Just on Monday we were talking about ATI's monster new 4870 X2 graphics, perhaps the most powerful around, and already Asetek have come up with a liquid cooling system for it. The LCLC is designed to either let you run the card nearly silent (the heat exchanger fan on the cooler runs at just 30 dB(A), which is pretty quiet) or overclock the ATI board for even more extreme performance. Either way, it's capable of lowering the GPU temp by 28 degrees, and takes up only two more slots. Price and release date not available, but read on for the press release.

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ATI's Nvidia-slaying Radeon HD 4870 X2, previewed last month, will get official tomorrow at SIGGRAPH says the WSJ, who notes that some reviewers are calling it the most powerful card around. It's an interesting test of ATI's graphics card strategy: Cheaper, less power-hungry GPUs that can be easily strapped together (like the dual-GPU 4870 X2) versus Nvidia's penchant for obscenely powerful single GPUs. The best part? Whoever you go with, you can't really go wrong anymore. [Read More »

ATI fanboys, your time may have come with the R700-based Radeon HD 4870 X2. It's a US$500 multi-GPU card that basically straps together a pair of Radeon HD 4870s with 2GB of onboard memory to create ATI's fastest single card ever. (It's not your imagination, they're really stepping with the Nvidia-killing, which is sweet.) Benchwise, it actually beats Nvidia's monster GeForce GTX 280 running in SLI in a couple of games, like Age of Conan.

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ATI's probably pretty mad Nvidia stole some of the excellent mid-range Radeon HD 4850's thunder by dropping the GeForce 9800 GTX+ for a mere US$30 more. So they're hitting back with a special Radeon HD 4800 card designed solely for the crushing of Nvidia's top-of-the-line GTX 280 graphics card in pure performance.

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After Nvidia picked up PhysX, it was obvious ATI would probably get left out of Nvidia's efforts to spread the love to graphics cards and x86 CPUs (hence ATI hooking up with Havok). (Physics engines, for the uninitiated, are what make your body bounce around with aplomb after getting stuck with a grenade in Halo 3.) But some modders have fixed that and ported PhysX to ATI's Radeon 3800 cards, instantly improving benchmarks.

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Poised and waiting for ATI's latest graphics card to hit, Nvidia immediately fired off the 9800 GTX+, a nimbler version of its behemoth 9800 GTX, aggressively priced at US$229 to put serious pressure on the US$199 HD 4850. Benchmarks comparing the two weren't available yesterday, but PC Perspective has 'em up now. In short, while the HD 4850 can mostly keep up with Nvidia's older, regular 9800 GTX, the steroid-injected 9800 GTX+ has enough juice to edge it out in almost every single benchmark. The Radeon HD 4850 has about a month on the shelf to itself before the 9800 GTX+ hits though. Check out PC Perspective for more graphs and numbers than your brain wants to deal with on a Friday. [PC Perspective via Engadget]

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With ATI's latest Radeon graphics card already getting benchmarked, I guess cardmakers decided it was silly to wait until June 25 for the official unveil--pretty much everybody is popping the Radeon HD 4850 right now--they're all over Newegg and assorted other merchants. Built on a 55nm process with 512MB of DDR3 memory running at 1986MHz and a clock speed of 625MHz, it's got 480 stream processors (480 was old number, it's actually 800) and support CrossFireX up to four graphics cards. While the MSRP is US$199, you can pick one up for about US$174.99 after rebate. [Newegg]

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ATI's next line of Radeon graphics cards--the RV770-based 4800 series--doesn't officially launch until June 25, but Hot Hardware's got benchmarks already on the first shot, the mid-range US$199 Radeon HD 4850. It's prompted a response from Nvidia in the form of the US$229 GeForce 9800 GTX+, a speedier version of the 9800 GTX on a smaller manufacturing process. But that's just jibber jabber--the benchmarks show it's a pretty decent mid-range card, for now.

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AMD's not letting Nvidia have all the graphics card fun at Computex this week, with some big ATI launches of their own. The Mobility Radeon HD 3800 is their new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, with supposedly 3x the performance of the last gen. A part of the Puma platform, it brings performance/power balance features, as well as CrossFireX to notebooks, and is so far the only mobile GPU supporting DirectX 10.1 (Nvidia says it ain't no thang). Finally, it's the first ATI card to roll with XGP, basically a honkin' externally powered and cooled graphics card in a box when you wanna toss steroids at your notebook (and have the outlets to do so).

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Today AMD officialised its Puma notebook platform—AMD Turion X2 Ultra dual-core mobile processors with ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics—"for superior 3D performance and HD image quality, with industry-leading wireless for greater throughput and range." As we've noted in the past, it's a consumer-grade laptop play, and performance-wise it's aimed a bit lower than the upcoming but delayed Centrino 2 from Intel. But it's here and backed by Acer, Asus, Clevo, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, MSI, NEC and Toshiba. Odds are it will be an option on your next PC buying mission. Want to know more? Take a gander at the long-winded press release below.

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