MaximumPC put the 5970 to the test, and found that it lives up to its promise. The 2GB dual-GPU card is the first to support DirectX 11, and basically doubles its wholly respectable predecessor (the 5870) in specs, capable of delivering nearly 5 teraflops of raw processing power. It’s a massive card, about 30cm long, designed mostly for heat dissipation, at which it apparently succeeds at. It’s also got easy access to overclocking via AMD’s OverDrive, and can drive up to three displays simultaneously with a maximum resolution of 7680×1600. So it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever, and it’s got a price tag to match: $US600 upon its undisclosed release. Yow. [MaximumPC]

7.08GHz. That’s the record-shattering speed an AMD Phenom II processor was overclocked to using a massive amount of liquid helium. You can watch the process in this documentary video set to a kickass soundtrack. [Crunchgear]

Bobcat’s a low power chip at Atom, like for netbooks, that can run using less than 1W of power. It’ll be manufactured using a 32nm process. It’s not hitting until 2011 though, and as Ars’ Jon Stokes points out, by then Intel will have been at 32nm with Atom for a while, and already close to going to 22nm.

Bulldozer is AMD’s new server architecture, also slated for 2011 which uses a new design with two “tightly linked cores” as the heart. You can read about it in way more detail over at Ars, though for now, Stokes says it’s still hard to tell how competitive they’re going to be with Intel’s 2011 lineup. Guess we’ll see. [Ars, Image via Michele Eve/Flickr]

Here’s how Intel describes the settlement:

Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices today announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes between the companies, including antitrust litigation and patent cross licence disputes.

So, they’re not fighting directly anymore, and the mountains of patent and antitrust disputes are resolved: Intel will pay this ridiculously large sum of money to AMD, and agree to not engage in anything even resembling monopolistic behaviour, and both companies will live in harmony, cross-licensing technologies and competing, but softly! Great. Well, sort of: Intel’s biggest problems right now don’t come from other companies, but from governments: Complaints from AMD no doubt helped spur investigations by the European Commission and New York Attorney General into Intel’s business practices, and as part of the agreement AMD is withdrawing their complaints with both agencies, but the EC issued their $US1 billion+ fine quite a while ago and from the looks of it, the AG’s office is eager to move forward with their investigation too. In other words, this probably isn’t the end of the pain for Intel.

That, kids, is why you don’t engage in anticompetitive practices in a two-company industry. [WSJ Law Blog]

AMD said they expect less of an increase in Q4 revenues due to “the big build we’ve seen of PCs in anticipation of the Win 7 launch.” Read: most PC makers aren’t going to be ordering too many components from AMD for a little while. Apparently that comment has led investors to think this is an industry-wide phenomenon, that PC makers have all the inventory they need and more.

Without knowing how widespread the effect is, let’s assume there are a ton of PCs out there. In that case, what will likely happen is the manufacturers will just sit on their inventory longer, and component suppliers will receive fewer orders. Hopefully, though, they’ll feel the need to turn around that inventory quickly, which would mean some awesome deals could be on the horizon. [All Things Digital]

Image via Jfaneves

The two new cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and the ATI Radeon HD 5850, are the first video cards in the industry to fully support DirectX 11. Beyond that tidbit, they’re capable of producing 2.72 TeraFLOPS of computing power and are equipped with 1GB GDDR5 memory.

And yes, each is capable of driving six 30-inch monitors at once—what AMD refers to as “Eyefinity” technology.

Sadly, there’s still no word specific on pricing or availability, but these obviously aren’t bargain basement cards. [BusinessWire]

The processor will be a version of AMD’s six-core server processors, and will place all six cores on one 45nm die. AMD warned that clock speeds will probably not be quite as high as current quad-core processors (MaximumPC suggests this may be due to “added thermal output from the two additional cores”), and will have 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache. It’ll be competing with Intel’s “Gulftown” (probably Core i9)when it debuts next year. But the best news here is the backward-compatibility — unlike Intel, you won’t have to replace your motherboard if you want to upgrade to the “Thuban” procs. We hope Intel follows suit, and we’ll let you know how they respond later this week from IDF. [MaximumPC via Engadget]

SPECIFICATIONS
OPERATING SYSTEM
PROCESSOR
PROCESSOR SPEED PROCESSOR CACHE BUS SPEED
MEMORY
ACCESSIBLE MEMORY SLOTS
VIDEO GRAPHICS
HARD DRIVE
FINISH AND FEATURES
DISPLAY NETWORK CARD
WIRELESS OPTION DIGITAL MEDIA
AUDIO KEYBOARD POINTING DEVICE
EXTERNAL NOTEBOOK PORTS
DIMENSIONS
WEIGHT SECURITY
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit(1)
• AMD AthlonTM Neo X2 Dual-Core Processor for Ultrathin Notebooks L335(2a)(3a)(4b)
• 1.60 GHz(4)
• 512MB L2 Cache
• Up to1600 MT/s system bus running at AC/DC mode 18 watt
• 4096MB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm) • 2
• ATI RadeonTM HD 3200 Graphics with 128MB Display Cache Memory AMD M780G with 64MB GDDR2 (sideport memory) with up to 1982MB total graphics memory(6)
• 320GB (7200RPM) Hard Drive (SATA)(7)
• Brushed aluminium finish in Modern Argento & HP Webcam with integrated digital microphone(15)
• 13.3″ Diagonal High-Definition(8) HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1366 x 768)
• Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)(9)
• Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN & Bluetooth(10)(10a)
• 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards(17a)
• Altec Lansing with SRS Premium Sound
• Full size chicklet keyboard
• Touch Pad supporting Multi-Touch gestures. With On/Off button and dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad
• 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0: 1 Headphone out • 1 microphone-in • HDMI • 1 VGA (15-pin)
• 1 RJ -45 (LAN)
• Unpackaged: 12.83″(L)x 9.06″(D)x 0.96″(min H)/ 1.23″(max H)
• Packaged: 17.9″(W) x 4.3″(D) x13.6″(H) • Unpackaged: 4.21 lbs(12)
• Packaged: 9.2 lbs
• Kensington® MicroSaver lock slot • Power-on password • Accepts 3rd party security lock devices SPECIFICATIONS
SOFTWARE
OPERATING SYSTEM
PROCESSOR PROCESSOR SPEED PROCESSOR CACHE BUS SPEED MEMORY
ACCESSIBLE MEMORY SLOTS
VIDEO GRAPHICS
HARD DRIVE
FINISH AND FEATURES
DISPLAY
NETWORK CARD WIRELESS OPTION DIGITAL MEDIA
AUDIO KEYBOARD POINTING DEVICE
EXTERNAL NOTEBOOK PORTS
DIMENSIONS WEIGHT SECURITY
POWER
OPTIONAL ACCESSORIES
WARRANTY AND SUPPORT
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit(1)
• Intel® Pentium® Processor SU4100(2c)(3)(4b) • 1.30 GHz(4) • 2MB L2 Cache • 800MHz FSB(4a)
• 4096MB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) • Max supported =8192MB
• 2
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (shared) with up to 1695MB total available graphics memory(6)
• 500GB (7200RPM) Hard Drive (SATA)(7)
• Brushed aluminium finish in Modern Argento & HP Webcam with integrated digital microphone(15)
• 13.3″ Diagonal High-Definition(8) HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1366 x 768)
• Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)(9)
• Intel® WiFi Link 5100AGN(10b)
• 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards(17a)
• Altec Lansing with SRS Premium Sound
• Full size chicklet keyboard
• Touch Pad supporting Multi-Touch gestures. With On/Off button and dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad
• 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0: 1 Headphone out • 1 microphone-in • HDMI • 1 VGA (15-pin)
• 1 RJ -45 (LAN) • Unpackaged: 12.83″(L)x 9.06″(D)x 0.96″(min H)/ 1.23″(max H)
• Packaged: 17.9″(W) x 4.3″(D) x13.6″(H) • Unpackaged: 4.21 lbs(12)
• Packaged: 9.2 lbs
• Kensington® MicroSaver lock slot • Power-on password • Accepts 3rd party security lock devices
• 65W AC adaptor • 6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery
• HP 90W AC adaptor – KG298AA#ABA • HP FD06 Notebook Battery – VG586AA#UUF • HP USB Essentials Port Replicator – NK398AA#ABA
• 1-Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Toll Free Support (NA) • 1-Year Free Hardware Technical Support • 30-Days Free Limited Software Support with 1-Year (from date of
purchase) Free Limited Software Support with Product Registration.