The Graphics Update

There's nothing new about GPU architectures, but here's the short recap. GPU revenues are understandably up since last year:


Market share has gone up as well:


If you want to look at console + PC market share, AMD's GPUs look very good thanks to the Wii and Xbox 360, but this is stretching it a bit:


On December 10 AMD will release Catalyst 8.12, and alongside the normal driver updates AMD will be releasing its own GPU-accelerated H.264 transcoder. The AVIVO Video Converter (AVC) is AMD's own Badaboom-like application but for Radeon GPUs, which AMD promises will be much faster.

I'm trying to get my hands on a copy and as soon as I do I'll work on a head-to-head with the latest version of Badaboom.

45nm Phenom? It's called the Phenom II and you get it Next Year The Foundry Update
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  • Spoelie - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    ..Shanghai is it for the next 2 years?? That, except for some frequency bumps and a platform change to DDR3/HT3 (which will likely yield next to nothing on the desktop), they will be on a virtual standstill? For 2 years!

    Meanwhile Intel will have another tick and will replace Penryn (which Shanghai performs well against) with Nehalem (which it don't) top-to-bottom.

    And by the time Bulldozer rolls in, it's tock time for Intel.

    Somehow I'm disappointed.
  • mutarasector - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    I was rather disappointed at this news as well. AM3 w/DDR3/HT3 was supposed to be available by Q2/Q3 2009...

    I was trying to decide between waiting for AM3 mobos, or a 790FX/SB750 mobo. Gigabyte doesn't have one just yet, and as far as I know, only Asus and Foxconn currently have a 790FX mobo paired up with an SB750 southbridge. I figured on waiting for AM3 mobos w/an improved SB800 southbridge, but now it looks like there will be a lot more time for more mobo makers to rework their existing 790FX boards with an updated SB750 southbridge.
  • Griswold - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    You just dont know how things work when you're under financial pressure in horrific economy times like these. So it doesnt surprise me that you're disappointed.

    AMD is finally getting their act together with realistic goals and timelines and apparently a solid product on their hands.
  • sampsa5 - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    Deneb features 8 MB of total cache.. not L3 cache:

    4 x 512 kb L2
    6 MB L3
    --------------
    TOTAL: 8 MB
  • MadMan007 - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    Please Please get your hands on the AVIVO transcoder. If it's not poor quality like Badaboom it will save me a lot of money because I will get a dual core instead of a quad :)

    If you can get it maybe give some feedback to AMD - make the encoder app semi-open. Allow plugins or extensions so people can use an encoding engine of their choice and make it usable for audio files as well. Not that the latter are slow but hey I've got a video card already right? That's in addition to overcoming the shortcomings of Badaboom like limited resolutions etc.
  • BigLan - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    How is this new? There's been an avivo converter available for 3 years now, though I think it only works on x1x00 series (I couldn't get it to work on my 3850.)

    http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645...
  • Griswold - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    Why bother asking if you gave the answer yourself? It does not work with any of the current processing monsters - nuff said. I just hope it also works on the 3000 series - they've just announced it for the 4000 series of GPUs, which doesnt make a lot of sense to me, considering its the same architecture anyway.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    I don't believe the original AVIVO handles H.264 at all. I remember trying it, and it was quite fast... when it worked. Unfortunately, in my testing it failed on so many files that it was practically useless, and even when it worked the settings you could tweak were extremely limiting.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, November 14, 2008 - link

    Sorry - the linked article wasn't coming up, but I was at least partially wrong. H.264 in AVIVO was present, but the options and file support were still very flaky last I tried it. Admittedly, that *was* over two years back, though, so maybe it got better at some point.
  • kuk - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    Hurray for the F1 naming scheme.

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