That’s right, here’s your chance to win some gaming goodness for the holidays. Specifically, Xbox 360 and Wii consoles. How do you win? Apparently, all you have to do is become a fan of AMD on Facebook. One winner is chosen every week for four weeks, with the contest ending on December 18th.

Their video, far from the lighthearted hijinx and sloppy editing of my own, is a professional affair, dominated by some nu-metal that perfectly embodies the concept of overclocking. Well, that’s not really true. But it’s better than the constant hissing noise that is the soundtrack to mine.

AMD has made a comeback recently with their new cards, and manufacturers are starting to notice. Cool IT announced their new OMNI liqud cooling device today for AMD video cards. The OMNI cooler is designed to be installed on your current generation video card, and requires no maintenance, however installing it will void your warranty.

No word on pricing or availability, but you can probably expect it to be out before the holiday season.

The processors will be used in ultraportable notebooks and will consist of various dual-core Turion Neo and Althlon Neo X2 chips, as well as a single-core Athlon Neo MV-40 chip similar to the one currently found in HP’s dv2 system.

So yes, the Congo platform is already kind of here but we can apparently expect to see more and more available systems in near future.

It’ll be interesting to see how the systems are priced. With AMD traditionally undercutting Intel’s pricing and current ultra low voltage notebooks hovering in the $600 to $1000 range, if AMD were able to, say, push out some models starting near $500, things could heat up.

First, they need to shrink the bezels on some monitors. I’m tired of a big-ass border between my screens. Come on, guys, make it happen! Second, there needs to be no weirdo stretching on the games. Anamorphic widescreen is one thing, but having a 150-degree viewing angle is something you need to deal with more carefully than simply giving the player a fisheye view, or zooming in and giving them a portion of what they’d normally see. I know it’s hard, but do I look like I care? Back in your hole!

Glitches or no glitches, it’s still out of my price range. It’s still enticing to be playing a game with full peripheral vision. Just git them bezels outta here!

Check out the full review and other videos (Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead, etc) over at PC Perspective.

On the plus side, you know this thing is going to be a killer card. With the 5870 already king of the hill, it’s sheer excess to put two of them together. That’s why I recommend getting the 5850 X2; with most of the horsepower of the 5870 and a significantly lower price, it’s both powerful and practical.

Interestingly, the cards shown off seem to be missing an HDMI out, which at first sounds like a bad idea, but actually makes sense: an card like this will be bought only by enthusiasts, who certainly will have a separate video card and sound system.

Damn, those are some big cards.

[via SlashGear]

They didn’t drop all of a sudden as some hardware is wont to do, and the rumored specs have been around for a while, but of course, we don’t comment on rumors here at CrunchGear. Too much integrity.

The new flagship card runs at the same core clock speed as the old one, but it has twice the stream processors and texture units and a much-improved memory clock speed. Judging from the transistor count, it looks like the new 40nm process basically just allowed them to fit a huge amount more of the same stuff on the same card without worrying as much about heat or power draw. So this is less a revolutionary step and more a dangerously turbo version of the old 4800 series.

Of course, they’re also DirectX 11-compatible, and they’re at least working on making the most popular GPGPU protocols work with them as well. OpenCL and such, you know.

Anandtech’s review of the 5870 suggests that while this is certainly the fastest single GPU solution available today (for gaming and such at least), it’s not the leapfrog that was expected, and you can get more performance from putting a couple older cards into crossfire. At any rate, I’m not interested in the flagship models. The 5850 is the sweet spot: $260 MSRP for a huge improvement over the last flagship design, and you’ll probably be able to get it for much less once the novelty wears off and prices drop. Do I have my next video card picked out? Very possibly.

Update: The Inquirer has a pretty exhaustive list of reviews if you want to get dirty.

If you’re putting together a barebones or basic system, whether it’s for your mom or as a spare PC for the garage, AMD definitely has compelling reasons to go with them. Even with their lowest-cost components, you get a lot of the benefits provided by their ecosystem.

There’s more information here, but you’re more likely to find it as just part of a low-end pre-built system, or as a bargain piece at Newegg or Tigerdirect.

The best part is: only one GPU required. The system can handle up to six displays, though I think they have to make up a regular rectangle (no Tetrads). Later versions will support multiple GPUs, but for now it’s a comfort to know Crossfire isn’t required.

The AMD demo reported on by Hot Hardware had six 30″ displays together forming a single 7680 x 3200 resolution surface. While I think I would find the bezels distracting, it’s still an absolutely cool setup. On the bezel front, they’re partnering with Samsung to create super-thin bezels for use with this kind of setup.

Why not instead buy an ultra-widescreen display, you ask? I don’t know. Maybe you have $8000 to spend on a ridiculous wide screen with a freaky resolution, but I’m a filthy, destitute blogger. Oops, gruel time!

Luckily, they’re partnering with more than one company this time. Sounds like the dv2 sold enough that others wanted a piece of the pie, and AMD was happy to oblige. The other side of the coin is that AMD doesn’t get to announce the actual units — that’s up to the partners, of which AMD assured me there were plenty.

But they can reveal the basic platform features:

• Screen size bump (up to 13.3″ (or more?))
• Still under 1″ thick
• Hardware video enhancement
• 6-cell battery
• Serious battery life improvements

They say that the second generation ultrathins beat the pants off Intel CULV setups, and I believe it. I really want the ultrathins to catch on, since it’s a little more money for a lot more machine when you’re looking at an upsell from a $500 netbook. That said, I’m afraid they might be spreading the “ultrathin” moniker a little thin (13.3″ screens?), but I’ll withhold judgment until the hardware hits.

Here was one of their test rigs for their promo data, to give you an idea of what the machines may be sporting:

In the meantime, all the details you need should be here.

It reminds me of when they simplified their gaming line under “Game!” On that note, it’s not clear what the fate of Game! was, but it doesn’t seem to be present in the current lineup. It’s more of a desktop thing, really, so I’m not surprised either way.

Just as “Game!” had plain Game and Game Ultra, Vision will be divided into three parts, from basic to enthusiast to advanced: Plain, “Premium,” and “Ultimate.” Those particular epithets don’t have the greatest track record (they call Vista to mind primarily), but they do bespeak the small-medium-large idea going on here. There’s also a Vision Black, but we don’t talk about that.

The features differentiating the three levels are mostly video-related. Plain Vision promises dynamic contrast and improved video quality — essentially leveraging the GPU for video enhancement. Vision Premium adds better transcoding, and Ultimate supports improved HD video editing. These rely on packaged utilities like Cyberlink’s Power Director and ArcSoft’s upscaling technology — a necessary evil until GPU acceleration can be better implemented with any app you choose.

The new stuff is looking solid, and I wish them the best of luck with it. They’re also pushing that all their platforms support everything Windows 7 will throw at them (virtualization, hardware effects), so that’s one less thing for Best Buy employees to worry about.

You can see me in some of the shots. I’m famous! The music is a little over-the-top, but you know what else is over the top? Pouring liquid helium on a piece of silicon to let it process twice as fast as it’s supposed to.

Whoops, not so fast. The platform won’t be ready until next year.

This is a serious problem for AMD. Intel’s been cleaning up in the netbook space for over a year now and AMD is nowhere to be found. Well, that’s not totally true. It does have its Neo platform in HP’s dv2, but that’s about it. With Intel purposely hamstringing the graphics setups on the Atom platform and VIA still in the early stages of trying to gain market share, AMD could have and should have had a potent CPU + ATi GPU setup on the market months ago.

Instead “samples are expected to be delivered to partners in 2010,” which means that even if they’re delivered in January, we won’t see them in consumer products for a few months after that. Meyer noted that the line between netbooks and notebooks will continue to blur and that the term “netbook” will eventually fade away, so this new platform will be a notebook platform, not a netbook platform. So basically, by the time nobody says “netbook” any more, AMD will have its Atom killer ready.

AMD CEO reveals Atom-beater expected for 2010 [DigiTimes]

Using the Neo CPU, the updated HP Pavillion dv2 is expected to be available on June 10th, and will have pretty much the same feature set and price point as the original dv2. AMD has been struggling lately against Intel, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s coming up in the near future for the CPU manufacturer.

[via CNet]

Last week AMD invited CrunchGear down to Austin to check out an overclocking event they were holding, at which many, many liters of liquid nitrogen and the much colder liquid helium would be consumed by thirsty processors. They asked us, however, not to video the entire event, since they’d have their official video coming out shortly and some of the technology being used was still in development. No problem, we said, we’ll just dip our pulled-pork tacos in the spare liquid nitrogen.

A lot of stuff actually went down there. I’ve always wanted to get up close and personal with some of the weird cooling solutions these overclockers use, as not only do they just look cool, but they result in performance numbers hugely ahead of anything possible with traditional methods. And it’s not like you can just buy these setups at the store; one of the overclockers in attendance, name of K|ngp|n, is actually an accomplished metalworker and manufactures the pots he uses himself. Pots being the containers which hold the coolant and pass the temperature difference on to the processor, you know. The thickness, material, and surface design of the pot is important to where and how fast it accepts or gives off heat.

I know you didn’t click through looking for a lecture on physics, but this stuff is crazy enough to warrant your attention. It seems that processors for the last few generations have had a sort of allergy to extremely low temperatures. At very low temperatures like those created by liquid nitrogen (LN2), silver and gold do just fine as conductors, and in fact their conductance is actually increased a little around that temperature (a little over -200°C, or -323°F) if I remember right. But beyond that temperature, their conductance drops like a rock.

Copper, however, is an excellent superconductor at even lower temperatures. In fact, liquid helium (LHe4) brings it just about to its maximum conductance temperature: around -250°C. That’s not too far from absolute zero; LHe4 boils at 4 kelvins, making it one of the coldest substances we have access to. And that’s what we were pouring all over the Phenom II. It turns out that the Phenom IIs thrive like no other under these insane conditions, and although it doesn’t make overclocking a cakewalk, it does make some things possible which weren’t before.

So enough with the science, what was going on there? Well, basically the overclockers set up their rigs, cooled them as much as possible, and hit the benchmarks until either the world record or the motherboard gave out. They were aiming for 7GHz and 50,000 in 3DMark05, which are ridiculous goals but totally doable when you’ve got 600 liters of LH4 at your back.

Some interesting things I noted: the overclockers insulated their motherboard with kneadable eraser, which is a great insulator and doesn’t stick to components. LHe4 is used up at a rate of almost a liter a minute, so K|ngp|n would cool his processor down as far as he could get it with LN2 before dropping in the far more expensive LHe4.

The pots they used were super-specialized; the LHe4 one has a special design for dealing with LHe4’s tendency to evaporate instantaneously on contact with anything, and the LN2-only pot was the first see-through one in the world. It’s got two walls of thick lexan with what is essentially everclear filling up the middle. The alcohol had the lowest freezing point of any clear liquid they tested, and I found out to my great surprise later that yes, it does get extreeeeemely cold when it’s buffering a boiling pot of LN2 for a few hours.

Unfortunately the guys didn’t hit their 7GHz and 50,000 goals, but did they get damn close. K|ngp|n posted his results over the weekend: 49,089 3DMarks and 6893MHz. Here was his setup and posted results:

• ASUS CROSSHAIR III and M4A79T-deluxe motherboards
• AMD Phenom II 955 ES LHe4 cooled
• CORSAIR DOMNATOR GT and 1800CL-7s
• AMD 4870X2’s in quad X-fire stock clocks & cooling

Next time, maybe. Thanks to AMD for inviting us out. Their official video, with more details on the overclockers themselves, will be coming out shortly and we’ll link it up then for the hardware enthusiast CrunchGear readers. There’s a more extensive gallery here if you want to drool over their setups more.

As soon as I can cut my sweet footage and upload it, you’ll get to see that column of condensation blow up in real time. There’ll also be an official video with all the records and stuff coming from AMD in the next few days.

And also, we blew up some frozen watermelon and part of a burrito. You won’t see that on the official video.

“AMD is an undisputed technology and innovation leader.

However, Intel’s abusive, illegal monopolistic behavior is preventing businesses and consumers alike from choosing freely between AMD and Intel products.

We applaud aggressive competition, so long as it occurs on a level playing field where products can compete on the merits. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Intel uses its monopoly power to perpetuate its monopoly grip on the market, and by any standard of antitrust law, that is illegal and patently anti-consumer.

Worldwide antitrust laws are clear: Abusive conduct to curb competition by a dominant monopoly is against the law. That’s why we’ve filed a lawsuit against Intel, to help AMD, our industry and consumers worldwide break free from a stranglehold that has deliberately restricted competition and slowed the pace of innovation. Regulators around the globe are intensifying their scrutiny into Intel’s business practices because they agree that the abuse of monopoly power to foreclose competition is illegal, harmful to consumers and must be stopped.

We believe our effort to restore fair and open competition to our industry will unleash a new wave of innovation and provide greater choice for consumers.”

AMD’s growth can be attributed to aggressive pricing and an uptick in desktop CPU sales in the face of slower shipments from Intel. According to IDG News Service:

“AMD saw its market share increase because of a pricing advantage over Intel and a strong increase in desktop shipments, said Shane Rau, research director at IDC. Sequentially, AMD chip shipments increased 13 percent while Intel’s shipments declined 16 percent.

Intel’s sequential decline was partly due to suppliers holding back on purchases as they tried to clear up excess inventory of mobile processors, especially Atom processors for netbooks. Shipments of Atom processors recorded a sequential decline of 33 percent in the first quarter of 2009.”

Processor sales are still down about 13% from last year, though, and “may continue to decline as customers hold back on PC purchases during the recession, Rau said.”

[via PC World/IDG]

Actually, it means liquid nitrogen and the much colder and much more difficult to come by liquid helium. Liquid helium can drop the temperature to -240 degrees — 33 colder and you’re at absolute zero. Of course, it’s not exactly easy to use and the results it enables are hardly indicative of real-world performance, but it’s still pretty awesome.

It takes a pretty specialized setup to get these kinds of results, but checking these crazy rigs can give you good tips for when you’re building your own system and want to know what the pros are using.

[via Tom's Hardware]