Building on the success of the recently launched ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 graphics card — driven by the world’s most powerful graphics processor1 — AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced availability of a factory overclocked graphics processor that is the first to break the 1 Gigahertz (GHz) barrier using standard air-cooling solutions.

AMD introduced the ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 graphics card, driven by the world’s most powerful graphics processor¹. The newest addition to the award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series boasts a whopping 1.36 TeraFLOPs of compute power, superior GDDR5 memory, and super-high engine clock speeds capable of nearly 1GHz.

The advanced design of the ATI Radeon HD 4890 delivers the best game experience in its class, including the latest ground-breaking DirectX® 10.1 titles. In addition, with the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 4890, AMD continues to enhance its “Dragon” desktop platform technology, designed to provide exceptional value to OEMs, channel partners, and do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers.“The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card represents the AMD sweet spot strategy reloaded,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD.

“With last year’s launch of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 products, we gave gamers great performance and an incredible value proposition. Today, we’re doing it again. ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards are incredible performers, priced to sell in all major markets worldwide.”

The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card continues AMD’s proud tradition of technology leadership with support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games, including Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.™, Electronic Art’s BattleForge™ and SEGA’s Stormrise™ released last month, as well as GSC Gameworld’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky. When compared to DirectX 10 game play, DirectX 10.1 games have proven to deliver higher game performance and an improved visual experience.

“The new ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card could very well be the must-have gaming product of this spring,” said Adrian Thomson, vice president, Marketing, Sapphire. “With breakthrough levels of game performance, cutting-edge feature support like DirectX 10.1, and high degree of performance tuning flexibility, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 is one of the best performers in its class.”

Making the best even better
The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card delivers exceptional value to gamers, handling even the most intense games at high resolutions and image quality settings.² For overclocking enthusiasts, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 offers tremendous performance tuning potential.³ Those looking to get even more performance out of their gaming rigs can combine as many as four ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 cards in one PC utilizing ATI CrossFireX™ technology.⁴

“Gamers that want The Ultimate Visual Experience™ demand the best performing card, and our new ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics cards will give them exactly that,” said Eddie Memon, vice president, Marketing, XFX. “With the new ATI Radeon HD 4890 we’re approaching the holy grail of clock speeds, targeting 1GHz, achievable through XFX’s superior design and the quality of the new graphics processor from AMD.”

ATI Stream technology
By harnessing ATI Stream technology in combination with a number of ATI Stream-enabled applications, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card can also help accelerate the conversion of standard and HD video into multiple formats for use on differing consumer electronics devices. CyberLink, an innovative software developer for digital media creation, playback, and sharing applications, has optimized its award-winning video editing software, PowerDirector 7 to make use of ATI Stream technology. The recently released update to PowerDirector 7 incorporates ATI Stream technology to provide GPU accelerated video conversion, featuring higher levels of performance and functionality when compared to CPU-only acceleration.

“CyberLink is committed to helping consumers create digital content quickly and easily,” said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp. “PowerDirector 7, Cyberlink’s award-winning video editing software, takes advantage of ATI Stream technology, making a great experience even better. With PowerDirector 7 and ATI Stream technology, anyone can edit high definition video, create an amazing movie, and encode it for playback on virtually any device faster than ever before.”

A multimedia experience that’s beyond HD
While the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card was bred to be a gaming powerhouse, it also offers exceptional HD multimedia performance. All ATI Radeon HD 4800 series cards allow users to enjoy HD digital content⁵ with uncompromising visual fidelity while helping to enhance the definition and clarity of lower resolution media. Through AMD’s second generation Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2.0) users can be assured of smooth HD video playback, sharp, crisp images and vibrant colors. With support for HDMI, picture-in-picture and the latest HD audio technologies like 7.1 surround sound, the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card enables an impressive cinema-quality home entertainment experience.

Ecosystem support
The ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card is supported by a dozen add-in-board companies offering a variety of custom board and cooling solutions. Partners include ASUS, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, GIGABYTE, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), Jetway, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology, VisionTek and XFX. It is available immediately for $249 MSRP (USD), and priced at select etailers as low as $229 (USD) after mail-in rebate.

For more information check out the supporting videos for the new ATI Radeon HD 4890:
- DirectX 10.1: What the Experts Say
- Experience The DirectX 10.1 Difference
- Dr. Jon Peddie’s Thoughts On The Future of Discrete Graphics and the Video Game Market
- The Making of an ATI Graphics Card

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

Intel Corporation is investing $12 million to create a new research center that will explore advanced graphics and visual computing technologies. Opening today, the Intel® Visual Computing Institute is located at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. The investment, to be made over 5 years, represents Intel’s largest European university collaboration.

Visual computing is the analysis, enhancement and display of visual information to create life-like, real-time experiences and more natural ways for people to interact with computers and other devices. Applications include games, medical imaging and interactive 3-D data models used in areas such as scientific research and financial services. Intel’s visual computing vision is to realize computer applications that look real, act real and feel real.

The lab’s innovations will help make future entertainment, productivity and the Internet experience more intuitive and immersive. A key mission of the latest member of Intel Labs Europe is to contribute to the company’s tera-scale research program, which explores how multiple computing cores will be used to produce higher-performance computing and more life-like graphics.

“Intel has collaborated with the world-class researchers at Saarland University in visual computing for a number of years,” said Justin Rattner, Intel senior fellow and chief technology officer. “Given the growing importance of visual computing technology, it made perfect sense to expand our relationship and form this new institute. We are confident that it will become an internationally recognized center and a driver for European leadership in the visual computing field.”

The lab will conduct both basic and applied research in realistic, interactive computer graphics and natural user interfaces. By year’s end the institute will employ about a dozen researchers from such sources as Intel, Saarland University, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.

“The state of Saarland is intensively fostering technology transfer among academic research facilities and the industry,” said Peter Müller, Prime Minister State Saarland. “We are very proud of the world-class research conducted at Saarland University, the Max Planck Society research institutes and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. We are equally proud that now we have been able to entice Intel to invest in Saarland. The Intel Visual Computing Institute has the potential to attract even more research in its area of expertise.”

One of the new lab’s charters is to actively solicit other academic and industry partners to join the research activities over time. The number of research professionals employed is expected to grow by more than five times over the next 5 years and include collaborators from across Europe.

The Intel Visual Computing Institute will deliver more compelling visual computing applications through the development of new software designs and architectures, visual computing algorithms and parallel computing solutions. The institute will establish a feedback loop to Intel’s hardware design labs – including in Barcelona, Spain and Braunschweig, Germany — contributing to future visual computing hardware design. Current research contributions are expected to yield new software tools and hardware insights within just a few years.

Intel has a rich history of innovation and creativity in Europe with research and development programs encompassing areas such as chip design, software development, mobile communications and services, atomic-level chip research, development of key Intel products, and research on technologies that could help the aging population to lead healthier, better lives.

Intel’s research and development efforts include Intel-owned labs focused on development of Intel products, joint research with European universities, open innovation and collaboration with industry and academia, participation in EU framework programs and cooperative standards development work with industry partners that deliver increased value and productivity to consumers.

About Intel Labs Europe
Intel Labs Europe (ILE) represents Intel’s European lab network and consists of 18 labs employing more than 800 research professionals.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com.

The OPA was formed in June 2008 by members of the WiMAX ecosystem. Acer joins current OPA members Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei Technologies, Intel Corporation, and Samsung Electronics to foster an ecosystem focused on broader choice and competitive equipment and service costs for WiMAX technology, devices and applications globally.

“We are proud to welcome Acer to the OPA. Adding their voice further strengthens the support for an innovative and open WiMAX ecosystem,” said OPA President Yung Hahn. “Taking a collaborative approach to IPR issues, the OPA can continue to foster greater WiMAX innovation, collaboration and competition. The OPA is excited to expand the reach of the 4G WiMAX ecosystem to include non-traditional companies like Acer – a leading innovator on the cusp of the computing/cellular convergence revolution.”

Today, Acer offers several embedded-WiMAX notebooks and netbooks from the Acer Aspire and Acer TravelMate lines around the world.

“Acer has focused on delivering state-of-the-art, innovative PCs to consumers since 1976,” said Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president and president of IT Products Global Operations, Acer. “Consumers today want longer battery life, thin and light, innovative form factors with great processing and communications technology at affordable price. As the first global PC OEM to join the Open Patent Alliance, we hope to lead the charge in bringing several devices that harness the power of WiMAX wireless broadband technology to the hands of consumers worldwide.”

For more information, visit the OPA Web site at www.openpatentalliance.com.

About Acer
Since its founding in 1976, Acer has constantly pursued the goal of breaking the barriers between people and technology. Focused on marketing its brand-name IT products around the globe, Acer ranks as the world’s No. 3 vendor for total PCs and No. 2 for notebooks, with the fastest growth among the top-five players. A profitable and sustainable Channel Business Model is instrumental to Acer’s continued growth, while the successful mergers of Gateway and Packard Bell complete the company’s global footprint by strengthening its presence in the U.S. and enhancing its strong position in Europe. The Acer Group employs more than 6,000 people worldwide. 2008 revenues reached US$16.65 billion. See www.acer.com for more information.

“It is our goal to deliver tailored SSD solutions for the complete spectrum of high performance applications,” said Eugene Chang, Vice President of Product Management at the OCZ Technology Group. “Designed for ultra high performance consumers, the Z-Drive takes the SATA bottleneck out of the equation by employing the ultra fast PCI-Express architecture with a RAID controller and four Vertex controllers configured in four-way RAID 0 within an all-in-one product, making this solution ideal for applications that put a premium on both storage performance and maximum capacity.”

OCZ continues to develop its enthusiast storage solutions that provide incredible speeds and higher storage capacities that rival conventional hard drives. The Z-Drive is based on cutting-edge PCI Express architecture that breaks through the performance barriers previously found with SATA interface. Offering a truly enthusiast grade storage upgrade from traditional hard disc drives, OCZ’s Z-Drive utilizes a combined 256MB of local cache and an onboard RAID controller, to provide a complete solution in a compact form factor. The OCZ Z-Drives offer space and cost-savings that uses significantly less power thanks to the benefits of high-quality flash-based storage in an integrated total-solution.

The OCZ Z-Drive is the result of the latest breakthroughs in technology building on the advantages of flash-based storage, delivering incredible performance that translates to professional-class data storage enthusiasts have come to expect from OCZ’s premium offerings. These next-generation drives feature exceptional speeds up to 510MB/s read and 480MB/s write, all while delivering lowered power consumption, ultra-fast data access, superior durability, and lower cost per ownership compared to conventional hard drives when factoring in the need for multiple drives and a separate RAID controller. In configurations of 250GB, 500GB, and massive 1TB capacities and priced aggressively to be within reach of high end consumers, the OCZ Z-Drive offers ample room to create a high performance storage array for enthusiast high performance systems.

For more information on the OCZ Z-Drive, please visit our product page here.

About OCZ Technology
OCZ Technology Group, a member of JEDEC, designs, develops and manufactures ground-breaking, high performance memory and computer components that set industry standards. OCZ products are the first choice for users needing high-reliability, ultra-high performance solutions. In 2007, PC Power & Cooling and Hypersonic PC were brought into the OCZ Technology Group, forming a well-rounded, highly innovative organization that places the company at the forefront of high-end computing. All of OCZ Technology Group’s products are available through its worldwide network of distributors, online resellers and retail stores. For more information visit our website at www.ocztechnology.com

“We have developed this small form factor SSD product to ensure we are covering as many end-user solid state storage needs as possible,” commented Ryan Edwards, Director of Product Management at the OCZ technology Group. “With the addition of the Mini PCI-Express series to our SSD line-up, OCZ is enabling those owners of compatible UMPC and Netbook solutions to experience the quieter, cooler, and more durable alternative to traditional notebook hard drives.”

Offering your notebook the benefits of flash-based technology, The OCZ miniPCI-E delivers the reliability and silent operation of SSDs in a smaller form factor, and will be available in both SATA and PATA interfaces. Notebook upgraders can choose either the SATA version that delivers a fast 110 MB/s read and 51 MB/s write speed, or the PATA upgrade that features a maximum 45MB/sec read and 35MB/sec write speeds. Ideal for energy-efficient mobile computing to extend battery life by lowering power consumption, inproving access time, and providing an alternative to conventional hard disc drives, the OCZ miniPCI-E drive offers not only superior shock resistance but also quiet operation whether at home or on-the-go.

Compatible with the Windows XP, Vista®, and 7, and Mac OSX 10 and above, the OCZ miniPCI-E is an excellent upgrade to expand the storage capability of your netbook with ample capacities of 16GB and 32GB. All OCZ miniPCI-E drives come backed a two year warranty and OCZ’s exemplary service and support.

For more information on the OCZ miniPCI-Express SSD (SATA), please visit our product page here.

For more information on the OCZ miniPCI-Express SSD (PATA), please visit our product page here.

About OCZ Technology
OCZ Technology Group, a member of JEDEC, designs, develops and manufactures ground-breaking, high performance memory and computer components that set industry standards. OCZ products are the first choice for users needing high-reliability, ultra-high performance solutions. In 2007, PC Power & Cooling and Hypersonic PC were brought into the OCZ Technology Group, forming a well-rounded, highly innovative organization that places the company at the forefront of high-end computing. All of OCZ Technology Group’s products are available through its worldwide network of distributors, online resellers and retail stores. For more information visit our website at www.ocztechnology.com

Designed by PC Power & Cooling to be fully compatible with all PC Power and OCZ brand PSUs, the Pro-Source 1500 UPS is your ultimate source of back-up power. The Pro-Source provides a pure sine wave output, versus the conventional square wave or “step” sine wave produced by lesser quality UPS units. A pure sine wave is essential to a professional-grade back-up power source, while an inferior “step” sine wave plays havoc with today’s sophisticated and sensitive power factor correction (PFC) circuitry, making it possible for your PSU to reject the back-up power source and shut down. A professional UPS should output the same quality of power that your utility line delivers, and the Pro-Source 1500 does just that, providing a clean, pure sine wave to effectively power your high-performance PSU during a utility failure.

“PC Power & Cooling has a long history of delivering premium power management solutions to enthusiast and commercial customers, and the Pro-Source continues that tradition by addressing customers needs for superior UPS,” commented Ryan Edwards, Director of Product Management for the Group. “The Pro-Source protects your investment by delivering a pure sine wave output for uninterrupted power to even the most demanding pc configurations in the event of an extended power disruption.”

The Pro-Source 1500 features ten minutes of back-up battery time at typical load (600W), and with 1500VA (1440VA with standard plug) and 900W it is powerful enough to provide back-up power to some of the most demanding of PC configurations. The software and the front panel both show Input Voltage, Output Voltage, Frequency, Load, Backup Time, and Temperature. The Pro-Source 1500 is compatible with all major operating systems including Windows XP/Vista, Netware, and Linux, and can send alerts to a computer through a USB cable and can be monitored remotely via email or pager alerts. When the UPS is running on utility power it is 97% efficient and there is an overload alarm to warn the user if the load is too much for the UPS to handle. The Pro-Source 1500 UPS uses three standard 12V, 7Ah rechargeable lead acid batteries that are easy to replace, and comes with an easy to follow instruction booklet and management software.

With a history of almost 25 years building long-lasting, investment-grade PSUs, PC Power built the Pro-Source 1500 using the highest quality components and circuitry to provide the highest MTBF rating on the market. Delivering continuous power to your high-end PSU, the Pro-Source offers one the industry’s most powerful yet affordable high-end UPS on the market, at a price point 40% less than a comparable unit in its class. The Pro-Source 1500 is backed by a 3-Year warranty commitment and the in-depth knowledge of PC Power & Cooling’s technical support.

Designed for high performance, enthusiast, and mission-critical systems, the PC Power & Cooling Pro-Source 1500 is the first pure sine wave, high output UPS retailing under $300. For more information on the PC Power & Cooling Pro-Source 1500 UPS please visit our product page.

About PC Power & Cooling
Over the last 24 years, PC Power & Cooling has produced many innovative computer products including: the first CPU cooler, the first PC heat alarm, the first independently-regulated PC power supply, the first redundant power system, the first NVIDIA® SLI™ certified supply, the first One Kilowatt computer power supply, and the first power supply with its own certified test report (Turbo-Cool 1KW). In May 2007, PC Power & Cooling was brought into the OCZ Technology Group, forming a partnership that places the combined organization at the forefront of the high-performance computing industry. For more information visit the PC Power & Cooling website at www.pcpower.com.

About OCZ Technology Group, Inc.
OCZ Technology Group, a member of JEDEC, designs, develops and manufactures ground-breaking, high performance memory and computer components that set industry standards. OCZ products are the first choice for users needing high-reliability, ultra-high performance solutions. In 2007, PC Power & Cooling and Hypersonic PC were brought into the OCZ Technology Group, forming a well-rounded, highly innovative organization that places the company at the forefront of high-end computing. All of OCZ Technology Group’s products are available through its worldwide network of distributors, online resellers and retail stores. For more information visit our website at www.ocztechnology.com

“AMD Opteron processors have always provided exceptionally long life cycles and consistent platforms,” said John Fruehe, director, Business Development, AMD. “In the current economic environment customers are trying to stretch their IT budgets and to extend the life of their technology investments more than ever, all while improving performance and energy efficiency. This program offers a unique value to our partners and customers, particularly when you consider the enhancements to the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor and upcoming six-core ‘Istanbul’ processor.”

Cluster and system builders like Rackable Systems and Cray are already seeing immense benefit from this program, with an increased demand for fast and seamless upgrades in the data center that can yield significant performance gains.

For more information on the Opteron Upgrade Program, visit AMD’s @Work blog.

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

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