July 2 - 9:45am EDT   AMD is developing an integrated graphics chipset for budget PCs that could take the performance crown in the category, a leaked roadmap shows. Codenamed RS880 but likely to be badged Radeon HD 4200 when it ships, the design will have a new graphics core that should run about 15 percent faster than "anything comparable" on the market, implying that NVIDIA's GeForce 9400 or 9400M may be the primary targets. The Inquirer adds that it should support AMD's Stream general-purpose computing technology and, by extension, would eventually support OpenCL. [full story]

June 25 - 8:30am EDT   Gateway has quickly followed up on its desktop news with the addition of a relatively high-style but more frugal notebook line intended for the back-to-school audience. The NV series has a minimalist, glossy design with a relatively sturdy barrel hinge and touch-sensitive shortcut keys. At the same time, the notebooks keep costs down with a 15.6-inch, 1366x768 (but LED-backlit) display and lower-end AMD or Intel mobile chips. [full story]

June 23 - 8:45am EDT   Gateway this morning chose to follow an unusual tack and launched the LT3100 as its second-generation netbook. The crossover PC is just an inch thick and about 3.1 pounds but uses an 11.6-inch, 1366x768 display and has components closer to a regular notebook's: it uses a low-power, single-core 1.2GHz Athlon 64 with Radeon X1270 graphics and a full 2GB of RAM. Consciously breaking Microsoft's rules for netbooks means the system uses Windows Vista Home Basic instead of XP, but the faster components should support the full Aero Glass interface where Atom netbooks usually struggle. [full story]

June 19 - 4:30pm EDT   Dell may soon begin offering a new-generation graphics card for its multimedia-oriented Studio XPS 16 notebook lineup. If true, it would begin offering the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 instead of the current, aging ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670 with its 512MB of dedicated memory. The HD 4670 will most notably double dedicated graphics memory and is based on smaller 55nm manufacturing process. [full story]

June 18 - 9:25pm EDT   Sony at a Blu-ray focused event tonight launched the VAIO NW, a major overhaul of its entry-level notebook. The system has the distinction of being one of the least expensive systems with Blu-ray and has an unusual 15.5-inch, 1366x768 display that can show most HD movies at their native ratio. A textured lid and a translucent trackpad also lend it a designer look. [full story]

June 17 - 4:40pm EDT   Shuttle PC has recently announced a new barebones mini-PC, the SA76G2, which is its first barebones product to support AMD socket AM3 processors using the 760G chipset, including the Phenom II as well as original Phenom, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64 and Sempron CPUs. There are also two DDR2 DIMM slots for up to 8GB of RAM. The PC is backwards-compatible with AM2 and AM2+ CPUs. [full story]

June 16 - 4:00pm EDT   BenQ recently announced the upcoming release of its ultra-portable netbook, the 13.3-inch Joybook Lite T131. Weighing in at just under 4lbs, the 13.3-inch T131 sports a 1.6GHz AMD Sempron 200U processor based on the same platform as the Athlon Neo and which should give performance better than netbooks without a major increase in bulk. A minimum of 1GB of RAM is onboard, as is an ATI Mobility Radeon X1270 graphics chipset that can drive HD video playback. The standard 250GB hard drive -- a 320GB drive is an option -- comes preloaded with Windows Vista Home Basic. [full story]

June 10 - 12:05pm EDT   HP today acted on two of its planned system updates by launching them through its online store, including an unannounced processor. The new dv2z costs slightly more than promised at $625 but now has a white color trim option and starts with a single-core 1.6GHz Athlon Neo, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive with Radeon X1250 integrated video. Adding a dual-core 1.6GHz processor costs $25; in a surprise, an option now exists for a 1.6GHz Turion Neo that likely boosts performance still for an additional $75. [full story]

June 9 - 7:45am EDT   HP this morning rolled out a trio of notebook refreshes it's gearing towards students, particularly in price but also in design. The Pavilion dv6 is being given a headlining dv6z Artist Edition 2; the 16-inch notebook has special lid artwork that won a recent MTV design contest and also comes with relatively high specifications for an AMD-based system, including a 2.3GHz Turion X2 Ultra, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a Mobility Radeon HD 4650 for its video. It also gets a bundle of three Corel audiovisual editing apps and will launch on June 10th for $950. [full story]

June 4 - 4:25pm EDT   AMD this afternoon confirmed that its new dual-core Athlon Neo should show in a new version of HP's Pavilion dv2 ultraportable next week. The upgraded system is due on June 10th and, according to CNET, should have the same power use as the present-day single-core model but run much faster in multi-threaded tasks. Integrated graphics will also get a lift through the Radeon HD 3200 chipset, though HP's notebook currently uses dedicated Radeon HD 3450 video. [full story]

June 3 - 8:00am EDT   AMD this morning said it has demonstrated the world's first graphics processor capable of supporting DirectX 11 and matching features in other software standards. The part is capable of tessellating polygons in real time, or breaking them down automatically into smaller shapes. Games and other apps that use the feature can have smoother details to characters or terrain without requiring as much processing power or that artists add all the information themselves. [full story]

June 1 - 9:45am EDT   AMD took its graphics in a new direction on Monday by rolling out the ATI Radeon E4690. The embedded chipset has the same feature set as modern Radeon HD 4000 chipsets but fits the visual core and 512MB of GDDR3 memory all into a single 35mm package small enough for very tight spaces. It's estimated to be about three times faster than the previous E2400 and can not only produce advanced 3D but, in a rarity for the class, handle two displays at once. [full story]

May 29 - 1:40pm EDT   A new version of the MSI WindBOX nettop PC, the DE200, was spotted in Europe recently. The main and most significant change of the DE200 from lesser WindBOX nettops is its use of an ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card with a dedicated 512MB of RAM instead of the integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset. Otherwise, the new WindBOX shares the same 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 CPU, 1GB of RAM and Wi-Fi. [full story]

May 22 - 9:05am EDT   ASUS has confirmed a new, special netbook designed for extra visual performance. The Eee PC 1000HV is a direct sibling of the 1000HE which replaces the Intel integrated graphics with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450. The move not only gives it much faster 3D and video playback but also supplies 256MB of dedicated video memory that reclaims more of the 1GB of system RAM for other tasks. It shortens battery life but still results in a relatively long 5 hours of use. [full story]

May 13 - 4:40pm EDT   In a rare move of its own, AMD today launched a factory-overclocked version of its ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics chipset. The move takes the 850MHz core clock speed of the standard edition and boosts it to 1GHz, rendering the new version the first graphics processor of any kind to reach the milestone. AMD claims that the simple shift boosts the peak computing power from 1.36 teraflops to 1.6 and is theoretically faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 285. [full story]