Fudzilla are reporting that ION 2 should launch toward the end of the year.

Industry sources have told them that the new Ion 2 will have a decreased die size, should have much faster graphics and much more shaders.

The ION 2 will have more than double (32+) the number of shaders of the original Geforce 9400M /MCP79 /ION chip.

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NVIDIA Ion 2 could be launched in late 2009

Nvidia have announced that they’re updating they’re mobile series of graphics cards with five DirectX 10.1-capable chips(G210M, GT 230M, GT 240M, GTS 250M, GTS 260M) just in time for Windows 7 release, but disappointingly after the MacBook upgrade, which will contain the older series of GPU. Smaller(40Nm),  less demanding on power consumption, improved performance and more importantly to NVIDIA, cheaper to make.

Check the images for how they compare to the other cards.

Source : Gizmodo, Ubergizmo

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NVIDIA updating its mobile GPUs

Adobe has confirmed that it is working to deliver on GPU accelerated Flash with Nvidia and Broadcom

The Flash player will be accelerated on all Nvidia GPUs and also utilise Broadcom’s Crystal HD chip – the focus is on platforms like Atom and Tegra, which don’t have enough horsepower to play HD Flash videos smoothly using just the CPU.

Unfortunately there is no specific date for GPU accelerated Flash and Broadcom has said that it should be in the first half of 2010. Not ideal but better than nothing!

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Adobe announces GPU accelerated Flash

AMD today launched a factory-overclocked version of its ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics chipset. The move takes the 850MHz core clock speed of the standard edition and boosts it to 1GHz.

This overclocked model is the first GPU to reach the 1 gigahertz milestone, which according to AMD will boost the peak computing power from 1.36 teraflops to 1.6 making it theoretically faster than NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 285.

Even though this card will be pulling more power AMD say the card will run fine on fan cooling.

The card should be available through regular 3rd parties such as ASUS, MSI and XFX.

No word on pricing but the card should be available immediately.

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AMD releases the 1st 1GHz GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4890

It seems like each month ATI or nVidia announce a new line of cards in the perpetual fight to one up each other. This time round it is ATI’s turn with some photos being leaked of what would seem to be the ATI Radeon HD 4890.

Clock speeds are set 850MHz and 3.9GHz for the core and memory – on the leaked chip at least. The 4870 was limited to a 790MHz core clock at most, via ATI’s Overdrive overclocking utility, whereas the leaked 4890 has a 1GHz limit, indicating there’s headroom for improvement on retail cards.

It is believed that the improvements are due to a die shrink from the 55nm fabrication process to the 40nm process.

The reduction in die size should also help the wallets of consumers as it costs AMD less to produce.

A couple of retailers overseas have the Radeon HD 4890 up for pre-order in the £250 region.

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AMD ATI Radeon HD 4890 revealed

It is normally desktop GPUs that introduce new technologies into the graphics world, especially with die shrinks. However AMD are bucking the trend and have announced that the worlds first 40nm GPUs will be the Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and 4830.

The 4860 and 4830 will both have 640 stream processors, but the 4960 will feature up to 4GHz GDDR5 memory, and the core will be clocked at 650MHz and the 4830 will feature a core clock of either 450MHz or 600MHz, depending on the circumstances. The 4830 will also have either DDR3 or GDDR3 memory, which will be clocked between 800MHz and 900MHz.

Both GPUs will have 128-bit memory bus, and contain 826 million transistors. This is actually a reduction in transistors compared to the 55nm Mobility Radeon HD 4850 which has 956 million transistors. This therefore has meant that AMD has been able to reduce the die size significantly which is shown in the picture below.

MD’s senior vice president and general manager of graphics products, Rick Bergman said:

it’s well documented that notebooks have surpassed desktops in worldwide sales.

 

this is the fifth consecutive time that AMD is first to launch graphics processors based on a new process node, but the first time we’ve chosen to make such a debut in the mobile market. Shrinking these chips smaller and smaller means that OEM partners are able to pack more graphics horsepower into smaller notebooks, so that consumers can enjoy all the goodness of DirectX 10.1 games, home theater-quality HD multimedia on HD displays and energy-efficient features for long battery life on a wide range of notebook form factors.” For those of you who are eager to see what AMD will do with 40nm desktop GPUs, Bergman tells you “not to worry” as “40nm desktop parts are coming soon.

Availability should be as soon as the 2nd quarter.

Via Bit Tech

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AMD to launch 40nm Mobile GPUs, Radeon HD 4860 and 4830

We have already posted about Intel unveilings its 32nm fabrication process technology as part of the press announcement of the 32nm Westmere CPUs Intel demoed the first CPU with an integrated GPU, codenamed Clarkdale.

Unfortunately there have been no specifics about the GPU but Intel told us that we could expect it to offer an improved equivalent of the integrated graphics found in Intel’s current G45 chipset. Designed for the mainstream market, the CPUs will feature two cores, but will also be able to handle four threads via HyperThreading.

While the CPU core of the Clarkdale will be built using the 32nm fabrication process the DDR3 memory controller and GPU will be built using 45nm transistors. The three will sit together in a multi-chip package, and communicate via a high-speed QPI link.

Arrandale is the mobile version of Clarkdale, also with integrated on die graphics. It will also allow switchable graphics within Windows 7 and Windows Vista, enabling the use of a higher performance GPU when plugged in.  Both Clarkdale and Arrandale will use 5 series chipsets, exclusively with DDR3.

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Intel Clarkdale: CPU with integrated GPU

Call me a nerd but I like my coolers. Whether it is a CPU or GPU cooler I get a little excited when buying one. In fact I have spent dozens of hours and probably hundreds over the years tweaking my media PC to be as quiet as possible. One of the hardest things to cool and keep quiet has always been graphics cards, there are just not as many quiet solutions as I would like. You end up in limbo between performance and heat issues.

Thermaltake have just released their Fanless 330 0dBA, the VGA cooler is specially made for hardcore gamers who demand quiet cooling device for their high-end video cards.

It claims to be able to work on nVidia cards up to 9600GT & 8800GT and ATI cards up to HD 3850 Series.

Ok so they are not the top end Graphics Cards but lets be honest you are never going to have a high end silent gaming system.

It is a shame that the Cooler does not work on the ATI HD 4670 as Bit Tech gave this an excellent review and it looks like it would make a great card for a media PC and it uses less power than a BFG Tech GeForce 9600 GT so excessive heat should not be that much of an issue.

Features of this cooler include:

- Completely Silent – Fanless design gives no noise operation
- 3 Heatsink Modules in One – 4 heatpipes & 106 fins make 3 single heatsink modules
and get multiple cooling performance
- Completely Silent – passive fanless design makes no noise but also good cooling effect
- Dual Layer Structure with 3 Heatsink Modules : conducts heat effectively from GPU and
gets more surfaces to dissipate

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Thermaltake Fanless 330 VGA Cooler

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card, raising the performance bar for graphics cards priced at less than $150 (USD).

Like all ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products, the new offering delivers game performance and HD multimedia capabilities, as well support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games.

The ATI Radeon HD 4830 cards will also support ATI CrossFireX technology allowing gamers to combine as many as four cards in one PC.

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ATI Radeon HD 4830 Card launched by AMD

NVIDIA have finally enabled PhysX support via a free GeForce Power Pack download that contains a free full copy of Warmonger, three PhysX-enabled Unreal Tournament 3 maps, demos of Metal Knight Zero and the Nurien UT3-based social networking service, and a couple tech demos.

As you may know Nvidia bought Ageia and the PhysX engine in February 2008 effectively rendering the PhysX add-in card redundant. PhysX is currently the only available solution for physics hardware acceleration.

Download the GeForce Power Pack

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NVIDIA enables PhysX and CUDA support for GeForce 8+ Cards