Asus will be showing off a new 8600 GT card at Computex that comes with the OCgear hardware overclocking control. If you remember the XG Station, then you’ll be familiar with the OCgear, as it looks almost identical, except that it slots into a 5.25-inch drive bay in your case, rather than being an external solution.

We haven’t got the details on how it connects to the graphics card as yet, but the OCgear allows you to control the GPU speed on the fly. It also displays the GPU temperature, allows you to adjust the fan speed and displays how many FPS you’re getting. It also allows you to adjust the volume of your system, but it’s unclear if this only works with Asus motherboards or any sound card or on-board solution.

 

It’s always great to see a manufacturer that’s willing to try something new and Asus always have some wacky new ideas, but the OCgear should make it easier for those that aren’t at home with overclocking their graphics card. It’s always easier to turn a knob than it is to fiddle around with software settings, besides, we’re fairly sure that Asus has put in some safe guards so anyone that buys this card won’t break it by turning the knob too far. We’ll bring you more on the OCgear from Computex next week.

Specification 

The Device

Reference

Today, AMD launched its much-delayed and much-awated HD 2000 series of GPU products, all of which are based on the same unified shader architecture that powers the Xbox 360. The R600, as the top end of the HD 2000 series was codenamed, is the first major new product launched after the AMD/ATI merger.

Briefing the press in Malaysia was Mr Vijay Sharma, Director of Product Marketing Graphics Product Group.

HD 2000 series

The 2000 series consists of three different GPU cores packaged into graphics card products that are aimed at three different segments: the 2900 products are for the enthusiast segment, the 2600 are for mainstream desktops, and the 2400 are for the budget end of the market. The bottom two product lines are further stratified along the lines of GPU clockspeed and the amount of GDDR3 on the card.

Each of the three lines includes both desktop parts marketed under the ATI Radeon brand and mobile parts sold under the ATI Mobility Radeon brand.

Most of the 2000 series GPUs are manufactured on TSMC's 65nm process, a fact that's allegedly responsible for their delay in coming to market, with the high-end desktop and mobile parts being made on TSMC's 80nm half-node process and 90nm process, respectively. The newer process technology is necessary to make these extremely large GPUs even workable, and given its ~215 watt power draw I expect that AMD/ATI will shrink the top-end, 700 million-transistor HD 2900 to 65nm or lower at the first available opportunity.

As has been widely reported here and elsewhere, the HD 2000 series shares some DNA with the Xbox 360's "Xenos" GPU, also designed by ATI. The Xenos was the first implementation of ATI's unified shader architecture (USA), which, in a nutshell, lets all of the device's execution hardware process any of the three types of graphics shader programs: vertex, geometry, and pixel.

Overview 

 AMD ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT

 AMD ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro

 AMD ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

 AMD ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro

 Specification 

Now, lets wait the see how the price battle between two giants nVidia and AMD-ATi takes place in Indian market. As a AMD-ATi fan, I hope that AMD will use its well known price-performance strategy. I am on no hurry, better wait for few months or one year untill true Dx10 games come out. Till then enjoy the battle and the price drop.

Just wondering what intel will do about this growing Dx10 market ?? 

Source

GeForce 8600 and GeForce 8300 are the two series of graphics cards which will fill the void beneath NVIDIA's already launched 8800 series. These cards will replace the 7300 series of today and is based on the G86, an 80nm core.

Based on the G84 core 8600 Ultra and GT will have 64 and 48 shader processors respectively with cores running at 500MHz and 350MHz. With a 256-bit memory bus and memory speeds at 1400MHz and 1200MHz the cards will replace the 7600 series of today. The launch date for these cards is about the same as for when ATI will launch R600, that is, around CeBIT at the start of March. Except from the 8600 series Bear Eyes has also published specifications for 8300 GT and 8300 GS (via VR-Zone).

These cards will replace the 7300 series of today and is based on the G86, an 80nm core. The number of shader processors has been halved to 32 and 24 respectively, while both cores will work at 500MHz. The GT model will have slightly faster memories though, 1200MHz vs. 1000MHz. With a 128-bit bus and up to 256MB the performance will most likely be reflected by the price.

Below is a table with the cards of today completed with the coming -

Source