ATI

Jon Peddie Research said Thursday that estimated graphics chip shipments in the fourth quarter plummeted 34 percent from the third quarter--a very atypical month-to-month decline.

"The fourth quarter is usually a positive quarter for the computer industry. There has obviously been some inventory problems in the quarter," said Jon Peddie, president of Tiburon Calif.-based research firm, in a statement.

And it will get worse. "We're...bracing for what will probably be the worst Q1 and Q2 decline we've seen since the Internet bubble pop of 2000," he warned.

Total shipments of GPUs for … Read more

With everything going green, it was only a matter of time before we added more power consumption testing in the labs. With all the advancements in graphic cards--multiple GPUs, multiple power connections, Crossfire, and SLI--they're now one of the biggest energy hogs in your rig. Our goal is to look at GPU power consumption and measure power vs. performance vs.cost.

The test bed is Intel-based, with a Core i7 965 processor at 3.20GHz and 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz. The meter used to measure the system's power is a Watts up? Pro ES. Watts up? … Read more

On Wednesday, we wrote that we'd published reviews of two high-end PC graphics cards: Nvidia's GeForce GTX 295, and what we thought at the time was the Asus EAHD4870X2 TOP, an overclocked card using ATI's Radeon HD 4870X2 dual-chip design. We learned Thursday morning that the Asus card we thought we had is actually something else.

As found on the Asus Web site, here is a picture of the standard clocked edition of its $479 EAHD4870X2 graphics card:

Also on that same site, a picture of the $550 overclocked version:

Finally, here's what showed up in our lab:

Turns out, despite all outward appearances, the card we received was not, in fact, overclocked. Instead, it's the standard edition, at 750MHz clock speed per core. AMD says it sent us the Asus-branded, ready-for-retail packaged version, but we're unclear as to why the fan and heatsink assembly is so different than what Asus has on display. If you've purchased the standard clocked edition yourself, we'd be interested to know what came in your box.

The reviews (Asus now here, competing GeForce GTX 295 here) have since been corrected, although our assessment stays the same. We still recommend the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 card over the Asus card, or any other with ATI's Radeon HD4870 X2 design. The standard version may be $479, down from the $550 overclocked model, but it's still slower and more power-hungry than the GTX 295, which costs just $20 more. You can also bet we'll be running GPU-Z on all 3D cards from here on to confirm their clock speeds. … Read more

Updated at 10:50 a.m. PST throughout.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. posted a sharp profit decline of 64 percent on Thursday. This comes after Intel posted a steep dive in profits last week.

TSMC, the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, said its sales sunk to 64.6 billion Taiwan dollars ($1.96 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2008, down 31 percent from the same period last year as well as from the previous quarter.

Net income was NT$12.6 billion in the fourth quarter, down nearly 64 percent from the year-earlier period and 59 percent from … Read more

Qualcomm has picked up handheld assets from Advanced Micro Devices, including graphics chip technology.

San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm and Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD announced on Tuesday that Qualcomm has acquired graphics and multimedia technology assets, intellectual property and resources that were "formerly the basis of AMD's handheld business."

The acquisition includes "graphics cores that we have been licensing for several years," said Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, in a statement.

The agreement provides Qualcomm with "vector graphics and 3D graphics technologies and IP," AMD … Read more

It's time for an update to the tiny GPUs that let your laptop watch HD videos and play World of Warcraft. AMD is looking to snag a bigger slice of the mobile graphics pie with a new series of ATI Mobility Radeon chips, called the HD4000 series. They offer Microsoft DirectX 10.1 support and the highest-end versions support GDDR5 memory.

Those break down into four categories, which are (with AMD's description of each):

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4800 Series: For gaming enthusiasts >Amazing Graphics Horsepower for extreme HD Gamers >World's most powerful mobile GPU, breaks the TeraFlops barrier >World's First Mobile GPU supporting GDDR5 memory

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4600 Series: Optimized for high-performance thin systems >Multimedia Powerhouse delivering intense HD Entertainment >Redefine HD Gaming for Performance Thin Notebooks >Phenomenal Performance Per Watt

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4300 and 4500 Series: HD performance for mainstream systems plus Low-power for thin and light laptops >Optimal design and power for Ultra-Thin Notebooks >Spectacular full HD 1080p video and audio support >Breakthrough Energy Efficiency for Long Battery Life… Read more

As the only vendor currently producing CPUs, GPUs, and motherboard chipsets, AMD is uniquely positioned to market its entire product line as a unified PC gaming platform. It began this effort last year with its Spider platform (the original Phenom X4, Radeon HD 3000-series CPUs, and its 700-series chipsets), and with today's launch of its new Phenom II desktop chips, AMD also announced its new Dragon platform. Dragon marries Phenom II with the Radeon HD 4800-line of 3D cards and AMD's 790-series chipsets into a complete, AMD-made gaming PC.

The big news with Dragon is really the Phenom II chips. Available as the 3.0GHz Phenom II X4 940 and the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920, these new quad-core CPUs are AMD's first 45-nanometer desktop processors, and they finally bring AMD in line with Intel's 45-nano manufacturing process, used in its Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core i7 chips.

… Read more

We mentioned AMD and iZ3D's stereoscopic 3D approach earlier, and now we get to take a look at Nvidia's solution with the announcement of its GeForce 3D Vision. Unlike AMD, which is merely a beneficiary of iZ3D offering ATI Radeon customers a deal on drivers for its specialized 3D LCDs, Nvidia's stereo 3D hardware is homegrown, and it's also one of the few products that Nvidia itself is distributing to retail.

For $199, GeForce 3D Vision gets you a set of battery-powered, wireless glasses, as well as an infrared emitter that acts as a go-between for … Read more

The first event at the Consumer Electronics Show, called CES Unveiled, actually takes place a couple of days before the show officially opens. The press reception, which is sponsored by CES' host organization, the Consumer Electronics Association, is an opportunity for a small group of exhibitors to preview what they plan to show at CES.

As usual, products range from somewhat wacky to actually practical. One of the more unusual products was a 3D Webcam from Manchester, U.K.-based Promotion & Display Technology.

The Minoru 3D Webcam has two lenses, which makes it look a little like a cute … Read more