If you really want to build a CrossfireX configuration with Radeon HD 4870X2 cards, than you have to consider replacing your PC case. Not that th cards are quite long and might not fit the case, but they sure require a powerful PSU and as many case fans as you can get, since the GPU cores work best at 90 degrees Celsius. Why not go for a full-tower case? From Cooler Master, that is.

We know Cooler Master has some top cooling solutions, however its high-end products are sometimes outperformed by competitors. With the new HAF 932 case, Cooler Master hopes it can regain supremacy on high-end PC case market, and the features included in the new case show that those hopes aren’t in vain at all.

Many PC cases tend to forget about the airflow aspect, but for the new HAF 932, the airflow issue is top priority. Fudzilla informs that, In order to maximize the airflow, Cooler Master has decided to include steel meshed vents which are vertically stretched over the whole front panel. These meshed panels are fitted with some of the biggest fans I’ve seen on a case - three massive 230mm fans on the top, the side and the front of the chassis.

Cooler Master claims that the HAF 932 is capable of maintaining low temperatures in any hardware configuration you might imagine. Moreover, if air cooling seems a bit too outdated and inefficient (noisy maybe?) for you, HAF 932 can also be upgraded for water cooling by adding an internal radiator and routing the kit through the pre-drilled holes on the rear.

Other outstanding features include logical cable routing for improved airflow, support for four 200mm/120mm fans on the side panel, enough room for a dual power supply configuration, removable HDD racks, easily accessible liquid coolant fill port and many others which will be revealed by launch time. That’s when we’ll find out about the price, as well.

AMD introduced a couple of months ago the Cinema 2.0 program which will allow game developers and film producers to include photorealistic characters and objects in their works without the need of render farms. Analysts said that photorealism in CGI would be attained in about 5 years, but AMD/ATI has now teamed up with Image Metrics and claim that they are able to render photorealistic characters and environments and integrate them seamlessly into games and movies. First, take a look at what happened at the AMD conference in New York a week ago.





Now, let’s take a closer look at that Emily clip.

As you can read from the clip itself, Emily was produced using a new modeling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated. The Emily you see in the clip is practically the digitized version of actress Emily O’Brien. According to TimesOnline, this is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.

The team at Image Metrics has also taken care of the facial animations in Grand Theft Auto computer game. The basic aim of the company is to overcome the traditional difficulties of animating a human face, for instance that the skin looks too shiny, or that the movements are too symmetrical, but without using motion capture devices. So that’s how they came with the Light Stage superscanner you can see in the first two clips.

OK, we have the technology to make photorealistic characters in upcoming videogames, but what kind of supercomputer do we need to actually play at smooth frame-rates? AMD claims we only need a decent quad-core CPU coupled with their latest Radeon HD 4870X2 graphics cards, which can process up to 2.4 TFLOPS.

I reckon we won’t get to see characters as detailed as these before DX11 gets introduced later next year. They will double the processing power, anyway, but AMD representatives say that the line between what is real and what is computer generated will still remain visible up until 2020.

The guys over at OCZ constantly update their RAM modules, but we know that this is only one part of OCZ’s business. Every once in a while, OCZ updates its other product lineups and one of these is represented by the gamer-oriented power supplies.

The latest power supply coming form OCZ is dubbed ModXStream Pro, and it is advertised as a superior gaming-grade power supply that offers consumers a combination of OCZ’s cutting-edge PSU architecture and an efficient modular cable management system. According to the press release, the ModXStream will be available in 400W, 500W, 600W, and 700W configurations, and will also offer improved stability and optimal high-performance power to the latest GPUs and CPUs.

The ModXStream Pro Series is built to support the latest NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFire modes. The compact form factor and the modular design will help improve the air flow inside your PC case. The new power supplies are kept ultra-cool with a load-controlled 120mm fan, being engineered as the quietest PSU available and eliminate distracting noises from your PC. Power efficiency is as high as 86% at typical load and up to 82% at full load.

“Global market presence for OCZ high-performance power supplies continues to grow rapidly due to our ability to remain on the cutting-edge of both efficiency and stability,” said Ryan Edwards, Director of Product Management. “With the introduction of the ModXStream Pro line of PSUs, end-users can have the whole package – efficiency, stability, low noise, clean high-performance power, and the increased air flow and convenience of modular cables. With a power output to fit every need, the 400 – 700W MXSP are an exciting addition to the extensive range of PSUs offered by the OCZ Technology Group.”

The Radeon HD 4870X2 has been around for only one week and we can already spot some overclocked versions boasting water coolers or non-reference coolers. Diamond is among the first GPU integrators to come with a superclocked version of the fastest graphics card on the market.

The new HD 4870 X2 card coming from Diamond is, of course, water-cooled and will be branded as the Diamond Radeon HD 4870 X2 - XOC³ H2O edition. According to the press release, the card will be cooled by a Koolance branded water block. This version comes overclocked to 800MHz for each GPU, while the 2GB of GDDR5 memory are overclocked to 1,100MHz (4.4GHz effective). Although the size of the water block is pretty compact, this card is still a dual slot solution due to its back plate. However, it does look thinner than the reference design.

Diamond claims that the card can be further overclocked when connected to a high performance water-cooling system. As with previous Diamond cards, there is a special feature I the BIOS that unlocks the GPU to be overclocekd at up to 990MHz and up to 1,200MHz for the memory.

The card will be available separately in just a few weeks, but you can already buy these models with every PC system from Smoothcreations.

Yes, 4870X2 is out and I want one. Not now necessarily. I can wait a bit longer, ‘till ATI’s partners release good overclocked versions, or I could get a water cooler and overclock a standard version.
Asetek was first to release a water cooler for the new 3D king, but CoolIT now comes with a cheaper, still effective, water block which allows users to overclock their GPUs as much as 13.5%. Moreover, the CoolIT solution is marketed to consumers not just OEMs.

Recent tests have proven that the 4870X2 gets really hot, at around 90 degrees Celsius, but CoolIT worked with AMD to develop a liquid cooling system that would make overclocking the X2 both straightforward and stable. This allowed for frequency increases for both GPU and memories of around 13.5%

“We recently benchmarked this card using 3D Mark Vantage and increased the Graphics score from X7125 at stock settings to X8148 which represents a performance increase of well over 10%” Geoff Lyon, CEO of CoolIT Systems.

Preliminary test have shown that a liquid cooled card can be overclocked up to 880MHz (13.5% increase) core clock speed and the GDDR5 memory slightly over to 1GHz (11% increase). The cooler occupies one bay so the entire setup takes up two in total.

According to Slashgear, the CoolIT solution is expected to hit the shelves in mid September. No price for now.