology Group) tech conference in Sonoma, California since restructuring the company to give discrete graphics more independence. The company laid out its plans for graphics technology in 2016, including new FreeSync options and support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) monitors. Current monitors and displays are only capable of reproducing a fraction of the luminance the human eye can perceive. The chart below shows the luminance values of common light sources, from sunlight at 1.6 billion nits down to ultra-black, at 0.01 nits. According to AMD, the average PC LCD only supports 0-250 nits, while a high-end LCD TV might stretch to 350-400 nits, at most. That’s going to start changing in the next 12 months, thanks to new HDR support from high-end 4K televisions and cutting-edge OLED technology. HDR LCD’s can theoretically hit 1K today with 2K on the market by the end of next year, while OLEDs can push 500 nits ...